Flashback to Freshman 15

id you notice, no "Bits of My Weekend" this week? Yes, I knew you would. Well, I'm going to take a break while waiting on Michelle, blogger at Six in the City and the founder of "Bits," until she's back at it again... She's had a really immense tragedy in the family the past couple of weeks, so is obviously taking time to be with her family. Michelle and family are in my prayers during this difficult time, and I'm sure she'd appreciate yours as well.

This weekend was mostly about getting ourselves to Central Washington University for a journalism camp for Seth. He is going to be on the staff of his middle school newspaper (The Trooper Times) this coming year, and his teacher wasn't able to accompany the kids so I said I'd go along and chaperone. We all drove up together Sunday morning, and the kids got right to it yesterday afternoon with sessions in their specific areas of interest.

 

Seth and his fellow journalism campers from Garrison.

I went with them to their main keynote yesterday, by Logan Aimone, a CWU grad who now works for the National Scholastic Press Association. I was, of course, struck by how very much has changed since I was on the staff of my high school and college newspapers... it's a wildly different world. The kids, though, and the issues, are very much the same. What to write, who to appeal to, how to not tick off the administration, how to meet deadlines... the difference now is: do you tweet about it? Post it to Facebook? Update your newspaper's website? Or all three at once? Never a better time to be in communications, it seems. It's still all about the story, just finding the appropriate medium for the telling...

While the kids went to their evening sessions, I went for a walk around campus. It's a bigger campus than I first glimpsed, and quite pretty. There is something about the quiet of summer on a college campus that I've always appreciated. Very peaceful, compared to how it will be in a few weeks. Takes me back to my first summer of college (19-eighty-freaking-six!), which was very good and not so good, all at once. I don't need to go back to being 17 any time soon, no thanks. I'm happy to wander as the 40-something mom/chaperone.

There's a Japanese garden on campus. How lovely. I bet it's packed during finals!

There are these large irrigation ditches/creeks that run around the campus. The kids were warned quite loudly to NOT go in them, upon pain of great rashes. Nice. So they're the "looking" kind of water, not the wading...

This artist, Deborah Butterfield, has her work cast at the Walla Walla Foundry, that's how I knew to recognize this horse!

I had a lovely walk around campus and into town, looking for a recommended cafe: Valley Cafe. I found it and it looks lovely. I am not sure this is the trip to check it out, however... The conference/camp provides all meals, and I need to be in touch with the kids at regular intervals throughout the day... so the loveliness of Valley Cafe will probably be for another trip.

But it was fun to look, and to see some of the downtown parts of Ellensburg before heading back to the dorms... when was the last time I said that phrase? "Heading back to the dorms..." A couple of decades! And, it took one quick meal of mashed potatoes, chicken nuggets, veggies and gravy (with cake and a side salad) to take me right back to the concept of the Freshman 15! Good times.

Another flashback? A pounding on my dorm room door at midnight to take me back to the "room check days... Apparently the monitor on Seth's hall couldn't find him. So let's wake Mom. I'm happy they did, of course. I was pretty sure he was where he was supposed to be, asleep, and the monitor was the one who didn't know what he was doing. But I was also more than happy to get up and lay eyes and hugs on him to reassure myself of this fact.

Sure enough, there he was, asleep in his room. They put the lone middle school guy in his own SUITE of rooms (complete with his own bathroom. I have a serious trek to find a bathroom. Not. Fair.), and he simply couldn't hear the hall monitor banging on the entry door--he figured it was someone else's door. Figures. Seth was back in sleep in minutes. I, on the other hand, was wide awake for another hour. See, yet another thing to remind me of college: limited sleep!

Off to my next cafeteria meal. Wonder what they'll fry up for us today?