(no subject)
2 Sep 2006 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatWell I like the way these new 'Expressive' layouts put a tags list in the sidebar, so I decided to give it a go. I'm not really sure - I miss my sweetpeas - but now I'm not sure how to go back to them, or whether I can make this narrower and put the sweetpeas back at the side but with this bit up the middle. Or some other pic up the side even. It looks a bit impersonal now. Hmmm.....
Other than that, well I've had this week off work, and I intended to get another 1,000 words or so done of 'Ten Years After 2' - tentatively titled 'Prague Autumn' - and I have managed to find so many other things to do instead, you wouldn't believe it. I have covered shoe boxes in Christmas paper for our annual collection of gifts for Byelorussia, I've made chocolate fudge cake and carrot cake for catering at Church, I've helped out three afternoons with said catering (we run a snack-bar for the motorcycle race meetings held twice a year) - I've even washed every item of clothing Daughter-dear brought back from Leeds Music Festival. But writing? Me? TYA2 is still only about 500 words or so long!
Talking of D-d and the music festival - her and her friends had a really good time - she got suntanned, she got soaking wet, she ate junk food, she saw loads of bands - a good festival. The new rucksack she got as a congratulations present for her A level results was just fine, and her 3 man tent that we bought a couple of years ago proved again to be wind and waterproof - the last night was very wet - and ended with four of them in her tent! Tescos near the site was out of disposable BBQs the day before the Festival started - bad organisation D-d and her friends thought - so they bought a roasting tin, a cooling rack and a bag of charcoal and made their own - very succesfully. D-d bought strawberries on that trip to Tescos, and the rest laughed at her - by Friday/Saturday they were all really grateful to her for sharing them around.
She has now sent off her applications for a place in Hall (Dorms), got her reading lists and forms to choose options for her modules next year, and we have an official letter to say that the I-o-M Government will pay all her tuition costs (God bless them!). It is now looking very real - this leaving home thing!
Other than that, well I've had this week off work, and I intended to get another 1,000 words or so done of 'Ten Years After 2' - tentatively titled 'Prague Autumn' - and I have managed to find so many other things to do instead, you wouldn't believe it. I have covered shoe boxes in Christmas paper for our annual collection of gifts for Byelorussia, I've made chocolate fudge cake and carrot cake for catering at Church, I've helped out three afternoons with said catering (we run a snack-bar for the motorcycle race meetings held twice a year) - I've even washed every item of clothing Daughter-dear brought back from Leeds Music Festival. But writing? Me? TYA2 is still only about 500 words or so long!
Talking of D-d and the music festival - her and her friends had a really good time - she got suntanned, she got soaking wet, she ate junk food, she saw loads of bands - a good festival. The new rucksack she got as a congratulations present for her A level results was just fine, and her 3 man tent that we bought a couple of years ago proved again to be wind and waterproof - the last night was very wet - and ended with four of them in her tent! Tescos near the site was out of disposable BBQs the day before the Festival started - bad organisation D-d and her friends thought - so they bought a roasting tin, a cooling rack and a bag of charcoal and made their own - very succesfully. D-d bought strawberries on that trip to Tescos, and the rest laughed at her - by Friday/Saturday they were all really grateful to her for sharing them around.
She has now sent off her applications for a place in Hall (Dorms), got her reading lists and forms to choose options for her modules next year, and we have an official letter to say that the I-o-M Government will pay all her tuition costs (God bless them!). It is now looking very real - this leaving home thing!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 01/09/2006 11:38 pm (UTC)*continues to ignore anything that will make her LJ experience more complicated*
I'm glad D-d had a good time. Good luck dealing as the day approaches. At least she won't be really far away.
no subject
Date: 01/09/2006 11:48 pm (UTC)The trouble with the couple of hundred miles or less between here and York is the forty or fifty so of them that are water! No nipping over for a couple of hours with something that she's forgotten.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 12:02 am (UTC)When we passed the Illinois college that really wanted my daughter, I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to have her just two hours from home. (Some of those miles are the Mississippi River, but fortunately, there are bridges.)
