Argh. Attempting to help my 9 year old with his essay homework. Every sentence seems to require extensive discussion and we are proceeding by inches. If I say the wrong thing or he makes a mistake, it requires a 10 minute recess for tears, tantrum and tearing of hair...

Really sorry to hear this. It is so awful and leaves you feeling so helpless to see offenders playing the system, and worse still when they win. (Am assuming that there is no question about the person's guilt.)

That's so disgusting! Surely if you show them how horrified you are by their behaviour, it must have some effect? Time for a lesson in basic health, I think. They should know that germs are present in saliva and they could pass on something nasty. Tell them that players spit onto the pitch, not at one another!

This is one piece of bad behaviour I really hope doesn't catch on in the UK.

This sounds dreadful at age 9. The work must be too hard for him if it's such a struggle. I had a lot of problems with my daughter's homework in year 5. The teacher was trying to get her to do precis and note taking, and we struggled with it for weeks. I wished afterwards I'd just told the teacher it was not helping my child - it was definitely beyond her at that age, and I'm not surprised.

It might be a good idea to have a word with the teacher and make sure (s)he realises how stressful this homework was for your son. I really don't think children should be struggling like this at such an early age.

Well, the Extra Tall fittings were just a tad too long in the arm and the King Size fittings were a little too short, so despite trying on more than half a dozen jackets, I came away with none.

I did however, get a new pair of trousers (they do up to 38" inside leg! ) and a new shirt, which I changed into and subsequently kept on, to wear at the Cardiff event!

That's awful Cyrilla, so sorry to hear that!!

Oh dear, hope that you managed to get through the essay without too many tears.

I'm afraid there really isn't any doubt as to the person's guilt. He was convicted of the murder several years ago..it really couldn't have been anyone but him...he admitted cutting the body up but now is saying that he just 'found him dead'...mmm, right...

Grrr I hate windows 7!!! I can't find the word count button, I am in Review and I am sure it used to be there but it isn't any more. I want my old word back!

Any thoughts?

In the Tools menu? Can't really be of help as I'm a Mac user.
[smug face]

No "tools menu" How I hate it! and it is so much smaller to see than my old word!

Is this Word 2007? If so, mine is in the review section

Thanks Babybird, this is exactly where mine used to be. Son has just come in from school and found it for me, it is still in the review section, but whereas it used to say "wordcount" in the top left hand and you had to click on it, it is now bottom left hand corner and automatically does it for you.

I don't know how I am going to work out setting up the page for double spacing, margins etc, I used to find this so easy before!

Double spacing is in the Paragraph section in Home and margins in the Page Setup section of Page Layout

Thanks Babybird, managed to find the margins but can't find the spacing and my son has grown impatient of me lol

Maybe hubbie will look when he comes in. I can't believe that I was so conversant with word and now I feel like a beginner! It wont be my essays pulling my hair out, but windows 7 instead. lol

Can you see the icons that you click to centre/left-align/right-align text? It's next to that.

No, they are not there either and they used to be. I found all of these things when I did my last OU course in July but my son said it is because it is an updated version. Why can't they just leave things as they were! lol

We've just installed Word 2010.
By the time I have learnt to use it, it will be out of date.

lol!

oh poor Cambiata I do feel for you, all I can do though is offer a big hug and hope that it doesn't take too long before things are back to normal.

Best of luck with it all - takes me back to when we had something similar - we were without a proper kitchen for several months. Everything takes so much longer, doesn't it?

It will be worth it I promise you!

Not if you blitz it, which is what I'll be doing in the next few months (doing the whole house, windows, doors, kitchen, bathroom, rewire). I'll go and stay in a B&B while the work's being done if I have to

When we had an extension and central heating put in, I co-incided this with a holiday away as I had a toddler and didn't think I could cope.

However, when I had my kitchen and bathrooms done, I just had to grin and bear it, but like Maggie says, it is worth it in the end. It is surprising how quickly you can become accustomed to living like that.

Gah, more than Argh!

This week we originally had scheduled a 2-day meeting in the stupid site in West London. We were promised 'socialising opportunites' as well as meetings, oh how thrililng.

Then they've rescheduled it, and so it's only a day. Originally 8.30-5.00. Double-checked (for sorting out train times), and now it's shrunk down to 9.00-4.30. Well, I fear the chances of it finishing on time are minmial, but at least we should be done by 5pm.

But, now we're not even getting lunch! Oh, we are getting a lunch break, but due to the shrinking of the day the break is shrunk too...and we have to go to a different building, buy a visitor's lunch card, put money on it, buy food, return visitor's lunch card to receive back deposit (but probably not any leftover money on the card).

