Student Travel

How many of you have traveled overseas?  How old were you when you first went?  I was 21 when I first went abroad.  I studied in London for a semester and traveled throughout Europe during that time.  I was the only one in ‘my group’ of high school and college friends to venture abroad for a chance to travel and see more of the world.  Studying abroad then was not as common as it is today.  Nowadays more students take advantage of this opportunity, and they go to places even farther away than Europe.

Since that first trip to Europe, I have had the travel bug.  In my early twenties, I traveled quite a bit in the United States, taking my first cross-country road trip, moving to California, and exploring all of the west.  After our sons were born, we planned great trips every year to National Parks and other places in the U.S. and Canada.  So when our older son had a chance to participate in a German exchange program in 7^th grade, he was more than excited to try it.  As we could have predicted, he got the travel bug to go to places farther away.  He repeated the exchange two more times in the upcoming years and our younger son participated in it too.  Europe was now front and center on the radar and everyone in our family was looking to go.

Twenty-seven years after I first went to Europe, I planned my return trip that included our family and my parents.  We ventured to Venice and Florence for eight days during a weeklong February vacation.  I planned the whole trip, picking out hotels, travel arrangements and connections.  It was a wonderful experience that we wanted to repeat every year, but how could we?  The ball was rolling down the hill so fast we couldn’t stop it. 

As a teacher, I often thought of running trips abroad to give students the experience of traveling with their peers.   It seemed that the time had come to give it a try.  After much research and consideration, I chose EF Education First.  They have been in business for almost 50 years and have offices in more than 50 countries.  They are professional, extremely knowledgeable, and plan fun, safe trips for students at the most affordable price.  After comparing their price with three other companies, I chose EF hands down.  They even offer first time ‘group leaders’, my title with them, a free trip to Paris for a four-day weekend to experience an EF trip, participate in a class to learn how to run successful trips, and meet other new and experienced group leaders and employees with EF.  They basically trusted that their expense to bring me there would pay off in the end because I would be sold on their company and run trips in the future.  They were right. 

The Parthenon in Athens

I have successfully run four student trips to Europe so far.  We have gone to Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, The Netherlands, and England.  I am currently planning my fifth trip for next summer (2013) to Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.  Our older son chose two of the four trips to participate in and our younger son has done all four.  If you have teenagers, you know that family vacations can be bittersweet; the kids want to go away, yet want to be with their friends too.  Enter educational student trips.  They provide educational experiences of traveling for students of similar ages.  They plan their itinerary, pace, and experiences around what kids would enjoy.  There is always some free time too, where the kids can take a swim, shop, explore, or just take a nap.

Pisa, Italy

The students that have traveled on my trips have had wonderful experiences in so many ways.  Some signed up with a friend; others knew no one who was going.  I always hold several meetings prior to the trip so that the kids can get a chance to know each other and be comfortable with the kids they are traveling with.  During the trip, they enjoy experiencing places together that even museums and cathedrals are fun places to be.  For many students, that same trip to the museum or the cathedral would not have been as much fun with their parents (no offense intended here).  When they see other kids getting into it, taking photos, stopping to read plaques, asking the tour guide questions, it gives them permission to do the same.  If you haven’t read my blog on Confessions in Europe, please do.  It strongly brings this point to light. In addition, the students have an opportunity to meet students from other states.  To fill the tour bus, our group of 15 or 20 will combine with other student groups to fill the tour.  Before long, not only have they made new friends from their town, but also friends from other states.  Emails and tears are often exchanged during the good-byes at the end of the tour.

Free time in Morocco, riding a camel

So why is student travel so important?  Let’s back up to the first trip our older son took to Germany after 7^th grade to live with a German family.  He had the chance to experience being in a country where people spoke a different language than he did, visited new sites, learned about the culture, and experienced this from the point of view of his exchange student, who was his age.  Other kids, not his parents, were telling him how cool something was, or showing him a new place.  He came home after two weeks with a different outlook on life.  His eyes were opened up to the fact that people of other cultures sometimes saw and did everyday things the same as he did, but other times they did them differently.   Our way was not the right way; and that was the most important lesson to be learned.  Our country may be big, powerful, and wonderful, but we are not the center of the universe.  His interest in other cultures and languages shaped who he is today, a graduate with a linguistics degree.  At the ripe old age of 24, he has traveled to Europe 7 times, technically been to Asia (Turkey) and Africa (Morocco) and is planning his second trip to South America this summer.  He lives in Canada and has permanent residency there, after attending college in Montreal for four years.  He also has dual citizenship with Italy.  All these aspects of his life that shaped who he is today were affected by the travel that he did when he was younger.  Our younger son, no travel-slouch either, is a regular visitor to Canada, is planning his 7^th trip to Europe this summer as well as his first trip to South America.  He holds a dual citizenship with Italy too.  Lest you think we are overly wealthy, we are not.  Our boys have always contributed to the expenses of their travels. 

