04.30.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:43 am by Meg
Hard to believe, but she is.
It hasn’t been the easiest year for her between dealing with her brother’s illness and then his college search.
OTH, she’s taking to complaining that with him getting out of the house, she’s going to have to deal with all the chores and such.
Anyway, today is going to quiet for her. She’s got co-op in the morning (and baked a pile of cupcakes to take) with her friends and then we’ll have a fairly simple family celebration in the evening. We’re still trying to schedule a party with her friends, but it’s hard fitting it around her friend’s schedules.
She spent last night at the final Explore Engineering meeting 
of the year.
The last two weeks they have been making hot air balloons and so all they had left was to shot them off.
She worked with a couple of partners and they had the pleasure of seeing their balloon
go both the highest and the farthest (a college student had to retrieve it from the golf course nearly 2 miles away!).
Most balloons made it barely a half mile to the edge of campus.
Boy 
had joined the workshop for the balloons and his group’s balloon did more movement downward than upward with all the duct tape they used to patch holes!
But they certainly had fun.
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04.29.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 8:55 pm by Meg
When everything is laid out on the table, Boy was accepted into 10 different schools. With every report coming in saying it was the most competitive/lowest acceptance rates ever for getting into college, he’s done really, really well.
Of the 10 schools, when he started looking closer at them, it quickly came down to the has and the has nots. We aren’t going to cover all of his costs and he doesn’t want to carry a large amount of debt to cover the difference between the offered aid and actual costs.
With his deposit now paid, I figured I’ll tell you where he’s going.
A total of 5 schools offered him scholarships and grants that would allow him to attend for basically the cost of room, board, and books - no tuition. This made them the top contenders.
They were (in terms of distance from home):
Rose-Hulman Inst. of Technology - the ‘local’ school only a mile or two away, though he’d have lived in the dorm because Hubby and I both believe in not having kids be commuters.
Indiana University in Bloomington, IN - his safety school and at only a little more than an hour away, fairly close.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN - really another safety school, but a little farther away.
Univ. of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania - a chance to get out of state and to a larger city.
Trinity University in San Antonio, TX - a top ranked, small liberal arts school.
IU, Purdue, and UPitt all enrolled him in their honors colleges - very flattering and that opened up some great opportunities for more personal choices.
The other 5 schools included schools that Boy had thought he was really interested in for one reason or another, but not enough for the debt load that would be coming with them.
American University in Washington, DC.
Boston University
Santa Clara University in San Jose, CA
NYU
Bard College upstate from the City (NY)
As I said, the first 5 schools were looking very, very good. Read the rest of this entry »
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04.27.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 10:43 pm by Meg
whoops, I’m not going to tell yet because we’re stilling talking $$ with one of the schools and that could always change the final decision.
Hey, he’s got until May 1!
But he’s pretty settled on which school he is going to. I will say that Hubby and I are happy with his choice.
On other news, I realized I never mentioned how the show on the 22nd went - in one word - BEAUTIFUL!!!
Everyone knew their lines (including Boy covering both Antipholus roles) and doing the show in a cozy little theater was very different. We had a handful of theater profs come watch as well as a half dozen theater majors, and we even got scouted!
The school has an experiment theater group that would love to have our kids participate and then take the shows on the road. The student director loved what we had done and really, really wanted to get our kids involved with his project.
Very flattering. OTH, now I’d like to have the chance to do a full show in that theater - probably not going to happen, but I can wish…
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04.24.08
Posted in COLLEGE, Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:44 pm by Meg
The Gookins reminded me that I had put this newspaper clipping aside last week to comment on and then forgot about it.
Indiana, like many states, has different license plates you can choose to put on your car. Anything, but a standard plate, has additional fees that you must pay.
Okay, that seems straight forward, doesn’t it?
But last year they figured out a way to get around the separation of church and state, since our money has In God We Trust on it…It’s alright to put that on a license plate!!
Now your first thought is probably ‘okay, what ever floats their boat.’ But this isn’t a special plate; nope, it’s for EVERYONE!
But wait, some people might throw a fit, so we’ll keep the “standard” plate and this one will be an alternative - but it won’t have any additional fees!
Do you want to know how much of an “alternative” it is? Well, when Boy and I were at the BMV getting his driving permit last fall, I watch the clerks setting people up with plates. In every case I saw (small sample, but it was about a half dozen, each with a different clerk) the “God” plate was held up first and then the traditional plate was held up and then the car owner was asked what plate they wanted.
Now, I may be only guessing, but my thought is that whatever is held up first is chosen by a very large percentage of the car owners.
So the ACLU tried to take them to court - no go..
Marion Superior Court Judge Gary Miller’s ruling, issued Wednesday, says the plate is different from special group recognition plates that carry the administrative fee. Those often require a contribution to a group or university and require special handling by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The “In God We Trust” plate, the ruling says, “was designed by a process similar to the Standard Plate, mass-produced like the Standard Plate, and widely distributed like the Standard Plate based on consistently high sales.”
Really?
On other news, Boy and I are off tomorrow for a quick, quick trip to San Antonio. He wants to check out Trinity University before he makes his final decision next week. At this point, I’m guessing the he is down to a short list of three schools: Trinity, UPitt, or IU. He doesn’t seem really set on any one of them.
IU is in Indiana, though with scholarships it would be the cheapest option.
Trinity is in Texas, though it has what appears to be a great economics program and San Antonio can’t be so bad, can it? - With scholarships it will only be a couple grand more than IU, but he’s being very aware that will be loans he’s taking out.
UPitt is nearly twice Trinity with out of state tuition and the scholarships they are offering, but it’s not Indiana or Texas.
So we’ll take off at 6 AM on Friday and return at midnight Saturday night. Whirl-wind trip!
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04.23.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 8:23 pm by Meg
Boy did his first session of 4H dog training with Hunter. He’s not sure he’s going to continue - not for any really clear reason, just not really into it.
My impression was that they were not really using positive training methods. There was waaaay tooo much pushing dog’s butts down and encouraging the kids to yank on leashes instead of luring the dogs to where they needed to be.
I’m not sure if the instructors didn’t get it, or weren’t expressing themselves to the kids well. But it wasn’t happening the way my sister teaches sit, down, and heel!
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