Heading towards year 2 exams (uni 2017)

[brizzlemint]

Starting uni 2017 continued.
Tales of radiators, errant boilers, tomatoes and potato mashers...oh and university students.

I got a cheese calendar this year, thinking I'd try all sorts of new cheeses. So far I've had cheddar and Red Leicester 😂.

DD has an assignment due tomorrow and is apparently spending the day in the library today. I have a sneaky suspicion that she doesn't do her work until the last possible moment, but she seems to be doing okay, so I'll leave her to it. I'm bored of suggesting forward planning.

Hello everyone

No advent calendar here - the gin one looked tempting but `I have too many concerts to really enjoy it. I bought cheap Cadbury ones for the DDs - both asked me to keep them here and they will open them when they get home.

I'm collecting DD1 this weekend. She has the annual Snow Ball on Friday - bf is flying over for that - so she won't surface til Saturday afternoon. I will drive to Cambridge on Saturday and hopefully do a bit of shopping on Saturday then I managed to book a Travelodge very cheaply so I'm staying over. We'll load up very early on Sunday and I'll drive home whilst she naps in the car. I have a rehearsal in Devon on Sunday afternoon, so it's a bit of a mad dash.

I collect DD2 the following weekend, but it's a bit nearer and easier to do all in one day. My dad arrives on 16th then I have another week of concerts/Carol Services before I can finally wind down.

In other news, DD1 texted today about a choir tour to Tuscany in March and did I mind her missing my birthday. Lucky girl - I wish I was going too!

DD isn't coming home till the 23rd, by train. Partly because she can't lug enough notes home for a longer stay, but mostly because there will be friends around - overseas students and others. Also, she's got into a couple of societies - one is astronomy, she's learned how to use their telescope. The other is an engineering type of group, which was unwelcoming when she first took a look at it as a fresher but now the awkward sods who ran it then have left so it's all good. Without getting into details, she's trying to design some electronics for their project with some very challenging criteria.

Bristol's 20 December end of term date is pretty helpful as I am really busy with work here anyway although my older son is staying here on Friday night (as will be at a concert in London) so will be nice to see him.

I hope the Tasmania trip works out. My uncle and his wife emigrated there and he worked as a doctor on the island and they stayed there when he retired. They both died out there. It was just too expensive to visit them unfortunately particularly when they first went out in about 1970. I remember even the Christmas phone call was a very expensive thing in those days - what a change today with free skype type calls etc.

Good to hear of our students enjoying stuff. That experience your dd is getting sounds incredibly useful for future CVs etc Errol. And singing in Tuscany sounds idyllic, Malbec

DS has thanked me for the advent calendar, I told him I wasn't sure if he'd want it seeing as he's away for 10 days. Mum, it's chocolate! Of course I want it!

He's thought a bit more about his options next year and I'm breathing a quiet sigh of relief that he's found a research grant that may pay for the masters he wants to do and he says he'll go for the BSc if he doesn't get the grant. The potential trip to see DS1 on Oz is back on!

Meanwhile poor ds is having a nightmare ordering kit for the community music room he's setting up. Due to not getting out of it fast enough, ds ended up being the one nominated to order a whole load of musical gear. Then due to a non-cancelled wrong order two drum kits have now been delivered to his very small student room. He's literally having to squeeze through and over a barricade of boxes to reach his bed!

Not quite the life skills he thought he'd be learning but all useful stuff!

No stockings here - DC would rather just have money, but i sent them an advent calendar each. No idea why as they both ssid yhey would snarf the chocolate in one go I got an M+S beauty calendar for me

DS back in 9 days, DD not sure yet as term doesn't finish till 20th....

Haff, the drum kits made me laugh out loud. Learning takes all forms.

I am glad he has thought through the intercalation a bit more. DS took a stupendously expensive one year Masters (about £24,000...though others can cost a lot more) and we found the money, but he then lived at home, worked very hard, and seemed grateful, so it was a bit less painful. Bank of mum and dad will probably do their best but only if the proposed investment makes sense.

Another whose DD finishes on 20th. She started at the beginning of September so is shattered. We will go then to the US to see her brother. I don’t know about others, but she only gets two weeks off.

Probate drags on. The latest is that the values saw the property six weeks ago and still has not produced a report. There is definitely a different pace of life. Or am I too much of a Londoner?

I realise we are on the last page....

