A really nasty wet start to the day so I headed in to town looking for either puddle or antiquity shots. I certainly wasn't ready to see the lawns behind Trinity sprinkled with Yellow aconites and crocuses. They aren't at their peak yet by any stretch of the imagination but I couldn't resist recording their cheerful arrival (while wresting with the dog who doesn't care about flowers but does care quite a lot about chasing squirrels). My crocus shot last year was on 16th Feb... http://365project.org/judithg/365/2011-02-16 I'm hoping to get a feel for the swathes of colour sometime this year.
I love that shimmer on those buds Judith & a wonderful focus of those pretty flowers !! Monty did well not to stand on them too, I don't know how you manage to get such good focus with a dog pulling at your rist , I think he must be a VERY well behaved dog !!
@happypat If only you knew Pat!! I get a lot of 'subject zooming off to the side' shots! Actually my left shoulder, which has been playing up for a while, is aching nicely as a result of this shot and Monty's antics....
@fueast If had time and ability I'd engineer those buds to be emerging from a pile of papers. As it is I'm off to a talk on Financial Planning for Higher Education at my daughter's school. Seems a bit after the horse is bolted really....
@fueast OMG it will take more than meths.... Nobody has mentioned the 7% ish (RPI + 3%) that starts accruing from day one.... What I don't understand is that as you pay back according to earnings not what you owe you may as well borrow loads and never pay it back. In fact you have to earn quite a lot of money before you start paying any capital off so I can't really see how it's going to save the government money - there are going to be huge vats of unpaid debts. Lots of cross, pale- faced parents especially when Masters degrees were mentioned and they said you can get a high street loan for that - it's loan upon loan. And they don't even know half the details yet because they haven't decided - good grief....
@judithg Oh don't get me started - I did try to get a debate going with David Willis' office about Masters degrees which they seemed to forget about and obviously affects my potential students. I got some stupid replies that suggested that nothing woudl change with regards masters degrees (er - except the fees the University charges...). I still cant get an answer internally about whether our MSc fees will increase next year or not. My hope is not but nobody seems to know. Getting loans from banks is very hard for students. The whole sector is becoming what I joined it to avoid. Money driven. Everybody is suffering, students, staff, parents. And yes - it will lead to huge unpaid debts because anyone who gets a job in the public sector will not earn enough to repay it all. It can't be news that they're a bunch of idiots who don't know what they're doing?
@fueast He seemed to think that some universities would charge half price for Masters (as in 4.5K) - oh joy - Rachel wants to do Clinical Psychology which will almost certainly require a Masters first - a fortune all so she can do good things. A chap in the audience (an accountant/actuary of sorts) said that if you take the loan of fees + expenses ie 50k you'd have to earn £65k from day one to pay it all off because of the interest rates - so fundamentally the tax payer will be paying loads and the graduates will be pouring money into the student loans companies for 30 years of their lives. Ughhh it really is a disgrace that they don't even know the details - eg what the early repayment penalties are etc.
@judithg Where were you angry parents when the fight was on? I know it was hopeless but so many people just seemed to accept it in the end I gave up sending letters etc. It might be true that masters will be cheaper. Otherwise I think many won't survive. Although mine is mainly overseas students. Funded by government scholarships from their own countries!
Your discussion is discouraging. I take comfort in the fact that my children are DONE with college and all the bills are paid, and Judith (not me) must have been lying on her tummy on the wet grass to get this lovely shot to share with us!
@fueast That's a very good question - but the universities were pretty silent as well... I can't help but think the only people with their eyes open were the kids.
@judithg The University VCs were pretty silent - but quite a lot of staff got involved in protests of various sorts. Staff and students don't have enough influence though. University VCs all ran in fear of loosing funding to their particular institutions. Anyway, its still important to focus on doing good things! Thats what matters.
@fueast my daughter has just finished, including a masters (mechanical engineering) and she's sitting on £28k in student loans before interest and she missed these increases - it's going to take her years to pay this off and what chance a mortgage for ever? And she's done well enough to land, conditionally, a real job with real money.
Lovely shot.