Aargh - computers!!

Aaaaaaaggggghhhh!
I got a brace yesterday and it hurts to eat, talk and play the clarinet (I haven't tried bassoon yet but it will probably be worse). I will have to wear it for another 12-18 months. Personally I would rather have wonky teeth for the rest of my life than wear it for another day, but my parents ignored me (as always) when I said I didn't want it before.
At school I will just be talking even less than usual, but I am so quiet anyway that (hopefully) people won't notice that I'm not saying anything. I don't know what I'll do though if it's really painful to play my instruments. I've got a bassoon exam this term and a clarinet one next session.

Poor Lottie.



Sounds like one of those situations where you'd be feeling bad regardless of whether or not you'd responded. You don't know how they're going to respond, so you may be feeling bad unnecessarily.

One of my friends has just got a brace on and is struggling to play the flute.

I'm having them fitted when I'm 18, and have got to have lots of work done before then. Last month I couldn't play in this concert I was looking forward to because they pulled 4 front teeth out

I hate dentists/orthodontists so much.

Hope your mouth feels better soon. Apparently it stops hurting after a few days, and I've heard that reed instruments aren't affected too much by the extra metal in the mouth.

Good luck.

My son had one fitted just over 2 months ago and it will stop hurting, honest. Don't stop talking - it feels strange at first but I know that my son tends to forget he's got his in and he doesn't sound at all odd.

I can't comment on the instruments, unfortunately (Son plays piano and guitar, and obviously the brace doesn't affect those!)

Don't panic - it will feel normal soon.

It's been a couple of decades since I had a brace but I remember feeling exactly the same as you do now. I had no choice in the matter as my overbite was so large I couldn't really shut my mouth. Playing clarinet hurt a bit every time it was tightened, but I talked to my dentist about it and he agreed to delay the fortnightly tightenings a little when I had an exam coming up (I had the brace for 3 years gaining it just before I did grade 4 and finally getting rid of it just before G8).

Trust me it is worth it.

The advantages in terms of oral health and appearance were the obvious benefits - less obvious ones are that I lost the biting habit I'd developed on clarinet (I would have sworn that I didn't bite - the aching teeth told the real story). I stopped biting my pen when bored or anxious. I developed a love of soft fruit! I had a whole new appreciation of the joy of biting into a crisp apple (3 years of cutting them up was frustrating).

Probably most life changing for me was that on the days when playing clarinet was too painful I started to take my slightly neglected recorders more seriously.

So trust me good can come out of an otherwise annoying situation.

Meh. Why are academics so blasted finicky about their labs and equipment.

Honestly the fuss they're managing to make over my request to borrow a more accurate balance (set of scales) than the one in the lab I'm based in. I only want it for an hour, on two separate days!!

Argh! I bought some music online and am having no end of trouble actually printing it out! After telling me I had no print rights the first time I attempted to print it (and waiting three days for the help desk to respond), it's now printing out with everything looking perfect - except for the fact that note heads, key signature, time signature, treble and bass clefs etc are missing. The bar lines are there, as are the note stems, and the titles are in bold. I have no idea what's causing this, I replaced my ink cartridges but still have the same issue!
ARGH!

Apart from the note heads, everything else would be on the left of the page. Might it be that your margins are set incorrectly? How does it appear on the computer screen? If it appears ok there, it should print ok.

Also, have you tried cleaning your printer nozzles?

Its also sounds like your paper might be incorrectly positioned in the printer...

Check its lined up properly?

Hope you get it sorted, printers are such pains!

Nah, it's not my printer... When you click "preview" it actually appears on the screen like that. I don't know what the problem is, it's infuriating! I'd draw them on myself, but I am so messy it'll just look awful and be hard to read.

Argggghhhhhhh

This morning I have my 'assassination' (tutorial) follow-up to my course results from last week.

It's affectionately known as 'The Firing Squad': a line-up of tutors ready to tear us apart.

I couldn't sleep last night and I feel sick this morning... not so much about what they're going to say to me but about what I might say to them!!!

I'm worried I won't bite my lip about the mis-representation and weak areas of the course (like the fact the tutor has been fawning all over my work saying it's brilliant for the last 8 months then I get a rubbish mark! (what the heck was that about????)) In fact I'm worried I might go ahead and quit if they don't say something positive... I'm too old for insults from 'teachers' these days .

Please, please, please, let Lottie not say anything stupid

I dunno Lottie, I'd say what you think. I think you're quite entitled to ask why, after recieving mainly positive feedback, and few comments on potential improvements, you recieved a mark you are unhappy with.

Just don't loose your temper.

But then, I tend to say what I think and worry about the consequences after...

Hope it goes well.

ARGH! Have my end of year recital tomorrow and a last minute flute lesson from David Nicholson in 3 hours - I think he is going to throttle me!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HAVE THREE THEOLOGY A LEVEL EXAMS NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!





HUG ME!!!!

argh.

3 a levels, that is all, and i dont stand a chance with any right now.

Looks like you're feeling very small, Soph! Stand up tall and be content to do your best - no-one can do any more, so you have to settle for that!

