Wednesday 5 September 2012

The past and pending

Round 34: August 2039 (Winter)
Sam's last update/Julia's last update/next update

Sam Whitney is 29 and Julia Gray is 28.
(Malcolm and Susannah are 29, Hope is 28 and Zac is 5)
Narrated by Sam Whitney

For a while now, Zac has been asking if he can stay for a longer time at our place and Susannah and I finally organised it.

We were going to do it during his winter school break but it made more sense for him to stay put during the holidays. Julia would have been on her break from teaching at that time too but I didn’t think it was fair to leave her to care for Zac the majority of the time.

Instead, Julia and I took Zac all of last week, from one Friday night until the next.

I went in to work an hour early every day, so I could be home by 3pm and be there for Zac when he got home.

He’s a really studious little kid and currently has his sights set on earning all As on his next school report. I don’t know where he gets that from, because neither Susannah or I have put any pressure on him about it.

But we did lots of reading every night anyway, just because Zac was pretty keen to practice.

It was awesome having dinner with Zac every night and hearing him talk about his day. Only having him on the weekends most of the time, I miss out on that.

Julia isn’t used to being around such young kids, so having Zac around for the whole week helped her get a bit closer to him as well.

Zac seemed to appreciate Julia’s cooking a lot and he told her so. Julia is a lot better than me in the kitchen, that’s for sure.

Eating Susannah’s food all the time, it must be disappointing for Zac that his dad can’t manage anything more complicated than toaster pastries for breakfast!

Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to hold it against me.

During Zac’s visit, I got to hear all about Daniel, Susannah’s boyfriend, who Zac adores. He’s an architect and Zac thinks designing buildings for a living is pretty awesome.

If Daniel’s going to be an important part of Susannah’s life, then I want Zac to like the guy, so it’s great that they get along.

But I’m a tiny bit jealous about just how much Zac seems to like him. I don’t want to be pushed aside; if Daniel ends up moving in, he’ll see Zac much more than I do.

I’m trying hard not to let that bother me. Julia thinks Zac probably talks about me to Daniel as much as he talks about Daniel to me. Zac does love to talk!

She keeps reminding me that it was Zac who kept pushing for a longer stay at our place, so he must think his dad is pretty cool.

As great as Julia is about Zac’s visits, I think she’s probably secretly relieved when he goes home again. She’s in middle of her first year of her Master’s of Education and it can’t be easy studying with a 5-year-old running around.

Julia’s principal is considering retirement in the next few years and being the next most senior teacher, she’d like Julia to take over.

Julia would love to take on that role one day but she needs a master’s degree to do it, so she started that at the beginning of the autumn semester.

I was a little worried about the cost; tuition is $8000, which is money we just don’t have.

Fortunately though, we’re going to be able to claim it all back on our taxes. The government is willing to pay for people do to do extra study if there’s a position that needs to be filled that will benefit the community, like principals for schools.

One of Julia’s co-workers, Veronica Moretti, lives next door to us and is doing the same course at the moment.

At first, Julia described Veronica as “abrasive”, which was kind of funny as I think a lot of people would describe Julia the same way.

They seem to get along okay now though and have been saving each other some work by sharing their research.

Even with that though, Julia is often up at all hours of the night doing her coursework.

These days, she’s rarely in bed before two in the morning. I can’t believe she’s even mildly functional the next morning.

I’m glad Julia is enjoying her studies but I can’t say I’m not looking forward to having my girlfriend back, once she’s done with all this.

I’m amazed she has time to think about anything else at the moment but the other night, seemingly out of the blue, she asked me if I’d ever thought about getting married.

I was pretty sure where that came from! We had Julia’s best friend Hope and Malcolm over for dinner; they eloped last month.

Wedding planning had become more of a chore than something to look forward to, so they just forgot about the whole thing and got married.

Julia thinks it all sounds like it was quite romantic, though it’s not exactly what she’d want to do for her own wedding.

But she did want some assurance from me that marriage was a possibility for us in the future. Having a family one day is most important to Julia, above all else.

It’s a possibility for sure. A really strong possibility, actually.

The thought crossed my mind quite a while ago but I hadn’t said it out loud until Julia broached the topic. It feels quite real now, like it’s definitely where we’re headed.

It’s exciting but we’ve agreed to wait until Julia is finished with her Master’s before we discuss it further. Planning a wedding while studying and working full time isn’t something either of us see as the best idea.

