Week 7 Intermission: Pinenut Plaza Dormitory (2053-2057)

Joseph Pons is 21, Todd Riedmayer is 19, Seth Pons is 17, Lauren Whitfill is 16, Alexis Kules is 22

"22"
narrated by Alexis Kules

My dad never got to go to college, and the way he talked about it made it sound like it was a very small step down from dying and going to Heaven. I wasn't expecting it to be quite that great, which is good, because I would have been disappointed. Being at college is pretty much exactly like being at home, except my room is a lot smaller and the food isn't as good. And I don't have Dad constantly inviting me to study with him.

It doesn't help that I was kind of lonely the first semester. The only people I already knew were the Pons boys (since I'm kind of dating their little brother), and they spent all their time trying to pick up women. Todd too. He's got a little more style than his cousins, but at heart he really just wants to pick up women too.

They didn't seem to have much luck, though. Apparently whenever they went out they only saw other guys, and none of them swing that way. I must admit I am glad of it; I don't really want to hear about their romantic adventures with people of either sex. I got enough of that from my mom when I was growing up.

I got straight A's the first semester, and so did the other girl from our town, Lauren. The boys did okay, but they were more a mix of A's and B's.

The second semester, the boys apparently gave up on women in favor of gambling. I swear their butts were glued to the chairs around that mah jong table. Within a few months Todd and Joe were both gold members of their gaming club or some such nonsense.

Seth didn't do quite as well. I think he found out that when you stop acting like an idiot trying to pick up women, then women start to actually like you. At least, he seemed to be having some pretty long conversations with this girl Anna--my brother Jaden knew Anna a little bit and says she's "smart," which coming from him means "off the charts brilliant." I wonder what she sees in Seth--maybe it's an opposites attract thing?

Meanwhile, I discovered that I'm not a total hopeless nerd like Dad and Jaden. There's this basketball hoop just outside the dorm and I actually really like going out there and shooting some hoops to clear my head. Lauren ended up going out there with me most of the semester. She confessed to me about two weeks from finals that she doesn't even like sports; she just got lonely without any friends and thought maybe I'd like her if she played with me. I do kind of like her now, though I told her she can feel free to suggest the activity next semester.

Right after her basketball revelation Lauren apparently got a bad grade on a quiz or something and it put the fear of the SimGoddess into her--or at least the fear of academic probation--and I barely saw her again until we were back home for the summer. I think she would have done fine either way, but who am I to tell her she's not supposed to study at college?

She rubbed off on Seth too (or Anna rubbed off on him) and he spent finals week locked in his room cramming for all his tests. Cramming is one thing I just don't get. Either you know the material or you don't; trying to speed-read everything the night before the test isn't going to do a thing.

Of course, I probably shouldn't judge, considering Seth made the Dean's List while I averaged a B minus in my finals. That stung a bit. And I know Dad's not even going to say anything; he'll just sit and play chess with me all summer like he's been doing my whole life. And maybe someday I'll figure out what the chess is supposed to be a metaphor for.

Notes:

- Alexis and Lauren both have 1 outgoing point, but Alexis has 1 nice point whereas Lauren has 6. So I see Alexis as much more the prickly, standoffish type of shy, whereas Lauren is the more socially anxious type. At any rate, they're well on the way to becoming BFFs now.

- End of year stats:
Alexis: Undeclared major, GPA 3.4
Joseph: Psychology major, GPA 3.7
Todd: Politics major, GPA 3.8
Seth: Art major, GPA 3.8
Lauren: Psychology major, GPA 4.0

Lauren and Seth have career-related LTWs, so I picked their majors for them. Joe and Todd rolled wants for their majors. So far Alexis seems to be drifting a bit, not rolling any school-related wants at all. (She mostly rolls wants to play chess and computer games and things, with a few basic romantic wants thrown in--unfulfillable, since her intended is still in high school.)

I got bored of everybody getting a 4.0, so I am trying a new tactic where I only make college students study if they roll wants (e.g. "Get a skill point", "Write term paper"), or if they roll a fear of academic probation. So far nobody's flunked out, but we'll see what happens when the skill requirements get higher.

Round 7 Part 9: Lothlorien (2053-2057)

Francine is 51, Jihoon is 44, Lauren is 16, River is 13, and Elijah and Tamara are 8.