Make sure you revise the bits which will get you most marks, and work through some past questions with the answer schemes so you can see what the examiners are looking for.

Very best of luck with your exams. I hope they go better than you think!

Best of luck Soph

I've had 7 exams and have 6 left

Sympathies and best wishes for everyone caught up with examness. Remember to have breaks, and look forward to the holidays afterwards.

I'm wondering if long distance relationshipness gets easier or worse over time. I'm one week in, 15 months to go...

My best isn't always good enough, thats what i have learnt.

I'm not really handling it all that well with a few other things happening, and i panic.

Thanks everyone.

Hope you're exams go well Heslop.

Tamsin, hope you manage to work through your long distance relationship, they're hard as i saw my brother go through one, but you can do it

AAAGGGHHH!!!

drinking sessions... breweries......

Hope they've gone OK so far, heslop01. Best of luck for the remaining ones.

Yesterday a little boy came for his piano lesson and I didn't realise straight away that he was ill. But about 15 minutes into the lesson with nothing going right I asked what was the matter. He replied that he had not slept all night and had a temperature.I n fact he had enormous blue rings under his eyes and was flushed. I should have realised earlier but had been distracted by another parent at the moment when he arrived.

He had been sent to school in the morning feeling unwell. His temperature at lunch time was 38.6 and his mother sent him back to afternoon school and then to his piano lesson. I sat him in a cool place and disinfected the room and the keyboard. When his father arrived I complained that he should have been kept home for his own sake and mine. If I get ill now in the last run up to exams and concerts everyone suffers and this child could in no way benefit from a lesson. All his father said was "OK" AAAAAAARRRGH!!!

I'm worried about my friend. She's homeschooled and isolated, and recently she's been depressed all the time. She doesn't ever leave the house any more though she used to do all sorts of extra-curricular activities. She can't sleep, but she says she's always too tired to do anything, and she often, if she feels lonely, goes to stay with cousins of a similar age but she won't do that any more either. Her mum knows all about it and is routinely woken up in the middle of the night because my friend can't sleep, but nothing seems to be helping...

I'm not surprised you're worried! Can you persuade her to see her doctor? The symptoms sound like those of clinical depression and she may need some help. Never leaving the house would get anyone down!

Have you invited her to come and see York? Maybe the beautiful city and the university would cheer her up a bit. If she really is clinically depressed it might not help, as people can't enjoy anything with that, but if she's just a bit low it might shake her out of it.

I've asked her, but she's said "maybe" in a way that I know means she won't come. Her mum is very strict, and she wouldn't be allowed to stay over if she came, but often my friend uses her mum's strictness as an excuse not to do things too.

I've tried persuading her to go to the doctor, but I don't think she will. I think if she gets bad enough her mum will make her, but I'm not sure how far off that could be. Last year she got this illness (related, maybe) where she just felt sick all the time and could hardly eat - she lost about two stone before her mum made her go to the doctor!

getting her to see a doctor would be a great step forward although, people can be a bit daunted by this, and maybe just being a listening ear to her for a while would help too...maybe if you could help her work backwards to when she started feeling like this, it would trigger her to seek more help or at maybe help to feel she can be active in other areas to build her confidence up a bit about going out and doing things
Is she happy being home schooled? Just thought that maybe there are issues tied up in that which maybe her parents aren't so aware of? And if she's of an age where she's wanting to become more independent, maybe very strict parents and being home schooling might be contributing? Might be totally unrelated, but could be worth checking
I hope she's feeling better soon!

I think a lot of young people go through stages of showing symptoms of depression, without needing medication, and it does sound like she's in one of these phases (or actually clinicially depressed). I've never thought it appropriate to mention the word 'depression' to any of my friends going through such a phase. After all, you don't want to make them pull away from you any further.

My first approach (when the alarm bells start ringing) has always been to be the best friend I can. I send regular emails, write letters and send postcards when I visit places. This is with the attempt to remind the person that they aren't alone or forgotten. I also talk to everyone else I know who knows them, and ask for their support, and then continually remind people to also get in touch, ask the lonely friend out, etcetc. People who are feeling very low tend to push their support network away, and often their friends get offended. I take the time to point out to any fed up friends that their support is needed, and that this is common from someone who is depressed (clinicially or otherwise). The other thing I do is to listen as much as possible for clues to underlying problems, and then as many positive suggestions as I can, that might help to resolve them.

When someone is determined to isolate themselves, there isn't much more you can do. Try not to feel bad or guilty though, and don't let yourself get worn out worrying about them. Try to remember though, that most people do get through this sort of thing eventually, if their self esteem is given time to recover. It may not be that your friend needs dragging to a doctor just yet.

What is it that makes depression 'clinical'?

I've never been sure, but isn't it that clinical depression is based on an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, rather than any unhappy situation, whilst extreme sadness (or ordinary depression) is based on unhappy situations/feelings of loneliness etc?

Actually I'm coming up with flaws in that argument even as I type it.

Anyway, I think Tamsin and ChevvyChev have some good advice. Luckily one of our mutual friends will be home for summer soon, so there'll be someone there to keep her company and get her to leave the house a bit.
Last time I was home, she really seemed to want to meet up with me - but didn't want to leave her house to do it, so I went there... Maybe just being company helps though.

