That Will Teach Me to Go Away!

I go away for 10 days and come back and chaos descends! The first weekend I was away the kids lost their jobs. They had both been working cleaning hotel rooms- Lachlan had worked for 2 years and Amy for a year. It was good hours and good pay and they had both been reliable steady workers. The manager had decided to outsource the cleaning, which is his decision, but he did not have the decency to tell them that that is what he was going to be doing, so they found out from another staff member, and they were never told face to face, just a comment on their final pay check wishing them good luck for the future!

Then once I am home, Amy tells me she is not enjoying uni and is going to drop out. She had been through all this with Bill while I was away, he tried to convince her to stick it out for the rest of the semester and then defer, but could see that it was not going to work, I tried the same thing when I got home, but realised the same as Bill. Amy has struggled with high school and college, not academically but with the anxiety and stress it seems to create for her, and those feelings had all been coming back. She had been at uni 7 weeks, had been going all the time, driving herself, worked it all out, had a great timetable - late starts and a day off, a friend to go with, so it couldn't have been a more ideal start. To me it is sad that she felt she couldn't keep going- a gap year would probably have been a good choice, but that is hindsight, and she knew I would have been happy for her to take a gap year. So now it is off job hunting, work for a while and hopefully she will work out what to do!

Next bombshell was when Lachlan was driving me home after he picked me up from the airport. I was asking him how he was enjoying his semester break, to which he replied that he was really enjoying it. When I asked the silly question - do you intend to go back 2nd semester he replied he was not sure and was thinking of doing an apprenticeship to become an electrician! I don't have a problem with him doing that, would be a great thing to do, but being 2 years into his 4 year degree it would be a shame to not finish. He is still deciding what to do, we are encouraging him to check with uni to see if he can change to a single degree and try and finish it off even if it is part time- so that will teach me to go away on a holiday!