Post yer Grad news here

The Weekenders · Post by **The Weekenders** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 2:37 pm

A thread to talk about yer kids passages this June.....

Okay, so Weekender Jr. graduates Friday from high school. He's been a hard-working student, he's going to UC Santa Barbara in the fall, after working all summer as a paid counselor at a YMCA camp up in the redwoods. He also works at home for the Web site collectorsweekly.com, writing descriptions of collectibles. He was accepted at Emerson, DePaul and UCSB, but we couldn't afford the first, which was his first choice, so we opted for the cheaper of the other two.

Unlike his Age of Aquarius mother and father, he actually did go to the Senior Prom. Here's a pic:

[pic]

He was Opinion Editor of his school paper this year, won some awards for his writing and served on the area paper's youth editorial board (they write columns and such). Here's one of his editorials:

[Late for Life] Yeah, that's him in the picture too.

The paper published some profiles of their student writers, he's number 10:

[LIP profiles]. A fellow teen writer came up with the description...

Did a lot of theater, got some pretty good roles in the school productions, etc. I think he leaves school with a 3.8 GPA, which is a bit better than I got, but his classes were much harder in a high-achieving district. He steered clear of the prevalent and usual drugs and booze in his school and it really ended up isolating him socially, but he had his fellow-YMCA camp counselors-in-training (they live within the greater Bay Area, so it was a substantial journey to visit) as a support system, and I was happy to send him up to the various camp clean-ups and other events they have. The Y liked him a lot and paid for him to go to the YMCA World Camp up in Washington state last year.

Unlike some of the shenanigans I pulled, he's never wrecked the car, stayed out too late, gotten anybody pregnant or come home pukin' drunk. My fingers have been quadrupled through all of these teen years (and Grad night is yet to come), but so far, the sneakiest thing I have found is that he spilled some ink on the rug and tried to spot clean it, unsuccessfully. The kids loves art, understands things I don't about it, and knows way too much about literature, film and all kinds of music and such....He's managed to mine a lot more out of mere high school than I ever did in those subjects... I think he might end up writing screenplays, or perhaps become a literary or art critic or a college teacher or something.

Anyway, he puts on the robe on Friday and I'm gonna lose it when he does. My baby boy, damn near grown up.

Tell me about yers.

Jeferson · Post by **Jeferson** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 2:59 pm

Sounds like a fine young man, Weeks. Good job! My guy is a year behind yours. It's exciting to think about what the future holds, but just last week I told one of his teachers to feel free to hold the kid back a year.

Jef

FJohnSharp · Post by **FJohnSharp** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:24 pm

My daughter graduated a couple of weeks ago and is spending the summer in Indiana as a camp counselor. When she gets back she'll have about 6 weeks before she goes off to Ohio State to study business and communications.

We have one more in the pipeline, going into 10th grade.

missy · Post by **missy** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:45 pm

Congrats to all!

We're flying to Seattle for Tom's daughter's graduation on Thursday. We still have no idea if she actually IS graduating. It's a long, depressing story. We may wind up just having a 2 day vacation in Seattle.

JS · Post by JS » Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:10 pm

Congrats and best wishes to all (and, Missy, best of luck).

My oldest son graduated from RIT last month; my middle son will graduate from high school in a few weeks (then off to Green Mountain College in Vermont). Then there's this fourth-going-on-fifth grader hanging around.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:47 pm

Thanks Weeks...this is the kind of opening I jump on like a cat on tuna.
Children #'s 1 and 3 graduated this year. In two years, it will be #'s 2 and 4.

Exhibit A:
This is Rachel. She graduated in May from St. Mary's College of MD with a B.S. in biology.
For the summer, she is working on an organic farm near the college and has a year-long fellowship, starting in the Fall, for which she will be paid to work with staff and students on facilitating environmental sustainability policy.
We see her now and then when she and the boyfriend (who's about to be shipped out on a 2 year Peace Corps stint (

and

) drop by and let us feed them.

Yeah...well, I haven't ordered the actual pics yet, but this is the proof and there's dust on my scanner plate.

Exhibit B:
This is Olivia with my mom, Gale.
Olivia just graduated, on Thursday, from high school, with several extra cords representing National Honor Society, AP scholar status, and Honor Grad (a certain gpa.)
She is currently in Bethany Beach, Delaware, with several friends, doing "senior week."
In the Fall, she will head south to St. Mary's to join her sisters.

The Weekenders · Post by **The Weekenders** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:10 pm

FJohnSharp wrote:My daughter graduated a couple of weeks ago and is spending the summer in Indiana as a camp counselor. When she gets back she'll have about 6 weeks before she goes off to Ohio State to study business and communications.

We have one more in the pipeline, going into 10th grade.

Sorta similar John. I have another son going into the 10th grade in the fall too. No empty nest yet, but as I said, the lump in my throat keeps growing.

The big one will be back for about six weeks as well. I think he wishes he could be a camp counselor forever, frankly... I think he likes being a big shot and problem solving for campers having a hard time. I think there is an outside chance he might end up doing something like Early Childhood Ed or something....

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:14 pm

There are some interesting similarities in this thread. In the Fall, I will also only have my 10th grade kid left, (actually, he will be in 11th grade then,) and daughter #2 is in her second season as a counselor at a YMCA camp in North Carolina.
(And, like Weeks, I didn't go to the prom.)

missy · Post by **missy** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:19 pm

well - I'll also post the good new:

Nate is BACK from the Persian Gulf!!! He's home now visiting, but goes back to Norfolk on Sunday.

And, I too, have "one more" - Noah's going into 12th. While Nate was SO easy (he decided at age 12 what he was going to do), Noah hasn't the foggiest. So I'm sure next year will be a real "learning" experience.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:32 pm

Congratulations to all of you.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:23 am

missy wrote:Congrats to all!

We're flying to Seattle for Tom's daughter's graduation on Thursday. We still have no idea if she actually IS graduating. It's a long, depressing story. We may wind up just having a 2 day vacation in Seattle.

You should tell her you're missing Gebhardt Woods so she damn sure better graduate!

missy · Post by **missy** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:05 pm

Flyingcursor wrote:
missy wrote:Congrats to all!

We're flying to Seattle for Tom's daughter's graduation on Thursday. We still have no idea if she actually IS graduating. It's a long, depressing story. We may wind up just having a 2 day vacation in Seattle.
You should tell her you're missing Gebhardt Woods so she damn sure better graduate!

Actually - that's what quite a few people have said!!!

TonyHiggins · Post by **TonyHiggins** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:07 pm

My son, Paul, graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelors degree in physics and astrophysics a couple of weeks ago. He's going to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland at the end of Sept and is hoping to get a phd there. He's out on the patio eating popsicles at the moment. Kind of warm today.

I couldn't get box.net images to show up on this board, so there's a link.
The other characters are me, my wife, daughter, and mom.
http://www.box.net/shared/g8b6stz8k8#1:15487557

The Weekenders · Post by **The Weekenders** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:28 pm

Yeah, it was Tony's visit to my house on Sunday that inspired me to start this thread. His son appears to be a real brainiac. Congrats!!

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:45 am

JS wrote:My oldest son graduated from RIT last month

Yay for RIT! *waves alumnus keychain*