The Rock of Gibraltar

I know this blog is a little long because it talks about my strong belief in student travel, its affect on our own children, and the tour company I use to provide opportunities for other students.  My student trips to Europe are always during the summers during my free time.  If you are interested in next year’s trip for your child, let me know.  In the meantime, I wish you all happy travels wherever you venture this year.  Buon viaggio!

Here are a few group shots from my previous tours with EF. 

They speak for themselves how much fun the students had.

Meeting a Barbary Ape in Gibraltar

Airport in Athens

With Aldo our bus driver

The Amalfi Coast

Having fun in Amsterdam

Free time at a beach in Athens

Free time in Italy

Tour of a bullring in Sevilla

Il Castello in Rome

Lisbon, Portugal

Always time for gelato in Italy

Pompeii with Mt. Venuius in the background

Outside the metro in Amsterdam

Meeting time at the Pantheon in Rome

With our tour guide in Kusadasi, Turkey

A tiny bit of relaxation time for the chaperones!

 Tower Bridge, London

Free time to a Flea Market in Paris

Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Spain

Free time snorkeling, Greece

Riding the London Eye

College Debt

In my opinion, there is something very wrong with graduating college with a debt in the upper five to six-figure range. While it is true that there are many options to choose less expensive schools to attend, there is an ever increasing number of schools hitting and exceeding that $50,000 per year mark for tuition, room, and board.  Regardless of the cost of the college you choose, very often there are loans to pay off afterwards. One should think long and hard before spending over $200,000 for a 4-year college education.

Once a student has narrowed down the list of potential colleges he is interested in attending, the first thing to consider of course is if he will get in.  When he does, sometimes he is so overcome with pride that he got in to this ‘fabulous’ school, that he might not really look deeply into if he can really afford it.  Some students are fortunate enough to have financial help from parents; others work, take out loans, or do a combination of the aforementioned. 

So let’s say that a student really wants/needs/desires to attend one of the $50,000 per year schools.  They have no financial support from parents, so they work part-time and take out loans.  Maybe they qualify for some reduced rate, scholarship, or grant.  But when all is said and done, they graduate with $75,000 - $100,000 in debt.   Now what?

Well, in this economy, there is no guarantee of a job in your field.  Actually, there is no guarantee of a job in any field.  If you are lucky enough to land a job, it is highly unlikely that it will pay enough to cover your rent, living expenses, and still have enough left over to begin chipping away at that huge tumor, that seems to grown instead of shrink each year.  You may have to move back home, which is less than ideal for both parties involved.  Although it is okay for a child to live back home for a predetermined amount of time after college while ‘getting on his feet’, that time should be short lived.  After all, our goal as parents is to raise an independent, caring human being.

Why colleges charge the prices they do is a whole other blog topic, but why do students pick a school to attend that they can’t afford?  I don’t live in a house that I can’t afford.  Nor do I drive a car that I can’t comfortably pay for.  I look at the whole picture, and even though I really want a different car, I can’t have it.  I have to settle for one that will get me where I want to go, without the fancy name.  Aren’t colleges like that?  Can’t you get you your 4-year education without the fancy name?  Can’t you still find a job afterwards, get married, have a family and buy a house with a white picket fence?  Can’t you live a happy life without attending that college?  Four years of your life is but a blip on your lifeline but can affect it in a big way.

I’m not saying that all college educations are equal.  What I am saying is that you need to balance what you want with what you can afford.  How sure are you that you need that particular school, and only that particular school, to get the education for your area of interest?  Think ahead four years to what situations you may find yourself in.  Are you willing and able to live at home?  Are you willing to relocate to get a job?  How far away? 

