It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

As is often my practice, let’s begin by talking about the weather. It has been a warm week – mid to high 80s – and sunny.  We are starting to see leaves turn brown and fall off the trees, so the sidewalks are starting to be a bit crunchy as you walk them. As fall progresses, that will become more and more the norm.  As the late great Mr. Rogers would say, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

Here are a few various tidbits to leave you with as the week ends:

When I got to work this morning, the Streakin’ Deacon bus, which is coming to the end of its time with WFU, was parked here and it was a perfect pairing of bus + skyline. Enjoy the pic below.

It’s a big sports weekend, with our football team headed “up the mountain” to Appalachian for a game tomorrow.  (Side note, as a NE girl, I was surprised when my NC mountains roommates always said Appalachian like “App-uh-LATCH-un” – because I had always heard it pronounced “App-uh-LAY-shun”).  We’ve got a variety of sports playing mostly away games this weekend, and if one is where you live, go out and support our Deacs.  Schedule online.

Walked up to Farrell Hall today for lunch.  The landscape game is especially strong; see pics.  If your Deacs are looking for a quiet place to study, or a quick-ish bite to eat, Farrell on Fridays is a great option. Because few of the business students have class on Fridays (to allow for internship and job interviews), the place was very empty.  Einstein’s pumpkin bagel was on point.

Have had a number of questions in the past few weeks about logistical things that other families might also want to know:

Is there a physical or virtual ride board for students to get rides? What about shuttles to airports?  No physical ride board anymore, but if you check our FAQ page there is a Travel and Transportation section there and it has information on airport shuttles.

My Deac is having a birthday and I want to get a cake to him/her.  Also see the FAQ page, Dining option.

When do the residence halls open for spring semester? I want to buy plane tickets.  This is VERY important – don’t buy until you look at who can return when! Girls going through sorority recruitment have an earlier move in. See details here.  Also, folks need to be aware of when the students have to check out of the residence halls at the end of the fall semester: 9 am December 17th.

My student is ill – how can he/she go to the doctor? The quick and easy way is for students to use the Student Health Portal and log an appointment time.  They can also call the office.

When I got the Daily Deac in my email and you mentioned we could email you, why did it say parents@nullwfu.edu (instead of just saying parents@wfu.edu)?  This is a known glitch and I cannot find out how to fix it.  Best I can tell, there is something that happens in the process of Feedburner translating the blog site into email that adds that weird null.  Long story short, add us as a contact in your email at parents@wfu.edu (no NULL) and you can email us that way. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Finally, I have been trying to figure out how to work this in to a Daily Deac and there is no real good way to do it without it seeming like a tremendous downer, so I am abandoning hope of trying to make this ‘light’.  A Deac parent sent me an article from LinkedIn earlier this week. This is an article that is about drinking and fatal consequences (it’s a doctor talking to his son’s fraternity about students dying from alcohol and/or drug use). It has very, very strong language and the content is highly disturbing, so I give you that warning and would tell you don’t click if you will be triggered by profane language, sexual assault, and/or child loss. But this Deac parent wanted her Deac to see it, and thought others might want to as well.

I can’t leave you with such a heavy thought, so I will end on something black and gold and adorable -a video of black and yellow lab puppies. No connection to WFU (other than the colors).  Watch this and cleanse your palate.  And since we know it’s good to call your Deacs on Friday, and since those with pets tend to miss the pets terribly, text some pics of your dogs, cats, or other pets to them too.