Ah well...

It was good while it lasted. My University days are over!

Yesterday was day one of a three day enrolment process at UoW. It was an opportunity to get to meet the lecturers and other students and get more information on the course ahead. I should say at this point that I had been trying to contact the University for several days before day 1 of enrolement as I had some questions about being a part-time student and how the timetable might look. I got no reply each time I tried.

Anyhoo, turned up yesterday. Gravitated towards one side of the room and met a very lovely lady who was a nurse who was on the part-time course too and had cut her honeymoon short to get to day 1 as the University had not told her when she needed to be there. Another lady turned up a bit later and sat next to me, she too was going part-time and had traveled up from Brighton. She had also tried to get information prior to day one and hadn't been successful (spot a pattern here?) All three of us we really keen, I mean dead keen, as in we NEEDED TO KNOW, what sort of timetable we were going to have to follow. We all had jobs that we were going to keep working at as we studied and wanted to see how we were able to fit in.

The day was quite stretched out really, I am sure we could have covered it all in 3 hours rather than the 7 that it took. And all along the 3 of us just wanted to make sure we could fit the part time study into our working commitments. At about 4 o'clock we had our chance and were allocated a lecturer who was going to show us how to break down the 3 year course into 5. Well, in theory I guess it's great, but if you're working it just isn't practical.

There were some modules on the course that had to be completed before you could do other sections, there were modules that meant 3 half day visits into London a week (not cheap or time efficient) and to break it down into more manageable chunks meant dragging the course out for 8 years. Now I was already balking at 5, but to go to 8! I was 40 this year, I'll be nearly 50 by the time I finish it. No thanks.

So, I left feeling pretty frustrated. If I'd have known in advance I wouldn't have applied. My two new friends seemed despondent too and whilst I thought nurse Gilly might have managed it, I got a text from her last night to say she too couldn't make it work with her working commitments. She is a very gently spoken lady and she made it sound all a little bit annoying, I however am not gently spoken and I was pissed off.

So what with that and the fact that time-keeping after the way too long breaks were too lax for my liking. If you say have a 20 minute break, its 20 minutes alright? Not 30. If you want us to look professional for the job we're about to undertake then I think you should too. And whilst these University staff were incredibly friendly and helpful, and I expect very knowledgeable (and this makes me sound bloody awful) they just didn't look like people who role-modeled what they taught. This is a personal thing. I wouldn't go to a hairdresser whose hair was a mess. I wouldn't ask someone to help develop my business if theirs was failing and just as I didn't 12 years ago, I wouldn't take weight management advice from a GP who was enormous.

So, I'm no longer a student. Not for this course anyway. Nurse Gilly and I decided to see what else we could find to study...that's my next job!

Five years and counting...

Well, I thought I would restart my blog on something other than what I've eaten. Not very interesting for most of you I'm sure.

I have for many years been interested in diet, nutrition, healthy eating. Call it what you will. Even before I got into fitness as a profession I had been considering doing a Diploma in Nutrition, but needed Science A levels and as I didn't have those it stopped there. Any possibility was thwarted even more as two babies appeared in pretty quick succession too!

As time has gone by, I have become more aware of food as a medicine for good health and disease prevention and also frustrated by the medical and pharmaceutical companies pushing medication for business sake. Whilst on holiday this year, having read two very interesting nutrition books, (no chick-lit for me!) my husband said the ominous words, "so what are you going to do with all this knowledge?". Hmm, I'd not thought of that, so on the spur of the moment decided to research Naturopathy courses.

The one that got my attention was a degree course being run by the University of Westminster. Yep, I still needed A' levels and yes I needed Science ones at that, but experience from working in the industry was considered. So I applied on August 29th, thinking it was quite late to apply for a September start.

Last week I got confirmation that I'd been accepted. Yippee! Now I had to decide if I could manage 5 years of part-time study alongside working long days and unsociable hours. Eek! I decided I could. I enrolled on-line last week and apart from paying the fees I'm on!

So enrolment is tomorrow at the University of Westminster (UoW from now on) so I'm off to see what I've let myself in for.

For someone who never had any interest in going to University when I was 18, I am now pretty damn excited about the whole prospect of learning something that I can really get my teeth into, on a subject that I am passionate about. My one concern is not knowing how the timetable will pan out as I would love it to fit into my topsy-turvey week. However all will be revealed tomorrow.

I am going to keep a post on my progress, tell you what I've learned and how it's going.

Now, the big question is...how many other 40 year olds are going to be signing up to University with me tomorrow?!