Hot Tours in the Summertime

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Sadly, now that CJ is practically a high school senior, our family vacation days might be numbered.  With that in mind, we told the boys that they could have a say in planning an impromptu June trip. 

Because of the demands of my non-blogging day job, we gave them the following parameters:

- No distant time zones

- Good Blackberry reception

- Possibility of using frequent flier miles

We suggested that the boys think about the Caribbean, Canada, New England or the National Parks.  But here is what they came up with:  A five-city baseball tour. 

So we're off next week to Atlanta, Chicago, The Bronx, Cleveland and Cooperstown.  (We have learned the secret to scoring mileage awards at the last minute: Go to places with treacherous heat waves, flash floods and tornadoes.)  Ironically we are returning to three of the spots that CJ and I recently visited on college tours.  But we will somehow manage to come up with a few more schools to check out, if only to see what the tour guides wear in the summer instead of Uggs.

When Blogs Collide

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Before I became obsessed with the college process, I had a more interesting and rewarding passion – exotic travel. My fascination with undiscovered places began on a Latin American odyssey beween undergraduate and graduate school (before they invented the term “gap year”), and since then I’ve made it a point of visiting ancient ruins or Indian markets or island paradises as often as possible.

Alas, for now my life has been reduced to planning jaunts to Ithaca, NY.  But it won’t be long before once again I’m off to Ithaca, Greece. Until that day comes, I vicariously plan vacations on the internet.  One of my favorite travel sites is www.fodors.com. Thousands of fanatic travelers hang out on the Fodors discussion forum, ready to answer queries about the right hat to wear in Papua New Guinea or the best hut for baboon sightings in Botswana.

Two years ago, the regulars on the Fodors Asian board proved to be invaluable in helping me plan a dream journey to Southeast Asia and Tokyo. The vacation ended up being a collection of peak experiences, including a visit to a school in the Cambodian jungle and elephant-whisperer training on the Mehkong River.

In gratitude, I wrote a long trip report, using the screen name “crosscheck” (which is what the pilot says just before a plane lands, although I’m not sure what it is they’re checking).  In my report I shared hotel, restaurant and malaria med tips. I also described the events that led to the purchase of my husband’s favorite souvenir ever, an oscillating, self-cleaning Japanese toilet.

My Fodors trip report was the only blog-like epic I had ever posted on the internet before this whole college thing started, honest. So I am still in shock that somebody from the Fodors board a) found this blog and b) figured out that it was written by the purchaser of the toilet.

Here’s what happened. I went to the Fodor’s Asian board discovered the trip report of a family that had visited the same places where we had gone:

Author: crosscheck
Date: 06/05/2008, 01:06 amHi jgg – I haven’t been on Fodor’s for several months (because I’ve been compulsively planning college tours) and just discovered this thread. As you know, we went to the exact same places for the same amt. of time. Will read and comment soon!

Author: jgg
Date: 06/05/2008, 01:31 am

crosscheck – I definitely remember!! Your’s was the first trip report I read when I started to plan our trip, and the only one I got my hubby to read!! LOL!

Hope you write a trip report on the college trip. My daughter will be a junior next year and I think we will be doing that trip next summer!! BTW, a friend just told me about this blog www.theneuroticparent.com. I suspect you will find things to relate to and laugh your head off. In all honesty, as I recall your style of writing, you could very well be the author!!!

 

Author: bmttokyo
Date: 06/05/2008, 02:25 am

jgg,

A is also entering Jr year in the Fall & I am already starting to plan on the Campus tours but am a little disadvantaged being in TKY. Will do my best to do what we can from here.

Will read the neuroticparent in good time.
Thanks for the tip !!!

 

Author: jgg
Date: 06/05/2008, 12:17 pm

Just be sure you do THEneuroticparent and not just neurotic parent, or you will be on the blog of the parent of a toddler, rather than reading about the trials and tribulations of the parent of a junior in highschool!!

 

Author: crosscheck
Date: 06/06/2008, 12:04 am

Wow, jgg. You deserve a PhD in Comparative Blogature.

And I thought the web was supposed to be a fairly large place. My 14-year just said that this is “too insane a coincidence” and told me to make sure the doors are locked.

I guess it is time to confess to my fellow Fodorites: I, crosscheck, am also the Neurotic Parent. I have left the world of ancient ruins and spicy food for the world of beer pong and a cappella groups.

