Bloody Hell!

Can I just state now, for the record, that if I hadn't had a nice strong drink before I opened up the 'self-extracting file' that contained my grade then I may well have keeled over from shock.

As it was I was more than a little bit stunned and did wonder for a few moments if my tutor hadn't read the wrong TMA and assigned their grade to me. Okay, so it wasn't an A (did I really expect an A after the shit that I turned in? I seriously don't think so), but it was a pass, and a relatively decent one at that. I got another 60. Now, I won't claim that it's a grade I aspire to, but having submitted this TMA at a time when I am lucky to be able to write anything at all, I am relieved to realise that not everything I typed and checked (only once) was a pile of crap so deep that a giant would drown.

Now on with the next TMA, this one about 3 1930's poems...wonder what I will choose (oh the choice is so wonderful, as every single 1930's poet appeared to have such a high opinion of themselves that the concept of writing in clean, crisp English was foreign to them).

I can't wait until we get to the Du Maurier segment of the course, finally something I want to read/write about!

Slowly Getting There...

It's been six days since I submitted my TMA (as before, only one day late) and I am over halfway caught up with the reading that I missed - though I still have the week of reading at the start of section two already waiting for me to read.

Having said that, I am currently reading the 1930's poets. Not sure what to think. While I agree with other students on the course that it is easier to get into the poetry/understand it when it is being read, do the poets have to have such dull voices? Auden had a voice that droned on like a drill...and MacNeice, while genius with the poems that he wrote (all most peculiar) seems to have also inherited that du...du...du...rhythm that drones on just a little bit too much to make what he is reading sound anything more than like a chore he has to carry out.

Anyway, back into the fray, only one and a half weeks' more reading to catch up on before I am where I need to be, and with the weekend looming (YAY) that is hopefully going to be something I can easily achieve.

Only a Day Late

My TMA on Katherine Mansfield may be a big stinky pile of dog do, but it's finished and only one day into the three day extension that I got for myself - I am very happy about that. I was determined, when I asked for an extension that I knew I would need, that I was going to use as little of it as realistically possible. I am already considerably further behind than I really want to be, but having said that, I am impressed with my restraint. I could have carried on working on this TMA for another two days or more, desperate for perfection, instead I reached 11pm tonight (just one day after deadline), wrote only 1860 of the 2000 possible words and decided that enough was enough. I couldn't force another word out without repeating myself another 200 times. So the essay is submitted, and my fate is with my tutor. She is probably going to give it the horrendous grade it deserves, but I did my best, my mind is all over the place at the moment and I am really truthfully lucky I was able to get my head around anything at all.

Crud

The road to hell, so they say, is paved with good intentions. And I am writing to say that right now I have never found anything to be more true.

I have had every intention, for the last few weeks, of being the good student, the one who does all her studying, gets all her reading done, and prepares in advance for her assignment. Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control that is not proving to be the case right now. I have fallen severely behind on my reading, I am nowhere near ready for the tutorials that start this weekend on Katherine Mansfield (who, btw - sorry to any NZers that do like her - I couldn't stand), and I am starting to panic.

I got the grade back for my first TMA, it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but in a way it was much better than I originally expected. I guess that my lesson should be that I spend less time worrying about it and more time writing. 21-hours earned me a C. Perhaps if I spend less time on it I will expect a lower grade and get a better one (it worked a few times on previous courses after all).

Sent

I have finally finished and posted TMA01 all about The Cherry Orchard and political idealism. I was working on it for 20 hours yesterday (which of course meant sleep was scarce), but I am relieved it's done, I have sent it in using the eTMA system that the Open University has set up for the electronic courses like mine.

Oh well, now onto Katherine Mansfield's short stories - only 10-days later than scheduled, need to get that finished before Saturday so that I can start on Sunset Song (which was my favourite book on the pre-course reading).

Procrastination

Why is it, that no matter what I tell myself, and no matter how often I tell myself, I still can't get motivated enough to get things done ahead of the deadline?