"Hold Us Together"

narrated by River Whitfill

It's been crazy lonely here since Lauren left for college. Everybody in this family is super shy, but Lauren still somehow had this knack for getting along with people and I think that sort of held the rest of us together. Now we're all going off in our own separate directions.

At least the twins did get into private school with me. Mom and Dad couldn't afford tuition for all of us before, but then Mom quit her job with the ballet troupe and started working at Granddad's business, doing bookkeeping or something. She doesn't talk about it much; says it's super boring but at least it pays the bills and she can keep doing it when she's old, unlike with ballet.

They're teenagers now, the twins, so they're even in the same building as I am at school. Eli has kind of turned into a tool--all he talks about is how he's going to get a job and get rich, or how he wants to marry a woman who's a good cook but not too smart. Plus he likes to sit around in his boxers all day on the weekends. Boys...

But Tam is super nice. Nicer than me, I'll admit. She says she wants to get married and have a ton of kids and see them get married and have a ton of kids and so on down the line.

That's definitely not for me. I like my siblings and all (even Eli, most of the time), but I don't get that big family togetherness thing. Mom and Dad always make sure there's food in the fridge and we have all the books and things we could want to entertain ourselves, but then they kind of go do their own thing. Now that we're all pretty self sufficient I swear they spend all day making out in their pajamas.

Or locked in the bedroom. Mom always makes excuses like, "We're going to go do taxes!" but I'm pretty sure nobody gets that excited about taxes. My parents are seriously gross.










Notes:

- When River refers to "Granddad" she means Francine's stepfather, Malcolm Landgraab IV. We all know what his "business" involves and why Francine might not want to discuss it with her 13-year-old. ;)

- Elijah is Fortune aspiration, LTW Business Tycoon, turned on by blond hair and cooking skill but turned off by logic skill.

- Tamara is Family aspiration, LTW Marry off 6 children, turned on by formal wear and glasses but turned off by blond hair.

- Jihoon's LTW is 50 dream dates and my rough count suggests that he's had about 16. He's nearly an elder, so if he has any hope of making it to 50 he and Francine pretty much do need to spend all day making out in their pajamas!

- Next up: College update! Hopefully I'll get a little more caught up on profiles as well.

Week Six Part Nine: Lothlorien

Francine (Riedmayer) Whitfill: 44 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become World-Class Ballet Dancer. Astrological sign: Virgo.
Jihoon Whitfill: 37 years old. Aspiration: Pleasure. LTW: Have 50 Dream Dates. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Lauren Whitfill: 9 years old. Astrological sign: Virgo.
Rishell "River" Whitfill: 6 years old. Astrological sign: Scorpio.
Elijah Whitfill: 1 year old.
Tamara Whitfill: 1 year old.

Jihoon's family. He's the middle child.

Francine's family. She's the middle child too. (Well, 3 of 7, but in many ways she's much more middle-child-ish than Millie.)

"Cost of Living"
narrated by Jihoon Whitfill

So, um, hi. I guess Fran told you about, you know, our life. At least most of it. I think she left off after the twins were born, right?

Okay then. Um, well, we'd tried to get the girls--Lauren and River--into private school right after the twins were born, but I guess the headmaster wasn't impressed by our hectic household. So we tried again a year later, you know, when the twins were a bit older, and that time they got in. It made Fran really happy, plus now the girls are in school with all their cousins. I always liked having my big brothers look out for me. They've got plenty of older cousins on Fran's side, so they won't get picked on in school.

I was teaching at, you know, the college level. I taught art, 'cause that's pretty much the only thing I'm good at. Anyway, somehow I got, um, nominated to be Education Minister. I didn't really want the job, but we kind of needed the money, with four kids to feed, so I took it.

Soon, the twins were two years old, so, not babies anymore. Toddlers are really hard. We spent all the time we weren't at work taking care of them.

You know, teaching them to use the potty...

...coaxing them to walk...

...and making sure they could talk right.

With all that going on, we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend on the big girls. They're good girls, though. They would just play together in their room or practice ballet or whatever when we were busy with the twins. Fran's a dancer, you know, so she makes sure the girls do ballet. Says it's good to have a strong body to go with a strong mind.

