TWINS TRANSITION

Both girls have begun their studies at their respective schools, as they have each taken part in summer programs and events. Alba will commute to Queens College from her family's home in New York City. She is currently making arrangements with the school's disability coordinator to accommodate her needs, which

Mary Samoza will no doubt ensure are met. Alba is undeclared as to her major at this time but may pursue her interest in art as her study there progresses.

Anastasia also began her activities at Georgetown University this summer, but will move down permanently this fall with an aide. Also undeclared as of yet, Anastasia has expressed an interest in political science and may concentrate on it as her major in the future. Alba, Anastasia, their mother Mary, father Gerardo, older brother Oliver and younger sister Gabriella are excited and concerned for the twins as they leave their home for the first time, transition to new schools, and face life apart from one another – something they have never before experienced. Their collective hopes for this new adjustment are that the girls will find in their college educations all that every other incoming freshman has the opportunity to experience. Although the twins succeeded academically at the high school level, the social aspect of their time there was far less fulfilling. Mary's desire for her two daughters is that they will find the open-mindedness and tolerance in their peers at college that are so often absent from the thoughts of the average high school student. All she wants for her daughters, all she has ever wanted for them, is for them to be given the opportunity to have access to everything that others have received so freely.

All mothers are apprehensive about sending their children to college and being away from them for the first time. Because of her daughters' conditions, Mary Samoza is finding these feelings occurring at a much greater level. Nevertheless, her fears were lessened and replaced with another emotion when she called Anastasia during her recent stay at Georgetown. Excited to hear all about her daughter's time there, she was instead answered with the generic college-student-to-mother axiom, "Listen Mom, I have to go now; my friends are waiting. I'll call you later!" •

WHEN DETERMINATION WINS

Mary Samoza described an experience that Anastasia recently had while on a summer nature retreat at Georgetown with some of her classmates. In an attempt to create relationships and bonds among the freshman class, the students took part in exercises including mountain climbing and rope bridges in Virginia.

A quadrapalegic, Anastasia faced the mountain in her wheelchair and informed her peers that she would be waiting at the bottom. To her surpise, her decision was not accepted by her classmates and friends, which included three members of the Division One University's football team. Together, the teammates carried Anastasia and her chair all the way up the mountain. When they reached the top and approached the rope course ahead, those around her realized that this time she would wait behind, as the rope would only allow for one person at a time in single file.

However, Anastasia decided to get up from her chair and walk across the bridge. To help with her balance, which is impeded by the cerebral palsy, the football players guided her, and thirty minutes later she was across and received with a sea of cheering and smiles. The end of the journey came in the form of a rope drop down the mountain in what Anastasia described to her mother as the most "awesome" thing she had ever done. Shortly after the event, the students wrote apout their experiences that day and many chose to comment on Anasatsia, what she had done, and how they were now awakened to how much a person could truly overcome

Excited to hear all about her daughter's time there, she was instead answered with the generic college-student-to-mother axiom, "Listen Mom, I have to go now; my friends are waiting. I'll call you later!"