This is all easy for me to say because I have gone through the process and I am a mature adult looking back.  For students approaching this juncture in their lives, a little parental guidance goes a long way.  It is easy to get caught up in the ‘Wow my kid got into (substitute school name here)’ syndrome.  Five years out, no one will remember what school your kid went to, but they will see what he is doing with his life.  But more importantly than what others see is how your kid feels about what he is doing and how strapped he is or is not to a boatload of college loans.  It is not easy to have that kind of debt, especially if you are unemployed and living at home. 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when you have selected your college:

1)    Why do I want to go to that school?

2)    Can I afford it?

3)    If not, what other schools offer a similar program that I can afford?

4)    How much college debt do I want when I graduate?

5)    Do I want to live at home or on my own when I graduate?

6)    If the answer to #2 was no, why am I still selecting that school when I know I am setting myself up for stressful debt when I graduate?

The ridiculous price increases of college tuition nowadays are limiting some kids’ aspiration of attending the school of their dreams.  I get that.  But the reality is that the prices are what they are, so make your decisions accordingly and wisely.  

Retirement

Retirement is a ten-letter word.  I bet some of you have not given it much thought, and for others, it is all you think about.  Over the years, there were times I thought about retirement and I think it is interesting how I have changed my mind about it through various stages of life. 

Dreaming of retirement may first start in your twenties or thirties.  Responsibilities may begin for you with the start of your first job, purchase of your first house, birth of your first child…and maybe your first meeting with a financial advisor who tells you to plan for the future, even though it seems very far off.  You may plan big.  I did.  My husband and I love Sedona and we decided it was where we wanted to retire, when the time came.  We visited many states and lived on both coasts, understanding the climate pros and cons of both.  Sedona was a far off, scenic, cultural, wonderful place to live during retirement.  The climate is dry and there is only a sprinkling of snow in the winter; not enough to need shoveling.  The fact that it was expensive to live in Sedona didn’t matter.  We were young and had our whole lives ahead of us to figure out how we would get there. 

Now go forward a decade or so into your forties.  You start to get involved in your community, making new friends, volunteering, getting involved in the town to make it a better place.  You know shop owners, have doctors you love, and know where all the best restaurants are.  Your children have their childhood friends here.  Your new friends are now some of your best and dearest friends.  So one day when someone asks you where you are going to retire, you are a little taken back.  ‘Why do I have to leave here?’ you think.  ‘Everyone doesn’t have to GO somewhere else to live in their old age.  Why can’t I stay here where I have friends and know everyone?  I like it here.  I worked hard for this.’

Certainly you don’t have to retire to another town, state, or country.  You can stay right where you are.  But let’s fast forward next to your fifties…

Perhaps your children are now in college, finished college, or even starting families of their own.  Maybe you have experienced the feeling of the empty nest.  Maybe you miss your kids.  Maybe you want to see where they settle down and plan to be somewhere ‘not too far’ from them.  It doesn’t matter so much anymore if you stay in the community where you know everyone and finally have your house exactly how you want it.  Nor does it matter that you live in that fabulous town of Sedona with breathtaking views.  What matters is being near your kids and hopefully one day your grandkids. 

Of course, there are no guarantees.  You can plan your life and your retirement location around where your kids have settled, only to find that they have to move due to a job transfer or for a change that they want to make.  So what do you do now?  You can’t keep following them around the country.  There are no long-term guarantees.

What is the answer?  Do you move or do you stay put?  I don’t know.  I have gone through all these feelings and am currently still in my fifties. We have thought through lots of possibilities.  Luckily, we have time to sort it out.

I would love to hear your thoughts about where you decided to spend your retirement, why, and if there are any regrets or things you wished you knew.  Likewise, I would love to hear your thoughts about where you think you will be for your retirement years and why.  It is a big decision for all of us, kids or no kids.  Lots of stories and experiences are welcome for us all to share. 

Boredom

Boredom is defined as the feeling of being uninterested because of frequent exposure or indulgence by something tedious.  No doubt we have all felt bored many times in our lives.  Doing the same ol’ same ol’ can be dull.  But let’s dig deeper into the sources, feelings, and degrees of boredom.  I think many people use the word boredom when they really mean something else.  Let’s look at what boredom really is and is not.

