UEA freshers (2019 starters) part 2

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Previous thread and hope you don't mind that I set up the next thread @juicy0. Just did it to ensure that we carry on chatting seamlessly

So both DS's home for the first weekend since term started. DS1 is watching Last Leg with us and its lovely, DS2 the fresher has been napping in his bed since about 8 o'clock
DS2 seems to have settled really well and has made several good friends already. He is enjoying the Geography course and also 6 a side football. He has also joined the gym and making the most of being on campus. In short, he is clearly enjoying himself immensely but the 8pm bedtime is telling.....

@sluj must be fab to have them both back home at once. Your DS2 sounds exhausted. Good that he has settled in so well though.

Just reminded DS to watch the rugby semi-final. Was very surprised that he'd not tuned in. He is sports mad (of the armchair variety!).

Just coming to the end of a lovely weekend visiting DS. We stayed at the central Travelodge - no frills, but perfectly ok, accepts dogs, next door to an NCP car park. We ate at Mr Pickwick's last night, and The Eagle tonight, both walking distance to the hotel. Both nice, food better at Mr Pickwick's. We drove to Cromer during the day and went for a long walk with the dog along the beach, which in the glorious sunshine was fab. DS said he was really missing the dog. Met some of his flat mates, they all seem nice. Seems their flat is the place to be in the lower village, with lots from other flats joining for pres. it does sound like is is enjoying the hockey and hockey socials, perhaps a bit too much! He said there hasn't been talk of sorting houses for next year yet amongst his friends, but has been to quite a few pres at large houses shared by 2nd and 3rd years, so got the impression there seemed to be lots of student houses available.

@GoldenRuby pleased you had a good weekend and all is well. I also ate at Mr Pickwicks last week and enjoyed my meal but it was quite quiet and lacking in atmosphere on a Tuesday evening, was it busier at the weekend?
DD and I enjoyed a lovely walk at Covehithe in the sunshine yesterday before heading into Southwold and Magpies bakery for a snack and a drink.
There is talk amongst her flat/course mates about next years accommodation but no action yet. There are plenty of student lets in the city centre and close to the UEA soo can't see there being a shortage. Interestingly DD has said she would rather remain close to campus as she has quite a lot of contact hours and would prefer to be able to return home in between lectures everyday rather than hang out on campus. I'm surprised, I thought she would want to be closer to the city centre in Y2.

We went to visit DS just for the day yesterday, it was so lovely to see him, we also took the dog and had a walk around the campus/lake with him.
Thank you for the recommendation, we had a lovely Sunday lunch at The Eagle just what DS wanted.
He seems reasonably happy, he’s in a quite quiet flat but they all seem to get on and despite the lack of social space they have been improvising and watching movies together in the corridor, they also eat together once a week and have been starting to talk about getting a house together next year.
I was slightly more concerned about DS room it was a real mess and so unorganised.
We spent some time just sorting things out for him to make it easier, his big problem is he hasn’t managed to do any washing yet and has now run out of clean clothes and has at least 4 loads of washing to do. He said it’s always full with people waiting when he goes, I went with him and it was, he tried again at 11.30Pm last night and still no joy. Having so much washing to do is now really stressful for him (and having no clean clothes).
This is the type of thing I was worried about, he’s got Asperger and is entitled through DSA to support to help him, but of course he hasn’t contacted student support to arrange it. I’m now not sure if I should just keep hassling him to go to the launderette or make another trip this week (we are only 1.5hrs away) and sort out his laundry for him, I don’t want to be a backpacker but I can see that he has let this slip into a real problem that he’s struggling to resolve and I’m a bit concerned.
Anyone got any tips for a good time to try the launderette ?

@juicy0 Mr Pickwick's was probably about half full. There was a large table down the other end including some people over from Greece - which led to a rather eclectic selection of music and dancing by the barman! The Eagle had better music but wasn't very busy and felt flatter, but this may be because it was a Sunday evening, may have been better at lunchtime.

@Itscoldouthere DS is in the Village, and they have a launderette down there. He says the best time is in the middle of the day between lectures, but I guess that only works if you aren't in contact time all day, and may be less true on campus where everything is so close. Our friend who was in Paston last year used to go in the early hours of the morning, but think that probably was partly to do with her 'uni body clock' as well as availability of machines.

@Itscoldoutthere that does sound stressful-

I suspect as it's still busy at 11:30 at night that early morning-when everyone is snoozing-would be the the quietest time.

I do understand wanting to help him break the back of it as sometimes it gets overwhelming. Maybe send some clean pants and socks and suggest he sets and alarm and gets in early-I dont know what uni laundrette etiquette is-can you do 2 washes at once? Let us know how he gets on.

