Categories: uncategorized, university, home
Date: 29 September 2005 13:29:32
I'm currently in a computer lab at uni, and in front of me is a whiteboard explaining to new students how to log in. The default password is your date of birth in the format YYMMDD (my password has already been changed so I don't think I'm giving anything away there), and the example they give is 860731. And it just occurred to me - people who were born in 1986 are now coming to university. I was already in the 6th form then! In fact brand spanking shiny new undergrads will have been born in 1987, which is when I first went to uni at 18.
This can't be right. I'm having a major cognitive dissonance moment. Surely 1986 was only a few years ago????
And it's October this weekend. How did that happen?
In other news, no news on the flat front. I've just reread that, that's not a comment on my cup size, I'm talking about the housebuying. Actually there is a little bit of news, I've instructed a surveyor, and will make an offer once that's done. The survey should be going on today or tomorrow, so I'll see what they've got to say for themselves. I am more than a little stressed by the housebuying system up here - in England, for all its faults, the various players (estate agents, financial advisers, surveyors, solicitors) are basically pretty much separate from each other. Here they're all in each other's pockets, with lots of overlaps between each role as far as I can tell, and everyone is explaining the system in a different way, so the basic outcome is that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. They also dismiss the advice I receive from someone else, so just when I think I have a handle on things, someone else pours doubt on the previous advice and I end up having to start from scratch again. So I've decided in order to simplify things that I will run things by my solicitor first, as he was the one who was glowingly recommended to me (by my supervisor and by another lecturer) as opposed to the others who are generally organisations I just wandered into off the street. My solicitor, it has to be said, is a bit scary, but ultimately I think I'm going to need someone who tells me what to do in no uncertain terms. If it's left to me I'll be floundering. Aargh.