There can be many sources of boredom.  Students may say that an assignment (or a teacher for that matter) is boring.  When one digs deeper into what exactly that means, it could mean the assignment is too hard or too easy.  It could also mean that they are not interested in the task (or person) at hand and would like something more interesting or fun.  Sometimes learning is loads and loads of fun, but it can’t always be.  Tests are not fun, nor are writing prompts, research papers, or learning multiplication tables.  I would say grammar is not fun, but I absolutely love grammar and have found strategies, games, and videos to make it fun, so I need to say that grammar can be fun. Regardless, sometimes you have to do the ‘boring’ stuff to be able to advance to the more ‘fun’ stuff.  So are students really bored or just uninterested in the task at hand?  I will admit that there are some boring teachers out there, but often the word boring is over- and incorrectly used in the school setting.

Many people who stress-eat say they do it because they are bored.  Digging deeper, that boredom might really be other emotions surfacing, like being anxious, nervous, troubled, stressed, or uneasy.   Can you really say that you have nothing else to do and that is why you must eat?  Perhaps the real source of your ‘boredom’ is that you are dieting, depriving your body of certain foods and having a craving.  You are probably not really ‘bored’, but putting a label on and providing a reason for your overeating can make it easier to accept that you had a reason why you pigged out…you were bored.  The problem is, overeating is rarely from boredom.

As I am currently recuperating from surgery, I think I can confidently say that the time spent recovering from an illness or accident can be a source of boredom.  If you are truly limited in what you can do and find it difficult to fill the hours of the day with activities, then that might be boredom.  When I first got home after knee surgery, I was on so many medications I could not read.  I could see and decode the words, but I did not have the focus needed to get through a newspaper article, no less a book.  I could not drive, limiting going places.  I could not sit for long periods of time, limiting being out of the house at all.  So, what exactly was there to do?  Daytime television?  Hmmm, have you tried that lately?  Since most of my friends work, I found myself home alone trying to find things to do that I could do to fill the time.   I can’t exercise, except for my rehab exercises, which don’t take very long.  I could watch movies, but that gets old and so do the available choices.  Lacking activities one can do is true boredom.  One of my childhood friends, Annie, recently said I was the busiest person she knew.  That is not a compliment or an insult; just an observation.  And I think I do keep myself busy, probably too busy.  I think this contributed to feeling the boredom even more when I went from having scheduled activities to do from 6:30 am until 9:00 pm every day, to counting the pills in my pillbox to kill time.

My mother spoke recently of eye surgery she had last year.  She could not see out of her eyes for a good week.  When I think I had it bad, I think of her.  She couldn’t even watch the crappy daytime TV or movies!  She couldn’t even look at magazine pictures.  That is true boredom; having nothing you can do.  And by the way, she did not eat when she was bored; reinforcing the fact that rarely do people eat because they are truly bored. 

So what feelings do we generally associate with boredom?  Some that come to mind include lethargic, depressed, non-motivated, tired, and ambivalent.  I am sure you could add to the list.  It is important to remember the true cause of the boredom and not to let yourself get swept away in feelings that can take you under.  Try to find activities that you can do, get involved, call a friend, and ask for help.

In the story of the three little bears, there are degrees of hard chairs, hot porridge, and soft beds.  Likewise, there are degrees of boredom we can experience.  It is not good to have too much or too little boredom in your life, but just the right amount.  That may sound strange, but looking at my situation, I think I have to agree with lots of my friends who tell me I do too much.  I am over-scheduled.  I need to slow down.  Prior to my surgery I had too little boredom in my life.  Translation is that I didn’t have enough time to sit back and say, “So what should I do today?  I have absolutely nothing on the schedule.” We have heard that having balance of most things in life is a good goal, so this should come as no surprise that having the right amount of free and scheduled time in our day/week will result in the right amount of ‘boredom’.

So here I find my self at a crossroad on Route 55, which is really just my age.  I recognize and acknowledge my habit of over scheduling in contrast to my current situation of boredom.  I know I need to shed some of the activities I was involved with.  Even though I will find that hard to do, I will get the help needed to manage a more balanced lifestyle.  It is okay to be bored once in awhile.  Just be sure that when you use the word bored, you really mean bored.  Otherwise you may be masking what is really going on in your life.

Bored?  Tired?  Sad?  Depressed?  Sick?  Ambivalent?