Oxbridge 2020 (thread 10) - the path to the first term (just one slight hurdle to clear first)

[DadDadDad]

For better or worse, there is a bit of a bond of mutual experience between parents whose DC go through the Oxbridge application process. Thank you for your companionship so far - and thank you to others who started the earlier threads in this series.

This thread should take us to the start of the first term (whatever form that takes). All welcome here, but for many of us hopefully this will be the place for practical support as we help prepare these peculiar* young adults to spread their wings.

But the first item on the agenda appears to be the small matter of judgement...

*or for those who chose Oxford, very peculiar.

PantTwizzler - I remember first year Maths, where the standard letter used for a particular quantity was a lower case "xi". Once we'd worked out what it was, the real challenge was trying to write it...

@PantTwizzler

DS has been told to learn the Greek alphabet before he arrives. DD (studying Classics) is highly amused.

A good idea for most STEM students, I'd have thought. Quantum mechanics make much use of the pitchfork.

By the time you get to set theory, they've run out of Greek letters and start on the Hebrew alphabet - well, aleph, the first letter.

I don't know if he has thought of learning the Greek alphabet, but that's a good idea, along with maybe the values of some physical constants.

@DadDadDad I went to a school where the pupils were so competitive that they couldn't name the forms in each year A, B, C, D. So they named them A, alpha, aleph and Æ.

[quote Ironoaks]@DadDadDad I went to a school where the pupils were so competitive that they couldn't name the forms in each year A, B, C, D. So they named them A, alpha, aleph and Æ.[/quote]
Impressive. How do you even say Æ ?

We pronounced it "ash". We also had to know how to spell it (aesc).

Yeah, it came up in the Elon musk baby name discussion. Generate by combining a Roman numeral, an Old English character and a piece of military hardware. X Æ A-12, V thorn Polaris or whatever.

DD is learning some Old English to help with her chosen papers. A bit like watching Scandi dramas, there is so much that resonates with the spoken language in my native North East. Nice to see her cranking back into learning. She now has college parents. Taking DT2 to her uni today, the first time they have started “school” without each other. Gulp.

Good luck @hobbema - hope the drop off goes smoothly.

DS1's thoughts have finally turned to packing. Do we think dinner suit will be if any use this term? Useful to have in normal circumstances but probably not going to get used?

DS is planning to take a lounge suit but probably not a dinner jacket this term.

Dd is doing an online course. It was actually a condition of her offer. Loads of other people on her course are doing it too, so they're really getting to know each other.

She's looking forward to it so much. I'm feeling really concerned that the rising Covid numbers will make the university reconsider its current approach.

Good luck with today's drop off @hobbema - hope it all goes well. D1 also reading a bit of Old English, I dug out my old Anglo Saxon stuff for her. Have you seen the new translation of Beowulf, looks interesting, review here in the New Yorker

Something amusing I learnt about Beowulf recently - the Ted Hughes translation opens with the word "So", which I shall think of every time I hear some pedant grumbling about people starting their speech with "so".

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

Apparently it does correspond to the opening word of the original.

Just looking at this thread in idle curiosity, I wish all the new starters luck. My own Cambridge gown was bought new when I arrived but was accidentally the wrong one. The twist and button on the sleeve are slightly wrong. I still have it, and DD wore it as a Hogwarts costume on WBD, but it was never the one I should actually have had and no one ever knew or cared. If there are cheap second hand ones going that could pass for the right one, go for it.

I have a perhaps unfortunate fondness for The Tab (Cambridge student paper) and this article on college reputation did make me giggle.

For example, Clare College which attracts "FLOATY nymph people, walls draping in floral Pinterest collages and tickets from the Florence machine gigs they spend all of their generous trust fund on. Fiercely Lib Dem and ready to address someone simply as ‘Babes’ at any given moment”

And then there was one... DH and I gave the girls a few minutes of our 1 hour slot alone once we’d unpacked, touchingly emotional from DT1 who doesn't really do shows of feelings. Thought of you @Coleoptera.

Thanks for Beowulf distraction guys; I think education is wasted on the young. The Great Vowel Shift is fun.

@DadDadDad - Ted Hughes or Seamus Heaney?

@NiamCinnOir - good spot. I had Ted Hughes in my head and googled that, and clicked on the first Amazon link to look inside the book, never noticing Seamus Heaney plastered all over it. My maths-y brain unfortunately has allocated insufficient memory space to poets.

@DadDadDad In my very unmaths-y brain there is room for a little poetry

Most if not all of the colleges have a virtual tour set up by now, I'd have thought, so you can at least have a look at that perhaps.
DH took DD to her college to pick up stuff she'd left there in the abrupt exodus when he took her back to Cambridge a month or so ago - I don't think he was allowed in.

As to hotel bookings - that's tricky, though presumably there won't be the usual tourist and business load. The holiday inn DH uses in Cambridge is the same one I've always stayed in when I visit our U.K. headquarters on the science park, it normally has lots of business travellers.

Coleoptera I'm away, but had a similar chat with DD on the phone earlier about bedding. We have bought a single mattress topper & sheets, but double duvet, on the assumption that we're more likely to be able to pick up double MTs, sheets etc at the last minute. She says she won't know any details about her room until arrival, but they will be in touch the week before if she has any bed dizebother than a single.

"Dizebother: actually rounds like an great new word under the circumstances, but it should read "size other".