I'm taking my own food

But it's just they've gone from having this stupidly inconvenient meeting, and making it more inconvenient in every possible way, while telling us all these 'improvements' are to make it better for us. Yeah, tell me that at the end of the meeting when I've been up for 12 hours and am ready to grump at everybody

My husband bought a lovely Renault convertible in February - his pride and joy. I parked it in my flute teacher's driveway today and a recycling lorry reversed into it. He is not a happy man. It also took up some of my flute lesson exchanging details.

My nice flute teacher made me coffee after that, but my tone had gone to pot.

So many bad things have happened this year. Is it too much to hope that it will get any better?

How unlucky can you get? So sorry to hear this, Misterioso. Surely things must look up for you soon.

curs-ed busy bodies and attention seekers....will give them the attention of the back of my hand accross there cheek

sorry all but sometimes people just annoy the heck out of me

Join the club! Fortunately for me, today was not one of those days! Sorry you found it otherwise.

I am feeling unwell, and have just read an article that has made it much worse. If men were made extremely ill and forced to suffer through a great deal of pain on a regular basis, I don't think anyone would be telling them that they had to embrace the pain as a beautiful part of their vitality and maleness.

Sorry if this is a bit/lot tmi for people...

Ergh.

Problems with my ex-boss.

And my Great Uncle is in hospital with kidney failure .

If men had periods we would never hear the end of it...

People always used to tell me that it would get a lot better when I'd had a baby (it did). This was not much consolation when said baby refused to be conceived for 5 1/2 years!

OK, the pain is not beautiful, but who'd want to be a man when they could be a woman? The pain is a down payment on that.

(Sorry you're ill, but it will be better soon.)

Leave others to do all the embracing - curl up with a hot water bottle and some ibuprofen and feel entitled to scoff chocs and snap at anyone who comes within a mile of you. Hope you feel better soon





Soph, sorry to hear about your great uncle - hope he's doing as well as he can

hmm plus one of those irratating humans has given me a cold i feel dead rough right now am going to bed with a belly full of pills and hot milk and cookies lol

Hope you sleep well and feel much better tomorrow.

Grrrr. I've inherited three new pupils this week from a couple of local peri teachers who work for the local music service. Each pupil has had a folder full of illegal photocopies. And it's me who will have to break the bad news to the parents that they will have to fork out for music in future. They're all working towards TG exams, which means several new books, and one is working towards a diploma.

I don't think people who don't suffer realise how genuinely ill and horrible it can make one feel...I don't believe in embracing pain - I believe in eradicating it with whatever medicine works best (at least two hot water bottles, pills, cake, and some comfort reading in bed) Hope you feel much better very soon.
N

I start teaching on Monday. I (like every other member of staff) have a timetable with no rooms on it and have been told to consider it provisional until I have been given rooms.

The students were supposed to enrol today but the trams were on strike making the university virtually inaccessible. The students were supposed to fill in a paper form which will then be typed into the computer system and the students can then log in and print out an individual timetable. The timetable will only be available to download when their form has been put into the system and the administrative staff don't work on Friday afternoons (and we are talking about around 800 students). We have been told that those students who enrolled on Thursday should have their timetables by midday on Monday at the latest (what about morning classes? And what about those who didn't enrol today because they couldn't get to the university?)

Students have to download documents from the website but the documents are listed under the teacher's name and they aren't told the teacher's name before the first class to stop them swapping classes when they see who they've got so they can't download anything before the first lesson and we have no photocopy budget.

I decided I would do something on powerpoint instead of using a paper document and tried to book a video-projector but you can only do that if you say which room you'll be in ...

Straight out of Franz Kafka!

No, no. Straight out of the French system of administration. Keep smiling kerioboe - at least the wine is good this side of the Channel !! Best of luck with all that!

Do you think I should drink a bottle (or two) before I go on Monday morning

Thanks for all the sympathy I've been offered guys. I'm feeling ever so slightly better today, and hope that everyone else will feel better tomorrow too.

It's got to be worth posting this again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE

Fallen out with 2 out of 3 children today- still time to go to get the full set! Husband is away...... and I have a v early start tomorrow. Feeling very unappreciated by them- but have to say child no. 1 is being lovely as it was her I fell out with this morning........and she's now feeling guilty!

Lol i quite like one of the paramedics on that. Plus he's really funny too. I've never seen that show I'm gonna have to watch it at some point.

We serve people with man flu all the time. Its hilarious. It so enjoyable handing them some paracetamol and saying thats all they need. They always want the fanciest most expensive stuff lol

I like this programme too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2kD1YUtA5o

Lol I'm gonna have to learn that song and do that mid exam lol

Arghhhhh! I've been back at sixth form for two weeks and already I'm convinced I'm going to fail AS Maths

What topic is particularly causing you grief?

It was largely surds but I've just spent half an hour or so going over and over them and they've starting sticking-indices are b***** awkward too!! (or perhaps I am....)