Image: David Blackwell
The ever punctual Squeamish Sue is here to bring us tales of university life as a mature student. Make sure you're on time and have your papers, yeah? Or it could all end up down the plug hole.
I find it a little disconcerting that lecture attendance, whilst desirable is nonetheless optional and is not monitored, at least not in any discernible way. I guess if you don’t have a clue of the subject matter when you get to your seminar, it is a bit of a giveaway that you weren’t actually in the lecture. Yet seminars are compulsory and are absolutely monitored. A register is taken and your attendance details are forwarded to no less a body than the UK Border Agency. I feel I should carry my passport with me at all times just in case! 'Your absence has been noted, where were you?' 'oh yeah, sorry I was just having a nervous breakdown in the car park, but I’m here now.'
I find it a little disconcerting that lecture attendance, whilst desirable is nonetheless optional and is not monitored, at least not in any discernible way. I guess if you don’t have a clue of the subject matter when you get to your seminar, it is a bit of a giveaway that you weren’t actually in the lecture. Yet seminars are compulsory and are absolutely monitored. A register is taken and your attendance details are forwarded to no less a body than the UK Border Agency. I feel I should carry my passport with me at all times just in case! 'Your absence has been noted, where were you?' 'oh yeah, sorry I was just having a nervous breakdown in the car park, but I’m here now.'
What should also be monitored is how many times I have lost my temper recently due to extreme fatigue, writer’s cramp and a partner who is a part time plumber. The delightful crickets tested his plumbing skills, and my patience, to the max. After the cat sent their little house into orbit and the Big Clean Up took place, the harvested remnants were tipped down the sink.
A matter of little significance or importance you might think; how wrong you are! Contained within the sweepings were water gel crystals, which apparently supply the little critters with their moisture. These crystals are not however designed to withstand the full force of Severn Trent’s unleashed might, when a tap is turned fully on them. The net result was they swelled to a million times their original size and blocked the sink in spectacular style, whilst I was trying to finish my compare and contrast essay. It is entirely impossible to shut out the noise of someone unbunging a sink. Both he and the kitchen floor were drenched in stagnant gunge during Operation Plunge. Having first removed the contents of the cupboard below and arranged the Cif and Mr Muscle in a semi circle of obliged indifference around him, the U bend was eventually exposed in all its glory, and I swore I could see a saucepan placed beneath it, waiting with fear, trepidation, and entire inadequacy, to catch the ensuing flood.
A matter of little significance or importance you might think; how wrong you are! Contained within the sweepings were water gel crystals, which apparently supply the little critters with their moisture. These crystals are not however designed to withstand the full force of Severn Trent’s unleashed might, when a tap is turned fully on them. The net result was they swelled to a million times their original size and blocked the sink in spectacular style, whilst I was trying to finish my compare and contrast essay. It is entirely impossible to shut out the noise of someone unbunging a sink. Both he and the kitchen floor were drenched in stagnant gunge during Operation Plunge. Having first removed the contents of the cupboard below and arranged the Cif and Mr Muscle in a semi circle of obliged indifference around him, the U bend was eventually exposed in all its glory, and I swore I could see a saucepan placed beneath it, waiting with fear, trepidation, and entire inadequacy, to catch the ensuing flood.
| A not too dissimilar plumbing adventure the week before, involved bleeding the radiators, or as I prefer to call it, The Bleeding Radiators. According to the manual of How To Piss Off Your Partner, Chapter 3, winter is the ideal time for such goings on. Not forgetting of course to first flush out the entire heating system with some sludge removing solution. All you need is a handy little collection of hose pipes and jubilee clips available at any leading hardware store. And for the more adventurous amateur, Chapter 4 describes how to remove a radiator from the wall in its entirety. Simples. | It is entirely impossible to shut out the noise of someone unbunging a sink |
I braved the mother-in-law's the other week, we went to a café at the garden centre with some of her friends. I was trying to be a dutiful daughter-in-law and offered to go and get drinks for everyone. Not pay, these women are loaded let me tell you and I am but a poor student. Most wanted coffee, but one lady asked for a glass of wine. ‘Pinot Grigio?’, I enquired. ‘Oh no dear’, she said, ‘I don’t like cocktails’.
I was only grateful they didn’t ask for the dish of the day; they have all got the most awful ill-fitting dentures. Really it's quite remarkable, a plethora of plastic permeated the circle every time one of them opened their mouth! Why ever it was considered the thing to do – get to a certain age and then have all your teeth removed – is beyond me, especially when I have fought so hard to keep what few I have left intact!
These ladies are however lovely. Between the six of them they have a combined age of over 500 years! One lady is 93, another is 89 and the rest are mere spring chickens. They have an amazing history between them; I would love to spend more time with one lady in particular. She is Jewish and she and her sister fled from Germany during the war, smuggled out of the country, I know not how, whilst their parents were marched off to a concentration camp. The sad thing, apart from the obvious loss of their parents, is that the two sisters, once they arrived in England, began to go their separate ways, and eventually lost touch with each other altogether. She was outwardly matter of fact about it after all this time, but doesn’t speak of it very much to anyone and makes it quite clear that’s how it’s going to stay.
