Chapter Nine, The Mother Son College Odyssey

8:45 AM: It’s morning in Connecticut. Eli’s taking a very long shower to wake himself up. While he's been in the shower, I checked all my email and got caught up on Facebook.

Eli’s sitting in on a class this morning at Wesleyan called “Inside Nazi Germany: 1933-1945.” He chose it in lieu of some techy or mathematical thing. “I don’t just want to sit in on math classes,” he said. “I like history, too.”

His leaning so far is definitely a school with a strong math and science department in a liberal arts setting.

I’m happy we’re just going to one school today. We spend the whole day here and then drive to Providence tonight. Brown isn’t in session; they’re on spring break, so Eli can’t sit in on classes there and the info session isn’t until 2 PM tomorrow. All Friday morning to loll about and relax. We sure need that!

Chapter Eight, The Mother-Son College Odyssey

8:15 AM: I’m sitting in a common room at Swarthmore. It’s early. No one is around. Eli is sitting in on a calculus class—his first experience of a college class aside from our local community college, Cabrillo. The admissions tour isn’t for an hour and a half. Right now, everything is locked up tight.

On the morning news on the way over, we heard about possible flooding in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the aftermath of yesterday’s storm. The National Guard is on standby. Sandbags are being stockpiled. We may be in for more of an adventure than we thought.

I’m sitting alone in a carpeted lounge on a comfortable, tasteful couch. There’s a baby grand piano in the corner and oil paintings of past Swarthmore presidents on the walls. Tall wood-framed windows line the walls. I’ve only been here 20 minutes and everything about the place screams “money.” This is obviously a very well endowed place. I think of the budget cuts destroying the UC system back home and find myself in a kind of culture shock.

Chapter Seven, The Mother-Son College Odyssey

Today was a freezing, rainy downpour of a day in New York. Eli and I got up, packed, dropped our suitcases off in the storage room of the hotel and then hiked over to 50^th Street to take the #1 train up to Columbia. We had one umbrella between us, not a very big one at that. Eli was wearing sneakers; I was wearing ugs. I had a wool coat and he had a “water resistant” jacket that didn’t bear up so well in the rain.

On the way to the 116^th subway stop, dedicated to Columbia, I said to Eli, “I’m so glad we did this together. I had so much fun in New York.”

“I did, too,” he said. "This was the most fun I've had in all of high school so far."

“I really enjoyed it, too. Thanks for letting me come along.”

We were both holding onto to the same pole, practicing our subway surfing. “Well, you didn’t embarrass me too badly.”

“Did I embarrass you at all?”

“No.”

Mark one up for me!

Chapter Six, The Mother-Son College Odyssey

We have a fifteen-minute break between dinner at the Olive Garden (spaghetti and meatballs, eggplant parmesan, lasagna, garlic bread sticks and salad) and leaving for Next to Normal, our last show on Broadway on our last night in New York City, followed by a midnight trip up to the top of the Empire State Building.

The adults are tired. The chaperones drank two bottles of wine at dinner tonight—we all agreed it was the last night and we deserved it—and as we sipped, we grumbled about the midnight trip through four layers of security to see NYC skyline from the top of the Empire State. But the kids are excited.

I, at least, had a nap today. I’m packed and ready for our departure tomorrow, up for one more Broadway show and whatever adventures the evening has in store.