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University life for freshers (2019/20) - Christmas backpacking (or not) and festive homecomings with all the tinseltastic trimmings!
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 11/12/2019 17:53
@Benjispruce, we must have had the same convo with DS on Friday night!
@Serin, all power to your DS 
@bengalcat yes she could wear the same dress, boys wear same suit/DJ, but if all the other girl have different dresses then there is a pressure to conform. I just don’t want her to feel like she does fit in. I didn’t expect to feel like this.
DS is lucky to be able to wear the same clothes for just about everything and hasn't bought all the kits for his team's - just the bare minimum. He was saying that some are spending £100s every week despite being fully catered. And aside from the money, the whole upper-class culture is a world away from his life back here 
But it's good life experience and I'm telling him to seize every opportunity he gets re friends whose parents have connections, etc 
It’s probably just me taking this feeling of inadequacy upon myself. DD is happy, feels she is there under her own steam, which she most certainly is having been to state schools (1 in special measures) and had no tutoring or family connections help her along. It’s a new world. One guy has his shooting jacket with him
so at times she feels like she’s looking in on an elite bubble. Having said that, her block of 20ish are all getting on great. There’s a mixture of state, grammar and private school students and most are down to earth.
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Benji and bigTilly - Dd is only 15 mins up the tracks from your two at Newcastle. Dd says there is a mix at Newcastle though she thinks less % from the south South than Durham. She’s one of the most Southern (we’re Midlands really) of her friends. There’s also a huge range of disposable income - many students are working. What is different is the social side - she has been to one ‘ball’ and wore a lovely £12 Asos dress. She is in a flat of 8, the international student had servants and ‘doesn’t do bins’!
It also appears wearing very little at all rather than gowns is still de rigour for most in Newcastle. I expect sub sections like the Agrics Society in Newcastle will have odd people with their shooting jackets.
In other news, Dd is home and has grown half an inch taller! Literally. She was the same height at 17 and 18 (birthday just before she left) and I thought I had put the last ceremonial mark on the doorframe. First thing she said to me was that I had shrunk!
Yes, DGodD is at Newcastle and DS has found it much more "normal" for him Plus proper clubbing
I don’t normally feel inadequate and neither does DD, just had a fleeting feeling of it on DD’s behalf. Head wobbled, thank you all.
Putting tree up now and DD feeling refreshed after 12 hours sleep .
She told me she sat next to a girl on a train(good idea for a book...) who was from Newcastle uni and her accommodation fees are £5k and next year’s house £90 pw and that’s not the cheapest! Will definitely be coming at it from a different angle if DD2 chooses uni.
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