A Year On Monona

Northwestern University is two and half hours away from Madison through the thicket of highways, freeways and tollways that is the Milwaukee to Chicago route, but two and half hours closer than from the La Crosse area, and for that we are very appreciative.  To have a kid in college while only a sophomore in high school takes some getting used to, but then again, as you enter Evanston, a beautiful and well manicured college campus town just far enough away from Chicago to forget some of the more gritty parts of the big city, you can see the appeal not just for a good high school student, but a

prospective collegiate and parents as well.  Julias program is a three week rigorous dive into what surprisingly has become the state of inter nation migration, a very important and trendy subject in modern society.  Reading is late, the writing is challenging, and the subject, even though important, is no doubt a lot to take in and confront for anybody let alone a sophomore.  Luckily at this program Julia is allowed more chosen free time, so that she doesn't have to try to fit in every field trip then get to the homework.  It rained torrentially the day and night before I was able to visit her on sunday for a short allotted hand full of hours, but cleared by morning, ninety by 11.  Playing tennis was a bit like standing

in the shower but the water was invisible, it just appeared as sweat.  A brief drive and walk around downtown Evanston, to Einstein bagels, then to Barnes and Noble to pre-order the release of the new Harry Potter book this weekend to be sent….to Madison.  We hope the book fits through our mail slot in the front of the door!  Back into the cool dorm for a slow day, hoping to put to use the guitar books that her new guitar instructor Chris Allen has fired her up to get started on so that one day she can study guitar in college, he hopes.