The 2 Halves of a Traditional Dorm Room

Hans chose to share a room with a stranger and share washrooms with many other never-met-before people!

Both Hans and his roommate were supposed to move in at 9:30 am on August 29th. We got there at 8:30 am and were allowed to move in. Hans and I quickly unpacked his stuff; made his bed; put the “mom” suitcase in the closet; and went out for breakfast. The roommate got stuck in the line-up of cars and moved in a couple of hours later. When Hans and I got back, he was unpacking with his parents. Everything was neatly organized and the mom was on top of everything.

Hans’ roommate is an only child and it all made sense.

I couldn’t take a picture of the other half of the room. But this is how I described it to Manda, my friend, who wanted to hear all about it. I told her that Hans’ side looked so bare, like a truckers’ motel accommodations (no offense to truckers or motels), and the other half looked like a room in a 5-star hotel!

I felt a bit terrible about not putting in an effort, but that’s how Hans wanted it and that’s what he got - bare minimum!

Hans came home 2 days ago. We were with my parents, and they wanted to hear everything about his roommate and how things were in residence. I quickly recapped my brief interaction with the other boy’s parents and gushed about how their son had everything. And I did this in the language we share, which Hans can’t quite comprehend. So, it was truly hilarious when he started off by saying how his roommate asked him for a facial tissue and Hans told him to take one whenever he needed it!

The boy who seemed to have everything still had to ask for something. I felt like there was a lesson to be learnt from that!

On the Same Page!

A few days prior to the move-in date for Hans, there was an email that both he and I received about the many events happening on campus over the orientation week. I realized quickly that there were over 140 events taking place over 5 days. I decided to help the boy. So, I spent some time going through each event that was listed and eventually produced a curated list of about 14 events. I shared those in a Google doc with Hans. I believe he did not look at the list until after he moved into residence. Right after, he must have skimmed through the list and wryly commented on ‘Academic Success: Pushing Past Procrastination’. That was the last one on the list. Hans told me that he was going to skip that one!

Obviously, when I shared the list with him, I told him that they were all mere suggestions.

The night before orientation week, I received the following from Hans - “Sorry mom but I am probably going to not consider the list you made for events … I want to know every event I can possibly go to and plan from there”.

That was probably one of the longer messages I ever received from Hans. I was so happy to read it.

Somewhere prior to that, we also had another exchange where he called the CAs (Community Advisors) “floor manager people”. I wondered why he can’t use the proper terminology but was pleasantly surprised to hear that he helped the 2 CAs assigned to his floor at the first community meeting. So, I sent a Momley message to endorse that and encourage such interactions. Here is what I communicated - “Just studying and getting good grades is not enough. It is the people you connect with that may matter more. And you are already doing that. So, make the most of your time by doing things outside of the lecture halls and classrooms. Don’t kill yourself by spending too much time trying to get high grades. I am okay if you just pass your courses. You can make a difference in so many other ways.”.

Hans responded with “Mom if you know me I would never over study”!

I am glad that Hans and I are on the same page. I just wish he works a little bit on the punctuation in his text messages; however, I am content to receive responses to my ramblings.

2 Suitcases

I thought of several titles for this post and the one I chose made the most sense as I dozed off to sleep a few hours ago.

Nearly 4 years ago, when we moved, I had to take care of a lot of things. That was also when ASid decided to tell me that I better use all the Air Miles I had accumulated as they were going to expire sometime soon. Oh my goodness! ASid has this tendency to make everything seem like it is of utmost urgency. So, I decided to investigate it.

I ended up purchasing a handheld vacuum for Hans and a blender to make smoothies and finally, a set of 2 suitcases - a small carry-on and a big check-in.

Yesterday, Hans packed all his clothes in the bigger suitcase, and I realized that I hadn’t unpacked the smaller suitcase yet! And in a weirdly emotional way, I equated the suitcases to Hans and me. It felt like he was taking the “mom” suitcase and I had the “child” suitcase. Somehow, that equation comforted me.

This morning, in a few minutes, Hans and I will be leaving for McMaster in Hamilton. I am not saying I shall not cry, but I am ready to let go and let the boy fly.

Addendum:

Bambino is the best brother. He decided to come and get me from Hamilton. On our drive to Toronto, I told him how Hans couldn’t wait to give the suitcase back and how I told him to store it under the bed. As if Hans heard that conversation, I received a text message from him - The suitcase doesbt fit … I will probably brong it back. (The boy really does not want the large suitcase in his dorm room. That message with the 2 errors indicated a desperate urgency.)

So much for my “mom” suitcase equation. Well, I had a warm fuzzy feeling for at least a few hours.

We Are the Sum of Our Choices

Yesterday, I planned for 2 events - Hans’ send-off lunch and ASid’s 25^th birthday dinner. ASid was not there for Hans’ lunch and Hans was not there for ASid’s dinner.

It is happening …

Almost 4 years ago, our once family of 4 went 3 separate ways. In less than a week, Hans is moving into residence, and we will be in 4 different locations. It will never be the same again. I can plan all I want to and not get the boys to be in the same place, at the same time. And that’s okay! Life happens!

