Back to study!

It’s the morning before I start my first day of my third and final year of my MSc.  It seems only yesterday that I was a newbie, anxiously preparing for my first day at Greenwich.  I have mixed feelings as I write this.  I found my second year really tough and having to complete six or seven papers over four months to June left me feeling pretty exhausted and ready for a break.

I feel a sense of trepidation at the thought of picking all those books to study again … but him-at –home reminded me that, actually, I am always like this!  When I do get back into it I really enjoy all the new learning.  I am looking forward to seeing my fellow third years again but there will be some faces missing and some new ones to meet.  We have a very fertile group as three out of our original 18 have become pregnant! They have ‘interrupted’ their studies for a year to concentrate on their new babies. Our course is designed so that if you exit after the second year having passed all modules and completed 100 clinical hours rather than 80 required for the masters course, you are awarded a post graduate diploma.  This is different from ‘interrupting’ where you take a year out from the course rather than ‘exiting’.  It may not be possible to rejoin the programme for the third year if you have exited but if you have ‘interrupted ‘ and do not return to the programme you can ‘exit’ as long as you have done the extra clinical hours. 

For our third year we can choose between two pathways.  One is the long research pathway where we present a long project while the other is the CBT option.  This is where we have specialist training in using cognitive behavioural therapy.  We have to complete 50 clinical hours using it and 50 using integrative ‘methods’.  We also do a shorter 8000 word project which is a reflective piece about our development as a counsellor.  I have chosen to do the second pathway as I find CBT a really useful tool and would like to become more experienced in its use.  I do not have a passion for a particular research topic and I know that unless I feel pretty engaged with a topic I will struggle to keep going with it.

I have started back in my placement and on Saturday attended a really interesting continuing professional development (CPD) morning there.  Our speaker was Christine Sanderson and her topic was ‘The Dynamic of Memory – Working with Traumatic Memories’.  Her book, published in 2006, is entitled ‘Counselling adult survivors of sexual abuse’.  In those 21/2 hours I learnt so much and I left with my head spinning.  She presented the main theories of memory: how we remember, how we forget, types of memory, the fallibility of memory.  She then moved on discussing the implications this has for us as counsellors working with adults.  Christine spoke of the controversy surrounding the subject of ‘recovered /false memory’ presenting arguments to support the seemingly polarised views.  It was a morning well worth attending especially as it was accompanied by hot drinks and home made cakes!
 

Well, now time to sharpen those pencils, polish my glasses and hop on Priscilla to get into college on time – back soon!

My 50th Blog!

It is almost a year since I wrote my first blog and here I am writing my 50^th! Back in September 2010 I hardly knew what a blog was.  There was a call for volunteer blog writers and I decided to give it a go for two reasons:

1: I wanted to keep my writing muscle exercised.  I had submitted my last piece of written work in June 2010 and my next would not be submitted until December.

2: I would be paid for four hours work a month to write four blogs – later reduced to two due to the university –wide budget cuts.

As  such an extra mature student, I thought no one  would be interested in reading my blog with people  wanting to read about much more exciting student activities than those I get up to! I would be quite safe to practice my blogging pretty much in private. 

My first blog started thus:

“Well this is a first! I have heard of blogs but never figured out how to do one.  I am still terrified of the Ipod Ian gave me last Christmas and as for twitter… My son Jack thinks it is hilarious and can’t figure out why I just want a mobile that is just a mobile, not a camera, computer or anything else.  However I am determined to move into the 21^st century so here goes….”

I have been staggered to discover  that I have had visitors to my blog from all over the world – so thank you visitors – you are keeping me in a job!

I have also been surprised at how much I have enjoyed writing it. I have found it an excellent discipline and actually thoroughly enjoyed it.   I was so worried at the thought of writing my first one until I gave myself quite a severe talking to that went something like this:

“Now Alice – no-one is about to die.  It is not going to be marked.  It is only 200 words.  Just be yourself”.

So I took a deep breath and began – and here I am 50 blogs later and too many words to count!!