DD was washing her bedding and said she might spend the extra to tumble dry it-I did encourage that as don't think her duvet would ever dry in room. Plus not healthy to dry too much in room because of the damp on her chest.
DD coming home for first time on thursday-hurrah!! She is most excited for food she can't afford, the dog and her bed!!

Ds is on a quite contact heavy course, I think he has 2 days where he starts at 11am but isn’t free in the middle of the day, so I’ll encourage him to get up early on those days and try again, he’s been buying extra socks and pants, he only had 3 t shirts and 1 pair of socks left in the clean clothes pile.
He’s not very interested in clothes, so laundry really isn’t high up on his priority, but as I said I’m torn between thinking this will be a good lesson and make him realise he needs to do a washing every week, and worrying that he won’t sort it out and will just start wearing dirty clothes.
He’s allowed things to overwhelm him before and has tended to not rise to the challenge.
Overall I’m really pleased about how he’s getting on and coping with everything, it’s been a big challenge for him and I don’t want the laundry thing to drag him down.
I was slightly surprised by the seeming small amount of laundry facilities on campus.

@Itscoldouthere I think I'd be tempted to help him get on top of the washing to take the stress away and would probably make the trip to collect it. Call me a backpacker but I think there is a good chance many of our DC could have a mid term wobble around this time and its little things like this, when put together, that seem hard to overcome. In the meantime you can encourage him to make arrangements for the support available and tell him to plan an early alarm once a week to visit the laundrette going forwards.
They have so little space to air dry clothes and they can't always have windows open to help, tumble drying is inevitable I think.

@juicy0 yes I’m contemplating it, I could drive up and go to a launderette in Norwich and get it all done and then make sure he starts going once a week, I just can’t imagine how he’s going to get 4 loads done to get on top of the problem.
Might be time to get my backpack on 😂

itscoldouthere
We took our DSs back on Sunday and surreptitiously peeked in the open doors of his flat mates. I was pleasantly surprised to see that DS2 did not have the most untidy room, and his was a mini pig sty! They are all untidy.
DS1 literally had about 35 pairs of pants and socks in year 1 to minimise his washing. He also learnt to fold clothes back up and wear them more than once if they weren't dirty, something neither of them do at home.
Perhaps get your DS to prioritise the clothes that need washing (underwear and t shirts?) Then go at 8am.
Only you can gauge whether or not this will be a big problem and worth a trip for you. It might be worth it to start him off again.
Hope he gets sorted.

@Itscoldouthere - are you able to contact student support on DS's behalf? It would be a shame if his uni experience were derailed by small details such as laundry and room-tidying, but maybe that's where the support is needed most.

Anyway, DD1 arrived home on Friday evening for reading week - it was so lovely to see her, although the household noise level has increased dramatically (she's the loudest of the lot). She was pretty happy with her new bedroom (DD2's revamped single room) and was full of chat about her new life.

She seems to have a nice friendship group going, with two girls from her flat plus another one, and they are already talking about next year's accommodation. The other two in her flat she gets along with fine too, and she's got to grips with the domestic side of things. She's already thinking about bulk-cooking things like bolognaise and freezing portions of it! And their cleaner has told them their flat is the tidiest of all the flats she cleans.

She was pretty chuffed that one of my friends phoned to offer a small pile of textbooks, handed down from her own DS who's just graduated - she nagged me to collect them as soon as possible because she was SO keen to get cracking on the week's work. I'm hoping her enthusiasm will rub off on DD2, who has a heap of A Level stuff to be getting on with this week but somewhat lacks motivation.

She arrived with a suitcase bulging with laundry (both sets of bedding ) and a load of damp stuff she had washed but not dried - she said she is managing to get laundry done, but the machines aren't very good. She's in the Village, so uses the launderette there, and has had no problem getting a slot, particularly during the morning.

I just booked her return bus for Sunday (Megabus) and was pleased to note that it can be paid for with Tesco Clubcard points. Happy days!

Thank you for all your encouraging words, I really am trying to leave DS to his own devices and not get too involved, but he’s been quite low on contact with me and I can see he’s generally getting a bit disorganised and I know all too well from past experiences that this can tip into his course work etc if everything gets too out of hand, he’s a gamer and can loose himself in games if he’s trying to avoid doing other stuff.
I has promised me he will contact student support but I might give them a call to see if they can contact him and move things on a bit.
He was never tidy in his room at home, but I thought I’d done a good enough job on teaching about washing etc but obviously not, their rooms are so small that if they are unorganised it really feels like living in chaos!
He told me he doesn’t get up for the cleaner so she just empties his bin (he usually just sees her hand 😳) so he’s not embarrassed to be living in a mess, it would drive me mad!