 

 

Author: Kristina
Date: 06/06/2008, 12:19 am

jgg and crosscheck-that has to me one of the strangest examples of “small world” I have seen in a long time! How funny…

For the rest of this thread, go to

http://www.fodors.com/community/asia/trip-report-family4travels-to-thailand-and-cambodia-monks-massages-and-mahouts-tigers-temples-and-to.cfm

My younger son, Brown’16, thinks that jgg is an internet stalker who uses IP addresses to find people.  But she seems too nice for that.  I can’t believe that someone who agonized over the correct footwear to wear while riding an elephant would spend her time linking blog styles unless it were for the good of society.  In fact, I’m the one who’s the bad guy on her thread – I caused her upbeat Asian narrative to deteriorate into a discussion of college admissions drama.

The Neurotic Parent Institute suspects that jgg, who lives in Southern Oregon, is a graduate student in the new, multidisciplinary field of Blog Forensics. She must have noticed my excessive use of dashes and parentheses when, as crosscheck, I was describing our toilet’s airdrying capabilities – (in addition to the heated seat). Then, using advanced neurolinguistic research methods enhanced with zen concentration developed during her Asian travels, sent out mindful energy to neurotic in New York, who provided her with this link. 

Congratulations, jgg. You are on your way to receiving a Fulbright in this exciting new field.  And welcome to our new Fodors readers.  I dare to report that there’s another trip coming up.


I Want My MTV Internship

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A friend's daughter recently graduated from Rice, one of the finest universities in the nation (despite a name that's a little too heavy in carbs).  This cum laude student, who studied English Literature, is thrilled with her new job as a casting assistant on an MTV reality show in New York. 

Another friend's son, a rising sophomore at Brown, is home in Los Angeles for the summer.  He is one of those talented, charismatic kids who could get a job anywhere.  His summer internship?  A gofer on an MTV reality show. 

And yesterday I heard about the brilliant sister of one of CJ's friends, who is undecided about her undergraduate major at Penn, but is fairly certain that she wants to be a physician.  She had the opportunity to do genome research at UCLA this summer.  Instead, guess where she's working.

Yes, college kids across the nation are shunning community service trips to Malawi and apprenticeships at law firms, opting to prepare coffee for the crew of Pimp My Ride and Punk'd.   

(Disclaimer: I have not actually seen these shows because I can't find my MTV amidst 287 channels, but I'm sure they are of the highest quality.  I do remember the Addicted to Love video, though, and it was awesome.)

The MTV career trend should come as a great relief to neurotic parents everywhere.  Surely it should not matter which college your son or daughter attends if his or her ambition is to end up as a P.A. on Jackass.   But, according to the Neurotic Parent Institute, that is not the case.  In a surprising study, 93%  of the support staff on The Real World attended Harvard, Princeton or Yale.  That means students from less-prestigious colleges have been forced to seek work in the real real world instead.

How should a student prepare for one of these 21st Century dream jobs?  According to Dr. Gordon A. Power, Academic Dean at Stanford, the best choice of majors would vary from show to show.  He suggested the following:

Pimp My Ride – Mechanical Engineering

Jackass - Trauma Psychology (M.S. preferred)

Punk'd – Cultural Anthropology

Celebrity Rap Star – Musicology

Dr. Power also advised not limiting one's options to MTV.  He encouraged recent grads to explore related opportunities on programs such as Pussycat Dolls' Girlicious on CW, appropriate for those pursuing Women Studies.

But the true victims of the MTV job glut are those students who slacked off watching MTV reality shows while in high school.  These kids, unlike their Ivy League counterparts, stand little or no chance of ever working on Viva la Bam.   Sadly, disillusioned students from second and third tier schools will now be forced to find employment at less desirable places like Intel or Goldman Sachs. 

Neurotic Googling

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This blog is now "public".

That means you can now find it by going to Google and typing in a phrase that's related (or not) to college angst.  Now normal people with legitimate queries about the Princeton waitlist are being led to this site. 

I am pleased to report that Typepad has a cool "big brother" feature which lets me know exactly what people are googling before they are referred to theneuroticparent.  Here are some of the requests:

1) best cell phone for cornell

2) most obnoxious parents

3) nyu flags taking over new york

4) how can i get accepted off duke med waitlist 2008

5) williams prestige

6) waitlisted at wash u tufts syndrome

7) kenyon vs. oberlin acapela (sic)

8) cows near hamilton ny

9) sat summer study korea average score increase

and….drum roll:

10) nashville underwear