It has been fun getting to know the other bloggers both personally and through their blogs.  We all work together either at events or on the enquiry unit and the blogs reflect the individuality, quirkiness and humour of the individuals.  Now several them have just graduated and will be leaving to start their new careers.  I am sad to see them go but look forward to welcoming the newbies. We all send our blogs by email to Uzma who checks then and uploads them.  She writes lovely encouraging responses that I don’t dare miss a submission date!  I threatened to stop writing them after I got to number 50 but she wouldn’t let me! So for making me feel so guilty for even raising the issue, I am enclosing a picture of her in her Theme Your Team competition outfit.  Her team beat us into second place with their amazing Uz-man (Pacman) Theme.

Clearing finally closed at midday on Friday.  I was surprised how incredible that felt.  One minute we were taking calls from people still trying to find a place, the next we were telling them we were closed.  It has been an incredibly busy ten weeks and to give you some idea of the number of applications we completed, there are four lever arch files full of the single sheet file copies for people with a surname beginning with “A”. Now our queries include requests for information about applications for next year, accommodation, timetables and registration.

Over the weekend students will be moving into their accommodation and getting ready to enjoy Freshers’ Week where all sorts of wonderful activities are planned around everyone’s course induction days.  As a continuing student I will not start until the following week so I will be in the Enquiry Unit. I started back in my Counselling placement this week.  I was last there in June and worried that I would be terribly rusty. I had two new clients to meet who are booked for six sessions each.  After four sessions I will review the work with my client and we have the option of continuing for up to three more sets of six sessions.  This is quite a luxury to be able to offer up to 24 sessions  in these times as most organisations can offer six sessions in total. After finishing the sessions on Thursday I realised just how much I had missed this work over the summer and how ready I am to get back to it.  However I am very pleased that I chose to take the break from it while I worked in fulltime in clearing because I would have been far too tired to offer my clients any quality work.

I will finish my 50^th blog with some lovely news.  You may recall that my beloved Valerie Vespa was stolen in July and I have been grieving ever since, but getting very fit riding my bicycle, running for buses,  and walking miles.  Valerie has never been found and so today we bought her big sister.  Kate helped me to name her Priscilla Lexie Piaggio.  She is gorgeous – a real retro design 125cc silver coloured scooter.  Valerie was only 50cc and I always felt like I was sitting on a sewing machine after my big black 400cc Honda.  I vowed I would never have another scooter that small.  Priscilla feels more like a real bike and sounds far less like a high pitched hairdryer.  After taking her for a test drive I returned to the scooter shop with a huge grin on my face stating to him-at home and the dealer “I am in lurve!”

We are collecting her on Tuesday – I can’t wait!

I ended my last blog promising to reveal all regarding our plans for the traditional Theme Your Team competition taking place on the last afternoon of Clearing.

We have all worked so hard over the last few weeks and this is an opportunity to come together to celebrate and to say good bye to each other as the whole clearing mechanism is wound down, packed up and moved back to the store rooms in Avery Hill – until next year.  It feels like the end of a summer festival!  I have worked for eight weeks straight as have many others from the enquiry unit team while the newbies joined us for the last four.  We are exhausted. We answered 12,500 calls in A level week and 12,700 the following week.  We had to retain so much information about the complex Clearing process, and about so many aspects of the university system in general, and about our university in particular. As we work so closely with our colleagues we form amazingly strong bonds as we help and support each other through such a stressful event.  In the week just gone, the calls were of a different nature; more people with registration, start date, and accommodation queries and just a few still looking for university places.  In between calls we began our preparations to decorate our bay with our theme of Twister Party. We kept it top secret until the last minute after rumours that our first idea had been commandeered by another team who shall remain nameless!! 

 Everything was covered in spots, feet, and hands while we each dressed in one of the twister colours of red, yellow, blue or green.  We had backboard decorated with ‘twister’ written in many different nationalities to reflect the cultural diversity of our team and the university.

I started cooking my twister fairy cakes the evening before and didn’t finish decorating them until 10.30 pm while Cherie came in early to finish decorating her wonderful cake. Anaum designed our twister hats, beautifully modelled her by team leader Laura, and recruited several team members to get them finished in time.

Each computer was personalised and played a special twister screen saver.