If DS's room is anything like his home one, it will be a total mess.

FWIW DS hasn't managed to visit the laundrette yet either. He must be running out of clean undies at the very least. He says he's not going to do any this week though!!! And #CBA to go off campus to potentially find a quieter (and possibly cheaper) one to use.

Lucky your DD having a reading week @CointreauVersial. Presumably her course is starting to get more interesting now - wasn't she a bit bored at the beginning?

Glad those of you who have recently connected with your DC had good weekends. DS told us not to visit until after Christmas. Quite charming not! I was quite looking forward to a trip to see him and do some seasonal shopping. Hey ho.

Clearly DS isn't missing us but DD is definitely missing him. She thought it was only a couple of weeks until he was due home for Christmas.

@Itscoldouthere what did you decide to do in the end? How is your DS this week?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 - yes, she was a bit bored with her course at first, but it has picked up. She is actually appreciating the various recaps of her A Level course, and it means she is keeping up well so far. There have been some more interesting projects in the last couple of weeks.

She says her flatmates (the two who don't have reading week) are missing her.

@CointreauVersial good to hear that your DD is enjoying her course and is missed by her flatmates.

Finding it interesting that reading week varies so much from university to university and course to course. DS hasn't got one doing Geography.

Just noticed that DS finishes his studies, pre-Christmas on the day of the General Election...

@juicy0 well I put my backpack on went up yesterday afternoon. Like many he has Wednesday afternoon off, so we took everything to a launderette off campus.
I think he’s not been wearing things more than once as he had so much washing, so I told him he need to be more selective about what is dirty/clean.
The dryers were very good so that was a bonus and he now knows his way around a launderette which may come in handy at some point.
We went out for supper, it was lovely to spend some time just the two of us, as I’ve missed our time together.
He’s a bit unsure about his course, but knows he needs to keep going before making any proper decisions, like others have said he’s been going over lots of A level material which is rather boring and he’s concerned that several units involve lots of rote learning which he hates, but some of the reason he chose biology is it’s very broad to start with, so he knew he’d have to study some areas he’s not interested in.
I’m feeling much better about him now and will not worry, so it was worth going for me, he also seemed to want my help, my DH was rather scornful but interestingly my other DS said he thought I’d done the right thing, he was saying he’s now feeling a little bit homesick so thinks that my helping his brother at this point was probably very reassuring.
Hopefully the backpack can now stay in the back of a cupboard 😂

@Itscoldouthere I think you absolutely did the right thing! They all need some sort of support, and now DS has his laundry done, and knows what he needs to do ongoing, he must feel a lot happier. You aren't going to be up there every Wednesday hovering over him, you're just helping him to launch.

@CointreauVersial thanks, I think we all know our own DC and some need more help than others and I love being able to help him if he needs it.
Don’t think he wants to see me again till Christmas though 😂

On another note are all of your DC registered to vote at UEA or doing a postal vote from home?

@itscoldouthere - I think you did a good thing, sort of thing I would do - we don’t stop being mums or dads because they’ve moved out temporarily- my DSS is 41 and his DW has just told him he wants out of the marriage and we’re spending a lot of time supporting him - they are always our children, no matter how old.

Anyway - I registered DS to vote from UEA, whether he will is another matter!

So DS is coming home next weekend and needs to get off at Colchester (platform 3) and change to a train on platform 4 - there is only 5 minutes between trains - I’ve tried looking at the station map, but it’s not very clear. Does anyone know how quick/easy it is to get from Platform 3 to platform 4?

@Itscoldouthere I would have done the same. We instinctively know, I believe, when we need to intervene but also when we need to allow our DC the space and time to figure things out independently. I'm sure you're both feeling much better today as a result of your decision and that's the most important thing after all.

@NotSorry I am picking DD up from Colchester station tomorrow!
Will have a look for you.
What is his final destination?

@Itscoldouthere I also agree you did the right thing to get him back on top of things-hopefully now he can stay there!!

You are all so kind and supportive, thank you.
I had to be a bit of a helicopter parent when DS2 was small before his ASD DX and had a few very tricky years, but DS has come such a long way and is an amazing young man who manages very well, you wouldn’t really know he’s ASD, he just comes across as a bit quiet and shy.
Deep down I obviously still worry but we’ve worked hard to help him be independent, but he still seems young as he’s never been a great socialiser so hasn’t experienced as much as many 18/19 year olds I know with time and a bit more experience he will be fine.