h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... which is why I spent half the day at the office yesterday, firing off emails to applicants who had not supplied all the information requested. If only we could just reject them on the grounds of not reading the instructions properly!

We are not allowed to have our usual temp this year to help with photocopying, chasing up schools for missing information etc. This is partly for budgetary reasons and partly because the new online application system is supposed to mean less clerical work is required (hollow laughter!). Instead, the Schools Liaison Officer is providing office assistance. Unfortunately last week, when lots of the above tasks needed doing, she was out on school visits on three days.

Anyway, I did manage to go for a swim and do the supermarket shop before going to work, and rewarded myself with chocolate and ginger flapjack from the sandwich shop.

Today in contrast has been a nice relaxing day. It was the birthday of one of the regulars at the pub Sunday lunch gathering, so I pottered around making a birthday card for him while listening to TA. Then we all gathered for lunch and a few extra drinks (at a second pub, when the first one closed at 2.30). The birthday 'boy' (63 years young) was handing round slices of rather special birthday cake - not to my taste, but some people had apparently been eating it at breakfast!

Came home and had a nap while pretending to watch Poirot. Trying not to think about how much I've got to get through this week.

I do - when we're desperate to pare the numbers down...... Hard lesson, but so's life (I can be sooo mean).

Hope all is well with you.

Hi there Hebe!

I'm OK - sort of, in a hysterical kind of way ...

The online system seemed to work beautifully in that all the UCAS data plus responses to online supplementary questionnaires were automatically transferred into our database (so no manual data entry). However, we're now finding that some bits have been left behind, depending on how applicants/schools filled in the forms.

Oh well, we'll review in February and hope it all works better next year. I'm just happy (as usual) that my college doesn't get 800 applications!