She'd give them little lessons every chance she got when she wasn't busy with the twins.

So, well, time went by pretty quick, with how busy we were. Seemed like just a day or two before it was Lauren's twelfth birthday. That's, you know, kind of a big deal in our culture. We couldn't afford to get her anything real fancy, but Fran took her out for some new clothes and makeup and stuff. It made me feel funny, looking at my little girl all grown-up...practically, anyway.

Not too long after that, it was time for the twins to go to school. Lemme tell you that Fran and I both breathed a sigh of relief on that day. We love those kids, but man were they a lot of work the first few years.

We got them a couple of easels as birthday presents. Fran and I have always loved to paint, and we wanted to pass that on to our kids...my mom passed it on to me; Fran actually uses the easel that used to belong to her. Anyway, they took to it like fish to water.

I stopped working in education 'round about that time...Fran suggested it; she could see I was unhappy and thought that a change of career might do me good. So now I'm working at a club sort of place downtown, doing entertainment--juggling and stuff like that. I guess the guy they used to have quit to be an oceanographer. I told them there's no danger of that happening to me. I've never been the science type.

'Course, with me juggling and Fran dancing, we were both gone in the evenings, and Lauren was too young to look after all the other kids. Luckily, we have lots of brothers and sisters around to babysit.

Not too long after that, Fran became world-famous for her dancing. She was the happiest I've ever seen her when that happened...said it's been a dream of hers since she was a little girl. Now she's probably going to retire, since dancing is hard work when you are getting a bit older. Said she might see if her stepfather has something for her to do, more of a desk job.

Next thing we knew, it was time for River's birthday. She turned out just as pretty as her sister...though I might be a bit biased.

We didn't get her anything in particular for her birthday, 'cept clothes and stuff, but we did end up fixing up the house that year. We made over the living room first, so that when we have our families over they've actually got somewhere to sit and all that.

Then we fixed up the bedrooms. Elijah has his own, 'cause he's the only boy. Most of the toys are in there, but he knows he has to share. It's just that his room has the most space for toys and stuff.

The girls' room is plenty big enough for their beds, but there isn't a whole lot of extra space...or at least that's what Fran says when she tells them not to leave stuff out on the floor.

Sometimes I remember how me and my mom and my brothers and sisters all lived in a little house that was hardly bigger than our living room now, and didn't even have proper walls...but we were together, and we were family, and we were happy. Sometimes I wonder if maybe we all--Fran and the kids and me--wouldn't be happier if we didn't have so much stuff, didn't have to work so hard to buy it and keep it and all that. Not like I want my kids to be out in the cold, but they're growing up so fast and I'd like to actually be there for it, not just sort of watch it fly by me.

Anyway, I guess that's enough talking. I ought to go play with the kids now.

The downstairs is much improved over last week...it has walls and doors and all sorts of other fancy luxuries.

The upstairs hasn't changed much, though you saw that there's some better furniture and decor.

And the outside hasn't changed a bit.

Notes:

1. Jihoon hasn't made much progress at all towards his LTW. Now that the kids are more self-sufficient, he and Fran might have to do some marathon dating. 

He did manage to top his first career, though, as you saw in the update. Once he tops his second career he might be my first Prosperity Sim to retire--I just get the vibe that he doesn't like working and would rather stay home and paint.

2. Fran fulfilled TOC and LTW #1, so she's pretty happy. Her new LTW is to become a Criminal Mastermind. That really didn't seem to fit at first but it's been growing on me.

3. Lauren is a Popularity Sim with the LTW to become Captain Hero. She only has about 2 outgoing points, so I hope that Popularity thing works out for her...

4. River is a Knowledge Sim with the LTW to become a City Planner. 

5. Fran actually was doing simultaneous potty training in that picture. You learn these things when you fail Toddlermania. (Twice.) 

6. Donte "babysitting" was all smoke and mirrors...he just randomly came over to visit while the grown-ups were at work and stayed almost all night. But in real life, you'd never leave your 13-year-old in charge for 8 hours at a stretch, and in real life you'd be able to ask your friends and family to come over instead of having to hire a nanny. 