Quick history of NHS false teeth – Teeth removal was a facility offered to contributors to National Health Insurance in more affluent areas where there was a small surplus of funds, or to members of Societies, which evolved into names like the Prudential. Dentistry and Ophthalmics were largely regarded as non essential treatments, but if you got the chance, an ideal 21st birthday present was to have all your teeth out, thereby saving on any future bills or tooth ache. Thoundth like a plan.
Well, I have handed in another essay today. This one is for real, all the others were practice runs to give you (and them) an idea of how you are doing and whether or not you are wasting your time (and theirs) by being there. The subject matter was a bit turgid, like pulling teeth in fact! I found it hard to get enthusiastic about the question of religion and economic behaviour, and in my head likened it to a sociology apprenticeship prank; for example an equivalent in the building trade would be telling an apprentice to go and buy a bubble for a spirit level, or striped paint – the answer does not exist! I was required to draw my own conclusions, and submit it electronically so it could be run through plagiarism software. I so hope I remembered to reference everything.
We have had bad flooding here, as have many. Somebody was swept away after trying to cross a ford, but they were rescued by a saintly member of the public. I wasn’t able to get to uni on Wednesday because two of my potential exists were water logged and the third was choked with traffic so in the end I turned around and came home.
The water had subsided sufficiently the following day for me to get into uni, and to actually stay there until evening, when I had tickets to see Fascinating Aida. It was their Cheap Flights tour, the main song being called, oddly enough, Cheap Flights! It rings so many bells with me after my Ryanair shenanigans. Go on Youtube and take a look if you haven’t already heard it, it’s very funny. They also sing something called Dogging which is also funny though not so subtle and very blokey. Try This Table whilst you’re at it, only have your Kleenex ready as it’s a sad song about a scrubbed kitchen table that has seen lives come and go and that one table setting less means the remainder have to spread out to fill the gap, till there are none left. Sob.
Squeamish Sue
I was only grateful they didn’t ask for the dish of the day; they have all got the most awful ill-fitting dentures. Really it's quite remarkable, a plethora of plastic permeated the circle every time one of them opened their mouth! Why ever it was considered the thing to do – get to a certain age and then have all your teeth removed – is beyond me, especially when I have fought so hard to keep what few I have left intact!
These ladies are however lovely. Between the six of them they have a combined age of over 500 years! One lady is 93, another is 89 and the rest are mere spring chickens. They have an amazing history between them; I would love to spend more time with one lady in particular. She is Jewish and she and her sister fled from Germany during the war, smuggled out of the country, I know not how, whilst their parents were marched off to a concentration camp. The sad thing, apart from the obvious loss of their parents, is that the two sisters, once they arrived in England, began to go their separate ways, and eventually lost touch with each other altogether. She was outwardly matter of fact about it after all this time, but doesn’t speak of it very much to anyone and makes it quite clear that’s how it’s going to stay.
Quick history of NHS false teeth – Teeth removal was a facility offered to contributors to National Health Insurance in more affluent areas where there was a small surplus of funds, or to members of Societies, which evolved into names like the Prudential. Dentistry and Ophthalmics were largely regarded as non essential treatments, but if you got the chance, an ideal 21st birthday present was to have all your teeth out, thereby saving on any future bills or tooth ache. Thoundth like a plan.
Well, I have handed in another essay today. This one is for real, all the others were practice runs to give you (and them) an idea of how you are doing and whether or not you are wasting your time (and theirs) by being there. The subject matter was a bit turgid, like pulling teeth in fact! I found it hard to get enthusiastic about the question of religion and economic behaviour, and in my head likened it to a sociology apprenticeship prank; for example an equivalent in the building trade would be telling an apprentice to go and buy a bubble for a spirit level, or striped paint – the answer does not exist! I was required to draw my own conclusions, and submit it electronically so it could be run through plagiarism software. I so hope I remembered to reference everything.
We have had bad flooding here, as have many. Somebody was swept away after trying to cross a ford, but they were rescued by a saintly member of the public. I wasn’t able to get to uni on Wednesday because two of my potential exists were water logged and the third was choked with traffic so in the end I turned around and came home.
The water had subsided sufficiently the following day for me to get into uni, and to actually stay there until evening, when I had tickets to see Fascinating Aida. It was their Cheap Flights tour, the main song being called, oddly enough, Cheap Flights! It rings so many bells with me after my Ryanair shenanigans. Go on Youtube and take a look if you haven’t already heard it, it’s very funny. They also sing something called Dogging which is also funny though not so subtle and very blokey. Try This Table whilst you’re at it, only have your Kleenex ready as it’s a sad song about a scrubbed kitchen table that has seen lives come and go and that one table setting less means the remainder have to spread out to fill the gap, till there are none left. Sob.
Squeamish Sue
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