Class of '18 still nattering.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

forgot the old link hang on a mo...

Regarding sleep, My DD is worried that she goes out for drinks till late, does film nights, room parties etc, but when they go clubbing DD and corridor friend come home - so she's always home by 1am latest. She feels she can't cope with early lectures and late night partying and is worried she'll be seen as a party pooper.

Told her not to worry - go clubbing at end of term. She is inherently sensible, DS not so much!

Nettles I am waiting for the discussion about washing of bathmats but I suspect that I will be presented with it in a sealed plastic bag at a later date. If it turns out to be the only thing DS has thrown up on then he's not done badly.

The illicit hamster lived in at the other end of my corrider. All was well until the curtains fell onto its cage and it made itself new bedding. There was much wailing, panic and shredded curtain but someone had a sewing kit and we shortened the curtains to windowsill level, chopping off the holey bits. They looked fine, no-one noticed that they were a foot shorter than everyone else's and they were up out of chewing range.

I'm sure those lively, partying boys will settle. Lots of pressure at start to make friends and be part of a group. I'm sure it will be okay soon third and nettles. My DS got drunkenness out of his system and he's mostly moderate now.

Knitting - what a fab student memory to have.

My college is currently flooded, for the first time since it flooded thirty years ago. Unfortunately no lectures were cancelled as it was a Sunday. Wonder if anyone else on mn rembers that.

Voilets DD2 has similar worries about not being able to keep up with both coursework and the party people.

She's on a combined science course so lots of contact hours and since her other course mate dropped out there is nobody to share the burden of timetable clashes with

Haven't heard much from her over the last couple of weeks. Seeing her this weekend. I am hoping that no news is good news but it hasn't always been so I do quietly worry.

Marmite enjoy the shopping.

Good luck with the treatment Marmite and I hope you get all your Christmas shopping done this week.

All good here - ds seems settled and extremely busy. Is hoping to go to London on Saturday for the March. Brings back memories of my own participation in the student marches against the poll tax and student loans - where we had a sit in on the oxford road in front of the old bbc!

The bbc in Manchester.

I hope the shopping goes well Marmite.

I'm missing dd at the moment a lot. She's happy though and that's the important thing. A lot of cambridge jargon makes for amusing texts.

I'm missing DS a bit tonight...we usually watch Bakeoff together, and Hunted. He has joined cake club to eat cake and watch bakeoff so I'm glad he is happy!

I like the sound of cake club.

"DD2 has similar worries about not being able to keep up with both coursework and the party people."

My worry is that DD won't do much partying because her course will be so demanding of her time.

On another note her second shift went brilliantly, and she made a new friend. Two more shifts this week, then another new PT job starts at the beginning of November. Unfortunately I will be tied to staying at home at weekends because flipping Northern Rail are planning yet more Saturday strikes for the foreseeable future so I will have to take her to and from work in the car.

Frustrating re train strikes Lonicera, but I am glad DD enjoyed her second shift. Well done her for sticking it out!
Yes, I like the sound of cake club too!

Cake club sounds like my kind of club!
DD was on FaceTime to us for the whole of Bake Off this evening!
It was almost like having her here. Except when it had finished she went to meet her friends at the pub instead of going to bed 

I'm missing her a lot now.
I think because she's been away for a week or 2 a few times before, the first couple of weeks didn't feel so bad. But this is the longest I've ever been without seeing her now and it's starting to ache a bit.
Luckily it's my half term next week so I'm going to pop down one day and meet her for lunch, I can't wait!

Well done to your DD Lonicera for going back for the second shift, I'm so glad to hear it went well! 

I am proud of her. Yesterday has done loads to boost her confidence.

Sadly, she has no social life, so I hope she can make friends once she has got settled in her jobs and volunteering.

Well done to your DD lonicera. I'm glad her second shift went better than the first. I'm sure she'll start meeting people once she's settled into jobs and volunteering.

I haven't heard from DD at all this week. I have a feeling the only contact we'll get is when I initiate it. Since she doesn't do phone calls (she just won't answer, anyone, not just us) all I'm getting is rare conversations by Facebook messenger. She seems happy though when I do hear from her.