I have been trying since I finished the reading for The Cherry Orchard on Wednesday, to get something/anything done about the essay plan, but nothing's happening. I have got three days off next week, and I would rather (if I am being honest) not have to spend all three of those days working on the assignment when I have a perfectly good weekend going begging - this one coming up...

I am fully aware that I am one of the worst procrastinators in existence, but there must be something that can motivate me into pulling my finger out and doing something productive, right?

Anyway, it's Friday today - which means that the working week is almost over, it also means that my boss isn't in today and as well as trying to motivate myself into doing my homework this evening and coming weekend...I have to motivate myself to work on a project that I have been working on for three weeks (and was under the impression I had finished...but apparently not in as much pathetically minute detail as he would like) - if I am being honest I think he has no idea what to do with me, or what work to give me, so he is just giving me this project in order to save himself from having to figure out what I am meant to do!

Well...must head off into the sunrise (because that is what it is right now), and go to work. This weekend is the weekend for Chekhov and hair dye.

A week late

I have managed, albeit a week later than I would have liked, to finish reading the textbook chapters on Chekhov's brilliantly unusual play The Cherry Orchard. I would have finished the texts over two weeks ago, but work has been busy, and then last week I got some very bad news about my grandmother and the cancer that they discovered in her lungs 10 months ago, but chose to do nothing about.

Anyway, I don't feel ready yet, but over the next couple of days I will be working on my first draft and hopefully writing out the plans for my first TMA.

I am feeling very unsure of myself and my abilities right now, but that will fade, I just need a very loud and detailed pep-talk with my mirror image and everything will eventually be sorted out. I hope!

Tutors

I got an email yesterday, and then today I got a letter. It seems that I have now been assigned a tutor - almost a week late, but much better late than never! At least that's how I figure it.

While I am doing the online version of the course, I am not massively happy that my tutor is the length of the country away - being in Manchester - but as I have already said...it's a tutor, and that (at the end of the very long day) is all that matters.

Today I received a load of gumfph about North West tutorial help (won't be rushing home to call them at premium rate - being in the South East means that I would be paying through the nose, only have free local calls!).

Well, knowing when my tutorials are, and how they are all going to work, I feel a bit more settled, though the tutorial week for the first TMA is after I actually hope to have the thing finished and submitted. We have been given an extra week for the benefit of all those people that are in the throes of revision for another course, but I don't particularly want to use the extra time because I fear that I will only end up falling behind if I have the extra time when (for me at least) it's completely unnecessary, and probably rather detrimental to the study pattern I am trying to build up.

Anyway, having tutor information, and a sort-of well laid out schedule is making me feel a little bit more productive and definitely far more in control of things than I felt last week at this time.

Huge Update

Though I haven't written about it here, a lot has happened in the last few months.

First I have to start with the fact that I have managed to get a new job. I now work for a publishing house locally (though it is big, and international) - really good thing...50% discount on all books published by this company (which is a lot).

I had a friend staying with me for a few weeks, Laura travelled all the way from Arkansas and we had an amazing fortnight, I went to London and saw Wicked: The Musical, saw Patrick Stewart play Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and spent four and a half days in Salisbury, touring Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and the beauty of Salisbury Cathedral. I was very upset when she went back because it was a fantastic fortnight during which I found out about the new job I now have.

I have read all but one of the novels that are set reading for the course; for some reason every time I pick up The Ghost Road by Pat Barker I suffer this block and end up putting it back on the pile to wait for another day. I have now started the course officially, so the reading of Pat Barker's book (I have checked) doesn't really have to be looked at until the very end of the course - and then only if I decide that I want to write about it for the ECA at the end of the course (which I don't know if I will to be honest).

Started all the reading last week for The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov, but it took actually watching the BBC version (with Judi Dench) to understand the humour that I seem to have missed in the play when reading through it myself. I have plans to start planning and writing the first TMA this week.