Royalle and I model our spinner hats.  Note we still have our headsets on ready to convert instantly to our professional telephonist mode!

We had a twister game in progress as demonstrated to the  judges as they did the rounds.

Our team Leader Laura gloomily announced that her team never won anything and was known as the bad luck team; undaunted however, we were not prepared to give up that easily!  As we toured the other teams we realised what stiff competition we were up against.  The themes included Pac man, Ghostbusters, Casino Alex, Clearing Superheroes, Clearing bandits, and High Vis party and the standard was incredibly high.  We came close second, losing by only three points to Pac Uz-Man the theme of my old Team Uzma. After stuffing ourselves with cake, sweets and treats we then had to have the whole thing dismantled and tidied away by 5.30pm.

As I left that evening, I looked back, at the bare room. It was as though it had never happened, the only evidence of our fantastic Theme your Team extravaganza being in the many photos we all took.

… and now as the weather turns to Autumn it is time to prepare for my last year of college.  It feels an age since I was preparing to start my first year, yet the time has flown. Last week I took a call from a young woman about to start her degree, who wanted to know whether she needed to come to Freshers’ week and her ‘meet her year group’ event. I encouraged her to attend, trying to explain how helpful it is to meet your fellow students in a social setting, to find your way around the campus with everyone else who is just as lost as you and to begin to form bonds that will stay with you through your three years of university and possibly beyond.

…so to all those readers about to start their amazing university adventure my advice is make the most of it. You can never have this precious time again. Look for opportunity and when it comes along, grab it with both hands. Work hard, stay curious, stay safe and have fun!

A Weekend Break from Clearing

Aldeburgh beach

It’s all feeling a bit gloomy with a sense of anti climax as we wind down towards the end of Clearing.  After the adrenalin rush of constant phone calls, the deafening background noise of 50 people taking calls from desperate people looking for places on courses.  By the end of last week I was feeling exhausted after battling the Clearing Lurgy all week.  I missed the Friday Clearing team party to get home to bed.  We then left on Saturday morning for a lovely weekend away with him- at –home’s family in Aldeburgh in Suffolk.  We stayed in a room overlooking the sea; so blissful going to sleep listening to the rhythmical sound of the waves breaking on the pebbly beach and waking to wide unobstructed sea and sky.  The light changes constantly so that every time you look the sea and the sky have changed colour.  It can get very windy so a walk along the pebbly beach is usually quite a bracing affair with clouds scudding along overhead.  With their frequently changing shapes, one can waste a lot of time simply sitting on the sea wall watching them!  How blissful is that after a busy few weeks in Clearing?

Every time I visit Aldeburgh I make a beeline for a very special sculpture.  Scallop is a 12 foot high polished steel interpretation of two entwined shells.  It was designed by local sculptor Maggie Hambling as a tribute to Benjamin Britten, the composer, who lived nearly and loved to walk along this beach.

The words I hear those voices that will not be drowned are from Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes

Since its installation in 2004, there has been pretty constant controversy over its siting and design. Locals are fiercely divided in their opinions with detractors comparing it to a collapsed Nissan hut while others, me included, absolutely love it.

Maybe this is the view that reminds people of the collapsed Nissan Hut!

It has been vandalised numerous times by having paint thrown over it, and graffiti daubed across it but still it stands proudly silhouetted against the sky.  I love watching people scrambling over and under I while others just sit quietly or shelter from the elements against it.  It is very tactile. Maggie designed it to be a conversation with the sea as she said:

"An important part of my concept is that at the centre of the sculpture, where the sound of the waves and the winds are focused, a visitor may sit and contemplate the mysterious power of the sea".

Scallop viewed from the sea

Fishing boats head out daily and there is always fresh fish to be purchased from the huts along the shore.  Before we left we bought dressed crab and prawns to have a lovely fishy meal when we arrived back in London. Lobsters are very plentiful and scarily delicious but at £10 per kilo I either need to be earning a lot more or settle for cheaper varieties of seafood! 

We spent a very relaxing Sunday along the coast at Southwold.  There is a lovely pier stretching into the sea which has been recently renovated.  There is a wonderful ly mad moving mechanical sculpture by Tim Hunkin an engineer, cartoonist and artist.  It provides great amusement for those of a scatalogical nature!

