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Yay for your updates, Quill!

I live with a Kafka-lover. I will suggest The Queue to him. Speaking of slogs, I finally finished Wolf Hall. It never rose above tedium for me. I would have preferred to have read a history book about Thomas Cromwell. Or to have watched the miniseries, which I might do. To think that I could have covered both Wolf Hall and the sequel Bring Up The Bodies in a six hour miniseries AND been able to enjoy beautiful costumes... I want to weep, lol. I will say that the line “Arrange your face” is worth half a star. Thus, I give it 3 stars.

@Lady Florida. Thanks for posting that diary entry. I really enjoyed reading it.

Well, then: VEEL SUCCES!!!!!!!!!!!! The toi toi is interesting to me. In Danish, one would say pøj pøj to wish good luck on exams. (Pøj rhymes with toy)

@loesje22000 Would veel succes be the right way to wish someone good luck with exams?

Whew. I bet you are really looking forward to that month with no exams. Good luck to your daughter (and you) with the upcoming German and Dutch. I am so impressed that she studies so many languages!

I have some updates since I last posted. These were all Bingo books. Only two left to go! The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. I vascillated between three and four stars. I liked it, but it wasn't awesome. It was bawdy (which I dislike) and most of the characters were unlikable. But they didn't rouse my emotions like the love-to-hate Erland of KL. Written or set in the 15th century bingo. Bait and Other Stories by Mahasweta Devi. Part of the What was Communism series. Stories from the brutal Bengali underworld. These stories took a lot out of me, both emotionally and cognitively and yet they left me somewhat unsatisfied. I would like to read more by this author. Feminist author bingo. Currently reading: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (16th century bingo) and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Quill, call your doctor if it will reassure you. I don't remember how long it took me to recover from that surgery...but I at the time, my primary care physician reassuringly told me that he has patients who had BC so long ago they can't remember which side it was on. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. And guess what? Now I do sometimes have to think about it. How many lymph nodes came out? That would impact recovery time. I had three taken out, and I have ever since tried to remember to have my blood pressure taken/blood drawn on the opposite side to avoid lymphodema. I have never had any signs of lymphodema, by the way.

@whitestavern Thank you for the review of Wheaton ? I have been to Catholic U several times over the last decade. All three of my boys toured the campus, and I know some kids who went there. The surrounding area has changed a lot over the years. It has become very hipster or very gentrified, depending on your point of view. I was there in April, and was rather surprised at the changes. The metro stop (red line) is all but on campus. This is not the case for American U, fwiw. Directly across the street is one of my favorite DC cafes/bookstores - Busboys and Poets. But while you are on campus, you definitely feel like you are on a campus. It is normal to see priests and nuns from all different orders / parts of the world walking around campus. As THE Catholic University of America, it has a more conservative vibe than, say, the Jesuit colleges.

I love Greensboro. I think it is a great city. Downtown is doing very well, and it is a great place to hang out. There is also the International Civil Rights Center and Museum downtown, which is in the Woolworth building where the sit-ins occurred. Guilford College is not downtown, but it is not far from downtown. Locally, it has a reputation for being quirky/crunchy. Many locals enjoy going to Guilford College when it has the Eastern Music Festival in the summer.

@whitestavern I would love to hear about Wheaton (MA), and I can tell you about Catholic. I’m presuming that you mean the one in downtown DC? Anything in particular you want to know? I’ll check in later today.

Speaking of elephants, a live action remake (directed by Tim Burton) of Dumbo is coming out in March.

I finished The Kurdish Bike yesterday. It reads like a memoir, and from what I can tell it really is a memoir with enough details changed that it became recast as fiction. That bothers me as a reader, although I imagine it is "safer" to call a book fiction than to call it a memoir and have to defend its facts. The premise is that a recently divorced 50something woman moves to Kurdistan to teach in the international school in 2010. I think it can be hard to pull of the right tone for a book like this - it is easy to end up with the stereotypical expat story - and I think the author did a pretty good job in that way. The main character (the author?) is brave but wow, she makes some foolish decisions IMO. It's a quick read, and I did learn something about Kurdistan as well as gain a desire to know more. I'm glad I read it. And it filled my Indie bingo square. Now I am reading The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier, which fits the 15th century bingo square.

This has been an enlightening discussion for me. I hope the OP has found it helpful ? I did not know that the highly selective schools wait until April. I thought that "Ivy Day" was in March, and that they were the last notifiers. but now I know I was misinformed. My kids have never applied to the tippy top schools, so I think the latest decision date we have ever had was March 15.

Quill, I am so glad that you have such positive updates!

I can’t remember the details now, but I think you put in for your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices, so you would have already done your decision making. Anyway... It has been hard for my DS to fit in visits without missing DE classes. I sympathize.

Got it. It does make it hard if all of his East Coast schools have such late decision dates. In that case, I think I would go out there in January. (Total aside: When we were living overseas, I was amazed at the short time frame between acceptance and the start of school. They would find out their acceptances in July and have to be moved in by August! And most universities do not have dorms, so you also have to secure housing.)

I'm not sure I understand the one month to make a decision. Are you saying the East Coast schools do not notify until April 1? My understanding is that nearly all schools give until May 1 for a decision. If you can visit them all in January while he has a month off, that sounds like a great idea.

I finished To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey this morning. I liked this book plenty, but it did not move me as much as The Snow Child did. There is a bit of magical realism in the narrative. Four stars. Cartography Bingo Square. That puts my Bingo Card at 20/25. The setting is 19th century Alaska. The Colonel's task is to navigate and map the Wolverine River. His wife, who is an amateur ornithologist, remains at the barracks. They both write diaries, and the story alternates their point of view. There is also a modern letter-writing correspondence going on between an elderly man who is one of the Colonel's ancestors and a young museum curator in Alaska. I just started The Kurdish Bike by Alesa Lightbourne. Middle-aged American woman picks up and moves to Kurdistan to teach in the international school. I like it so far. Indie Book Bingo Square. We Have Always Lived In The Castle: I just read it this month, and I really liked it. And I am not-at-all young, lol. But, shrug, I have often felt unimpressed by books that everyone seems to love. When I read Murder on The Orient Express last year, I was left scratching my head wondering what all the fuss is about... Latin: I am really liking my Latin class. The pace is just right for me - enough to keep moving forward without being burdensome. It has mostly been review for me so far, but that is just as well as we have been in the midst of the college application madness. 

One of my son’s second semester courses is uncertain. He only gets to register for DE after all the regular students register. I noted the planned-but-really-TBD aspect in a sentence on my course description document.

The send button has been pushed for the first time. Yippee!

Actually, the CC sends transcripts for free but processing time is fixed and postal mail is the only option. I had become accustomed to 4 yr schools that offer electronic transcripts as well as rush service (for an additional fee, of course).

As a follow up: I have now called colleges, and indeed the answers are varied. Some schools want it and some do not. I guess I could have called instead of posting, but I was in a state of mild panic ?.

I could have deleted this and marked it never-mind, but maybe it will help someone else. I called the CC and yes, there is a transcript that can go out - it shows enrollment in the current class . It just doesn't show any grades. And if it is going to an out-of-state school then it gets mailed. So I am glad we did not wait until the last minute.