Latest Family News
2010, The Year in Review
December 22, 2010
Happy, Happy Holidays to everyone!
Many life changes have happened this past year. Due to a move
to a new house and the crazy snow of last December, we never managed to
get out cards or even write a yearly letter. I'll expand on
the move later in the letter.
(HINT: Click the thumbnail
pictures above and to the left to see the full pictures or click here
for a slideshow
of these and more pictures to be added through New Years Eve.)
18 Months of Graduations
We started off in January 2010 with Bud's Master's Graduation. Jill Biden was the guest speaker for the ceremony. Our ears peaked as the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources' graduates were the first to walk and we heard the name "Lauren Saveikis" announced. Bud started looking around in the crowd for Nancy and Dave and other family. He did not know that Lauren was graduating in the Winter ceremony. If you follow the link above, you will see Lauren.
Bud didn't spy them until after he walked (at the end...the School of Education is one of the largest and is last). We thank Nancy for the photo she snapped of the four of us.
Tori graduated at the end of May (more on that later, in her section). Christiaan will graduate this June.
What's Up With Tori
In the prior year's Christmas letter, we mentioned that we were visiting Great Britain. We toured different universities so that Tori could make a decision where to apply for graduate school. She was planning on pursuing Medieval Studies or British Studies in graduate school to further prepare herself to become a college English Professor. Then we left her at Cardiff University in Wales to study the Welsh language. It was funded by the Plastino Scholarship she had been awarded.
Half way through her studies there, she met with Robert Evans, a Crwth player who works on reproducing the Welsh Bardic Tradition. He happens to live in Cardiff. After one evening with him, she completely changed her focus for graduate school! She decided to pursue Musicology (Music History). Leave it to Tori to completely change her career choice the summer before her 4th yr. in college. After her 5th year at UD, she finally graduated with double Honor's degrees in English and Music with a Voice Minor.
Now she is attending graduate school on an assistantship at Temple University's Esther Boyer College of Music. After 2 years at Temple, she will seek her PhD. On a personal note, she is in a very committed relationship with a young man named Mark Malaison. He works as a computer tech support associate at a national web hosting business. They live off of Kirkwood Highway and she commutes to Temple by train mostly. However, in March they are moving into a house with mutual friends who live in Claymont. This will cut Tori's commute in half and the house is really close to the Claymont Train Station, a huge plus.
What's Up With Christiaan?
Christiaan is a senior this year. How did that happen? We would never have expected him to grow into this confident, ambitious and successful young man that he has become. He was always so quiet and lacking confidence or any kind of focus. I credit his love of music for helping him find his way. Although we never would have never made a bet that he would pursue music as a career when he was younger, that is exactly what he has decided to do.
I credit his high school band teacher and several private instructors for his success. He was chosen to be one of the two Drum Majors for Marching Band this year. Most of you know that he is a bassoonist as well and a guitarist. He plays both classical and electric guitars. He has a plethora of private lessons: bassoon (with me), classical guitar and composition with a young composer named Kevin Cope, and Jazz Guitar with a local jazz musician named Tony Ventura. For those jazz aficionados, he's the son of the famous jazz sax player Charlie Ventura. Tony toured with Ben Vereen for many years.
Christiaan hopes to pursue composition and classical guitar at UD, but is also applying to Temple's Boyer College of Music and Ithaca College as well. If he goes to UD, he plans on adding a Jazz Studies minor to his pursuits, which would make Tony Ventura happy. He teaches jazz guitar there! Christiaan will also perform in three All State Events this year (just like the last two years). He'll play electric guitar in All State Jazz Band and bassoon in All State Senior Band and Orchestra. He made 1st chair bassoon this year for both groups. For a time, he thought about doing a triple major and adding bassoon performance to the mix. I asked him if he wanted to graduate this century so he will just play while he is there.
What's Up With Our Address?
From the change in our address, you have now surmised that we
moved to a new house in August, 2009. With the job chopping
going on all across campus, Bud had had his
worries about his job being
eliminated. In addition, we had already made a decision to
downsize when Christiaan graduated from high school. I had
been pushing this decision because the 5,500 square foot house we lived
in on a 1 1/3 acres was so time consuming. And only three of
us were living there! We only moved there to get Christiaan
into a decent school feeder pattern. We had built a wonderful
home theatre in the basement and Bud had built really beautiful shelves
in the library.
