Miss Marple Posted September 30, 2009 Share Posted September 30, 2009 He's in the midst of applying for summer internships. There are far more students than spots available. Various petroleum corporations are interviewing during the school day this week. So...ds has 2 interviews today as well as his regular class schedule. He called me after the first interview (which he said went well) and wanted to know if he should just skip volleyball (the blowoff class we had to stick in to get the extra hour needed for scholarships). Well, he was sick last week and already missed a class. His reasoning was this: "It will take 20 minutes to get out of these clothes (suit/tie) and into gym clothes and I'll have to hang everything up nice and neat and then it takes me at least 20 minutes to get dressed up in this stuff and there won't be much of class left by that time." His next interview is 45 minutes after volleyball. My advice was to show up to volleyball in his interview clothes and ask his teacher if he could just leave a little early. The coach saw him, heard the reason, and told him to skip class altogether and "go get a job" :D He did text me apologizing for being crabby but that "today is just really hard". Poor fella, he's experiencing life....;) University seems so much more fun now than when I went. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Hen Posted September 30, 2009 Share Posted September 30, 2009 Thanks for the chuckle. :) Carole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OLG Posted September 30, 2009 Share Posted September 30, 2009 Sounds like a fine young man, well directed and thoughtful. Well done, mama!! Hope he gets a great internship! Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted September 30, 2009 Share Posted September 30, 2009 I got a confused email from my middle one saying he didn't know if he had had a good day or a bad one. He began by spending three hours ironing uniforms and then going to muster and discovering that one midshipman wasn't there and they all had to run down the hill to the ship and find him, getting their uniforms all sweaty and they all failed inspection. Then he went to class and left his laptop behind, figured it out, but couldn't go back for it because he had to be somewhere else. Then he ran down the hill to the ship where he spent hours drawing some engine parts. Then he had a humanities quiz and even though he'd done the reading, thought he'd probably failed it because there were an awful lot of parts to the book and he couldn't remember them all. Then he tried to find his laptop - no luck. Then he went to sailing and had a blast because there was wind and they got their boat planing off the tops of two or three foot waves. Then (predictably) they almost hit a wall of water and barely managed to escape without dismasting themselves. Then he went to try to find his laptop again, discovered someone had turned it in, but couldn't get it back because the office was locked. Then he went back to drawing, stopped at midnight for a four hour watch, slept for a few hours, and went back to drawing ship parts, getting it done 1/2 an hour before the class. Then he went and retrieved his laptop. He sent us this in two emails so we had to wait a day to find out whether he'd managed to retrieve that laptop. Meanwhile, we were exchanging emails with his brother, who you may remember has been fishing for his supper. He had the scariest experience of his life, he said (and he's stood back to back with a friend fighting off coyotes with sticks before and fallen off second story roofs and various other adventures, city and country). Something large followed them in the dark through the marsh back to the landing ramp, turning back with a splash when the water got too shallow. He says he's adding a spotlight to his canoe. We're thinking now that it was probably a beaver or otter, but at the time, all he could think of was aligators, even though he knows that is impossible. I'm laughing at the picture of your son at volleyball in his suit. Good advice, Mum! I love the glimpses into college life. -Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Marple Posted October 1, 2009 Author Share Posted October 1, 2009 OMGoodness! I think my son would have just curled up in a ball and died if he had a day like your son had. Just forgetting his laptop would have caused major intestinal problems for him :D You must have nerves of steel to deal with those boys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharon in MD Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 I got a confused email from my middle one saying he didn't know if he had had a good day or a bad one.... , all he could think of was aligators, even though he knows that is impossible. I love the glimpses into college life. -Nan Holy Smokes....you have some serious intestinal fortitude and your boys obviously share the trait. I don't think I could call that a glimpse...more like a night terror???/ My kiddo's year is tame compare to this. And believe me, I am grateful. wow....that is all I can say....wow.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 Well, personally, I would have been thrown into a total panic by Cynthia's son's day. I would have skipped volleyball, not having enough faith in people and "the system" to expect them to be sensible about something like that, and then spent the rest of the semester expecting to flunk it because I'd been absent too much. I still have college nightmares about not being able to find classes or losing my schedule and not knowing where I am supposed to be. I think I only survived college because my husband (then boyfriend) was there to help me manage. I can't believe my children can survive what they are doing. I think they survive because compared to being the plumbing apprenticeship in Boston (as a country mouse) or compared to peacewalking, this feels "safe" to them. And compared to those things, this situation is very controlled and supervised. It remains to be seen, though, whether they can survive in the sense of passing their courses and exams and staying in an academic situation for years on end. Sigh. I expend major amounts of energy worrying about them, thinking I'm probably stupid to be worrying, and then finding out what they are doing and then thinking perhaps I don't worry enough and sending useless little emails saying please to wear sunscreen and be careful who they drive with. And I'm reduced to sending cookies when they are distraut, which is fairly frequent because the oldest is high strung and the middle one empathic. Pretty soon I get to add snowboarding to my worries. Ex-gymnasts on snowboards are really scary. Last year, one of their friends broke his ankle while he was skiing with us. Thinking about that makes me wonder why I am trying to convince my youngest not to spend too much time on the computer. I can't believe so many children manage to live through their college years. It is a miracle. And I can't believe we parents survive the worry. Please, Cythia, keep us posted on how those jobs work out. My oldest will be doing a coop this summer. I wonder how he gets one? I know grades have something to do with it. It feels like the semester just started and already your son is looking ahead to next summer. Or is it some other time? Does this mean he won't be coming home for the summer? I always wonder how Margaret in CO manages... -Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Marple Posted October 1, 2009 Author Share Posted October 1, 2009 I still have college nightmares about not being able to find classes or losing my schedule and not knowing where I am supposed to be LOL! I still have nightmares that I have to take a math final but I had never attended the class because I forgot to go! IRL it took me quite a few years to realize that no one was going to take my degree away for a course I forgot to attend :-) Guess I did get to all the courses I was supposed to have. Ds will be gone all summer (2010) and we probably won't see him over spring break either because of a special petroleum engineering camp put on by Shell. But he's happy...and that makes me happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 LOL - I have that one, too. My grandmother had nightmares until she died about not being able to find her classes, so I think we're stuck with them. Happy is good. Hugs to you, though. It is hard to have them growning up. It would be worse if they didn't, but that still doesn't really make it any better. -Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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