Friday, September 23, 2011

FUS with Abigail (Day 2)

I slept in, had breakfast at the hotel, talked to Financial Aid (got good news about GI Bill benefits), went to Heavenly Grounds for coffee and then met Abigail for the campus tour.  Meanwhile she'd spent the night with Mary who also turns out is a military brat, has lived in Seoul (left just before we arrived) and has family in Alabama. Abigail was also able to meet her online friend Allison. Abigail attended two classes this morning - Anatomy & Physiology as well as Surgical Nursing (which she found fascinating).
It was looking like rain at 11am so all were given brand new FUS umbrellas (silly me had an umbrella so I didn't get one) prior to the start of the tour. In one hour we saw lots - admin bldg, academic bldgs, field house and spiritual area (small chapel, grotto, tomb of the unborn and Stations of the Cross). We then went to Mass. There were less than half the people there are at our Sunday Mass but twice the volume of singing and the organ was beautiful. Seven priests celebrated Mass and the chapel was PACKED despite three Masses offered weekdays. There was near silence as we left at the end - something our parish seems unable to achieve.


From there we went to lunch and then a tour of a dorm. The rooms are small and there are no dressers but each girl does have their own closet. There is lots of space under the bed for storage. There are only communal bathrooms but since men are rarely allowed in the halls, it's not an issue. Students must provide their own fridge and/or microwave or use the ones in the dorm kitchen. Students can leave labeled food in the fridge and no one takes it.
The tour ended and Abigail and I headed to her final class in Philosophy - Foundations of Ethics. It was DEEP!!! Thankfully Abigail can choose between this course and a Theology class. This particular professor read from his notes, rarely looking at the students. I found it hard to pay attention but I had no paper/pen to take notes.
The rain had slowed so Abigail and I went back to look inside the Portiuncula - it's beautifully simplistic. Because of the rain we chose not to explore the Stations since they are down wooden stairs into the woods. We also stopped briefly at the Tomb of the Unborn, Grotto and Nativity. Then we headed to the bookstore so I could do early Christmas shopping for Abigail.
(Here are the pics we took on Saturday morning)




Abigail and I came back to the hotel for a bit, then headed to Walmart, dinner at Applebees and dessert at Coldstone Creamery.  I'm hoping tomorrow will be a pretty sunny day so we can take some photos before we head to the airport.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh how fun. Can you believe it's time to start thinking of college for our little Abigail??? Yikes - how the years do fly by - too fast.

Miss Mary

Renee said...

We do start earlier than many. Hate to wait until senior year since that's application time. We had time available now so we went for it. Have no idea if we'll have available time come spring