One of my twins has a lecturer who has suddenly left - I think she may not be coming back either so those lectures are cancelled and then has strike impact on others so I think feels he has a wonderful easy end to the term with an assessment cancelled - he seemed very pleased and I was worried about losing teaching for which we (I) have paid. He will still stay until 20 as all their friends are still there.

We are on page 40 of the thread. i will start a new one called

Heading towards year 3 exams (uni 2017)

New thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3760846-Heading-towards-year-3-exams-uni-2016?watched=1

I started a different thread first before I realised our children started university in Autumn 2016 not 2017 so ignore that other one.....

Some will now be in their final academic year and others will have more to go. My son's friend is abroad on her (language) 3rd year and returns to Bristol after some of them leave. So I did not call it "finals year".

@Xenia, our lot started in 2017. 🙂

Thank you. Law school will count surely, otherwise Haff and I could be left on our own. And we will only be half way through. DS seems to have stretched his University experience to 10 years, so I feel a certain envy for those parents whose DC are actually earning.

DDs flatmate from last year is abroad. Unfortunately if DD intercalated, they will miss each other. Instead they seem to be sending each other weird small presents. DD would love to find the time to go out and visit, but it is difficult.

Oh we'll all pop back & say hello, I'm sure, Need 🙂

Not sure what DS's plans are - I suspect he knows, just isn't letting on yet. He did mention not many in his flat were considering doing a Masters.

Whether he returns home (to the back of beyond) after 3 years of city life remains to be seen...

Here's the link for the one with the right date, can we use that else we'll all end up confused!

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3760838-Heading-towards-year-3-exams-uni-2017

DDs on a 4 year integrated masters, there must be some others, Malbec I think?

None of DDs lecturers went on strike. I get the impression that it tended to be more on the courses which don't have a lot of lectures anyway. Not sure whether theres pressure from accrediting bodies for the more 'vocational' courses where the students really do have to learn a certain amount of stuff?

Or is it just that people teaching on accredited courses are more likely to be members of pension schemes other than the University one. (Or am I just displaying complete ignorance of what this strike is about.)

Visits will be welcome. I feel I have 'known' some of you for over a decade. Does anyone know what happened to OP brizzle (and variations). I loved her user name.

Yeah, I was wondering about @brizzlemint too - wasn't she doing a Masters herself??
Hope all is well with you, brizzle.

@Needmoresleep, sorry probate is dragging. Funding for my mum's care is also dragging

DD is hoping to do a Masters too. And all her lectures were cancelled...

BTM, it is such a struggle. I think that I had assumed that once my mother had passed things would get simpler. I realise there was an autocorrect in my previous post. It is the flipping valuer who I took round 6 weeks ago who has failed to write a report. He is charging an awful lot, so should at minimum be able to go on Zoopla and find property values then write a report. I guess my impatience is because I simply want to get it all over.

In truth my mum's flat is stunning and beach front, but probably too expensive to keep. (Which is why I want the valuation.) I can't sell till after probate so perhaps we can all sit on the terrace once probate is done and celebrate our DCs surviving their childhoods, before I put it on the market. (Xenia can provide wine as she has navigated parenting with five.)

Luckily we never had to pursue funding, in part because my mother's heart suddenly stopped just as 24 hour care was being suggested, plus we had the flat we could sell. I do not envy you.

When my father died (after my mother had 3 years before) it was not necessary to get a formal valuation and we just put the house on the market so was easier although value I had on the probate form was £100k more than we sold it for - people usually estimately wrongly the other way round - so at least there was no inheritance tax issue over that. The buyers later found a time capsule with notes we had all written and placed in the wall when my parents had an extension added when I was about 12 and the buyers kindly scanned it and send us a copy all those years later.

(I might have got the dates for the new thread wrong but never mind.... My twins year 1 was 2016/17, year 2 was 17/18 and this year is 19/20)

Yes, three estate agent valuations would be easier, but the flat is a bit of a one off so we have gone with the RICS guy with a good local reputation to help ensure there are no future problems with the tax man.

I should just accept that nothing is straightforward, even things that should be.

You skipped 18/19 there.

It's the counting starting from zero thing - Matt Parker had a bit to say on that (is your 'first birthday' when you're 0 or 1?)

My DS is experiencing his 1st work xmas party today.

I did give him some rules - don't get drunk, don't be sick, don't snog the boss!!! (which at my work do on Weds - 1 of the grad team said his mum give him the same rules... ! )

As its a 0 alcohol policy where he is - there are a lot of people letting their hair down! Hes sent me a message saying he's had the least to drink - I think he's slightly taken aback by it all!