This weekend, I was away from home, visiting my dear friend Chloe who is at Oxford, doing Russian (we're all very proud of her). Chloe's the first person to put up with me invading their new world, and she was very gracious about it.
Oxford is a lovely place, though really quite odd - everyone there is a student or a tourist. On a Saturday in Cheltenham there are schoolkids in every direction and I think I saw four in Oxford. It's a strange one, but being with a student - mine's at New College and very proud of it - you get to see stuff the tourists don't, like the cloisters (featured in Harry Potter) at night.
As I expected, my favourite thing about the visit was getting to meet Chloe's new friends, and try to assess how they reacted to our dearest Lysha, who visited before Christmas.
I got to meet most of the gang, particularly her boyfriend - she did well - and they're a really great bunch. I wouldn't blame her if she suddenly ditched the school friends. I went in with the warning that they'd all been given the impression that I was... eccentric (apparently it was something to do with drownings) but I was welcomed, and had a damn good time. We went to see a show (the Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan society's production of Ruddigore) which was fun, do a movie night and eat ice-cream (while bewildering one of her neighbours).
It was a wrench to come home really, but I have an invite to come back in the spring or summer and I am so taking her up on it.
The next adventure in studentland will probably be with Lysha and/or Martin after Easter.
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Monday, 15 February 2010
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
We planned to look at some trees
A few Sundays ago, my friend Hanna and I set off for a local(ish) arboretum, the one at Westonbirt, just over an hour away. The plan was to look at the pretty foliage and take nice pictures of it. For the occasion, dad lent me his Nikon DSLR, telling me not to lose or break it (because people do that on purpose).
We began the journey, heading southwest. It started raining, hard, which gave Hanna the opportunity to discover just how quickly her windscreen wipers could go. When the rain stopped, we were coming into Tetbury, a typical Cotswold town, all local stone and antique shops. We drove through, me taking photos out of the car window, and as we got to the edge of town, the rain began again. Wipers go back on, but... nothing. No movement from them at all. Try again, still nothing. We pulled over and phoned Hanna's mum, whose car it was we'd taken. We let her know what had happened, then phoned the RAC. I ended up talking to them, told them what they needed to know and finally got the message that the man with the van would be there in about an hour and 15 minutes.
So, since we had a while, we set off into Tetbury in search of some coffee and somewhere to sit down. The first place we tried wasn't letting anyone in despite having spare tables, so we found another, where the spare tales were there to be used, not just looked at.
We had our coffee, and a toasted teacake and headed back to the car where we took some photos of the dashboard (we might as well). Our saviour arrived, looked at the wipers, got out an electronic thing, put it back, then he fixed the wiper. By hitting it. With a hammer.
I'm told that's called 'percussive maintenance'. It definitely worked. Unfortunately, the advice was to head back home, so no trees for us. The mechanic followed us back to Cheltenham just in case the wiper motor needed hitting again and so we could fill out a couple of forms.
So, our trip to see the trees was called off, but, instead, we sat in Hanna's living room, had another coffee, and Hanna gave me my belated birthday gift, a photo album put together of all the things that have gone on in the last couple of years - the picnics, birthdays, the snow days.
It wasn't what we planned, but it was a lovely day, and there are worse places to be stranded than Tetbury.
We began the journey, heading southwest. It started raining, hard, which gave Hanna the opportunity to discover just how quickly her windscreen wipers could go. When the rain stopped, we were coming into Tetbury, a typical Cotswold town, all local stone and antique shops. We drove through, me taking photos out of the car window, and as we got to the edge of town, the rain began again. Wipers go back on, but... nothing. No movement from them at all. Try again, still nothing. We pulled over and phoned Hanna's mum, whose car it was we'd taken. We let her know what had happened, then phoned the RAC. I ended up talking to them, told them what they needed to know and finally got the message that the man with the van would be there in about an hour and 15 minutes.
So, since we had a while, we set off into Tetbury in search of some coffee and somewhere to sit down. The first place we tried wasn't letting anyone in despite having spare tables, so we found another, where the spare tales were there to be used, not just looked at.
