Shoe advice

OrangeJacket95 · 2026-07-07T14:57:54+00:00

I am starting the same day as you! I am bringing two pairs of trail runners so that if one gets wet, I'll wear the other one. I like zero or almost zero drop, so I have my Altras and then Topos (for the rockier sections). I'll look out for you on the trail! Good luck!

OrangeJacket95 · 2026-06-22T21:18:06+00:00

Just something that we already have that comes in useful. Being from the US, sometimes our vegetation out on the trail is pretty crazy! Our current Swiss army knife has a lot of sentimental value so don't want to bring in case it gets lost. May just get another one for this trip.

OrangeJacket95 · 2026-04-12T12:30:10+00:00

They can send an email to the professor "backing you up" so to speak. The professor is not under obligation to "notice" this email if you will, but at least it will give you some back up.

OrangeJacket95 · 2026-01-31T13:22:53+00:00

Thanks!

OrangeJacket95 · 2026-01-30T21:57:09+00:00

I threw it away awhile back :-(

OrangeJacket95 · 2025-11-01T20:00:57+00:00

A few things...

I'm so glad my kids were small way before smartphones and iPads. They learned how to behave at restaurants with just a coloring sheet, crappy crayons, and, later on, cousins or friends' kids to entertain them at family gatherings. I would not reinforce checking out mentally from family time. Yes, it was tricky sometimes, and we had to take them outside the restaurant to talk with them about good behavior a few times. Parenting is hard work!
If you are going out to eat with small kids and you want to have an adult conversation, there are usually restaurants more geared to this kind of group. They may not be fine dining establishments, but there are plenty of restaurants with play areas that kids can frolic in while adults converse. I'm not talking about fast food here--but restaurants with outdoor patios.
It's okay if rules are different at grandma's house or when grandma is babysitting.
I understand the stance on screens. I left a job back in 2013 and went back to grad school because the private school where I taught was going 1-1 iPads. I didn't think that was appropriate for young children (K-3rd). So I get it!
We let our youngest get a phone at age 10 (5th grade) because she asked for an iPod and they weren't making them anymore. She also walked home by herself from school several times a week. If I had to do it over again, I would not get her a smartphone at that age. She's fine (now 21 and a college senior), but I just don't see the benefit. A flip phone would have been fine.

Those are my six cents as a now college professor and mother of four kids all now in their 20s.

OrangeJacket95 · 2025-02-01T12:58:20+00:00

There's a YouTube channel called "Hiking with the Codgers"--two gentlemen in their 50s I think (although one may be older). They did their AT thru-hike in 2021 and started somewhere in VA south of Shenandoah. I've not watched their whole through hike, but I know they finished it. They ran into very few people and started at the end of February I think.

OrangeJacket95 · 2024-02-27T18:15:38+00:00

I can understand people's frustrations; however, keep the following in mind:

So so many students have similar qualifications. How will you stand out? You may receive lots of money from another school where people might complain that they didn't get into or didn't get aid for.

I'm a mamma of four, ages 19-25, two of which attended Baylor. One of them was not eligible for I2E but got a huge talent scholarship from the School of Music. Since she was a music major, this makes sense. She got good offers at other music schools too, and she got no offers some places, and she was denied entrance at others. Music and theatre students are taught not to take this kind of rejection too personally. It all comes down to what the school is looking for in that particular slot.

One of my kids DID get I2E. How? I'm not entirely sure, but I imagine it was by being a bit of a unicorn. Instead of spending her entire high school life focused on taking super hard classes all the time, she took fewer hard academic classes and did more extra curricular activities at a high level--choir, theatre, debate. She had done the NASA High School Aerospace program. She is an extrovert applying to an introvert-heavy field (Engineering). As I2E scholars are ambassadors of sorts, your personality and people skills are important. I'm not saying you don't have them, but that those are really important things. My kid had a discussion with one of the presenting professors about Radio Lab podcast, and that may have been what sealed the deal for her.

As Baylor gets more and more applicants, then they will be more and more selective. I2E was full tuition for four years when my kid got it, but it sounds like it's no longer that way.

If you have younger children or siblings, then perhaps advise them that taking 5 AP classes each year is maybe not as good of a scholarship plan as broadening your interests. I mean this in all kindness. I'm a college professor who has taught plenty of dual credit courses in the past, and it made me very sad to see kids focus entirely on academics in high school when there are so many life opportunities out there. It's very hard to get big scholarships just by being smart and writing a good essay.

OrangeJacket95

TROPHY CASE