Southwold is also famous for its lines of beach huts along the foreshore and it is quite a status symbol to own one at a cost of £30,000 plus.  That is pretty expensive for what looks remarkably like a garden shed that you can get from B&Q for about £150!  You can also rent them but I can’t imagine just how unrelaxing it must be to sit in your beach hut while all the tourists (including me!) wander past in droves peering in to see how you have decorated it.

View of beach huts from Southwold pier

...and finally, I had to enclose this wonderful pic of banners I found outside the art gallery in Aldeburgh.  I am always on the lookout for good ideas and these made a lovely display in quite a boring little passageway.

We came back to London on bank holiday Monday to gloomy overcast Autumnal weather with the prospect of one more week in Clearing until pack up time.  It felt wonderfully rejuventating being able to escape for two days.  Now we are busily ‘theming our team’ ready for judging on Friday.  Our theme is cloaked in strict secrecy to avoid the spying eyes of our rivals so watch this space for pics and results!!....

The Full on Clearing Experience – my diary!

21st August

It is Sunday afternoon and after 5 days of full on A Levels week followed by working on Saturday at the University Open Day I woke up this morning aching in places I didn’t know existed!

I met our new team members in team Laura on Wednesday after returning from lunch. I am now sitting next to Royalle, who hails from Jamaica and will start the final year of her BA Events Management in September. The phones rang pretty constantly that day and on arriving home I was so tired that, after eating early, I was in bed at 10 pm with the hope of having a good sleep ready for the onslaught of A Level Results Day.  I knew it was to be a 12 hour phone marathon. I lay in bed and tossed and turned still awake at 1 am. I kept worrying that I wouldn’t know anything, that I would be too slow in dealing with the volume of calls, that I would write the clearing forms out wrongly – all sorts of silly things.  When I finally dozed off it seem only minutes until the alarm went off at 6am – aaahhhh!

Him-at -home insisted on driving me in, worried that I would fall off my bicycle with exhaustion.  He dropped me by the Greenwich Observatory enjoy a refreshing early morning walk down through the Park.  You really should try it.  Greenwich Park early on a summer’s morning with no tourists, the city glistening in the distance behind the beautiful buildings of the uni –  bliss!  It was a lovely way to start a day which soon went bonkers.  People began ringing in at 7.30 and when we began taking calls at 8am, it was one call after another all day long.  The UCAS website crashed immediately.   I later heard that it had been taking 400 hits per second.  We have a rule that we cannot allow phone to ring more than twice.  Royalle and I hardly spoke to each other as we just took call after call.  At 12md we had 15 minutes break.  I ran down the eight flights of stairs to grab a coffee and order my lunch then ran back up again.  It was head down again until my half hour  lunch time at 2.40.  The chicken salad that Terry in the café had put aside for me was so welcome!  Another coffee and we were off again.  We were offered overtime and, thinking of my course fees that needed paying very soon, I volunteered.  I finally put the phone down at 10.10 that night.  I was very grateful that him-at- home had insisted on collecting me!  I returned for an 8am start on Friday and the whole day was just as busy.  People rang in saying they been trying to get through for a day and a half while others were so anxious they could hardly string two sentences together.  One guy rang asking me to find him any course for which he met the entry criteria!  We offer courses  that vary from nursing to electronic engineering,  from psychology to equine studies  so i told him that I needed a bit more to go on before I could advise!

I had another memorable call this week from Rubin who had not met the conditions of his offer for business studies.  As we talked about what he could do, I looked at his GCSEs  and  A Level results.  He had studied separate science subjects at GCSE and had passed them all at A-C but things had gone rather pear shaped at A levels.  When I asked him why he had done a business BTEC, he explained that his teachers thought he wouldn’t manage sciences at A level because he was dyslexic.  His family, that included a couple of accountants and lots of business people, had encouraged him to do business studies but his heart really wasn’t in it. As we began to talk about science, he became quite animated, telling me how much he loved it.  I told him about the extended science programme where he could do a foundation year to give him entry into a variety of science degrees.  His excitement was infectious.  I encouraged him to read up about the programme and call me back if he was interested.  A couple of hours later he rang back really happy to have found this route into the subjects he loved so much.  The next day Dan in Reception told me he had been in to hand in his certificates and had talked about how pleased he was at the prospect of being able to go back to study science instead of business.