Week Five Part Nine: Lothlorien

Francine (Riedmayer) Whitfill, 37 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. Lifetime want: Become World-Class Ballet Dancer. Astrological sign: Virgo.
Jihoon Whitfill, 30 years old. Aspiration: Pleasure. Lifetime want: Have 50 Dream Dates. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Lauren Whitfill, 2 years old. Astrological sign: Virgo.

Fran is the third of Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab's six daughters (and the youngest of the ten founders, having been a toddler when she moved to Prosperity Plains). She is very much the middle child of the family--she never had much in common with the twins, who were 10 years older than she was, but she also didn't have much in common with the Landgraab kids, who were all at least 10 years younger than she was. (Note: When composing the intro I realized that Fran should have been born in 2002, not 2003. I'm not going to go back and edit the family trees in the old posts, but I've fixed it now.)

 

Jihoon is the third and youngest (adopted) son of founder Larita Whitfill. His older brothers both married earlier in this round, so Larita is starting to get a decent number of grandchildren, though she'll most likely never hit the 20 grandchildren impossible want. (She's dead, anyway, so it wouldn't have counted.)

Oh, hello. Just let me finish this set and I'll be with you.

Yeah, it's not easy to look like this when you're past 50 and have been pregnant three times, especially...oh, they aren't caught up on that? Okay. Where should I start? During my second pregnancy? Okay, here we go.

Jihoon and I had been married for about six years and our first child, Lauren Elise, was not quite 3. We named her Lauren as an oblique tribute to Jihoon's late mother, Larita. Then her middle name is after Elise Kules, my best friend from college. Lauren was--still is--absolutely the light of our lives; it was just a given that we'd try for another. I mean, I didn't want a huge family like my sister Joan but I wasn't against babies either and Jihoon and I...well, we were--still are--very much in love. So we let nature take its course and found ourselves expecting again.

Our second daughter was born on May 5, 2040, just 9 days before Lauren's birthday. We named her Rishell Veronica after Jihoon's sisters. (Rishell was also my best friend growing up and is still a very dear friend. It's because of her that Jihoon and I met.) Anyway, we decided to call her River for short. It's a little corny, I know, but there aren't a lot of good nicknames out there for Rishell and we didn't want her to get mixed up with her aunt all the time.

With two kids, money was kind of tight, so Jihoon was working really hard to get a promotion. (He worked as a teacher at the time.) He really struggled with some of the material he had to learn, so I'd help him out. Teaching was never really a good fit for him, but it gave us a steady income when we needed it most. I really appreciate that he worked so hard at it so that I could be home with our daughters sometimes and pursue my dancing career other times.

Before we knew it, Lauren was in kindergarten and River was toddling around everywhere. The two of them loved playing at the activity table we bought for them...Lauren favored the blocks, while River loved to color from the moment she could hold a crayon. I could have watched them for hours. I have five sisters myself, and I get along well with all of them, but other than the twins we're all so far apart in age we never experienced this sort of thing. I'm glad my daughters get to experience it.

Jihoon and I hadn't been doing anything to prevent it, but it still took more than four years before I got pregnant again. I was just a few weeks shy of 38 when River was born, so maybe that had something to do with it...my mom has told me that she struggled to get pregnant after Mal was born, and she was just shy of 38 then too. Funny how that happens sometimes.

When I was about 6 months along, our house was broken into! The thief got away, but at least the cop scared him off before he could take anything. And we all slept through the whole thing...I'm glad, too! It was terrifying enough to have a cop wake me up to tell me that there had been a burglar in my house!

Jihoon and I made sure to spend plenty of time with the girls during my pregnancy. They had just turned 8 and 5 respectively, old enough to worry about being displaced by a younger sibling. We made sure to reassure them that we would still have time for them afterwards.

River is in the green dress and Lauren is in the blue.

What we didn't know at the time was that I was carrying twins! It somehow went undetected right up until delivery. I gave birth to my son and thought I was done, but then contractions started up again and next thing I knew I had a boy and a girl. The twins were born on June 1, 2045. We named them Elijah Reed and Tamara Quinn. (Elijah is an oblique tribute to my grandfather, Elwood, and Reed is derived from my maiden name. Tamara is just a name we liked, while Quinn is after my great-uncle Quinton, who was like another grandfather to me.)