It's my half term next week, and it's dd's birthday too. So we're going down to see her at the weekend and will take her out for dinner. That's only 3 weeks since she left. It'll be longer after that til she comes home for Christmas, so I think that's the point when I'll miss her more. I quite miss having a chat with her when I've had a bad day at school, she loved listening to stories of badly behaved children, nobody else does I need to find new people to moan about horrid teen-agers to. Would any of you like to hear stories of rotten toads swearing at me then running away from me?

I love a badly behaved child story!!

I think lots of us will be used to our children being away for 2/3 weeks at a time but this term is going to seem very long as they are away for week after week. Wonder if we will ever get used to that?

I have a couple of badly behaved child stories from yesterday. I think something must have gone on at lunchtime to disrupt everyone. I was free last lesson but had a child put into my classroom because he was being disruptive in their own class (he had called his teacher a prick already by this point). He was then texting in my classroom, and the rule is if we see a phone out we confiscate it. He refused to hand it over, talked to me like I was a piece of shit on his shoe. I went to get my hod to deal with him (remember this is my free and I'm supposed to be marking, not dealing with rude children) and in the 2 minutes I was out of the room he'd scarpered. I have no idea where he went and I had to get people looking for him, so 3 people spent half an hour searching the site to find him. Then I had to waste more bloody time writing a report of what happened. He is being dealt with today by the deputy head.

On holiday with poor signal but trying to keep up.

Woke to a text yesterday informing me that DD had lost her second pair of glasses. That's over £500 of eyewear since she went. And she gets headaches without them. I bloody despair

Not seen any cranes.

I love a badly behaved child story too Flaming teens! Did they find him or did he turn up again MrsAD?

That's brilliant Lonicera :) Well done to your dd, she nailed it! Don't worry about them not having time to party, it doesnt actually matter if they don't do very much. As long as they take a bit of social time out each day, it doesn't really matter.

Oh no Ursula! You'll have to get a chain for the next pair.

I saw the gp yesterday about something else. I've been struggling mental health wise recently and cited dd having gone as a contributing factor. She muttered understangly something about empty nest. argh, I honestly wasn't going to become a cliche. I hate that!

LoniceraJaponica well done to your DD managing the following shift.

DD2 wants to be able to enjoy her first year but doesnt feel able to party as hard as the others in her flat and still keep on top of her course.

I think one of the big differences between the sciences and other courses is the amount of contact time. If the lecture or lab is at 9am then students have to be there. No catching it up later. I dont think this makes science courses harder just different.

Maybe humanities courses require more self study than science courses then?

At the biomed subject talk at Manchester we were told that there would be 20 contact hours a week and the students should be doing 20 hours of self study. Newcastle has 30 contact hours a week. I hope they don't expect students to match those hours with self study.

DD's boyfriend has about 8 or 9 contact hours a week (history), and I doubt he even matches that in self study.

Oh I do think the self-study element for humanities can be just as demanding just not necessarily as rigidly timetabled.

Biomed? When DD1 was looking at open days a lot of hers (Bio Chem) were lumped in with Biomed.

It was very interesting to see the different courses. I remember one university course was essentially a factory for path lab trainees. A week later we went to a different university which showed off some of their research projects - medical testing equipment. These developments were going to do away with quite a lot of the routine path lab testing.

Is your DD looking at courses with a placement year? DD found her year in industry invaluable and I think helped secure the job she has now got.

Interestingly DD1's new job is at a company developing diagnostic testing equipment which is taking diagnostic research even further.

More and more routine diagnoses are coming from wee/spit/poo/bleed on a stick and read the results on a little screen within a few minutes. 'tis the future.

He went home kitten, so when someone phoned home to say what had happened and let them know he'd disappeared, they said "we were just about to phone you as he's just arrived home half an hour early".

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling mental health wise. That's so hard, especially when you feel like a cliche. You will get through it, but I know it affects a lot of people badly for a while. That's why it's a cliche btw, because loads of people find it hard when kids leave home, is a big life change.

"Oh I do think the self-study element for humanities can be just as demanding just not necessarily as rigidly timetabled."

But that takes self discipline - something that the BF has in short supply which is why he drank through his A levels and ended up going through clearing

Yes, DD is looking for a course with a placement year. I feel that is is important when looking for jobs. I think what your DD is doing is what interests DD. The subject talks we attended were basically all the biologial sciences lumped together, so they covered biomed, bio chem etc.