Parents Weekend

Please post your advice, anecdotes here. I'll start. There was a Parents Weekend at my college. Along with the maximum amount of luggage I could carry onto the plane, my parents had shipped three boxes, before they realized I had to haul them, without a hand truck, across campus, and up four flights of stairs. I did meet many people who are still in my life on the plane and shifting boxes. My room was a sad cot which somehow defied sheets, concrete block walls, lino tile on the floor, but it had a giant window with a view. Then my parents visited for Parents Weekend. Lots of trepidation on my part. I felt the gifts and generosity of my adult family friends were almost too much: cute carriers to take toiletries to the horrible gang showers with bugs in them (there wasn't an etymology major in my college, but these bugs! oh! I looked them up, and one was an annoying moth, another was a centipede), etc. But I was also proud: I had a "single". But I didn't want my parents there, my hometown, my new town. My folks had bought sweaters and coats (I was in school in Connecticut, and my parents were living in Florida then), and first said, in a nonjudgmental way, "hey, let's go to that [store] near the [grocery store]" (it was too far to walk). We chose, but they bought an industrial-grade carpet and wicker couch. These two items, along with the stereo (remember those?) my parents purchased for me made my humble room a meeting place. Even the kids from prep schools, who were used to living on their own, and knew how to decorate dorm rooms.

Welcome!