Notes:
  • Title is from The Past and Pending by the Shins.
  • Julia's tuition being covered by the hood council is something I came up with while I was playing last night. It's not complicated enough to need its own post but basically, if I find myself with a position that needs to be filled or will need to be filled soon and no suitable sim to fill it, I'll allow a sim (in this case, Julia) to take the necessary classes and then claim it all back on their taxes. Veronica and Leslie will have to pay for their own tuition, because they're not the sims I'm "grooming" to become principal one day. Sam and Julia could afford the tuition on their own - just. But this will make things easy for them.
  • Sneak preview of Veronica and Adelaide's apartment! I just finished it the other day. :D
  • Sam and Julia skipped a round (I somehow managed to skip over TWO families last round!), so they've been living together for about two years now. They've had marriage wants for about as long. They're not engaged but they'll be headed that way at some point in the future.

25 comments:

  1. I like the idea of having the hood council pay for tuition for needed positions. Almost like Peace Corps in which they forgive student loans in exchange for service.

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    1. Glad you like it. I just figure if the hood needs the position filled, then they need it filled. It makes sense to me that they'd offer incentives for people to do the extra study needed, Julia was the first one to take up the offer, so she's the lucky guinea pig!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. I hope Julia isn't going to burn out working so hard! Going to school and working is super exhausting.

    And the hood council covering the tuition is a good idea, and really realistic.

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    1. Oh, let's hope not! She only has another year to go after this one, so Julia will hopefully last at least that long.

      Glad you like the hood council idea. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  3. You come up with such great ideas - and that's on top of the great places you make for your Sims to live in!
    I love the cosy look and feel of Julia and Sam's house, and how Sam's son likes to spend time there with his Dad.

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    1. Thanks for the compliments! I'm glad other people enjoy seeing what I'm up to in my game.

      Julia and Sam's place is actually an apartment, built by Starr at Apple Valley. It's full of my own sims now, so it's a fun apartment block. It'll be nice for Sam and Julia to move eventually, to somewhere with a bit more space for Zac to play.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  4. I'm glad that Zac was able to spend some more time with his dad, and it's so nice that Julia gets along with Zac as well. With all the crazyness she's been in, it could have turned out not so good.
    I hope Julia doesn't forget to 'live' with all the studying she does! But I guess it's worth it in the end, when she gets the job.
    I love the idea of the hood council covering the tuition.

    I have a question about that shot of Julia studying on the kitchentable, when she has that pen in her hand. How do you get her to do that, is it posed?

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    1. Yeah, I imagine Sam would miss Zac quite a bit when he's not around, so I was happy to do a longer visit for him. I'm not sure Zac had met Julia before in game, so that went quite well too.

      Ha, I think Julia would say there'll be plenty of time for living once she's done with her master's! She's very focused on that at the moment.

      As for that picture, no, that's not posed (though I do have a writing pose box). That's done with allmenus on, which unlocks the college options for non-college sims.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. Julia and Sam are a really cute couple, they just work really well together. I'm always a bit apprehensive about her with Zac, she just doesn't seem like a kid person, and not really into that role. But she does alright.

    Zac is adorable. Do glad you did surgery on him! Now he fits his family. Having him stay for a week was really sweet. Poor Susannah for that week though. At least she has Daniel.

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    1. I really like Julia and Sam together too. I had the same worries you did about Julia with Zac, because she really doesn't seem like a kid person at all! But she seems to be doing okay. I think she'll probably be better once she has her own kids.

      I was thinking how glad I was about Zac's surgery while I was playing. I can actually see a resemblance between him and his dad now. Susannah would have missed him like crazy while he was gone but I guess, no more than Sam would miss him most of the time!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  6. Interesting that you have the hood council allow some to claim Gordon for taxes. I'm thinking about establishing a BROTH type of program, where a career ( military in this case) pays for tuition in exchange for a few years of service; the only family that might have been able to send their teen to college was the Februarys, and now they've got a new baby.
    I'm glad Zac gets along with all his family, biological and potential. I'm also glad Julia has buried all her hatchets. They all get a chance for lasting happiness, and isn't that what everyone wants?

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    1. I've never heard of BROTH but it sounds like what our military does here in Australia. The defence forces academy will pay for your uni in exchange for a certain period of service once you leave. My friend's husband took them up on that and is now in the Air Force.

