Lucinda

I don't have a problem with it. It's progress. Sure, I did look at it and think, "this is just like Twitter", but being able to publish videos and photos straight to the Wall is kind of useful. It's definitely better than Twitter. So it has taken me a while to find out where a few things have moved. But people are so negative about any changes Facebook make. I don't see what's wrong with it really.

Well I don't know if it would apply. Cos people already at uni didn't have to pay the £3000 a year while the people who started in 2006 did. The Student Loans Company are useless. 2 years ago I filled it all in online, then got a letter saying "You applied for £0 of tuition loan and £0 of maintenance loan. Is this right?" Fucking stupid. I applied for the right amount of both but their system fucked it up. I couldn't get on the system because apparently my ART ID didn't exist so I had to ring them up. Spent ages on hold and then they acted like somehow it was my fault. So I had to send off a load of forms to my local council and another letter to Glasgow. It takes the piss that they employ a load of people in Glasgow to run the Student Loans company when the Scottish people don't even pay the fees. I'll have to ring them up again some time to try to get into my online account again. Alan that idea sort of sounded like what they do in the US, where you do a year and then choose a subject to 'Major' in. It's rather different to what we do here but might suit more people because a lot of subjects are different at uni to how they are at school, mine certainly is. I think the main problem is the "one size fits all" education system. Degrees aren't right for all people or for all jobs but it seems that leaving school/college and doing anything other than going to University is looked down upon.

I've been locked out of my Student Loans account for 2 years now. It kept telling me my Art ID was wrong. I did phone them and the Scawtish bloke said he'd unlock it for me and send me a new password in the post but they haven't. Last year I printed out all 60 or so pages of the form and filled it all in and gave it in in person. But I need to be able to log in to sort out paying it back or most likely, not paying it back for quite a while.

Ok, so I went to uni because I didn't know what to do next. The Government have decided that because my parents earned just above an abitrary threshold when I went to uni (they're now both retired, but couldn't be bothered to update the student loan people), I only get the basic rate of loan and no grant or bursary. My course finishes in less than 3 months time and I have no idea what to do next. I don't consider that I've done a silly course, it's a good university and I think it's a worthwhile subject. It just doesn't happen to lead straight into a vocation like engineering or medicine. So now I feel like my cohort has been screwed over by the Government. A letter just arrived about a PGCE (teaching) course for my housemate. 2 of my other housemates are doing further courses (one's doing an MSc and the other a PhD). I have no idea what to do. I suppose I am lucky that my parents do have the money to support me while I'm in limbo. I'll be honest: most people I know at uni do have plenty of money to splash around, even though they might claim to be broke. I think the problem is Tony Blair's bizarre aspiration to have 50% of people go to University. More people are having to do Masters to distinguish themselves from all the people with degrees. What happens next? Everyone in the country educated to Doctorate level? Madness. Not all jobs need degrees and until the Government back down and stop trying to cram more and more people into already overstretched universities, it's only going to get worse.

It does annoy me that all the people who make the decisions about these things got paid to go to University and do their degrees. As part of the first year group to pay the 'top up fees' (they make it sound like a mobile top-up or something) and also the first year group to graduate in this wonderful new recession, I'm not best pleased about it. The fact is though that the Government don't give the Universities enough money. They are funded by foreign students who pay much higher fees. Next year, an EU student will pay £3225 for a course at my uni. My course, Geography, would cost £12,690 a year for a non-EU student. Medicine costs £14,660 for a foreign student per year and it's a 5 year course. The point is, universities don't receive nearly enough from the Government to fund decent teaching for the students. I am not satisfied with the contact time on my course and universities and the Government are realising that as a result of people paying for their degrees, they expect to get value for money, and are being more demanding. I've heard quite a bit from my mum because she works in educational finance and the Government are screwing the Universities over. So I can see why they want more money but I think more of it has to come from the Government rather than the students.

My housemate just came in to tell me about this. I found my house! I guess they took the photo in summer cos some of the windows are open. I'm surprised they managed to find a sunny day to take it on. Quote from my housemate: "I could go into town today. Or I could explore it on Google StreetView while doing some online shopping."

I drank too much last night and the club was really hot and crowded and I didn't feel amazing. And my housemate made me walk home in freezing fog, couldn't see beyond a few metres ahead, and I was wearing a short skirt and a thin top. It was quite a long way, took over half an hour. It was fun round my friend's house but they were making me do shots of rum for some reason. Urghhh horrible. At least my 1pm lecture got cancelled.

Never spoken to any but I've seen Colin and Edith presenting at an event back in 2003 and saw Colin at Leeds festival in 2007.

It was all foggy and overcast this morning and all miserable. I was quite disappointed as I wanted to enjoy the sunshine now the dissertation is finally out of the way. I went to Makro with my friend (and pretended to be another friend who has a Makro card but didn't have time to come) and when we got outside, it was all sunny. I'm going to go for a walk in the sunshine, probably just to the shop, but it means it hopefully won't be too cold tonight when we're out.

I had never played Scrabble until Easter of last year. I had never been bowling till I was 16 and I'd never been to Ikea till I was 17 despite living less than 2 miles from one. I think we should all list 5 cultural things we've never done and try to tick them off.