I was delighted to give some applicants the news that we could offer them a place.  One guy offered to give me a big hug!  Hearing the excitement in these students’ voices was absolutely lovely.  At other times I felt quite sad to tell applicants that they were unsuccessful in their applications.  Although we want to recruit students and fill all our spaces, it is not helpful or, in my view right, to take students who do not meet the required grades for the courses – they will struggle and we risk setting them up to fail.  I had a call from Jamie who had failed his access to Higher Education course and tried to convince me that he could manage a three year degree even though he ‘had lost motivation’ to complete the access course and would come in to do a test to ‘prove he could do a degree’.  I explained that there is a great deal of support for people doing access courses and by the time you get to uni  you are expected to be self-motivated and get far less ‘hand holding’. The test to prove you are ready for uni is to actually pass the access course!

24^th August

Well I am still up and running but my voice has nearly gone so I am becoming addicted to my throat sweets!  Most of our courses are full and ‘the criteria’, our online clearing Bible, is updated four to six times per day.  This tells us what courses are still taking applications, what the entry criteria is and how to process applications, ie whether we can offer places or whether we have to pass the applications to the academics.  The phone calls are easing off a bit now and I have had time to make colourful flowers and name badges for our team.  Our colour is lilac and I could not find lilac glitter anywhere so I’ve had to make do with lilac tissue paper and purple sparkles.  We are meant to ‘theme our team’ and there have been some interesting ideas.  Sharat is the only male in our team and the feminist part of me objected strongly to one suggestion that he could be Charlie while we could all be his Angels!  My alternative suggestion that he be the beast while we be beauties did not go down well at all! 

25^th August

It is GCSE results day today and i am wondering if my friend got the C in maths she needs to take up her conditional offer to start a PGCE for secondary teaching Art and Design.  Although she has a fine art degree, an MA and 20 years experience working with community arts projects, she still needs to pass her GCSE maths!  We have had to turn away applicants with more than enough level three UCAS points because they do not have A-C  at GCSE in maths and/or  English.

My voice is continuing to deteriorate today and I am developing a nasty cough.  One caller was very sympathetic and suggested I go and have a nice spa!  I had another call from a woman worrying about sorting aout a problem with her son’s application.  I explained that due to the strict data protection laws we could only give information to the applicant. She became quite upset saying that he was cycling around the UK and she could not get in touch with him.  I explained that students are over 18 and have to take responsibility for their applications and as i talked she suddenly broke in and asked  “Is that you Alice?” 

Very surprised I answered  “Yes!  Who’s that?”

 “Catherine”

“Hairdresser  Catherine?”

“Yes!”

How random is that?  There are fifty of us taking calls and I get to talk to my hairdresser!

*Please note: Most names have been changed to protect anonymity.

What the Dickens! Learning bowls with Great Expectations.

Well dear reader, I am exhausted after a Sunday spent playing lawn bowls.  Now I am rather hesitant to tell my Australian rellies about this activity because no-one under the age of about 75 would be seen dead partaking in such an activity!  However this was for a special charity – Westmeria Counselling Service where I do my placement clinical hours.  We had to arrive at 9am –very early– for training, with strict instructions to wear a red top to distinguish us from the blues, and white soled shoes to avoid damaging the green.  I thought that bowls was quite a sedate game for oldies looking for a relaxing way to occupy their time.  I was mistaken.  It is very serious, with lots of etiquette involved and fiercely competitive!

I first heard about the game while studying British history at my Australian school.  In 1588 as the Spanish Armada was proceeding up the English Channel ready to invade, he was supposedly playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe and remarked to his commanders that ‘there was still time to complete his game and beat the Spanish’, which he duly did.

When I remarked on the competitive nature of the game, one senior gentleman told me in no uncertain terms that ‘you might think we are all old gits but many of us have been serious sportsmen in our time’. The balls are not balls at all.  They were originally made of wood and hence the name ‘woods’.



