KatysBlog

This morning, I mailed my daughter’s
CMU acceptance letter plus the $600 deposit. The first, I am
sure, of many college payments during the next four years. I also
mailed Jessica’s invitations to the 8 people for whom we have tickets
to attend the Harker graduation ceremony
(announcements go out later), plus the invitations to her Senior
Recital. Jessica has been studying voice with Dina Mirskaya for four
years, so she and Dina’s other four almost-High-School-graduates
get to show off their music in a Senior Recital at
Le Petit Trianon in San Jose.
We have ordered the food for the recital reception from the
Russia Cafe and Deli.

Jessica spent last weekend constructing a mailing list, designing
name insert cards, folding and stuffing invitations, putting on
labels and stamps and generally learning how to communicate formally
with her friends and relations. We had a long discussion of just
why there was both an inner and an outer envelope in a formal invitation…
I think I remember having this conversation with my own mother many years
ago.

After a difficult 100 hour college visit trip (starting just after midnight last Friday and getting back at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday), my daughter has decided she wants to attend Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) as an undergraduate in September. After 18 months, I am so happy to be done with the college application process and to have Jessica be
accepted by and decide to go to such an excellent school!

Jessica and I spent 3 days visiting the lovely town of Northampton, Massachusetts and Smith College and then went to the Hartford, Connecticut airport (BDL) to fly to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to visit CMU. We had
already spent several days at CMU last year (see my

“Warren Vache, Carnegie Mellon” blog entry). The
Delta flight was delayed in BDL
and by the time we reached JFK (New York City) at about 10 p.m., the connecting Delta flight had left (despite our being told in BDL that the connecting flight
was also delayed and we could still catch it). There were no more flights that night and Jessica had an 8:30 a.m. meeting the next morning in Pittsburgh, so that night we drove 400 miles.

I called my husband John from the Delta
gate and he reserved us a car with a GPS so it was ready by the time we took
the JFK airport train to the car rental counter. We started driving at 11 p.m.
through New York City (and every NYC borough so far as I could tell), crossed
the Allegheny Mountains (lots of tunnels with signs saying Blue Mountain, Tuskaurora Mountain, and Allegheny Mountain but nothing to see in the dark) and got to
the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Pittsburgh hotel at 5 a.m. This was the second time we have
stayed at the Wyndham near CMU; I recommend it highly. The
Garmin Where2 GPS in the rental car gave flawless
directions. Where2 lost signal in long tunnels (of which there were many)
and sometimes referred to roads by names other than what was on the signs
but the directions were perfect.

After sleeping in the car and for 1-1/2 hours at the hotel, Jessica visited classes and had meetings with CMU’s Admissions, Humanities, and Music departments. By lunchtime, she had decided that CMU was where she wanted
to go. I am very happy with her decision. My satisfaction was not even
reduced by Delta deciding suddenly to interrupt our (late again) flight home in Salt Lake City to change flight crews so we arrived back in San Francisco
3 hours late.