This is the perfect time to share that I recently rewatched ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ and it reaffirmed my belief that we are the sum of the choices we make. Each choice leads to a specific outcome. So, I hope the boys make the right choices that lead them to the right people. It is especially my fond hope for Hans who is leaving home to be on his own. 

On that note, I also want to quote from the movie; it is something a character, a daughter, tells her mother … “Small, stupid humans. It’s like our whole deal.” … that’s a profound statement on humanity. So, it is okay to make mistakes … as along as we are smart enough to learn from them!

Seychelles

Since my post about the bots on my blog, the count has surpassed 10K ‘pageviews’. I am learning the proper lingo as well. Apparently, no one is counting *visitors* anymore, they are counting pageviews by browsers, operating systems and locations. (Who are they? In my case, they happen to be Google!)

The few who know of my blog have been curious about the locations. Where are these pageviews from? It turns out that the top location is a country by the name of Seychelles. I had heard the name, and that was the extent of my knowledge. So, I decided to investigate. According to Wikipedia, Seychelles is a country in Africa with a population of 96, 762. It is a tiny nation in comparison to United States which is sitting in 2^nd place in terms of the total number of pageviews.

I don’t know what to do with all this information. So, I have decided to do something that I have never ever done on my blog - provide links to pages from an external site. I discovered visitseychelles.org and I am happy to share links to the country’s geography and history. Maybe one day, I will visit this sweet little nation that caused quite the commotion and excitement on my blog.

Thank you, Seychelles! This is for you.

Geography

History

I am endorsing you.

Addendum:

I do not understand what is happening; however, less than 24 hours later, United States is currently sitting in 1^st place and Seychelles has been dethroned. The number of pageviews for each country seem to have been “fixed” to reflect this new order! Wow!!

And I feel like I should stop paying this much attention to the bots. I do have better things to do. Having said that, this has been fascinating.

Books

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to live in a room with wall-to-wall bookshelves that went from floor to ceiling, and they would be filled with all the books that I have read and that I would read over and over again.

In reality, I ended up with one bookshelf in the basement of the home we sold almost 4 years ago. And it took several years to set that up. However, I started adding books to a smaller bookshelf when I started tutoring. These were books for kids - books I could read with them and books that they would be interested in reading. Then, when I got my teaching job, I also started collecting books for my classroom.

As I unpacked the boxes of books in my current home, I had to make the pantry shelf (that I couldn’t fit in my new kitchen) my third bookshelf. For the first time, in a long time, I actually flipped through the pages of some of the books I have. Each book took me back in time. And it was fun to organize them in a way that made sense to me.

Today, my friend Manda wondered if I had a copy of ‘The Great Gatsby’. I did and she came over to borrow it. While I was waiting for her, I turned the cover page and saw my name neatly written on the title page. I wasn’t sure if I bought the book for the Fall term of 1994 or the Winter term of 1995 or for the 1994-1995 academic year. It hit me that that was over 30 years ago! I turned another page and read a quotation by F. Scott Fitzgerald about writing. As I was reading it, my friend arrived. She wanted to borrow it for her 17-year-old who is enrolled in a Grade 12 English course. When she saw my name in the book, she almost felt guilty for ever asking for it.

There was a time I would buy a copy of the book to give to a person who asked to borrow my copy of that book. There was no way I would let someone else’s hands touch a book of mine. Those days are over. As a mother, a tutor and a teacher, I have been surrounded by hands that have been in questionable places and I am not sure anything can be sanitized 100%. Can I clean each page of a book with a disinfectant wipe? Does it matter to have a book in pristine condition or a book that served its purpose multiple times?

I did spend some time earlier in the day with Manda, and I mentioned the bots on my blog. She was so worried that she wanted me to send her a document with all my blog posts so she could feed that into some Artificial Intelligence app and produce a book that I could self-publish before a bot could do the very same. For all I know, that’s probably been done already. So, I told my friend that I will decide how I will tell a story when I am ready to tell that story.

At the end of the day, after she left with ‘The Great Gatsby’, I realized that I need to read it again. I need to read a whole bunch of books again.

The Next 5 Years

Today, I spent a considerable amount of time with Hans. I won’t go into all the details, but I want to share an excerpt from one of our conversations.

Hans wanted to know what I will be doing 5 years from now. A standard question that is sometimes asked in interviews - Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I was surprised and a lot of thoughts floated through my head.

 

Is this child of mine worried about me?!

Perhaps, he is simply curious?!

Do I know what I will be doing then?!

Then, I just decided to answer it as honestly as possible. I told him that I would be focussed on work for the next 3 years, and after that I may take some time off to do some writing. I also felt the need to state that I am not looking for companionship in a conventional sense. It was important for Hans to know that my life is good and not lacking in any way.

At one point, as I rambled through my response, I looked at my child and got emotional. It has just been Hans and me for nearly 4 years. I am going to miss him for sure when he leaves on the 29th, and it hit me that he is thinking about that as well in his own way. Oh, wow!