September Highlights:
- Start month with birthday – my gift is picking up Lilah at UC Santa Cruz
- Went to see The National – and brought Luke with me (it was his first concert)
- Celebrate my sister’s birthday
- After what seemed like a very brief stay, Lilah goes back to school to start the fall quarter
Lilah’s Initial Impressions of College Life
The big highlight of this month was picking up Lilah from school. It provided me with a chance to see where she had been living for the past 5 weeks, meet her roommates and new friends, and also hear about all her new experiences. I already had a feeling things had been going really well as the only times I heard from her was when she would respond to one of my e-mails or texts.
In short, everything we could have ever hoped for came to fruition over the summer quarter. Lilah became fast friends with her roommates and expanded her social circle to include at least 10 other students whom she formed really strong bonds with. She said that every morning their big group would have breakfast together, and I believe that most of the time they also did dinner too. In addition, her dorm room became the hang out spot for the group at nights. Imagine a tiny room meant for 3 people with 8-10 people in it almost every night.
She said she just loved her new group of friends who she referred to as family. At one point, in typical honest Lilah fashion she said not to take offense but she really didn’t even feel like going home. No offense taken, I responded as I told her I had a similar feeling when I was living in Spain. I mean, who doesn’t just want to hang out doing fun stuff with their friends all day?
I was happy to see that Lilah really took to her college environment and made so many deep connections. After all, this was my introverted daughter who normally doesn’t even like people spending the night at the house because she likes to have her space. All that went out the window in her new environment however, and for a few hours I had the opportunity to witness how close she had become with her new friends. We made several trips up and down the stairs moving her things out to he car and in those excursions we’d always cross paths with people she knew who she would sometimes stop and hug. I’ve never seen Lilah hug so many people. It was really sweet and it warmed my heart to see her so full of love and caring for her friends — Kenneth, Zach, Kelsey, Marie, Calista are amongst the names I remember but there were so many more.
Kelsey was one of her roommates and my friend Damon’s daughter. After we were done loading all the boxes into the car and the kids said their tearful goodbyes, Damon and I took Kelsey and Lilah to the Saturn Cafe, a popular breakfast spot that serves many good vegan options, which is important because Kelsey is vegan. Damon and I just marveled at how our daughters had connected so fast and enjoyed hearing their stories and seeing the select polaroid pictures they allowed us to see. By the way, the vegan breakfast burrito is very tasty and I recommend it highly.
The summer session had given the kids a chance to learn how to get around the campus, how to use public transportation, and go on field trips (including Lilah’s first visit to San Francisco). It was also their first taste of living apart from their parents for an extended period of time and surviving on dorm food.
On the way home Lilah opened up about so many of the experiences she had. Said that it had definitely been the best experience of her life. She said that pretty early on she wanted to make sure that the other kids knew that she was open to being adventurous and trying new things, and that she would sometimes be the instigator in doing things like leading hikes through the woods after midnight. She said she felt really free to be whoever she wanted to be. And she shared many stories about her new friends. One I particularly love, is how her friends all picked up on the fact that Lilah hates too much eye contact, which she finds creepy. So what do her friends do to her one day at the bus stop? They all stare at her at the same time and then take a picture just for fun. It just showed me that they all got a chance to know each other well enough to poke some good-natured fun at each other.
The visit home was a short 3 weeks, made all the much shorter by the fact that Lilah used the opportunity to connect with her hometown friends and fill them in on her experience since I believe she was the only one of her peers to do the summer session. We were still happy to have her around for the short time we had her and now that she’s back enjoying the fall quarter, we can’t wait to hear the new stories she will have when she comes to visit on the Thanksgiving break. Seems so far away, but it will be here before we know it.
That’s all for now…more next month!