Thread 43 - GCSE Covid Cohort ..November 22 Remember Remember

[OrangeCinnamonLatte]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and advice to be had

Previous Thread

We won’t see DD now until Christmas now I expect, but we’ve seen her twice - we went for the weekend and she came home for reading week. This term is so long though, so we’re now a week into a seven week stretch without her. I suspect this term will be an outlier as well, and it’ll be once or nothing in future. But I want her to not want to come home - not actively ‘ugh, home’, but just ‘why when I’m having such a good time?’

Anyway, reading week reset the washing slightly so she has STILL not run out of knickers. I should point out I’ve not done her washing at home since she was about 12, so it’s not total incompetence. The good news is she has friends coming to visit soon, despite her insistence it’s not necessary to change or wash bedding 🤢 she intends to change for the friends to share her bed.

DD1 came home once in first term(4ths from Durham so no surprise) then home for Christmas. We visited in Feb half term then she was home March /April due to lockdown. But years 2 an d 3 she was rarely back after missing so much due to Covid.

*4hrs

Lovely story @PhotoDad . Must be a big relief for you. Enjoy your daughter blooming 🌸

DS has been home once but is now playing sport on Saturdays and Sundays. Going to try to fix a lunch at a midpoint.

@PhotoDad Pleased your DD is in a much better place in all senses.

DS is on reading week now and says its very quiet (all weekends there are quiet but this is VERY quiet, i think the whole uni has reading week), he's coming home on Tuesday for the rest of the week. This will be his 3rd visit home.

Ds finally up. Asked if I'd drive him to Cambridge shortly. I said no. It's about 3 hour round trip in the rain, I don't want to drive it just because he can't be bothered to get up. So he's got to go by train. He's going to have 50 mins wait at Cambridge. Then due almost midnight at Falmouth, that's a worryingly late.

@Zebracat - no, I don’t think the Penryn campus has parking for students. She assures us she’s worked out where she can park. Her journey was fine. She was there by 6pm. I expect she was tired though!

(Waves at @JustHereWithMyPopcorn from another Notts non-Rutland bench)

DS is coming home tonight for at least some of reading week. He was not committing for a while about whether he'd come back so I'm pleased he decided to come, though like @Oblomov22 would have been fine if he'd decided to stay. He wants to go back before the weekend though so as not to lose his lunch card top-up! I imagine he'll be clearing the shelves at Spar and refilling his snack shelf!

Dd did that last Sunday @blinkbonny after a week away! She’s just on her way back from a weekend away with the Christian Union, I hope she remembered to use up her lunch balance before age went on Friday.

We’re visiting her on Saturday. I’m not sure whether this is mainly because she left her North Face coat behind and it’s getting cold or whether she actually wants to see us (again!). Initially she had three friends coming to visit for the weekend but that fell through and we were invited as reserves!

@ScarlettDarling I won’t see DD until she’s back home on 3rd December.
Her bf visited her last weekend as they hadn’t seen each other for nearly 5 weeks and he’s visiting her again before end of term.
His parents saw them both last weekend too as it’s a much shorter drive to Oxford for them than it is oop North to Durham Uni.
Gotta admit to being a tad jealous about that 😂but DD is doing well, working hard and playing hard in equal measure which is all I could have hoped for!
Only 4 weeks to go and then your DS and my DD will be home for 6 weeks!

Ds is now going home in the morning. He wants dropping at the train station (40 mins drive) for 5.40am. train. My alarm is set, but Ds has just gone out with his mates 😡 he knows how to try my patience.

Birmingham Uni finance department are enraging! DS go an invoice (£1800!) for mal plan with no details of how to play in instalments. He has literally been trying to contact someone for three weeks. Their phone rings out, they have no email, he raises a ticket and it gets ignored. On Thursday , he went to the building where their offices are only to be told there is no physical office! What?? A huge uni has no physical finance office??

He has also been overcharged .

I said to DH we should just pay it front and DS could repay us in instalments but DH says he won't do that, so....

This was the bit DS was meant to pay. Sigh.

@Piggywaspushed has he tried this link for setting up payments in instalments?

www.birmingham.ac.uk/accommodation/our-services/pay-fees.aspx

<waves back at @blinkbonny >

DS says it's been quiet at uni this weekend as everyone was on reading week except him (I'm assuming all the other law students too!). Dh took him to his gig last Thursday and ended up having to pick him up after and take him to grandparents house for the night as the friend he was meant to be staying with forgot and went home! DH says it was actually really nice as they got to have a really good chat on the way there and then driving him back to Notts the day after. Apparently he's really enjoying the course (other than the odd boring lecturer) and is generally happy other than being sad about the GF situation. he's keeping himself busy with friends though so that's good. He's been texting me this morning from his 9am lecture saying how it's only half full and then sent me a sneaky video to show me. He's promised to attend all of his lectures this week after I told him for skipping some.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn I hope my DS is in that 9am video 🤣

It's been quite a weekend. Ds came back to our city, did a great gig with his band and stopped over with the rest of the band at one of their houses.

Then dropped the bombshell that he had done and audition and been offered a 4 month performing contract on a prestigious cruise ship potentially playing for some high calibre guest singers, and he was thinking of leaving his degree to do it. After a lot of soul searching and a conversation with him, his very good friend and his friend's mum about why this wasn't right for him YET, (mostly to do with maturity to handle ship life) he decided to turn it down. However it turns out they had assumed he was older anyway and so he wouldn't be allowed on the ship to work anyway.

Phew.

From this I learnt that maybe an actual career in music is within reach and also what a really good friend he has who has his best interests at heart.

Wow @Comefromaway it sounds like he’s got a bright future ahead of him and a career performing is definitely possible. But I’d also think he should stick out his degree.

Wow it sounds like he has a very promising future @Comefromaway and well done him for not getting carried away. What a boost though!

@mummyinbeds DS appears to be at the back of the lecture theatre so it's just a vision of backs of heads, I'm sure one must be your DS! 😀

Yes, but that's for accommodation... and also they have overcharged him so he needs to be re invoiced...

Thanks though!

@Comefromaway that sounds great - all of it. Being good enough to get the work and wise enough to choose well! I think students can do well for music gigs and for young people shows and cruises can be great, but they need to think about how long they can deal with the lack of stability and impact on home life.

My DS played bass for a show over half term week and loved it, is hoping he might be able to pick up some more - would be a great gap year activity to work on a cruise ship.

@Comefromaway That's great, and a very promising sign for the future, as you say!

DD was assigned to a small group, and got all worried because the groups had been announced, and hers contained a housemate she doesn't get on with at all. She was kinda sorta prepared to take it on the chin, but then someone in another group needed to swap for logistical reasons and DD volunteered, so got credit for being flexible rather than inflexible(!!)

Anyway. The small groups of illustrators have each been assigned to a vocational subject in the uni, and will sketch the students of that subject at work. DD's group will be shadowing some student nurses. Sounds like a great idea!

Serendipitous @PhotoDad !

Hi everyone! Thought you would like to see what gap year DS is up to. Answer - climbing volcanoes in the dark in Sumatra to watch dawn break from the summit 😁