Stumbling Through Adulthood

He's all graduated, phew! So very proud of him. Double major, French and biochemistry.

Whee.

A friend of his got this snippet.

This should start at him.

This is the whole thing.



My sister and BIL came up yesterday, but both were feeling cruddy this morning so headed home, so it was just me, dh, and the girls. Dh has some good photos, I'll try to get them later. Right now, so tired. I went to work early to make up as many hours as possible.

Linnea is taking the first of the three computer science pre-major classes. These are major weedout classes.

She seems to have a great prof, for several reasons.

1. He doesn't believe in having them write code, but rather pseudo-code, aka an algorithm for what they want to do. Having lost a zillion points for code 'grammar' errors in previous classes, this helps her.

2. She went to talk to him about accommodations and he offered her the ability to come to his office and take the quizzes orally. I've long said that if she could do that, she'd do well in various classes, that it was often getting it out on paper that was the problem. Well.

She is currently sitting at a 95% in that class, which is pretty damn good.

And this cracked me up. She is taking linear algebra. She doesn't usually do well with math. But. She came to the realization that a sum (Σ) was really just a for loop and it doesn't scare her as much any more. Same with matrices etc, she's applying what she's learned in CS to math and while it's still hard, and yes, she does get some tutoring, she isn't in a total panic and that's a good thing.

We drove up to see her today. She hasn't been able to come down for a while now because of the flea infestation in their apartment, and it's been hard for us to go up, so it had been too long and it was so good to see her. She really is a wonderful person! Her BF was there too, and he's a sweetheart. It was a nice day!

The child for whom counting was intellectual and not intuitive, for whom the number line was a vague concept that had to be reasoned through, not just understood... that child is taking calculus II.

And with just class instruction, no help from dh or me, figured out how to actually calculate volumes by slicing.

Yeah, for those for whom math is intuitive, maybe that doesn't sound like much... but it's a three-step process, involves integration, and is math beyond what many people (I suspect) will ever do and also beyond what most people will ever need.

I'm so proud of her.

And she's thrilled and excited. I love that kid.

Linnea passed calculus! It's the first class of a two-class series, and she's taking the second class this summer.

Yay!

Whee!

So proud of that kid. She works her ass off.

They did their final sprint at... 40 strokes per minute, which is insane for a heavyweight crew.

So.

Perry is at ACRA's this weekend in Tennessee.

It's the last race of his collegiate career and while I know he is looking forward to never having to sweep in a large boat again in his life, LOL, I also know he's put in a lot of work. They took 3rd last year, but there were, I think, fewer boats. This year, the V4+ category had the most boats ever. Lots of lots of crews there.

They were second in the 1750m time trials on Friday, giving them a good lane for the semi-finals on Saturday, where they were 2nd in their heat and 5th time overall.

Overall, btw, all the top teams heading toward the grand final were within seconds of each other.

Grand final this morning. It was... a nail biter. USC, who were actually favored to win, and WWU duked it out in the final sprint, before WWU won by a bit more than a second. EEEK! So exciting.

Perry is in bow seat, next to the coxswain. So to the "right" of the direction of travel. Their boat is the red one with orange oars, LOL. Borrowed. The video should start at the start of their race.





Results:


And a photo, stolen from the team's Instagram:

Two major bits of good news!

Perry f.i.n.a.l.l.y has gotten into the biochem BS program. Yes, it means an extra year, for one class, but he was planning on working and preparing for the MCAT next year anyhow, so it'll work. It still galls me. This time the diff in the application? He talked about going on meds and pointed out how his GPA jumped when he did, duh. Anyhow, yay. He'll graduate with a bit of luck with a BS in biochem and a BA in French in June 2024.

And

My niece is graduating from nursing school next month got a job (contingent on passing her boards, of course) in Labor and Delivery at the Alaska Native Medical Center. So excited for her!

Poor Perry is dealing with no meds again. Since they won't prescribe more than a month's worth, he can't stockpile any so when they can't fill his Rx he might have a day or two grace period before he has to go off it cold turkey. This shortage bit is totally stupid, and yes, I blame the FDA.

The pharmacy told him they should have it back in stock next week. Fingers crossed, because he's got a heavy class load and a lot of group projects.

Well, it's many bits and pieces for a Monday, LOL.

1. Still no keyboard. Expected delivery is today. One week after purchase, with "expedited delivery". I hate FedEx and really wish companies would stop using them. ETA FexEx just called. They tried again, but it's a "bad address". I was a bit nasty to the person on the line, I think my comment was "The Postal Service Manages to delivery every single day to this address, are all your drivers incompetent?" I mean, come on. Ugh.

2. Wonderful weekend in Bend. Got to visit with sis, BIL, and my mom, pretty much didn't do anything but read and hang around and chat.

3. Got tutoring in math squared away for Linnea. $$$ but it'll hopefully get her through the quarter. She only needs a C!

4. Woke up with a migraine very early this morning. Took meds, promptly puked them up. Slept off some of it, but hurting and still feeling very iffy and. well, fragile. I hate that feeling.

5. I'm not thrilled about Rishi Sunak as UK PM (not like it's any of my business, of course): he's a hard-core conservative with compromised ethics (his wife is corrupt as fuck and he has major conflicts of interest), but I'm kinda thrilled to see someone of South Asian descent as UK PM.

6. Waiting on the briefing from the DoJ on 'US National Security matter'. Please please please let it be a really bad day for Trump. I drove through eastern OR and WA yesterday and the number of Let's Go Brandon, Fuck Joe Biden, Trump is my President paraphernalia on display was sickening.

