A Visit to USC - And So It Begins....

I think most of you heard that my beloved one and only child is leaving me soon to go to this outstanding college, University of Southern California. We just returned from a visit for the spring admit orientation session, which was pretty amazing, if not a bit overwhelming. It was two days jam-packed of information on everything you ever needed to know to send your money child to college there. And I am even more proud/excited that he is going to USC and that we are both part of this "Trojan Family", as it truly is amazing.

My college is nice and all....but the alumni association is NOTHING like what I just saw. And the campus was cool at WSU when I went...but it doesn't even compare to USC.

A couple of interesting stories from our weekend away:

Day one: We are wandering through the bookstore, collecting some gear and some random kid walks up to Andrew and says - hey, I know you! It turns out that they are currently in the same anthropology class at our local community college. They haven't really talked in the class, and neither knew that the other was going to USC in January. There are a TON of classes they could have taken at the community college to transfer over in the Spring-but they both happened to be in the same one, both happened to go to the orientation (only about 65% of the kids do) AND both happened to be on the same floor in the bookstore (there are 4 floors) at the exact same time the day before orientation began. Weird....

Day one (part two): We went to Medieval Times for dinner and a show (we've been there before and enjoyed it) - this group of young girls sits down in our row and the one sitting next to me says: Could we take a picture with your son? We're visiting LA and we aren't seeing any celebrities so we are taking pictures of celebrity look-a-likes." And then they turn to Andrew and say, "do you know who you look like??" Andrew has heard this one plenty of times....yes, some people think he looks like some young star from some random vampire flick, Taylor Something. Maybe he does...regardless, he posed for a photo with the girls. And I commenced to calling him Taylor the rest of the night.

Human

Vampire

Human

 I guess I can kind of see it...

No first-time visit to USC would be complete without a picture of Tommy Trojan.
Unfortunately, my darling son could not comprehend the need for his mom-who is going to be leaving her one and only offspring FOREVER -to have a picture to capture this moment in time, and he refused to be in the photo. Whatever.

The Infamous Tommy Trojan

It was a BEAUTIFUL two days in Los Angeles. Some people felt it was cold, but I don't know that it ever got below 55degrees. When we came home to Oregon, the temp was 33.

See Tommy Trojan in the background? With other future students getting their pic taken there? I'm only a little bitter.

Day Two: During one of the parents sessions, where the parents are invited to share and cry with each other (not kidding-they passed around tissue boxes), the first woman to stand up starts talking about how her daughter is independent and is not being mindful of how SHE (the mom) might also have some feelings during this time and maybe isn't letting her mom take part in the excitement of it all (I refrained from standing and yelling ME TOO!!!), and that was nice-to hear from another mom right off the bat who has a child just like mine. She probably didn't get a Tommy Trojan photo either.
BUT then....she says this: Last year I had a heart incident where they unexpectedly found a 90% blockage in one of my arteries and they had to put a stent in during an emergency procedure and I really could have died, and I have spent the last year worrying about dying and thinking about all that I still had to teach my daughter....
and then she faded out because she was sobbing, as was everyone in the room, and I seriously came VERY close to standing up and yelling ME TOO!!! at that point.

What are the odds that I would find another parent with an independent child, feeling excluded but who also had the same heart issue that I did, in that room of 175 parents? VERY strange, right? I loved her. We are soul sisters, though I actually never got a chance to talk to her after this seminar, but I'm sure she felt my love.

Anyway, I met some great parents - one of whom even offered her name, address, email, home phone for Andrew and I both to have in case he needs something that she can help with, since she lives within 20 minutes of the college. Andrew met a lot of the kids he will be going to school with in just about 30 days (yikes!).
And we both are very excited for his experience at this amazing college, although one of us has a level of excitement that might be coated with tears of sadness.