There they are....my treasures!

What a wonderful little vacation we had. Never mind the tornado, which took out our electricity for several hours, the storms that accompanied said tornado, the COLD wind, the clouds and rain, we had 5 grand days together!

My daughter and I visited a local college there, that she has always expressed interest in attending. It was lovely--exquisite, actually--but one problem. No minorities. None. Nada. Zilch. We noticed this while eating in the cafeteria--where she was pointing out all the "groups" and commenting on how like high school it really was. "See, mom, there are the nerds, there's the snobby rich kids, there's the jocks, the computer geeks, the skaters...mom, where are the black kids?"
So, we looked throughout the tour of the campus--none. We did see 2 Hispanic cleaning ladies. So, I asked our tour guide: "Tell me about diversity here."
She visibly stumbled. "You mean ethnic, or cultural?" "I mean any diversity. Whatcha got?" She actually smiled--she was a pre-law student--"well, we were voted the most homogeneous campus in the country, so I should say--we don't have any." She then lowered her voice: "the administration here is really conservative."
It was rather shocking. Needless to say, my daughter ruled them out. She says that she couldn't go to a school where some of her friends would feel out of place visiting. Besides, she doesn't want to be the "token poor white trash" from Georgia. I was incredibly proud. It was really satisfying to see that my daughter recognized that it was strange to be in a "homogeneous environment". The decision to put my kids in public school was hard, and dealing with the public school atmosphere is even harder. But, in a lot of ways it works for my kids. And I am very proud of them.

We also did a really neat "paranormal investigative ghost walk". After a mini-lecture on hauntings, and current "theories" about what was or was not felt to be "real", we were given little electromagnetic field meters, which "spiked" when there was a change in the EMF--which may indicate paranormal activity. We then toured some of the really cool, "haunted" spots in the city, and checked for spikes. Of course, I, the energetic stone, had none, except when I walked over the places where the underground cables were concentrated, or near electrical transformers or breaker boxes. My kids, however, had lots. Especially little Spence (no surprise). The cool thing was that if you got a lot of spikes, the guide would take a picture...in most of them there was nothing exciting--but in ALL of Spence's he had an orb of light with him--sometimes two. Not in the same place, but somewhere around him was an orb. It was really cool. Especially weird, however, was that whenever the guy got a really great picture of it--his camera went nuts and "auto-erased" the pictures. It was bizarre (and very, very irritating for the guide!) It was the most fun "ghost walk" we have ever been on--and we have been on several! It really was thought provoking, and interesting.

All in all, we had a great, great time. The best part was just having time to chill together. It definitely has given us 2nd thoughts about taking along "friends". Sometimes, just family is just right.