We had our coffee, and a toasted teacake and headed back to the car where we took some photos of the dashboard (we might as well). Our saviour arrived, looked at the wipers, got out an electronic thing, put it back, then he fixed the wiper. By hitting it. With a hammer.
I'm told that's called 'percussive maintenance'. It definitely worked. Unfortunately, the advice was to head back home, so no trees for us. The mechanic followed us back to Cheltenham just in case the wiper motor needed hitting again and so we could fill out a couple of forms.
So, our trip to see the trees was called off, but, instead, we sat in Hanna's living room, had another coffee, and Hanna gave me my belated birthday gift, a photo album put together of all the things that have gone on in the last couple of years - the picnics, birthdays, the snow days.
It wasn't what we planned, but it was a lovely day, and there are worse places to be stranded than Tetbury.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Leah's Stoke-on-Trent Adventure (The Second University Open Day)
This time, the university of Staffordshire's Stoke Campus.
We were soon aware that this was a better day than Falmouth's, although whether that was because of the better organisation or simply not having my dad grumping around remains to be seen.
We had come up on the train, a relaxing hour and a half direct journey - in stark contrast to the four and a half hour drive down to Cornwall last week - so we weren't already tired when we got there.
Our first views of the city were positive. A lovely Victorian station and, outside more Victorian buildings and (of course) a statue of Josiah Wedgwood. The campus was within walking distance and we were there in five minutes. I was pleased to note as we walked toward it, that I could see hills (something I have been used to my whole life here in Cheltenham).
Registration was fast. We were given leaflets about accommodation, writing the personal statement, safety procedures (in case of fire and so on) tickets for a campus tour and an 'Open day visitor' sticker, which entitled us to free hot drinks for the whole day (they didn't run out of beans). We had half an hour before we had to be over on the other half of the campus to hear about the journalism course, so we took advantage of the free drinks and got some coffee.
We headed from the Leek road site around to College road, where the journalism talk and tour was situated in the university's film theatre. We were early, so we wandered around the campus then waited in the foyer with everybody else, peering through into the newsroom and looking at the design students' 'Design loves and hates' which were posted on the wall. The London Underground map and Moulton bicycle got the thumbs up, while foil-lidded yoghurt pots and Phillipe Starck's 'Juicy Salif' lemon juicer were less well liked.
Again, there were differences from last week. Falmouth's representative for journalism was a single lecturer who had only been there for a few months and didn't have all the information we wanted. At Stoke, a third of the faculty (eleven of them) were there to talk to us (apparently the rest were working in the field). They sold it well. Suffice to say, by the time we set off for the tour (having been split up into groups who were thinking of sport, broadcast, print or just plain journalism) I was convinced, and I wanted to do the course there.
We saw the newsroom, its computers, the news desk and the sofa, bought from Pebble Mill, and covered in Midlands news presenters' hot chocolate stains. There were televisions in there, continually showing the BBC news and Sky news, and an open gallery. Students get to have a go at every job on newsdays, from presenting to producing and everything in between (and I think I know which I'll be happiest doing).
Their radio studio has all professional equipment and, we were told, gets phone calls from all sorts of interesting people - since it's common for someone to phone an agent and ask if their client would call back.
It seems from all that was said that this blogging lark is a good plan , and that the years of extracurricular drama have provided some of the confidence, the relaxation techniques and the speech skills which will be important for the course and the profession.
We headed back to Leek Road for our campus tour, and waited with everyone else for our guides to appear at 1:30. We had a chat with someone else who had been there on the journalism tour with us, who we'd discovered to be from Gloucester, just down the road from us.
Again, a contrast with Falmouth. There, we had one student ambassador, who we couldn't hear, and who barely gave us any actual information. At Stoke, we had three Student ambassadors who all knew what they were talking about, showed enthusiasm for the place and the facilities and spoke loudly enough that they were audible, despite the large size of our tour group and the unfavourable acoustics. My favourite part was that one of them was called Leah (my name) and she was a journalism student. She discovered this when mum was asking her about accommodation and was making a comment about me: 'Leah, my Leah...'. I think she was quite pleased since she told the drama student (clearly a friend) who then said; 'She's probably nicer than you'. I'm pretty sure she was joking.
