That hasn't been my experience with my kids' colleges. In fact, for my kid who's in school in Nashville, his school guaranteeing on campus housing all 4 years was a big deal to us, because apartments in Nashville are so expensive. My other kid lived in an on campus apartment senior year and did save money by having a full kitchen and not needing to pay for the meal plan...but it makes total sense that you'll pay more for someone else to prepare your food and do your dishes than you will for just grocery shopping. Obviously living at home with family is cheaper than living on campus (unless you're getting financial aid that covers the cost).

One-more-try SAT score in this morning, and he got the math up 60 points since May (reading/writing stayed exactly the same, but that was already the stronger score by a good bit), which puts him in the top 25% at our state flagship. I'm pretty sure that's the only school on his list that's not test optional, so I'm hoping that solidifies his chances for early action there, which would be a nice early ego boost for him. Particularly if he actually likes it (or, more precisely, its music school) when he visits next month!

extra essays were just pure torture with my first kid--not looking forward to doing it again! (second kid mostly just had to write about music for supplementals, which was relatively easy for him)

We're having a productive long weekend! I finished course descriptions, and I've already done a school profile twice before, so that should only need some light editing. So that mostly leaves the counselor letter for me; I have an intro written, but still need to figure out the rest of it. He's making good progress on the common app. He invited one recommender the other day (someone who he's taken classes from at homeschool co-ops every year since 8th grade, so that was the easy one to decide on), and she had it finished the next day! (he had asked her about a week and a half before the invite was sent, so maybe she'd already mostly written it and was just waiting on that, but still very nice not to have to fret about her getting it done). He finished his activities list. His main task remaining is finishing his essay. We made a list of schools, and there are...a lot. It looks like 20 right now, but we'll see what actually happens when he digs into supplemental essays and all that. He's been in touch with the horn professor at UGA and now has a visit set up there to sit in on classes, meet both horn profs and have "mini-lessons" etc. He has a couple more people to contact about trial lessons. We're looking at going to visit his brother at Vandy sometime next month and recording his prescreens/arts supplements there so it will sound/look better than it would if he did it at home. So timeline right now is: apply ED to Vanderbilt/Blair and hope that all this other stuff is for nothing. Get prescreens in a couple other places (I think maybe Oberlin is the only other place he's looking at that prescreens). Get several early action apps in. We still need to look at scholarship apps with early deadlines and think about those. Wait to see if Vanderbilt ruins Christmas or not and then, if they do, rally and get a million other applications in in January/plan audition trips, etc. At the moment I'm not a fan of this strange new world of early decision, but if it works out I'll be thrilled to be finished in December, of course. Although not ever knowing where he would have gotten in would be weird.

Thanks! I need to remind my son to do this...the place he's tested the last two years has online registration and a box to check if you're homeschooled. I've always e-mailed to ask them before, but I'm thinking if the homeschool box is still there we'll just assume they're still taking homeschoolers and sign him up.

I really, really wanted a 4th and got him (7 years after my 3rd; DH took awhile to be on the same page). And after that it was...fine if I didn't have more, but it would have been fine if I had, too. Like, if DH had tried to talk me into it he could have (he wouldn't have). At some point over the past couple of years I've just gradually realized that I'd be more unhappy than happy with a surprise pregnancy (I'm 48, so it would be a BIG surprise at this point, though stranger things have happened....but even putting aside concerns about age, I'd rather NOT have another kid than have one). I never had a "that's it! I'm done!" feeling, but I also never felt any serious longing for another kid after #4.

Interestingly, while I've read about assorted reasons why people think the moon landings were fake (and reasons why they're wrong), the only actual arguments I've encountered from people in real life are 1. "I've just always felt like it wasn't real." (from IRL friend) and 2. it just looked fake and if you watch carefully your spirit will nudge you and convince you of this (from a certain message board holocaust denier) My spirit is nudging me right now and telling me that I have a lot more evidence that the moon landings were real than that certain people here are posting with good intent.