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 09:57 am (UTC)I don't think we will ever have a bridge - a tunnel would be good, but too expensive for the amount of traffic it would have, so if we want to take our cars, it is still a boat-trip.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 03:42 pm (UTC)Good luck with all the preparations! At least with York it's a nice late start so you can get tips from friends who've already had Freshers week!
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/09/2006 11:50 pm (UTC)Nods. Time for the awfully big adventure.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 12:03 am (UTC)Speaking as an American parent, may I just say how freaking jealous I am?
Also wow, and good luck with that whole empty-nest thing, and wow.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:08 am (UTC)Our government here on our little, fiercly independent, little island have decided to cover this portion as well, so all her tuition fees will be met - aren't they wonderful? Do you have to pay ALL the tuition fees? How much is that?
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 12:18 am (UTC)Only a few weeks to go until term starts! Can't believe how time has flown.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 08/09/2006 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:19 am (UTC)We still have grants for living expenses as well, rather than loans. One of her friends is getting a full grant of £5,850 per year to live on as well as all her fees paid.
Very altruistic I always think - as a lot of these kids will never come back here to work. Of course we have this reputation for having a very 'conservative' right-wing government....people make their mind up, and never really look at what our government actually do!
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:41 am (UTC)UK teenagers have to pay £3,000 of their fees via loans, as well as taking out loans for living expenses if their parents can't keep them, but our independent government here on the island believes in giving them all a good start, and pay this money for them.
UK universities get so much money per student, above the £3,000, from UK government to cover the actual cost of their courses. Our Manx students have that portion paid by the Manx government as well - in effect they are classed as overseas students when they attend UK universities.
Most UK students end up £10,000 - £30,000 in debt due to living expense loans and fees loans, during their degree course.
Manx parents are asked to guarantee to ensure that their children have £5,850 per year to live on as part of the agreement to have all their fees covered. Children of parents earning below somewhere in the upper £20,000s will get a grant on a sliding scale towards this - one of D-d's friends whose parents are not in well-paid work is getting the full £5,850 every year from the government. The grant does not need to be repaid.
I have a feeling other students in UK universities may envy the Manx students level of financial aid from our government!
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 10:48 am (UTC)*g*
no subject
Date: 03/09/2006 04:35 am (UTC)I applaud the people of Manx for having the foresight to realize educating their populace is an investment rather than an expense.
no subject
Date: 03/09/2006 09:40 am (UTC)The UK system is never 'open to all' because of the A level gateway - in the case of the Manx government you get that financial aid only if you have proved, by doing the extra 2 years at school after '12th grade' and reaching a certain standard in at least 2 A level subjects, that you are capable of gettng your degree academically.
For almost any UK university courses you must have done those things, or studied at your own expense after leaving school to get the A Levels at night-school, before you are accepted to a degree course. Academic ability must be proved, in effect.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 12:32 pm (UTC)I got a tags list (and page summary) in my existing component layout without doing anything, so the change they've made for the Expressive layouts must have an effect on some of the others too.
Glad D-d enjoyed the festival and that she didn't get soaked or blown away. Love the roasting tin BBQ too - shows great initiative.
It's great that you're getting the tuition costs paid, and I well remember all the pre-uni activity and excitement - I expect my mum had a much different view of it at the time than I did.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 05:08 pm (UTC)I was impressed with the ad hoc cooking facilities as well. ;~)
The tuition fees bit is good isn't it? I wouldn't hqave coped as a student if we had had the current UK system here when I went - I had a full grant and, of course, all fees paid.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 02:18 pm (UTC)Layout looks lovely, very clean and warm, though if you want the sweetpeas back I'm sure all the layout support communities will be gussying up to deal with this new batch of styles.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 05:11 pm (UTC)Thanks for the nice comments on the layout - I might leave it like this - or go for one with rabbits, or cats, or the Tokyo skyline - perhaps not.
no subject
Date: 02/09/2006 08:09 pm (UTC)I'm also glad D-d had a good time!
no subject
Date: 03/09/2006 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2006 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2006 12:49 pm (UTC)Some of her friends go away next weekend - she has a bit more time to get organised than them - as do I!
no subject
Date: 04/09/2006 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/09/2006 09:10 pm (UTC)