Elijah is the one on the floor (poor thing); Tamara is in Fran's arms.

Even though our lives were consumed with taking care of the babies, Lauren and River seemed to adjust well to being big sisters. They could play together at that activity table for hours without needing any kind of adult intervention.

Again, River in the green dress and Lauren in the blue dress.

My family came over a lot as well to help out with the babies. Maggie looks really excited to be an aunt, doesn't she? Malcolm doesn't look so excited to be a step-grandpa, but he's actually great with the kids.

Here's another picture of Maggie and Elijah.

And here's one of Mom with Tamara. She just loves being a grandmother and will drop by all the time just to visit. I think she likes it because she can go home and get a full night's rest afterwards. *grin*

Marion was there too, but she spent the entire time on the ballet barre.

At one point we invited the headmaster of the private school over in the hopes of getting Lauren and River admitted. Unfortunately, things were just too chaotic with the twins and a nanny and my family and all, so they didn't get admitted. Jihoon made sure to pay extra attention to me afterwards so I didn't get depressed. It was a little discouraging, but in our defense we had been blindsided by twins in between when we made the appointment and when the headmaster arrived. Things were just a little out of control.

Jihoon also looks slightly drunk. I bet that wouldn't help get one's kids into private school. 

Despite all the chaos, I wouldn't trade my children for anything in the world.

House pictures! The downstairs is still very unfinished, because they don't have a lot of money.

The upstairs is much closer to being finished...there's a master bath, a nursery, a room for the older girls, a hobby room over the garage, and three bathrooms.

I still love the outside of this house. I think it's one of my best houses.

Several notes:

1. I didn't start noticing "bolts" of attraction between Sims until recently, thanks to reading about it on other Sim blogs. Jihoon and Francine would be doomed in most neighborhoods because they have ZERO bolts. Yet they're an absolutely adorable couple. Whenever I slip in Ruling With An Iron Fist (my preferred play style) Jihoon will immediately go and give Fran a tender kiss. Seriously, it's pretty much the only autonomous action he ever does.

(Relatedly, Jihoon has two bolts for Elise Kules and Fran has two bolts for Darius Kules. Too bad; I'm not doing a Sim version of Wife Swap.)

2. In Sims 3 I think Jihoon would have the Loser trait, poor dear. He seriously takes FOREVER to get skills and friends. It could just be that he seems simpleminded because he's surrounded by Knowledge Sims, though. (His wife is Knowledge, obviously. Then two of his four siblings and both of his sisters-in-law are also Knowledge.) But seriously. FOR-EV-ER.

3. I didn't know until I played this house that the cop could lose a fight with the burglar. At least nothing got stolen and nobody seems to really care, unlike Jihoon's sisters, who were furious for ages and ages after Whitfill Ranch got broken into while they lived there.

4. You might notice that in that picture at the table they're all eating berry pie, NOT cheesecake. The twins totally blindsided me too. Especially since I got a bit of a glitch when they were born...Elijah was born as normal and I got a dialog box prompting me to name him, which I did. Then Francine dropped him on the floor and wouldn't pick him up. I was worried I had a glitchy baby until suddenly Francine clutched her abdomen and spun around AGAIN. Tamara appeared and I got another completely separate dialog box prompting me to name her.

I'm through Week Six in this house (as you might be able to tell) and haven't had any more glitchiness from the twins, so I'm starting to breathe a bit easier.

5. I can't remember if the Landgraab family visit in this post was by invitation or not (I think it was), but Beata really does drop by uninvited all the time. (She also does it with her daughter Joan, but not Edith or Millie so far. Weird.)

6. I invited the headmaster before the twins were born, figuring it wouldn't be too hard to handle one baby and a headmaster visit. (Ha ha ha.) The twins were born Sunday morning or perhaps early afternoon. Fran went to work that afternoon for some reason. Probably she was promotable and I sent her because they desperately needed the money, but I don't remember now. Anyway, she had a want to get River into private school and a fear of her being rejected. She got back right before the headmaster left and I could tell the visit wasn't going to pan out, so I had Jihoon ask her on a date so that her fears rerolled. I'm a chicken. (Also, that date ended up being just Great, not Dream, which means it did nothing to advance Jihoon's lifetime want. It was not a banner day in Lothlorien.)