USC visit and the week

It has been a whirlwind week. Sorry I haven't blogged and this will be a long one. Last Sunday Leah and I took Scott out for a Father's Day brunch then I set out for my Mom's to help her get ready for her colonoscopy the next day. I did her liquid diet with her (except I did sneak out to the kitchen and ate a cheese cracker in the night:) then took her for her procedure the next morning in KC. The things she had to go through to get ready for this test--unbelievable! She got all good news except that she needs to eat TONS more fiber then she came back to Manhattan with me. We had a good time but mostly ate--at Olive Garden and at the new Smashburger. Yum. Then on Tuesday evening, Joel and I took her home so that Wednesday morning we could jot over to KCI to leave for LA for his orientation.


USC and LA
LAX is a typical big city airport and we were picked up by a shuttle van. The van driver texted while changing lanes in a big circle near the airport. The freeway had 5 lanes on each side but moved pretty quickly and it only took about 30 minutes to get to the Radisson on campus. We dumped our luggage at the desk since we had some time to fart around before early check in. Joel showed me part of campus and we had coffee in a very cool coffee shop in the School of Cinematic Arts. More about that building and the campus later. Then we walked a few blocks off campus and got on the dash (bus). My first impressions of LA were not good--it was dirty and basically unimpressive. Another USC parent noted later that in New York and other large cities everyone rides the busses but in LA, it seems like it was just one class of people. I agree. We got off the dash at the Sprint center in an area called LA live. There was a film festival going on we figured out) and lots of people camping out for Twilight tickets. It was crowded and chaotic and I think Joel and I were just tired and overwhelmed. We found a place that looked ok for dinner, Trader Vic's and ate hamburgers (again). It was only 5 o'clock but that was 7 our time. We went back and checked in to our rooms. Joel stayed in the least impressive dorm that they are renovating. I stayed in the dorm floor of the Radisson. It was just basically a hotel room with dorm furniture instead of hotel furniture. About 6:30, Joel took off to see what the students had planned. At first I felt ditched but then I liked that he felt confident enough to go off on his own right off the bat. I walked down to the same coffee shop we had been at earlier and texted Scott, "I am sitting between the Stephen Spielberg building and the George Lucas building." He was impressed. Except that I didn't see any students that looked anything like Joel and there were sirens in the distance and I read the student newspaper crime reports of mugging, etc. I wasn't in a good frame of mind. I eventually found the parents informal get together and talked with some other parents who were also feeling overwhelmed and some student reps who were very reassuring. Joel came to meet me and walked me back to my room and I got some much needed sleep after calling Scott and lamenting.
Day two went much better. I got ready and went to the Town and Gown where I loaded up on coffee and sugar donuts and then found Joel (who had already made friends and hadn't saved me a seat) in the opening session. There were a TON of people there--600 kids and their parents. We heard some good stuff then they took the kids off and the parents went for more coffee and sweets and a heard a bunch of parent stuff. We sat with other parents of kids in the School of Cinematic Arts and I met some parents from all over, the midwest, etc. We walked together to the School and heard from the guy in charge of student affairs there. He seemed really nice and approachable. We then split into Joel's major, Interactive Entertainment. Four kids out of the 15 accepted into the program were there, Zoey, George, Danny, and Joel. Joel already knew George from facebook. He seemed nice, George was loud and obnoxious, and Zoey and her mom were very nice. I made friends right away with Kim, Zoey's mom and hung out with her quite a bit the next day and a half.
The presentation by Charlotte Riffey, Joel's advisor was really impressive. I almost cried feeling so blessed that Joel is accepted into this program. Kids are sought out by big gaming corporations to help with games while they are in school! She showed students' projects that were purchased and marketed by recognizable corporations. The kids all knew the games. For example, Sims came to USC and student's came up with the idea for Sims Halloween and they flew kids to their offices to work with their people--while they were in school! There are huge grants for projects too. The equipment these kids will work with is beyond belief. The school has access to games that won't come out for months. I'm not doing a good job of putting all this in words--but believe me, if you could have seen Joel's face while she was talking. I was fighting back tears of excitement and gratitude the entire time.
The next day and a half, we went to all kinds of sessions and learned everything there is to know about USC, walked all over campus, and ate and ate. The campus is HUGE! There are 38 fountains on campus, two unions, three bookstores, two cafeterias, 6 restaurants and a food court, about 4 cafe's, and 6 coffee shops. There are 167 security officers, three transportation services, two big libraries, two olympic size pools, two full size stadiums not including the collosium. It was very nice, huge trees, lots of green areas, a variety of beautiful buildings, ... We toured some other dorms and they look good. We still don't know where Joel will live because we messed up on his application but hopefully that will be straightened out soon.
The last day there was a parent sessions where they brought up all the emotions that parents go through and MADE us think about all the things I'd been suppressing. It was not pleasant. I needed to go have a long, loud, PRIVATE cry but here we were in this huge auditorium. There were parents crying all over the room. Please. I am so emotional because I am so excited for Joel and so sad for me to say goodbye but at the same time really ok with him doing this. This orientation reassured me a lot about all great opportunities that he'll be having and I'm sure this is a very good thing. But he's still my baby and I will always worry about him.
The orientation ended at 5 and we checked out. Joel and I went to the bookstore and the coffee shop and strolled around campus. We saw parts that we hadn't seen previously including the student recreation center and the south side of campus. We decided to eat at Chipotle that is right off campus near the collisuem. I can't spell that, by the way and spellchecker isn't helping me. The only bad thing was, and its actually kind of funny, there was a HUGE 12 hour live Rave at the collisium that night where 225,000 young people attended so the whole campus and the hotel were diluged with these kids who were partying hard and had very little clothes on. A new USC parent in the lobby asked me, "Are these USC students?" She was almost crying with panic! There were sirens all night long and damage to the elevators and windows of the hotel when we got up Saturday morning. We slept really great in a regular Radisson room, though, with big beds and 4 feather pillows each!
It is really good to be home even though I woke up at the crack of dawn. I am snuggling my Rexie while I write this but there was no coffee to brew and I need to go to the grocery store. Leah has David visiting and I haven't been a hostess at all to him. Later.