The Neurotic Parent

Shockingly, when I weighed myself after returning from our college tour, I discovered that I had lost two pounds in eleven days.  I am pleased to share this cutting edge nutritional program with interested readers.  In a nutshell, the secret is to eat like a college student and indulge in fatty or fried foods, candy and desserts all day long.  Food choices should be items that you haven't eaten in 35 years and you would never consider ingesting at home. It also helps to travel with friends who start the day with waffles or a three-egg omelette.  And immediately after eating, go up to your room and take a nap, or get into a minivan for a sedentary 4-hour ride across several states.

CORE FOODS:

- Meatball Heros

- Falafel

- Hush Puppies

- Pizza (for breakfast)

- Pulled Pork

- Fried Rice

- Mashed Potatoes

- Five-course family-style pasta tasting

- Turkey sandwich on half a loaf of homemade rye

- CPK Chinese Chicken Salad (for the plane – put aside won ton chips, then eat them in a moment of weakness later in the flight.)

- Flight snacks: any 3-bag combo of Pita chips, Peanuts, Pretzels, SW Plane Crackers, Double-size M&Ms

- Car snacks: Brownies (stolen from the Wesleyan dining hall), Trail mix, Power Bars, Sunflower seeds

- Fish – Must be sauteed in butter and covered with cream sauce

- Salads – Order with dressing on the side; when it arrives smothered in dressing, don't send it back.

- Popeye Chicken Tenders (Road trips on the east coast just aren't the same without In 'n Out)

- Stella Artois on tap

- Free candy bars (thanks, WashU)

- Bananas Foster (thanks again, WashU)

EXERCISE COMPONENT:

No traditional aerobic activity, but it is essential to include a daily 2.5 mile stroll on a freezing or windy/rainy campus. Or from Concourse A to F in a large airport.  It also helps to travel with an unhelpful teenager, who does not offer to lift your backpack, which should contain at least 45 pounds of college brochures.

MAINTAINANCE:

I wish I could stay on this program now that I'm home, but unfortunately, the only foods that are available in my neighborhood are sashimi and kale. 

Yes, folks.  We are STILL on our college tour.  We have now been on the road for ten days.  We have visited seven schools in seven states, plus one federal district.  We have rented four cars, taken three flights, one train and one bus.  And at the moment, we are currently at Logan International Airport (with free Wifi and rocking chairs), happily waiting for a Southwest flight to Chicago (which we hope won't have holes in the fusilage), where we connect to St. Louis (which GC hopes won't be a "lame" city), where we visit the fabled WashU.

We have met up with five of our older son CJ's childhood friends, all now young adults/apartment dwellers, who have shown GC the real side of college life at their universities.  And we have run into countless other kids from the SoCal area.  At Wesleyan, GC attended the info session with five kids from his chem class.  And at Penn, GC hugged and/or fist pumped a whole tour bus of students from our rival high school. 

This morning, GC almost attended a Comparative Education class at Brown with CJ's former soccer buddy CE (Crossword Expert, whose many accomplishments include writing Monday and Friday puzzles for the NY Times, and being a long-time reader of this blog).  But the class met at 9:00 am, not in the cards for GC.  A pity, because our trip has been a living comparative education lab.  Here are some of the superlatives:

MOST OUTSTANDING TOUR GUIDE – MIDWEST – Aforementioned Atlanta native at Northwestern.

MOST OUTSTANDING TOUR GUIDE – NORTHEAST – Mr. Diction, a Brown junior from the suburbs of Boston.  As our umbrellas were turned inside out by gusty winds, Mr. D, a DJ on campus and varsity rower, convinced us all that Brown was heaven with "the happiest students on earth."  And he clearly had taken a creative non-fiction course: Instead of instructing us to notify him if he was about to "hit something" while walking backwards (like the tour guides everywhere else) he told us to let him know if he was about to "fall off a cliff."

BUSIEST STUDENT – Another one of the Brown tour guides, originally from Cincinnati.  She recently petitioned the administrtion and instituted a subsection of a department, focusing on Developing Regions of the World.  A four-year volleyball varsity player, she also builds houses for Habitat for Humanity in Uganda, and has overseen reasearch in Ecuador. And she is a Peer Advisor as well as a tour guide.  (All this at a school that, like the others, advises prospective high school students to stick to one or two extracurriculars).

BEST MEAL – Most were decent, good or great, except the fast food in Midway.  Standouts include the Q Shack in Durham, Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, Red Stripe Brasserie in Providence and Eataly in NY.

BEST FOOD ON CAMPUS – Penn, by far.  The sushi in the student union may not be quite on the level of Nobu, but it is a cut above Whole Foods.  And the stir fry looked just as tasty.  Plus there are food trucks lining the perimeter of the campus with very exotic-looking offerings.

LEAST CALORIC MEAL – N/A

WORST WEATHER – Tie between Ann Arbor, Evanston (both in the teens) and Providence (wind and rain).

BEST WEATHER – Glorious spring in Durham (no contest)

MOST AIR QUOTES BY INFO SESSION PRESENTERS – Brown (no contest)

MOST EMBARASSING MOMENT – Mr. NP (who met us in Durham) has a Droid restaurant app that made a slot machine sound during an info session.

MOST OBNOXIOUS QUESTION BY A PARENT:

Q: What percentage of professors during a given semester are actually teaching? 

A:  All professors teach undergraduate courses.

Q: Yes, I know that, BUT, I asked SPECIFICALLY how many teach during a given semester.  Suppose there are fifty professors.  What percentage of them are actually teaching in a given semester?

A: Well, you can ask that question to the Dean of Admissions.

(I didn't get this at all…This was at a school with academic awesomeness: why would anyone care if all the professors didn't teach every semester?)

MOST ACRONYMS: Georgetown (a few of the many examples: GERMS- Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service; GULC -Geogetown University Law Center; CHARMS – Campus Housing Roomate Matching System) 

MESSIEST LIVING SITUATION: That would be our older son CJ's dorm. 

MOST TEDIOUS EXPLANATION:  A detailed description about the difference between Varsity, Club and Intramural sports.  We usually endured this lesson twice at each college, once by the admissions dean and once by the tour guides.     

NEWEST TREND ON CAMPUS: Quidditch, a cappella groups and neuroscience are so 2009.  Nowadays you hear more about sustainable dorms, Robots who have heart attacks, and Ultimate.  But Michigan still brags about its squirrel club.

MOST DIVERSITY: One of our student info session leaders was named Hamlet. What's in a name? Clearly, his parents knew this would help get him into a top school.