7. Drove a load of wood back with us. BIL has to take down some trees for fire safety reasons and, long story short, we ended up driving back with a load of logs in the back of the car with more to come on further trips: they can use them in the steam locomotive. We hoped to drop them off at the museum on the way home, but the wheelbarrow they left to transport the logs had a flat and it was too long to carry them all, so we'll have to go out this week. Does this type of random shit happen to everyone or just dh and me?

8. I want this rose: Moonlight in Paris.

When I was in school in NM, my housemate and I had to "check out" from the place we were renting separately. I meet with the landlord one morning. He slammed me against the wall, attempted to kiss me, and started trying to grope anything he could grope. I shoved back at him, said clearly no. He then told me he'd give me all my deposit back if I was willing to--- Yeah, NOPE. I desperately needed that deposit but not THAT much. I was disgusted, felt violated, and should have reported it to the police. I did, however, warn my housemate to drag her bf along when she moved out. Bf didn't want to go, so she went alone. Yeah, he did the same thing to her. At the advice of an older and wiser friend who had information we did not, we called the landlord, told him we both expected our deposits back or we'd be calling his wife. What the older friend had told me was that the $ in the marriage was hers, and even community property wouldn't have gotten him much of it.

Leaving aside that nasty event, dh and I combined have had more problems with property managers in Bellingham in the three years Perry has been renting than we did in all our years (counting, that would be... about 20 years, and 8 landlords). So eh, aside from the asshole above, neither of us had ever had any major gripes with landlords.

Perry: rental year one, they sent everyone to collections by mistake, apologized about it, to be fair, but come ON. (It was covid. Instead of sending everyone a bill with the final amount owed after clean up etc fees, they sent everything to collections. Nobody got a bill. People were pissed.)

Perry: rental year two, the weird kicking everyone out 5 days before the end of the month, the parking fees, which were clearly detailed, but she decided to change with no warning, despite everyone having a written copy. Parking permits were on a month-to-month basis, detailed in the lease. At some point, she decided they "go with the lease" and had to be paid as long as the lease was in effect. She demanded payment after Perry (and Molly) had informed her they were moving out and didn't need parking June/July/August (obviously, we continued to pay rent on an emtpy of kid appartment). Sigh. Apparently, when faced with that change of policy, some unknown tenant either bought or found a destroyed junker car and left it the garage all summer. So, just $120, but annoying. What was worse was the fact that she refused to back the kids up when they tried to call the police because there was an unhoused guy living in the back of the garage, who left needles etc around behind the cars, as well as other biological offerings. Remember both Perry and Molly were leaving at 4:15AM and it was a bit creepy and gross for them.

Perry and Linnea this year: we paid the deposits. We paid all the fees. We paid the first month rental as per the lease. It's due on the 1st of the month, we paid on the 24th via bank transfer, using the pay your rent button on their website. We have receipts. Their account is up to date. Molly paid her portion of the rent via cashier's check yesterday morning. The account shows everything paid. Yesterday afternoon when Perry was sleeping off his early morning dip in the Montlake Cut, another text came in, saying they could not move in until the 4th because Perry and Linnea had paid via bank transfer (ie using the 'pay your rent' portal) and they don't credit those for 10 whole days, meaning they won't get access until 4 Sept, but we could, of course, come over tomorrow (ie today) with a cashier's check. I found out about this when Molly texted me at about midnight. Perry had completely missed it, having slept through most of the afternoon and evening, and Linnea? who knows. The management company, contacted this morning, says that policy was sent out in an email on 20 August, aka the last day to pay via their website, if I'm reading correctly. There is NO indication of that 10-day policy on the website. That policy is not in the lease. It was just mentioned, in passing, at the bottom what looked like a routine email. And how were we supposed to know there was a problem, since nothing on our account showed ANY problem, EVER, until the text sent at (just checked the copy of the text Molly sent me) 4:39PM yesterday. Late last night, (again, from Molly, my two were LONG asleep) they got a text saying they would not be able to move in until noon because the cleaning staff were running late. Then the kids get a text saying the apartment is ready. Finally, Perry got ahold of the actual person who deals directly with that apartment, rather than the "it takes 10 days to clear payments made via the 'pay your rent' button the website" person. He points out the fact that the account shows nothing due, they have the money, the lease says nothing about this and-- Oh, sorry, let me send you the codes for the door right away. UGH. What a fucking waste of a morning, reading through the lease AGAIN, trying to reach people etc.

I fault the kids for not noticing the last paragraph of a long email which contained mostly information that was either irrelevant or that they already had. I fault the management company AND the property manager for everything else, LOL.

Also, now I understand why there was so much whining about "Bellingham landlords" on the grad student email lists!

Yesterday was good, got to see a friend.

Today? No so good. Perry is fucked, degree-wise. Completely. I blame him, in part, but also the department and his advisor for not making it clear that he was fucked a year ago, so we could have maybe avoided paying for a year of college that is, essentially, useless to him. He needs to transfer out of Western, and if that had been made clear to him when he reached the point of no return... well, that would have been helpful. So now we work at getting him out of there to anywhere where he can get a BS in biochemistry.

Aside from that, it's been a day's worth of little frustrations. Amazon said they had the mattress I needed for Linnea is stock. It disappeared with a LOL, no, after I got put it in the cart. So I ordered one from Costco, to be delivered to the new apartment on Thursday when we'll be there moving them in and... well, once I placed the order, it said, ooops, no, so sorry, that'll be Friday. Dudes, I gave you the address before I placed the order.

And...

And...

And...

Just shit like that.