We had more hot drinks and listened to some information about student finance and.. that was the end of the day. We'd seen all we had to see, and so we headed back to the train station.
The pictures don't really fit in to the narrative, so here they are separately:
The Station: nicer than Birmingham New Street (this is not hard)
Lovely and green, rather like home
Student lets with faaabulous period features
'Ember lounge' College road's student union bar (where I will likely be spending lots of time)
The Library (and two of our student ambassadors, who did a good job)
We were soon aware that this was a better day than Falmouth's, although whether that was because of the better organisation or simply not having my dad grumping around remains to be seen.
We had come up on the train, a relaxing hour and a half direct journey - in stark contrast to the four and a half hour drive down to Cornwall last week - so we weren't already tired when we got there.
Our first views of the city were positive. A lovely Victorian station and, outside more Victorian buildings and (of course) a statue of Josiah Wedgwood. The campus was within walking distance and we were there in five minutes. I was pleased to note as we walked toward it, that I could see hills (something I have been used to my whole life here in Cheltenham).
Registration was fast. We were given leaflets about accommodation, writing the personal statement, safety procedures (in case of fire and so on) tickets for a campus tour and an 'Open day visitor' sticker, which entitled us to free hot drinks for the whole day (they didn't run out of beans). We had half an hour before we had to be over on the other half of the campus to hear about the journalism course, so we took advantage of the free drinks and got some coffee.
We headed from the Leek road site around to College road, where the journalism talk and tour was situated in the university's film theatre. We were early, so we wandered around the campus then waited in the foyer with everybody else, peering through into the newsroom and looking at the design students' 'Design loves and hates' which were posted on the wall. The London Underground map and Moulton bicycle got the thumbs up, while foil-lidded yoghurt pots and Phillipe Starck's 'Juicy Salif' lemon juicer were less well liked.
Again, there were differences from last week. Falmouth's representative for journalism was a single lecturer who had only been there for a few months and didn't have all the information we wanted. At Stoke, a third of the faculty (eleven of them) were there to talk to us (apparently the rest were working in the field). They sold it well. Suffice to say, by the time we set off for the tour (having been split up into groups who were thinking of sport, broadcast, print or just plain journalism) I was convinced, and I wanted to do the course there.
We saw the newsroom, its computers, the news desk and the sofa, bought from Pebble Mill, and covered in Midlands news presenters' hot chocolate stains. There were televisions in there, continually showing the BBC news and Sky news, and an open gallery. Students get to have a go at every job on newsdays, from presenting to producing and everything in between (and I think I know which I'll be happiest doing).
Their radio studio has all professional equipment and, we were told, gets phone calls from all sorts of interesting people - since it's common for someone to phone an agent and ask if their client would call back.
It seems from all that was said that this blogging lark is a good plan , and that the years of extracurricular drama have provided some of the confidence, the relaxation techniques and the speech skills which will be important for the course and the profession.
We headed back to Leek Road for our campus tour, and waited with everyone else for our guides to appear at 1:30. We had a chat with someone else who had been there on the journalism tour with us, who we'd discovered to be from Gloucester, just down the road from us.
Again, a contrast with Falmouth. There, we had one student ambassador, who we couldn't hear, and who barely gave us any actual information. At Stoke, we had three Student ambassadors who all knew what they were talking about, showed enthusiasm for the place and the facilities and spoke loudly enough that they were audible, despite the large size of our tour group and the unfavourable acoustics. My favourite part was that one of them was called Leah (my name) and she was a journalism student. She discovered this when mum was asking her about accommodation and was making a comment about me: 'Leah, my Leah...'. I think she was quite pleased since she told the drama student (clearly a friend) who then said; 'She's probably nicer than you'. I'm pretty sure she was joking.
We had more hot drinks and listened to some information about student finance and.. that was the end of the day. We'd seen all we had to see, and so we headed back to the train station.
