Lessons from college visits

You don't know until you stand on the campus, eat in the cafeteria, and talk to some students.

Some colleges are just what you thought they'd be, but in my experience there are usually some surprises, not all deal-breakers, but some sure are.

One college I thought would be perfect turned out to feel like a small private high school, even though the campus wasn't all that small. It's just that the buildings, and all the rooms in the buildings, just felt small and kind of dark. I think it must have been all the big shady tress, but I just didn't like the feel. Great food, though. Gulag style dorms.

Another college I thought would be too big felt just right, a combination of the campus layout and the town it was in. I could see myself living there.

This is going to be tough, but try not to make your decision based on your tour guide, because their experiences may not be what you'll experience.  But I have to say that's really hard to do, because you wonder if all the students are like this one person, who may be annoying or just, well, not like you or your friends.

One of the whole points to going away to college is going away, right? Going away from your high school groups, whatever they were, and going away from your past in a lot of ways. Something new, different and even a little bit foreign might be a good thing. Right?

New element on the periodic table

High-school chemistry students, beware. Japanese scientists say they have created one of the elements still missing from the periodic table. The elusive element 113—an atom with 113 protons—has to be manmade because it doesn't occur naturally on Earth. On Wednesday, researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science announced the successful creation of the element for the first time. If the atom withstands scrutiny, it will be the first element discovered by an Asian country, giving Japan naming rights. So far, only American, Russian, and German scientists have had the honor. There are about 20 synthetic elements, the first of which was created in 1940.

Read it at CBS News

September 26, 2012 4:19 PM

I'm going to need a bigger backpack.

Just when you think you've got your routines down, your desk set up, all your studying ready to go...then, boom! AP Chemistry lands in your life.

Worth it? Yes - just take a look at any college's AP credit page, and then think for a minute about just how big a classroom (auditorium?) would have to be to hold the 300-550 students in an intro chem class.

Bigger backpack. More pizza.

Senior. Like the sound. Now for the reality.

A class period off. Off campus privileges for lunch. Reserved parking space. Prom. All good, right?

College applications, essays, decisions, visits.

And then there's the work, the classes, the tests, the homework.

Pacing is all. Ok, sleep too. Maybe breakfast.

You know it's not just a job when...

...it's raining and you're worried about the crops, even though it means you get a day off from work because it's too muddy to get anything done on the farm.

I miss the work. Wow.

Vacation, yes please

A special kind of heaven is working all day in the blazing Texas sun, in the dirt on a farm, then showering and getting on a plane to somewhere cool and breezy on the Pacific Ocean. Yes!

Is it a coincidence that I think I lined up a summer job for next summer that isn't in the heat, in the dirt on a farm?

Drought, animals and me

The farm where I work produces lots of different crops and they do it without using conventional pesticides. This is challenging and takes a lot planning and knowledge. I'm lucky to be able to see how this all works, and I get to do a lot of different things from day to day on the job.

These days I'm spending hours working on one thing:  repairing drip lines. The farm has electrified fences (solar powered) surrounding the beds, but even with a double set of fencing almost down to the ground, we start each day locating the damage from the night before, caused by animals chewing through the drip irrigation tubing to get to the water. It's tedious, frustrating work. We have bowls of water placed all over the place outside the fencing, trying to give them the water they need but somehow every morning we still have to repair before we can get to work on the actual farming stuff.

Drought. It means hard, hot work for us humans on the farm. Sometimes I think the animals just wait for us to leave.