I know one such person in real life (that I'm aware of), but I've gathered over the years that it's a surprisingly widespread belief, even amongst people you wouldn't suspect.

oh, also, the chicken pox vaccine doesn't eliminate the risk of shingles because it's a live vaccine, but it does appear to greatly reduce it from what we know so far (the first round of kids to have gotten varicella vaccines aren't old enough to be getting shingles in big numbers yet, but the vaccine does decrease the risk of childhood shingles from everything I've read): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/two-for-one-chickenpox-vaccine-lowers-shingles-risk-in-children/

In the UK they don't vaccinate for chicken pox, which I gather is fairly controversial, and, as far as I can tell avoiding an increased risk of shingles for the elderly is the main reason. But I got interested in this a couple of years ago and looked up numbers and this is what I posted (elsewhere) back then: I would guess giving the shingles vaccine earlier than 70 in the UK would probably eliminate most of those deaths? At any rate, if my self from a couple of years ago is to be trusted, we're saving about 80 kids a year in the US by vaccinating for chicken pox. Also, I just found this about shingles and dementia risk--perhaps reassuring? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/large-study-suggests-shingles-does-not-increase-the-risk-of-dementia

I think I need to start assigning weekly tasks for DS and for me. This week I'm aiming for finishing his common app essay and working with me to make a final(ish) list of schools and figuring out which ones have EA. The prescreen video for ED for Vanderbilt is due Nov 1, so that will be the first deadline, followed by some EA ones mid November (I assume. I haven't actually looked at EA deadlines). I can't decide how many schools to recommend he apply to. My oldest who was mostly applying to LACs did 16, most of them reaches. But then the music kid only applied to 6, because they all required auditions. So I don't know how to handle this kid who's doing both kinds of schools. It's also much trickier to figure out what's a safety with auditioned programs. The conventional wisdom is that there's no such thing as a safety because there are so many variables and generally the numbers are so tiny (for winds, a small music school might well only take 2-3 students on a given instrument in a year). I'm nervous that he'll change his mind at some point and decide he'll only be happy somewhere where he can do a performance degree. So, anyway, figuring out reach/match/safety is even more complicated with this kid than with my other two.

DH is a teacher and will be able to retire in his mid 50s...I'm relatively certain we can stay on his state health insurance (I just checked, and it looks like the rates will be similar to what we're paying now...which vary a lot depending on which plan you pick, but a bit over $200/month for the two of us if we stick with a high deductible plan). And then it looks like they offer a supplemental plan once you can get Medicare? At some point I guess I'll have to figure it out in more detail, but it appears that there are options anyway.

Weirdly, Maya Angelou, the other target of Prose's vitriol, showed up in my Facebook memories today: It might not be weird. It's probably what reminded me of the Francine Prose essay. I used to post so many random things on Facebook! ANYWAY.

I should stop blogging my re-read of Prose's essay in real time. I just got to this: So I guess I AM allowed to talk about the minstrel shows as long as I also talk about the good stuff! What a relief! Yeah, I assigned this essay to my first year comp students when I was in grad school because I thought it would both raise their hackles (all college first years love To Kill a Mockingbird!) and make them think. Apparently I still think it's provocative. Maybe I'll give it to my current Ap lit kid to read!

Okay, I found the full text of the Francine Prose essay: https://nj01001216.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/NJ01001216/Centricity/Domain/82/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-cannot-read.pdf I've only skimmed it, but I don't know that I'm willing to back her on much other than that paragraph about inviting readers to consider race and prejudice from a safe distance. And her impassioned defense of close reading. I'm always up for an impassioned defense of close reading. But apparently we're not supposed to be talking about how Twain's love of minstrel shows creeps into Huck Finn at all. But, again, I've only skimmed so far.

I remember reading the entire essay, but I can't find it right now without a Harpers subscription. I don't think she's critiquing TKAM for not being from a Black perspective, though, but for treating racism like it's something other people do and inviting the reader to identify with the innocent Scout or the saintly Atticus. I could go post on the Barbie thread about this and feminism! But I see it as the easy way out both for writer and reader. I'd much rather read someone like Faulkner who's really willing to get his hands dirty and grapple with his own culpability. I don't have a problem asking my kids to read things that come out of different worldviews or to consider different perspectives...we read Huck Finn and we talk about Twain's love of minstrel shows and pair it with slave narratives and read Toni Morrison's writings on it and talk about what it meant to be writing that story in the post Civil War US and what on earth is going on with that ending. I mean, maybe that's part of it, really--I personally find Huck Finn fascinating and valuable in a way I don't find TKAM...so I can take a tough love approach to it when I read it with my kids without feeling like I'm not giving them a chance to just read and enjoy it. I can do the same thing with Gatsby..."hey, kids, I love this book, but what's up with the anti-Semitism?!" I'm thinking aloud now, but perhaps I'm just arguing for teaching texts you love and then not being afraid of pointing out problematic stuff.

