maggers I'm pleased to hear that! Sounds great.
Alphabetical girls and boys names January 2024
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I am looking for various ways to spend my time now I'm not going to be working any more and I've decided I'd really like to learn something new. Can any of you inspire me with suggestions? Languages I'm not overly keen on - I speak French and basic German so not many but enough for me. What else would you/are you studying/learning? Thank you!
maggers I'm pleased to hear that! Sounds great.
gettingonabit I'm not going in to state schools! Together with a colleague I set up a school to train medical herbalists so we only get well behaved adults. I'm too old for a classroom of teenagers!
I'm doing OCN L3 in Employment Law, and a piano Teaching Diploma. Admiring maggers for going for teaching!
Thumbs up for a choir too.
I'm 59 and I am halfway through a two year teaching diploma that will lead to qualified teacher status...
I love gardening, so just after I complete my graduation I started studying about seeds and all gardening things.
Join a choir. You will learn to read music, get a real buzz from singing in concerts, travel to different places in the UK and maybe abroad and make new friends. You won't necessarily have to have a voice test; if you can sing in tune is all many choirs ask.
When choosing a choir, try to go to one of their concerts before committing yourself, to see if their repertoire suits you.
I've sung in choirs all my life and can really recommend singing!
Gastronomy with Coursera.
Cymraeg (Welsh) Moved to N Wales a couple of years ago and it's bilingual here. Born in S Wales so no excuse. Trouble is that if you try to use it you do get some random responses. e.g. today in Aldi bought some plants etc and thanked the assistant in Welsh. She responded.... I didn't understand. Apparently she was saying "the sheep ate all my plants". Context is helpful if you know what the context is...
I'm a great fan of MOOCs, too. I love being able to learn about all sorts of subjects without the effort of producing written work if I don't feel like it. Future Learn has free online courses on anything from Othello to the Higg's Boson. I've also used Coursera and edx for American poetry, world history, language revival, Greek mythology, historical fiction, etc. I'm pretty lazy, so I tend to stop if something gets at all boring or requires too much thinking, but I've made my way to the end of a surprising number of them.
I intend to learn to crochet, I can knit but I keep finding lovely crochet patterns.
Bluecat I couldn't agree more and with a couple of others who recommended the U3A. We moved house and knew no one except family, now have a wide variety of interests by joining various groups and know lots of really nice people. Be careful though, or you end up having very little spare time! Just google U3A and you should find a local one, if not you could think about starting one!
I strongly recommend U3A. You can join as many or as few groups as you like - I belong to a philosophy and a history group, but I would like to go to the Shakespeare meetings if they didn't clash with my other commitments. The beauty of U3A is that everyone learns together and everyone can contribute. Each group has a convener, to manage the admin, but there is no teacher. Basically, everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. In my history group, for instance, we concentrate on the Middle Ages and everyone chooses an area of interest to research. (Thank God for the Internet!) Then we report back to the group and there's a general discussion. It's very relaxed and enjoyable, with everyone's contribution being valued, and I've learned such lot.
Each U3A has different groups on offer, but there's always a wide range of subjects and, if you're interested in something which isn't already offered, you can always suggest it to the Group Co-ordinator. If there's enough interest - and groups can really be quite small - they'll help you to get going.
I'm enjoying learning to play Bridge with a U3A group. Well, I say learning! I'm so rubbish at it that I just have to laugh at myself. If nothing else its taught me that I'm completely uncompetitive -and its taught the others to try to avoid being my partner!
Also doing OU. Nearly finished the second year of the history degree which I should have gone at 18. Hard work but satisfying. Found to my amazement that the fees were covered by a student loan.
Coming to the end of a level 3, City and Guilds in Textiles....patchwork and quilting....
Not sure what I will do next.....???
I feel so lazy reading all the above. Still working and babysitting the GC as D works shifts but other than that not a lot! Im doing a mindfulness app if that counts!
Thanks for futurelearn advice, folks - will certainly look into this! I took an OU maths/computing degree when the kids were small, and would dearly love to do another in German/Spanish, but simply can't afford to do so. Currently doing courses in dowsing and herbalism with BSY, astrology diploma with Mayo school and various courses with magickaschool.com and have just enrolled with Stonebridge Colleges to do Clairvoyance. In spare time do gentle exercise, aqua aerobics and yoga, member of 2 choirs, have done some genealogy and am teaching myself computer software testing so I can test my son's games (he's studying Games Design). I would like to become a Webmaster and wouldn't mind studying book-keeping and proof-reading sometime. Not crafty enough to meet my own high standards, but DH does lace-making (making a tablecloth, not that we've got a table!). Local college only for kids (only classes open to mature adults are for basic literacy/numeracy/computer literacy and English for foreigners, none of which is for me!).Hope this gives you a few suggestions! How on earth did we ever find time to go to work?
I am learning Chines Brush Painting and Family History. Went to classes on how to buy and sell on Ebay which made me decide that it was not for me. Good Luck
Been learning Greek for a couple of years on & off. Lovely language. My Spanish & French is passable. I do a lot of craft classes which I really enjoy. I came late to painting & wish I had stared earlier.
I completed a course recently on Writing story books for children - not free but at a significantly reduced price using Groupon vouchers. Now I just need to get started on writing the book! Have also dabbled with a drawing course from Craftsy (lots if other craft options their too but again there is a smallish cost).
Big thumbs up for Futurelearn courses and other MOOCs (temporarily forgotten what that stands for) as you can just try things out to see if it interests you. I live in quite a remote location, so being able to access all these courses on line is a huge benefit although it does need a bit of self motivation, which I am sometimes rather lacking!
Join a local U3A they are all about learning through mutual help and support. You can learn languages, how to play a ukulele or recorder, how to play whist and bridge, how to play croquet or indoor curling and many, many other things . Look them up there is bound to be one near you.
Yes Alea. I've just found 'FutureLearn' and am finishing a course on Genealogy which has been interesting and useful for when I get going on researching my family tree. There are so many different courses available. All free. I think it's linked to the Open University. Each one only lasts a few weeks - a few hours a week online and you don't even need to keep up each week.The materials are still online when the course is officially finished. No 'work' to hand in either! You can buy a certificate of participation when you've completed the course if you want.
I've signed up for another course about nutrition!
I've also done some evening Italian courses at the local college which is a more sociable way of learning.
I'm sure I'll be signing up for more FutureLearn courses in the future.
I have just completed a Genealogy course with Strathclyde University through Future Learn.Although I have been doing my family tree for years it offered a surprising amount of new information and resources.
Future Learn has an amazing amount of courses on many different subjects-would recommend it to anyone.
I do one thing with my DH attend an architectural history course, which means lovely days out visiting lovely cities/villages/cathedrals with speakers, an annual week visiting different parts of the country similarly. Great fun and getting to know all the other students over the years and the subject.
Creative writing and a small project with a children's book which may or may not get finished, the grand-children like it!
I am 68 and just finishing my first year studying a degree in Criminology.
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