Antique bowling woods made of wood with ivory inserts

A modern 'wood' made of resin. The marks on the sides indicate which way to hold it to direct the curve - all very scientific!



They have to be held in a special way so they roll in the right direction.  They are weighted so that you can make it curve either left or right depending how you hold it.  The aim is to for your team to get their woods as close to the little white ball, called the Jack, as possible.  You must stand with one foot on a special rubber mat and bowl the wood underarm.  You can employ all sorts of shifty tactics including blocking the jack, knocking the other team’s woods out of the way, or knocking the jack away from the opposition’s woods to be closer to yours.  If there is any dispute about whose wood is closest to the jack out omes the specially designed tape measure from a specially designed little pouch worn on the waistband. 

Checking the distances while everyone waits with baited breath!

Fellow newbies Sue and Gemma thought, as I did, that the special little pouch was for holding your lipstick and sun cream but we were quickly corrected!  By the end of the day we had figured out many of the rules and I was beginning to really enjoy myself – especially when the afternoon tea and cakes came out!  There was a bar open to obtain stronger beverages but I didn’t dare indulge as my wood s were going crookedly enough already! We finished the day at 5pm, with the event having raised £2000 – fantastic!

We were joining a very British tradition!

I started my working week quite shattered after all that exertion bending down, rolling woods, walking from one end of the ‘rink’ to the other!

Us oldies on the early clearing team have now been invaded by all the newbies  swelling our ranks ready for Thursday’s A level results day.  We are in our new teams and have changed out team colour from pink to lilac.  We have to colour co ordinate our bay and I am having great difficulty locating lilac coloured glitter.  I have found a lilac glitter pen and purple sparkles so those will have to do.  Watch this space for the forthcoming photo gallery!

For the last two days the campus has felt like a  bit of a time warp, populated by characters in Dickensian dress,  horse drawn buggies coaches and , and all the modern paraphernalia  required for the filming of scenes for Great Expectations.  My usual lunchtime route was barricaded off and it felt like being in a time warp looking in one direction to the 1800’s and the other to the modern day – weird and quite discombobulating!

...and then there is the 1940’s D-day landing experience outside the library. 

Farewell to Team Uzma

This is our last day of working in our early Clearing teams.  The UCAS track is unavailable while being upgraded with A level results ready for A level day on Wednesday so we are having to tell everyone to call back on Monday to have any clearing applications considered.  I think it’s going to get verrry busy!!

On Monday we move into our new teams ready to be joined by all the newbies starting their first clearing.  I remember when I joined last year.  We finished our three days of training and came over  here to practise taking phone calls.  My phone rang, I picked it up and ...went blank!  I couldn’t believe it!  I was so nervous!  I had to put the caller on hold and tell my team leader that I had forgotten everything.  Luckily it was the impossible-to-fluster Spencer who calmly told me what to do and I was able to complete the call with bleeding to death, having a heart attack or anything else rather dramatic!

When we first came together as Team 3, with Uzma as our leader and pink as our colour (much to the chagrin of the boys!!) we just HAD to personalise our space.  Each of us chose a letter from our team name and made a poster.  Each is so different, expressing the individuality of the artist.

Enjoy!

Dan who is studying games and multimedia chose a play on words for his very British cuppa T

Uzma, our very business orientated team leader chose a very neat but slightly quirky computer generated letter and then applied her delegation skills to have Rukon decorate it beautifully

Farhana our resident mathematician went all algebraic on us,after insisting she wasn’t creative!

Monique, studying tourism management showed her taste for the exotic with a very sparkly fairy

Remco, our Dutchman who has just finished his event management course and is about to start his PGCE LLS course has been accused of trying to get into Uzma’s good books with his tasteful rendition and flattering words!

This is my letter as you can see by all the glitz.  I’m not sure how this relates to my course choice but I love my sparkles!

Rukon ‘s M shows all the precision required for his chosen career in Accounting and Finance!

....while Dan remains the eternal rebel!

So good bye team to Team Uzma and hello to Team Laura!  Now we have to think up a suitably lilac theme.