Personally, I reserve clinical depression for people diagnosed by a doctor.

But, I think its too easy to forget that you can be depressed/low/unhappy/lonely (to the extend of it having significant effects on your life) without being mentally ill. Its a fine line to draw, and I'm no expert. But in the context of the previous post, I was trying to distinguish between the two. After all, sometimes people do need drugs to rebalance chemicals that make them depressed, other benefit more from talking therapies... and some people just need support and friendship until their lives move on.

Agreed.

I wasn't trying to catch anyone out, it's just it's an expression which is bandied about rather and I think a lot of people (including me) aren't totally sure what it means.

I've had a bad week. My landlord told me they were going to renew the lease for another year and changed their mind. They want me out by september.... there goes my summer spending it on finding somewhere else. Not a happy bunny. Plus I dropped rubab down the back of my ovan! When ever I try to practice violin someone calls or causes problems so that I can't. I'm going to practice now before someone bothers me!

I had post-natal depression after my daughter was born. At the time I was told it was probably due to the enormous changes in hormone levels in the first fortnight after giving birth. Whatever caused it initially - it did respond to lithium treatment - it persisted to a lesser degree for almost a year, though I was only on medication for about three months.

I'd go along with lucky in saying that it's depression which doesn't improve without medical treatment. I'd been down at times before in my life - who hasn't? But this was something that came out of the blue; I'd been very much looking forward to the baby, was happy for a week after the birth, and then very suddenly everything went very bleak and black. Two of my friends have had post-natal depression too.

I think what I'd call clinical depression can be triggered either by hormone changes (not uncommon in teenagers!) or sometimes by life events which overload people. We all know when we're low because of something that's happened to us, but normally we bounce back in time. People with clinical depression don't bounce back in the same way and usually need medication. That's my understanding of it, anyway, though I'm no doctor so may be talking rubbish!

ARGH

I'm ####ed

AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

I don't know what to do, and how to not get killed.

I've got an end of year maths test on Thursday- determines what sets we're in

First GCSE science module in a couple of weeks

And 2 pieces of homework due in tomorrow, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday.

Plus two music exams in a month.

Year 9 is supposed to be a doss year

So whatever I do it's going to have a negative. If I do my homework then I might not get another chance for maths revision. If I do maths revision my teachers will scream at me for not doing my homework.

Oh well. I'll get Chemistry notes finished now. Then will attempt homework. Then if not too late will practice instruments. Then will revise maths late into the night.

There

yeah... that's what I thought at the start of the year, and even more when the SATs got cancelled but it's turning out to be anything but! We've done our first Science GCSE modules (B1, P1, C1 - is that what you're doing?) but we have the first Maths one on the 11th.
On top of that... I've also got 2 music exams this term, I'm just hoping they won't be in the same week - last year I had one on the 9th and one on the 14th of July...

We had to do our SATs last year because our school is stupid.

Yup, we're just about to do the first Science GCSE ones. Multiple choice You say you've already done them? Are they easy, hard? They wouldn't be the same papers would they, AQA?

Got music exams on the same weekend- if not the same day.

we're about even. Good luck with all your nasty exams.

I don't think it would be the same paper, though I can't remember what board we use. It was all right, though some of the questions seem to be just testing your English (not much to do with Science, more understanding the question!). Biology is the worst one for this sort of question.

Good luck with your exams too!

You know when you're a bit worried about something (in my case, whatever I might be doing after this PhD) and someone comes along and makes you feel even worse? Like "There's no jobs out there now!"

Like, THANKS

That's rather tactless. And wrong, as despite the recession, I'm sure there is stuff out there...

There probably is. I'm just not qualified for any of it

Ah, but that's all the wrong attitude. I get so tired of people telling me they aren't qualified / don't have the experience for the job. After all, the application process is all about drawing on any little bit of (remote if necessary) relevent skills you have. If you're convinced you can't do the job before you've read the job decription, then you've already given up.

I know it hard to be confident, but do try to believe in yourself. Most jobs teach you everything you need to know before you start, anyway!

That is true. I think I conceded defeat to science a long time before this...!

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!

I've had toothache on and off for a week or so, so I took myself off to the dentist today. The good news is I have antibiotics.

The bad news is that, despite being told several times over the last few years that I couldn't have toothache under a crown where I had had root canal treatment, in fact the root canal treatment wasn't done properly: one root wasn't done at all, and that is why it's been twingeing on and off for years. And now I have to have all the root canal treatment done again.

Oh dear. Sorry to hear that.

There's lots of money going to the sciences and economics from the last RAE - so postdoc positions may well pick up in your area of work.

The big problems are in the subjects which did well in the RAE but have lost lots of money and where departments now have 25/30/40% less money than expected...

It's better in biological sciences than it is in the other fields, so I guess that's lucky. Someone asked if I'm going into teacher training. HAHA

People keep asking me that too, and then don't seem to understand that school teaching is a totally different thing and look surprised or offended when I say that it's different and requires different skills and experience...