Ohio State Highlights

Okay.  I'm not going to lie--the trip to Columbus pales in comparison to Chicago.  However, loving Midwesterners and especially Ohioans, it felt mighty good to be in Columbus.

When Mark and I left on Friday morning, it was gorgeous outside.  Sunny skies and clear roads.  We actually made it to Columbus in less than five hours which was a record, for sure!  We checked into our hotel (Embassy Suites) and headed out.  Something I miss, living in our teeny tiny town, is shopping!  I'm not a professional shopper at all, and in fact, buy pretty much everything for the family and me online because we're all so dang tall.  However, I miss buying shoes in person.  I have been needing new running shoes for at least a year now, but I think I have been reluctant because it feels like a final nail in my running coffin.  I ran a half-marathon in those old shoes and by getting new ones, who knows if these will ever see miles and miles of asphalt?  Oh well.  I replaced my old New Balance running shoes with new ones, and the sales woman even sold me an insert for the shoe that holds my broken ankle.  Sigh....

Mark couldn't stop noticing all the beautiful girls in Columbus, including my sales girl.  Seriously, my boys love Midwestern girls, and in theirs and my defense, why wouldn't they?  They are friendly, happy and beautiful.

After that, we just drove around and gawked at all the cool stores.  I desperately wanted to try one of the ultra interesting restaurants, but Mark wanted one thing:  Cracker Barrel.  Sigh....

Something I'm learning on all of these college auditions is that I need to let Mark take the lead.  If we were to follow my agenda, we would be doing some major sight-seeing on these trips.  However, it really needs to be about Mark, so I step back and not-so-willingly oblige :-)

I wanted to catch a movie (at an actual theater), but Mark wanted to go back to the room and watch a movie on our computer.  Sigh....

In the morning, the main reason that I picked our hotel paid off.  A made-to-order, cooked-by-a-chef breakfast.  Mark goes through food in a matter of hours, usually eating 4-5 meals full meals a day.  So that he wouldn't be hungry through the morning, I knew he needed lots of protein, and there's nothing Mark likes more than eggs for breakfast.  He said they were some of the best eggs he'd ever had.

We packed up everything and left for the audition.

Much to my surprise, the roads were covered in snow which in turn was covered in a layer of ice.

Mark, warming up on the piano as well
 as the horn,  practicing the chord progressions
that the University of Michigan School of Music
advisor told him to learn, so he can test out
of the mandatory piano classes.  Of all times!

For those of you who don't know me, I will drive anywhere and do anything for my kids, but driving in bad weather?  Probably one of my least favorite things to do in the entire world.  I actually get panic attacks when I am a passenger in a car in bad weather.  Deep breaths....

It's been really great, coming back to the different campuses, knowing where everything is and being able to move efficiently.  Too, what a difference not having the scooter or the boot!  I can't see my walking progress on a daily basis, but I can appreciate how things have changed when I remember back.  Ugh, I get shivers up my spine when I remember the 2 hour campus tour of Ohio State with me on my scooter and not weight-bearing at all.  I went home a sweaty, stressed-out mess!  Not this time, though, BABY!  Walking all the way!

The morning began with an information session.  I hate to say it (and I doubt Mark will ever read this), but I could tell almost instantly that the music school at Ohio State would be a very easy school for Mark.  The kids were pretty low key, some even wearing jeans and t-shirts into their auditions.  I spotted several marching band jackets, and the kids were hoping to make it into such-and-such band.  I didn't hear anybody talking about orchestral excerpts, and in fact, nobody seemed particularly nervous.  The School of Music is super small.  Mark had his usual warm-ups--20-30 minutes earlier in the morning, and then 15-20 minutes before he went into the audition.  He didn't have any nerves at all.

Mark's audition went really well.  In fact, it was probably the best of his auditions so far.  What's up with that?  Mr. Henniss is really nice and Mark likes working with him--they know each other from Interlochen where Mr. Henniss is a teacher.  There happened to be the oboe professor also sitting in on Mark's audition, and I guess he was very impressed with Mark and his quick learning style.  Or maybe it was his "lucky" Polish tie, the skinny yellow one sent to him from Ethan :-)

If it had been up to me, we would have stayed the night.  Snow, sleet and freezing rain were in the forecast all the way back to Pennsylvania for the entire day.  Why didn't we?  Mark had set up a date with a girl that he knows from Interlochen who was auditioning at Penn State.  We left at 2:00 and were hoping to make it back so that he could make that date.

I pause here to remind everyone that I will do just about anything for my kids.  I know that I am out of my mind at times, but I couldn't deny him the chance to go out with a girl from Chicago.  More deep breaths....

Before we left, I had to stop at United Dairy Farmers for ice cream.  Even though Mark was born in Lansing, we left Michigan before he could remember the deliciousness of their ice cream.  Even the girl serving us admitted that Mark needed some of that ice cream because there's just nothing like it.  To my pure delight, they had Peppermint ice cream.  I looked everywhere for that in PA during the holidays, but I ended up finding it in Columbus in February.  Go figure...

The roads were an absolute nightmare.  At times, there were only the two tracks in the snow and nothing else.  People driving in one lane at 40 mph (or slower).  I couldn't see out of my windshield half the time, because of all the salt muck that was thrown up on it.  After 2 1/2 hours, I had to stop to get out of the car and relax my body and mind.  Where did Mark want to stop?  Cracker Barrel :-)

Thankfully, when we came out 45 minutes later, the roads were a bit clearer, but it didn't last for long.  To my credit, when I had clear roads, I took off, so that it took us really only 5 1/2 hours to get home.  When I finally stepped out of the car, my contacts were a gooey mess, I had a headache, my hand was cramping, and the broken ankle that is attached to the foot that pressed the gas and brake pedal was aching from tension and stress and swollen to double it's normal size.  Mark changed his clothes and was off on his date.

He was gone until 1 a.m. (or later maybe--I don't know since I was asleep), so it was successful, and we didn't die on the ride home.

One piece of mail that we found when we came home:  a scholarship notification from Ohio State.  If Mark attends Ohio State just for a German degree, the school will pay him over $40,000 over four years.  He earned a scholarship to take his out-of-state tuition down to the in-state price, and then got $4,000 in addition to that.  This doesn't even include the music scholarship that he has been promised by Mr. Henniss (he'll find out about that in March).

I can see that this decision is going to be very tricky indeed...