We loved the house but the land took so much time to keep up. We also have our beach house and it takes about the same amount of time to keep it maintained. Since we knew it could take up to two years to sell a house of this size and price, we decided to list it in the spring of 2009, giving us 2 years to complete the process. To our surprise, we had a contract on it in 3 weeks! We had been looking near campus at a couple of houses. Homes in that area never drop in value much. Unfortunately, there are very few that come up for sale.
Although it needed some renovation, we settled on a beautiful old home in Nottingham Manor. We love our neighbors. It's an older development across from the Newark Country club built mostly in the 40's. A young couple had lived here for about 2 years and had done some very bad upgrades. They really didn't know what they were doing. Before them, an older couple lived here for 40 years and did very little to the house.
Our neighbors were so happy to see us clean the place up even more after the young couple had done some things. One of our neighbors happens to be a fellow Ed. Tech. classmate of Bud's. When we put in a paver walkway to replace the awful sinking flagstone mess up to the house, he came over and thanked us for raising the value of his home. Haha. We have completed many things so far. We are just finishing up a kitchen renovation. I laid tile for the first time in my life. I don't know how people do that for a living. It's the hardest work I have ever done.
The tile back splash was only a little easier. The kitchen renovation included the demolition of a tiny dysfunctional front hall closet that allowed for the placement of the fridge and expanded the small kitchen to be more functional. We also had an awful sunroom demolished and replaced it with a real family room and a kitchen nook off the main kitchen. We got a very reasonable price from a builder who had moved back from Florida and the work is the best we have ever had done on a home. We were so lucky. We have a plethora of small things to do over the next few years before we retire and move to the beach permanently. At least, we hope that's how things play out. We have to see what happens with Bud's employment....as we now turn to the negative news of our year.
What's up with jobs?
Unfortunately, this update is going to have some negative news. It's not been a good year for Bud or me. On June 1st, Bud went into his yearly evaluation. He was met by someone from UD's Human Resources and the College's CFO. The college and chair of the music dept. had decided to eliminate four positions in the dept. as a part of the restructuring that has been going on for the last three years since the new President took over. Things have certainly been "different" under him. Three of the others let go had no idea they were being eliminated either. Conveniently, all were of retirement age and can retire, paving the way for younger, cheaper folks to fill the void. Because Bud was on an old contract, they have to give him one year's notice so he is being paid through May 31st, 2011.
He has applied
for several jobs outside the University and within it.
Recently, he
interviewed for two jobs at UD and has applied for a third.
He really
likes this most recent posting. It's a CITA III (Computer
Information
Technology Associate) position in the Health Sciences School
(mostly nursing). It involves educational technology support,
which is
exactly what he wants to do. His master's degree is in Ed.
Tech. Keep
your fingers crossed! He is not as bad off as some.
Should he not
manage to get another job at UD, he will officially retire at the end
of May with almost 31 yrs. He will keep all of his benefits.
Some
were not so lucky.
My job has become a living Hell. Due to the incompetence of upper administration at Brandywine School District, I have been assigned EIGHT schools this year. It's absolutely ridiculous. Last year, they hired a third string teacher who was fired from another school district. She was an abomination: used profanity in front of students, was mean to students AND staff, came in late, left early, refused to teach the correct curriculum, etc. Instead of terminating her, they put her on the RIF list, which means they have to hire her back if they were to add back a position. I have never seen this level of incompetence by upper administration. How do these people get jobs that pay over $100,000 a year? Luckily, parents are really angry that they cut a teacher from the string program but didn't touch band. They have begun to fight for the program saying they want the position hired back. They have also make it clear that "that woman will never work in this school district again". We'll see how this drama unfolds. I have my contrabassoon up for sale. Two people are interested in it. One contra player performs with an orchestra in Spain and the other performs with the BBC Orchestra out of Manchester, England.
Our fingers and toes are crossed
We are hoping for a better year. Certainly, we are
happy that I still have a job and that Bud can retire with full
benefits. And our kids are doing extremely well.
Have a wonderful Happy New Year and check back for updates throughout
the year!
Love to all,
Jane, Bud, Tori, and Christiaan
| Bud |  |
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| Jane |  |
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| Tori |  |
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| Christiaan |  |
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