Saturday, June 12, 2010

Orientation


Word Girl and I were off to orientation at Western this week. What an exhausting experience!!

We traveled down on Amtrak.. let me tell you if you live in the Chicagoland area and need to get to Western this is the most cost effective way to go.. even two people were less than the two tanks of gas it would have cost us to get there. Once there we walked to campus (next time I take the bus!) the walk to campus wasn't bad the walk ACROSS campus was a killer.. Isn't Illinois supposed to be flat?

Many, Many, Many sessions on basic life at Western, School ideals and goals, academics, athletics and everything else they could try and give us some information on. So much info crammed into my brain but they were lovely people and the experience was a lot less painful than it could be.

Thursday evening was a nice social where the kids just had a chance to hang out and have fun.. they sang, they played beanbag toss, they played cards and finally a lot of them headed off to the 2nd floor to play cards throughout the night.. They had a lot of fun. Some of the kids were lucky enough to meet their room mate at orientation.. Word Girl wasnt so lucky but she still had fun.

Friday more sessions, Word Girl met with her adviser, she took a placement test for spanish and found out if she took (and passed) one class she would have enough requirements for her Spanish Minor.. She only has to take 1 math class for her degree and it is an easy one for her.. well she thinks it is. Since we were at the first Orientation she was able to get into all of the classes she requested Most of them are in the same three buildings within extremely easy walking distance of each other (like right next door) so that will be very nice for her too.

She is thinking about swimming there but one class kept getting in the way of practice.. if she managed to move that class another would pop up.. so she is going to have to work with the coach to see if she can do this. Otherwise she is not gonna swim (listen to mom crying from here). She has decided not to do band.. another sad moment for me but since this is about her I will survive. I made sure to get as much information about any and everything so she would have it when she asked (because she will).

I know she is going to have fun at Western and if she tries she will do well.. From what I can tell this school was designed so that a student pretty much had to work at not succeeding.