      I'm really glad Julia found somebody because I wasn't sure how she'd end up! She's Knowledge/Family, so she wants a husband and kids one day but she didn't seem to know how to go about it before!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
    2. Meant to say JROTC, the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. My smartphone is not so smart after all, lol.

      Delete
    3. Oh, LOL! That, I have heard of!

      Delete
  7. I thought maybe you had decided to make Julia and Sam into playable NPC's but I'm glad you didn't. I enjoyed reading about their little family a lot. It's great that Zac got to spend more time with his dad and that he got along with Julia so well.

    Julia is really burning the candle at both ends, isn't she! I hope she does ok with her master's, she's definitely putting a lot of work into it.

    I have a WCIF, do you remember where you got Julia's top? I know I saw those sweaters just a few days ago somewhere but stupid me didn't download or pin them so now I can't find them anywhere!

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    1. Ha, I considered it! But I said I'd made them playables, so I had to do an update, lol. I was just super-disorganised last round and forgot.

      Julia's a busy lady right now! She's about halfway through her course though, so it'll all be over soon.

      Let me check on Julia's top. I only downloaded them a few days ago but damned if I can remember where I got them!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
    2. Hey Sari, Julia's top is from The Big Tradeoff. Such great stuff there this month but I always forget to check there when I'm looking for something!

      http://thebigtradeoff.livejournal.com/15156.html

      Delete
  8. Julia and Sam are really nice couple. It doesn't seem that long ago he was Susannah and the both of them have moved on, but atleast they seem to be happy.

    I like the idea of requiring master's degrees for the principal position.It must be relief for Julia to study for her degree with the option to reclaim it on her taxes.

    Similar to Maisie, I don't see Julia as a kid person either.I read some of her past and she is quite memborable. Anyway, while I don't see her a kid person, because she is a teacher, I think she can atleast have some tolerance for kids.I don't see her being anti-children.

    It's always nice to see couples getting serious about the possibility of weddings.It is especially nice because you have awesome weddings, so I hope they don't take too long.I love how some couples know within two years whether there is a possibility, but then are other couples who wait much longer.I definitely love how sims seem to make up their mind in their own time.I like these two together and alot and look forward to their next update.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. You're right, it doesn't seem like that long ago since Sam and Susannah broke up. It was actually almost four years ago in game now though! I think they're happier apart than together.

      Here, every principal I've come across has at least a Master's and some have doctorates. So I'm really just representing a bit of my own world in my game with this. :)

      Ha, yes, "memorable" would be one word for Julia! I think there are people who are kid people with their own kids and don't particularly care for anyone else's. I think she's probably one of them!

      The possibility of Julia and Sam getting married is exciting but I'm trying not to think about it yet! I have a lot of things to get through before then. ;)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  9. That program sounds like a nifty idea--I'm glad it works out in Julia's favor.
    It's pretty sweet that Sam is a little worried about Daniel stealing his little boy--I hope that they are all able to adjust without too much trouble. Sam and Julia moving toward marriage seems like a good idea--it's nice to see her settled and not so angry (LOL at Veronica coming across as abrasive!).

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    1. Funny you should comment on this post and Julia's degree in particular. I just this second had Zaria send off the necessary money into the ether! So Julia's all paid up now, courtesy of Zaria and the hood council. :)

      I can't imagine Sam would be as okay with Daniel as Susannah is with Julia. Being the non-custodial parent would be hard, in terms of trying to keep that bond up with your child. Sam's a good dad, so he worries about that.

      LOL, Julia is not very self-aware!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  10. Awww, I am glad they are finally talking about getting married! I was wondering how long it would take. :)

    I'm glad everything is going well with this split family and that Zac is happy.

    Short comment. It's a pain to use smart phone keyboards!

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    1. Yeah, I sort of forgot they'd been together for so long! I don't see Julia waiting very long past 30; she's got something of a family with Sam and Zac but she wants her own child, for sure.

      Yes, smartphone keyboards suck! I almost gave up one of my forums when I couldn't get into it on my PC (problem solved, thankfully!)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  11. Samn and Julia are a good match for each other and it's great that Zac fits in perfectly over there.

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    1. Yeah, I'm happy with how this little family are doing. I wasn't sure what was in store for Sam or Susannah when they broke up but they're both doing all right now. :) Zac too. :)

      Sorry, I took so long to reply! I didn't get email notification for this comment. I turned on comment moderation for comments on posts over two weeks old.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete