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Don't revisit your childhood.

I've been called for an interview on Monday in Exeter, which is where I did my undergraduate degree, so I went down with my daughter today to have a look round the old place to bring back some memories.

I have to hand it to Exeter. When we started there (Mags, my wife, did an Engineering degree and I did a Chemistry degree, and later a teaching certificate), they worked really hard to keep us in university. Bare in mind, we were 2 18 year-olds with an 18 month-old and a 4 month-old child in tow and we finished the degrees we started on time and one budget, so I will always have fond memories of the place.

I'm not sure how much of it is due to what happened since, but I felt a certain twinge of sadness when I was showing Iona where her Mum and I lived and studied. They have stopped offering Chemistry as a degree at the place and they have severely cut back the Engineering department. The residences we lived in have either been (or are being) knocked down and when we walked round them there was a sense of quiet that depressed me. I remember the halls heaving with life. There was always someone sitting or playing on the grass outside as I recall. That's gone and the fact those buildings were only built in the late 1960s is kind of sad.

Now I know the residences weren't perfect. Two bathrooms shared between 16 people isn't a great ratio, but it wasn't bad either and if we could raise 2 well rounded kids in them they can't have been all bad.

In addition, I don't know about anyone else, but part of me liked Chemistry for the smells. That sounds dumb I know, but there was something satisfying (to me at least) of a smelly lab coat with the grime of successful (or otherwise) experiments embedded in them. That smell has gone from the old Chemistry block too as it has been with the clinical smells of "Bio-Science."

So, in short, I'd suggest you think before you go somewhere dear to your past. It might just let you down.




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January 2013