Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," practical parenting and problematic parroting. Watch your fingers!
My daughter The Heir is leaving for her first year of college.
I know how colleges work. The students, left to run free for the first time in their lives, stain the upholstery with mad abandon.
All you can hope in these situations is that you've set a good example of proper furniture maintenance and quick clean-up of any unintended spills.
The Heir has her own taste in upholstery. I've encouraged her to have a big, broad, flexible outlook. Let other folks flock to La-Z-Boy. She can take the sofa less traveled. Maybe it once belonged to Aleister Crowley (notorious for spotless ottomans).
If anyone wants to leave a good-bye wish for The Heir, just pop onto the comment sheet. You need not restrict your advice to upholstery care. She already knows enough about that.
17 comments:
Dear Anne and The Heir,
Long time reader, first time commenter lol.
I just want to wish you both luck for this experience. It can be daunting, but Uni is, if nothing else, and interesting experience.
Wings
x
To the Heir
Remember to study and learn, have fun and be safe, meet new people, and try new things (bearing in mind that whole being safe thing).
Have a great first year away at school.
Be blessed!
Miss Heir, I wish you all the luck and fun and unstained upholstery your heart (and your Mom's) can handle! All the best to you on this new Journey! May you come home again to the family who loves you filled with knowledge, love and cheesecake!
Dear Heir,
I want you to try and remember that although you will find some societal value in that parchment that the university will reward you with come some fun-filled four years or so from now, you will learn much more on your own, IF this place doesn't totally ruin your critical thinking skills, as places of higher "learning" tend to do. Enjoy your exposure to the hallowed halls of acedemia while you can, as life has many more lessons to smack you upside the head with which all the keggers and pledges in the world are not going to prepare you for. Just ask Anne; I think she knows of what I speak. Good Luck, Offspring! Only YOU can save us now!
Dear Miss Heir,
Have fun! Life is too short to forget to live in the moment!
Dear Heir,
What Michael said.
It is the people you meet and the experiences you have that will teach you the most at college. (Graduate school is where you actually get to apply your intellect and learning skills to something remotely of interest/value to you.)
That being said:
1. Remember that the women you meet in college will be the friends you have for the rest of your life. They are more important than the boys.
2. There will be a professor who surprises you and will turn out to be the one from whom you learn the most. S/he may not be the most popular and you may have to get up early to take her/his class. It will be worth it.
3. Don't borrow your room mate's favorite shirt without asking.
4. Do not, under any circumstances, do slammers of Diet Coke and peppermint schnapps.
So sayeth Angela-Eloise.
Dear Heir,
Enjoy! It's a great part of life.
Wherever your steps take you from here, I feel you'll do well - you're Anne's heir, after all.
Love,
Terri in Joburg
The Heir,
All I can tell you is what I wish someone had told me before I went to college.
1. Don't get sucked into applying for a bunch of credit cards you don't really need; they will haunt you for the rest of your life. Same goes for federal loans.
2. Don't get drunk at a frat party and come home with a huge black hickey. College parties are not the place to meet real, genuine friends or love interests.
3. DO NOT drop out thinking that you will go back eventually. Chances are you won't and you'll regret if for the rest of your life.
That said, college can be eye-opening and amazing. You'll learn so much, not least about yourself. Good luck!
Dear sweet heir...as someone who never took any offered advice I will not give you any. Besides your mother and father have raised you to have common sense and a good heart..that will be almost enough...so take your cook book with you, you never know..it might come in handy as a weapon if some one gets to frisky with you...jeez, did I just use the term get frisky to a child on her way to college?..sorry...my advice?....ask mom...she knows everything..except which football team to root for...your friend in west,texas.jackie
Dear heir, going off to college is exhilarating and intimidating. You will have no privacy, bad food, and little sleep. The shower will smell bad. You will be stressed out, overworked and confused. You will meet very strange people. Try to enjoy every minute of it.
And call your mother at least once a week.
Always remember - the statement "think outside of the box" does not apply to you - because you know there IS NO BOX!!
Have fun, make friends, stay sensible.
My oldest is also going off to college (thankfully, she will be living with family) so I really have no advice other than call your mother often, email her every day and text her after every class.
*Sigh* I'm not ready for this.
OH see, this is what happens when you decide to "think on it" before offering loads of advice. Everyone else takes all the good stuff!
Hm. When you can tell your mom is wilting or pining due to your absence, you can reassure her by reminding her that you could have chosen to do an internship somewhere very far away, like Damanhur in Italy; and that you aren't so very far away at all in comparison. ;)
It might be good reassurance for yourself as well, that you really aren't all that far from home, even though it may seem like it.
I wish someone had told me to suck all the marrow out of life, to really dig into the courses, and to hell with the clubs and sororities and all of that window-dressing that proved pointless in later years. It's easy to forget the rest of the world still exists when you live and work and study and play on campus. Read the newspaper, take long walks around the town, that sort of thing.
Stay with the universal flow of things, and when/if you feel pressure to change who you are, give your Mom or others from the grove, a call. Touching base with those who know and understand and love you best, really does help.
Best of luck, and may wonderful things come to you.
Dear Heir,
Don't worry--your mother WILL get through this.
Blessings,
Sabrina
Blessed be.
I wish you all the luck and happiness.
I enjoyed reading your page and I will be visiting often to read and post.
Have a great week.
My advice:
You've just been given the opportunity to meet a crap ton of people in your classes ever semester who you're probably never going to see again after finals week, so don't worry about what they might think. The ones you want to get to know make sure you say hi, the others, eh, be civil. To paraphrase Balthasar Gracian, surround yourself with those people who can help you get where you wanna go.
Dear Heir,
I wanted to say something funny and clever and by stating that I've already made certain that nothing funny nor clever will spring forth.
After reading your brilliant mother's blog for some time now, I feel confident in saying that you'll find success of your kind. Not to be defined by anyone else nor judged against what others' standards of success is. Only you know if you're successful.
And don't forget offerings to the FSM! Parmesan??
Blessings,
Pom
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