The pictures don't really fit in to the narrative, so here they are separately:
The Station: nicer than Birmingham New Street (this is not hard)
Lovely and green, rather like home
Student lets with faaabulous period features
'Ember lounge' College road's student union bar (where I will likely be spending lots of time)
The Library (and two of our student ambassadors, who did a good job)
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Leah's Big Cornish Adventure
Yesterday was the day that me, my mum and my dad made our way southwest to have a good look at University College Falmouth and its journalism course. We set off about eight o-clock in the car, armed with our information pack (a map and a timetable) and a bagful of water bottles, hoping to make the journey in about four and a half hours.
My first impression of the place was in sunshine, probably a good thing as far as they're concerned for selling the place. The buildings are quite new, as the campus was set up between 1999 and 2001, and therefore very much of their time, with the interesting rendering techniques and timber cladding that are also present on the buildings at my old school which were put up in the same time. We registered and were given vouchers for a coffee machine which, in its own words, was; 'Out of Beans!'.
We set off with one of the campus tours, led by student ambassadors in big yellow hoodies. We were showed around the design studios - mostly irrelevant to me, but interesting to see that actually their workshop equipment is not a million miles away from what we had for GCSE Product Design (we were a technology college so we had all industry standard equipment). Unfortunately, our guide was practically inaudible, and might not have even been visible a lot of the time, had it not been for the big yellow hoodie. We had to cut short our tour - not getting to see either the accommodation or the media building where I would be working - so that we could go to a welcome lecture where a one of the senior management team told us that, essentially, Falmouth is different. In some ways that might be a bad thing, but it was clear that in his opinion it worked better than what he'd seen at other universities where he'd worked.
We were then shown to the journalism seminar by a far more enthusiastic guide, and heard about the course.
It looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. The tutors all have experience of working in the field and have brought their connections with them. there are a variety of guest lecturers throughout the year, from the editors of the local newspapers to people who work at the Independent and the Guardian who make their way from London to talk to the students. The course itself includes modules on the history of journalism, media law, photojournalism, television journalism and so on and so forth - all interesting and useful for what I'd like to do in the future.
So yeah. Falmouth was nice. I'm not totally convinced, but it's Staffordshire University's Open Day next Saturday, so there will be a report on that and maybe I will have made some sort of decision (or maybe it will come down to who'll have me)
My first impression of the place was in sunshine, probably a good thing as far as they're concerned for selling the place. The buildings are quite new, as the campus was set up between 1999 and 2001, and therefore very much of their time, with the interesting rendering techniques and timber cladding that are also present on the buildings at my old school which were put up in the same time. We registered and were given vouchers for a coffee machine which, in its own words, was; 'Out of Beans!'.
We set off with one of the campus tours, led by student ambassadors in big yellow hoodies. We were showed around the design studios - mostly irrelevant to me, but interesting to see that actually their workshop equipment is not a million miles away from what we had for GCSE Product Design (we were a technology college so we had all industry standard equipment). Unfortunately, our guide was practically inaudible, and might not have even been visible a lot of the time, had it not been for the big yellow hoodie. We had to cut short our tour - not getting to see either the accommodation or the media building where I would be working - so that we could go to a welcome lecture where a one of the senior management team told us that, essentially, Falmouth is different. In some ways that might be a bad thing, but it was clear that in his opinion it worked better than what he'd seen at other universities where he'd worked.
We were then shown to the journalism seminar by a far more enthusiastic guide, and heard about the course.
It looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. The tutors all have experience of working in the field and have brought their connections with them. there are a variety of guest lecturers throughout the year, from the editors of the local newspapers to people who work at the Independent and the Guardian who make their way from London to talk to the students. The course itself includes modules on the history of journalism, media law, photojournalism, television journalism and so on and so forth - all interesting and useful for what I'd like to do in the future.
So yeah. Falmouth was nice. I'm not totally convinced, but it's Staffordshire University's Open Day next Saturday, so there will be a report on that and maybe I will have made some sort of decision (or maybe it will come down to who'll have me)
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