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Maybe make up for it up by keeping your prices higher in the spring and summer?
I have been at $99 per night high season for literally YEARS. I would charge higher at Christmas and as a block and even felt guilty. I was always booked solid. Well then this year I said, heck. I am just going to raise my rates to 120 to 130 for the high season and see what happens. If it doesnt book, I will just lower it. Well not only did it book but it booked out faster than it ever had!
I also changed my rate to $135 in February and even those booked!!! Quite shocked!
At first I was feeling a bit guilty, but hey, my costs go up every year, my mortgage, light bills and insurance. Why should the place be priced the same as seven years ago when I started?
I know when June rolls around I wonāt be able to give it away. So I am ok with making hay while the sun shines in Hawaii and almost nowhere else.
That great attitude is the right attitude. And it seems that the supply is greatly outstripping demand so many new āhostsā with visions of a quick $1k are going to be disappointed. I know much of my ādepressionā isnāt just for your listing itās for the whole situation. Even here on the forum the tone of fear, paranoia and bigotry seems more pronounced. Kudos to you for helping the immigrant boy with the tough family situation. Iām dreading the stories Iām going to hear in my community if the right wingers get their way on immigration, deportations and ending the DREAMS of many.
I just meant to say that children, at least children who live middle-class (or better) lives, donāt have the same kind on pressures on them that adults do. I did not mean to imply that they donāt have things to do. But for children, Western societyās expectations are only that they study (usually, go to school) and engage in activities. Which, frankly, is often a waste of time, but thatās a different topic.
Anyway, it sounds like you have plenty going on, so it doesnāt sound unreasonable to ask your children to help out. If they can. Itās a family business!
Iām glad to hear that your children are doing well. Maybe home schooling works for them. I donāt know what I think of home schooling, but I do know that, based on first hand experience, that regular schools often fall into the category of cruel and unusual punishment. I personally regarded my own school as a prison sentence. Designed to destroy the human spirit. Or at least, mine.
well, this is off topic! But yes, my schooling was miserable. Home schooling isnāt perfect, and not right for all kids. We just enrolled my son in a special public high school for immigrants. Iām not really happy with how the classrooms are being managed, but he (and I, lol) are much, much happier, and he is learning something. Heās VERY excited about RNA and DNA! But my daughters both thrive with home school and love to learn, so itās working for them.
Yes, kids here in the US donāt have the same pressure as kids in, say, China, and I imagine, India. My sister works for Syracuse school of Architecture. She will walk by the lab late at night, and what students are busy sweating over their projects? Asians, including those from India. Not the Americans, thatās for sure.
I do wonder about all those activities also. When they were young we took a lot of walks, and played a lot of games. I miss that so much. But the kids are passionate about what they do. And, at my local state University, the average GPA of incoming freshman is 4.2, but they also want to see a plethora of activities, and, by god, they better be leaders in those clubs, too. We donāt have that. My daughter just danced. But she loves it, is good at it, and has lots of performing experience which can grow a person up quick. @konacoconutz would you say what I said here about college admission is true?
Well I can only say based on my alma mater, UCLA. We, the alumni, help evaluate freshman scholarship apps, junior transfer apps and senior scholarship apps. UCLA is the most applied to public university in the country, with a record-shattering 100,000 freshman apps this year. So they can afford to be choosy. In general, they want the 4.2, and this means basically all your classes must be AP and honors (they look at your choice of classes) and more especially leadership roles. Genuine ones. For instance, some of the apps I reviewed had students who started their own non profits to serve a particular cause, and had a verifiable track record with it that they could share. Authentic community service. Not just made up ones, easy to spot. We like to see real jobs worked, even if they were just Taco Bell. Some were already involved in the university as high school students, helping in the department where they wanted to major. I always rated highly those committed to something for four plus years such as an instrument or ballet. It demonstrates commitment. But key was the essay. If they had all of the above and gave me a crap essay they got marked down. The essay is the only way we really have to get to know you personally. Did you answer the prompt, use the full word count, write creatively and originally, expressively? No spelling or grammar errors. The rubric for this originally was non existent so I suggested to the committee that they adopt a full point rubric on the essay. And thanks to me, all students applying for scholarships or transfers at UCLA now get judged very critically on their essay, which is as it should be.
By the way, I donāt think clubs counted all that much, and we were told to disregard NHS and deans list as meaningless.
At the public school where I worked it was not at all rare to see āchildrenā over age 16 working jobs outside of school hours. I taught mostly upperclassmen and Iād say at least a quarter of my students had jobs for at least part of the school year and/or summer break.
16 is a young adult. If itās legal to have ārelationsā then youāre also fine to get a job.
By children I mean under 10. You do not see that in the west. In India you have children who unfortunately get put to work instead of going to school though Iām sure itās getting better.
The high-performing Indian immigrants you see in the USA donāt bear much relationship to most Indians. US immigrants from Indian are a small and self-selected group, and are very motivated. Often they arrive as students. They might not have had much (or anything) in India, and they are haunted by the grim specters of the poverty and desperation they left behind. So, yes, theyāre hardworking people.
Indian education may be pressure-filled, but itās also abysmal. Do a search for (for example) the 2009 and 2012 PISA results. After the 2012 results the Indian govt pulled out, citing unfairness.
FWIW, these numbers are in line with my personal experience of Indian education. Elite schools in India are better, of course.
Indian education manages to be bad in all possible ways simultaneously. At least in the US, the kids have a reasonably good time in high school, even if they donāt learn much. As I learned at UNC, young Americans donāt like their schools being criticized (just in terms of academic performance). OTOH, Iād be perfectly fine with it if people criticized my school.
Wow. So many stereotypes in one post @faheem ! The students in NC do not in any way reflect the students in the Northeast, who are no doubt different than those in in the upper Midwest. Each state seems to value education differently, and the results mean that there is no one experience for American high school students. Just as important is how much the family values the quality of their childās education.
For example, in my graduating class of 392, 87 students received both perfect scores on the SATās and had at least three 4ās on the AP Exams.
I have lived in many states of this country, and NC was at the bottom of our list for education. In fact, that is why we left the state when our kid turned 5.
Iām not sure what stereotypes you mean. If you are talking about the US, my post wasnāt particularly about that. And I agree that NC education on average is probably not great. But, again, I wasnāt really talking about US education. This was mostly about India. And Indian immigrants to the US.