Somebody pays for my plane ticket, I'm there I need some decent weather. Well, the blog I just wrote explains what rocks in my life. I am up early today but that's kind of alright because I was forced to go to bed earlier than normal by a power cut. It was annoying at 1:15am though when the power came back on after about an hour and everything started humming and whirring. And then when I thought it was done, my printer started whirring again which woke me up and was quite scary.

Similar situation Helen. My parents are in New Zealand and I think they celebrate Mother's Day on a different day there any way so she'll never know

My housemate left his Facebook open in the computer room while he went for a walk the other day. My friend and I changed his religion to Pastafarian (look it up), political view to "Republican Party of the Virgin Islands" and set his status as "married". I tried to get him married to my other male housemate but he didn't accept it for some reason.... I'm worried about what he's going to do to get me back. It does seem to be an increasing trend, to dump people by Facebook status.

Happy birthday! Picnic in the sunshine sounds amazing... I had a picnic on a peat bog today and it was cold and cloudy so not so good!

You should have used your straight voice then.... if you have one

I love this Snow Patrol song so much. I've only just caught up with the show and tell conversation because I went to make food but now I'm back in real time. I don't think I ever had anything particularly interesting to take to show and tell. I just wasn't a very interesting kid.

I was in Staffordshire earlier... thankfully didn't get injured so didn't need to use the A&E! Did get my wellies stuck in a peat bog though... fun times. We were jumping and the whole ground was wobbling.

It will be once it's printed and handed in tomorrow. For now I keep thinking of things I want to change and telling myself there's no point. I think I'm going to treat myself to some tomato soup now because it seems to be finished. I have quite a low voice. I don't really see it as a problem, but yeah, I wouldn't want to date a guy with a high pitched voice. One of my lecturers has a high pitched voice, sounds slightly like he's on helium.

Oooh I like this Franz Ferdinand track. Think it's one of the best on the album. I am currently crawling from under the weight of my dissertation that's been dragging me down for the past few months and I can finally listen to Scott again, yay!

I heard this N Dubz song this morning on Moyles but had to leave just before Snow Patrol. I hope Scott plays some Snow Patrol. Good to hear some Muse just before Scott's show started.

I think I've finished the big D. It's not the best thing I've ever written but I've put a decent effort in and that's what counts. It's currently 23 words too long but that's easily fixable. I've sent it to my sister so she can hopefully point out some of the stupid mistakes that come from writing it at 4am. Tomorrow I get to spend the day on a floating peat bog, which sounds dangerous to me and the boring lecturer will talk for hours about it. But at least lots of my friends do that module, and it looks like the weather will be nice. Wednesday I will print this thing, give it in and then get very drunk! I have a definite sense of achievement for getting through this because it's been a bit of a shit term, I've been ill for most of it, and this is definitely the hardest piece of work I've ever done.

Not meaning to be insensitive.... but certain newspapers have been predicting her death "in the next few days" for weeks now. It's sad that someone so young is dying from cancer and it is a poignant reminder that no one is invincible and of the importance of cancer screening. Private Eye had some interesting stuff about the U-turns certain journalists have made in their opinions of Jade and her now husband. It shows how fickle journalists really can be.

Hmmm I have had pain in my ear from using in ear headphones. You'll look a bit silly but maybe try some conventional headphones? You can get ones that go round the back of your head that people wear while jogging that might look a bit less silly in public. Definitely take a break from wearing the in ear ones.

I don't think treating the whole of Africa as a problem to be solved is a good idea at all. That is a typical postcolonial (or perhaps even neocolonial) way of looking at it and makes sweeping generalisations. An important issue is, what constitutes development? I've studied this in quite a lot of detail as part of my degree. It seems that 'development' is seen as a process of modernisation, mechanisation, 'catching up'. Those kind of views are starting to change. Basically, who are we to tell them what being 'developed' is? Is the best life a life with 3 TVs and 2 cars for each household? If we all wanted to live like that we'd need several times the resources we currently have on the planet just to cope with the current population. As Julian Simon put it (quite bluntly), if people in developing countries thought their lives were that terrible, they'd kill themselves. He is talking about every day subsistence lifestyles, not wars/genocide kind of situations. So what are the problems in Africa? War, famine, the other two horsemen of the apocalypse. First off, these problems aren't everywhere. You might be surprised to know that Africa is also suffering from growing obesity and the burden of disease is changing from infectious diseases to non-infectious (heart disease, type 2 diabetes etc.). In many parts of Africa, being overweight is considered a sign of affluence. To some extent, the past and present actions of 'developed' countries are to blame. We have taken advantage of their natural resources and paid them below the odds. We stop them from selling their food to EU countries because the CAP subsidises food production to such a great extent. Past policies of dividing countries and playing off different groups against each other, the 'divide and rule' technique also used by Stalin in the Caucasus, have helped to fuel tensions and some of these conflicts still go on around the world. I could go on about this for a lot longer but there's no point because no one will read it. Not long ago I was reading a BBC "Have your say" discussion on the subject of Africa and it horrified me, the views people have. Many people's views don't seem to have moved on from the days of Environmental Determinism (the theory used to justify and vindicate colonial exploitation) where it was believed that those living in tropical climates are naturally lazy, stupid and unproductive because of the heat so they need 'educating' and controlling to use their resources more productively. I think I've said enough. I don't think the question you've posed is valid at all.

10. The Beautiful South - Rotterdam Or Anywhere 11. Coldplay - The Scientist 20. Greenday - Basket Case