I just remembered Francine Prose's essay "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read: How American high school students learn to loathe literature," in which she eviscerates a few beloved classics and gets at my issues with TKAM more eloquently than I could (I can't find a version online that I can cut and paste from) https://harpers.org/2015/07/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-cannot-read/#:~:text=Published in the September 1999,eighty high-school reading lists.: I also think Lee baits race and class in a way that's very American but also very harmful.

Yeah, I do think it's a matter of what you're used to. Like now I'll generally pick self checkout, but before that was a thing it didn't occur to me to mind that there was a real life person at the register. So if I did it all the time, I'm sure full serve wouldn't really register with me, but as it is a slight feeling of dread comes over me at gas stations when I'm traveling and remember I'm in NJ. It's fine; I just don't prefer it.

That's more chatting than I'm up for a lot of days 😂 Like, seriously--I can talk to strangers, I sometimes even enjoy talking to strangers, but in a situation like that where I can do something perfectly well all by myself, I'd much rather just do it and save my human interaction energy for something else.

This was...around 15 years ago now, but my kid's was just a standard hearing aid in one ear. He hasn't worn one in years, though...I can't remember why he stopped, but at some point we left it up to him and he didn't want it anymore. If he hadn't been having such severe social anxiety issues, I'm not sure he would ever have worn one. I've asked him about it recently, and I guess it affects where he chooses to sit in classrooms and that sort of thing, but for the most part he doesn't seem to think about it much these days.

I mentioned this in another thread, but we were at one place in Canada that had two restrooms, one labeled "urinals and stalls" and one labeled "stalls only." I appreciated the utilitarian approach. Individual, fully enclosed rooms with toilets and sinks is my preference, but it's not really practical in places that need a lot of toilets I guess.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned (unless I missed it, which is entirely possible) the biggest introvert reason for not liking full serve: I don't want to talk to a stranger to get my gas. My marriage nearly ended almost as soon as it began when we visited in my in-laws who had just moved to New Jersey and I realized my husband thought, "fill it up with the cheap stuff!" was the appropriate way to talk to the attendant. So much cringe!

That's interesting! I remember when my kid was first diagnosed with his unilateral loss, the ENT told us a hearing aid wouldn't help (and I read that in a lot of countries they pretty much never use hearing aids with unilateral loss), but his audiologist was adamant that he should get one. And it definitely seemed to help and he preferred wearing it to not once he got used to it. I wonder if it has to do with age (he was 5)--how easily one can adapt to it?

My grandmother never learned to pump her own gas and would go out of her way to the only full service station in the area all the time. I was always mystified; she was not generally the incompetent sort, and pumping gas is just...easy.

I put together a list of short stories by Native American authors the other day (I haven't read these; I was cribbing from a Facebook group I'm in for my 12th grader this year: Native American authors short stories: Sherman Alexie (the approximate size of my favorite tumor), what you pawn I will redeem, superman and me, eulogy, I hated Tonto (still do) Only Approved Indians Can Play: Made in The USA, by Jack Forbes Louise Erdrich Red Convertible and the Leap, Dear John Wayne Blue Winds Dancing by Tom Whitecloud The Way to Rainy Mountain Re: To Kill a Mockingbird...I personally wouldn't assign it much later than 10th grade; it's a nice, gentle introduction to metaphor, and it's commonly assigned in 8th or 9th grade (there's an infamous Flannery O' Connor quote about it: "For a child’s book it does all right. It’s interesting that all the folks that are buying it don’t know they’re reading a child’s book. Somebody ought to say what it is." I'm not a big TKAM fan, and my kids haven't read it at all, but I feel guilty about that sometimes since it's one of the very few "everyone's read it" books we have). For the 30's, I'd second Their Eyes Were Watching God Lincoln Highway is contemporary but set in the 50s, and it's excellent.