On the unfortunate side, though the course started this weekend (yesterday in fact) I have still yet to have been given any information about a tutor. I emailed the Regional Centre on Tuesday, hoping against hope that they would be able to provide me with some sort of information that would be of help, and when they finally got back to me on Thursday it was to tell me that they weren't dealing with it, but that it was being dealt with by the London Regional Centre. Of course, by the time I managed to get hold of them (after having been given the wrong number) they were closed. On Friday however, I managed to get hold of someone who proved to be patronising, unhelpful and downright rude. I have every intention of making a complaint about him to be honest, because I came away from the phone call feeling as though I had made a nuisance of myself when I am perfectly within my rights to be concerned that a s a student on a course that requires tutors and tutorials, I have yet to be assigned a tutor.

Anyway, after checking on the student boards I know that I am not the only person who hasn't been given any information about a tutor, though some people have come away from their phone calls without the feeling that they were being nuisances without a right to expect any kind of tutor support.

Well, now that the course has started I will be putting more time into updating this as I find that it is quite useful to know how I feel about things.

Paradise

Due to long bus rides and an extra long wait in the bank today I managed to finish Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah. To be entirely honest I am not sure what to say about this book. I was actually on my way to understanding it and almost enjoying it when it came to a very abrupt and rather ambiguous ending.

In Paradise which I believe the book is titled because of the belief from the characters that paradise exists and they (the characters) will eventually find their way there, the main character seems to drift through the years, some mentioned, some not. There is a confusing section where the main character, Yusuf, is admired and worshipped by the wife of his Uncle Aziz (who in actual fact is a man that his father sold him to in order to pay off debt). Throughout the book tenuous relationships are mentioned, and the child Yusuf grows into a handsome man who is admired by many, though he never seems to quite make that transition into adulthood that is witnessed in books such as The Color Purple.

Overall I was not hugely impressed with this book that was lauded as 'wonderful' and 'enthralling' but perhaps my enjoyment of Sunset Song just a few days ago eclipsed any enjoyment I may have found in the almost poetic prose of Gurnah.

Sunset Song

At first I was very reluctant about reading this, a book based during the first world war (I have never been overly keen on war-based literature), but Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon hit me in the face like a huge surprise.

Based at an almost indeterminate time, Chris Guthrie and her family, brothers, mother and father, all live in a farm in Scotland. Little by little, rot sets in, her mother dies tragically, committing suicide, having realised that she has 6 children and another on the way. Unfortunately her death also brings about the death of the youngest children - twins. Chris then watches as her two surviving younger brothers are adopted by a childless aunt, and then her brother, Will, runs away to marry Mollie, his childhood sweetheart. They end up in Argentina.

After Will leaves, her father injures himself and slowly dies, leaving Chris alone to look after the family farm. She marries, and watches as her own life changes. It is only when she realises that she is pregnant (and grows fearful that she could become her mother) that she can no longer return to being the young Chris Guthrie, that she must leave her childhood behind her and become Chris Tavendale.

In time, war comes to Kinraddie and her husband goes off to fight. When he comes back she strikes him from her heart because of his cruelty, but regrets it soon after, when it's too late.

This book is the first of three and though it's not necessary, I will be reading the other two because my heart needs to learn that Chris survives, that she gets through the pain and hardship, that her marriage to the Reverend Colquohoun doesn't end in horrifying disaster, that young Evan grows up to be the man his father was unable to become.

Rebecca

Wow. Yet another absolutely amazing book on the list for this course. I enjoyed every single intricately written chapter of this book and though it took me a whole week to read it (I did have job interviews and things). I love the way that Rebecca haunted every element of the novel, every thought from Maxim's unnamed bride centred around the deceased first wife. Rebecca, despite never having a line of her own that wasn't spoken through someone else, dominated every single page, making her a fascinating and intriguing character.

I felt incredible pity for the new Mrs de Winter who didn't come into her own until the point when Maxim revealed the truth of his life with his first wife.

I also wanted to hit the somewhat psychopathic Mrs Danvers. She loved Rebecca, but to make sure that the life of the living residents of Manderley was miserable showed that there was something very much wrong with her mental processes.

I finished this book to the schedule that I have set for myself and tomorrow I will start Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

I read this book over just 1.5 days. I have to admit, out of the entire box this was the one that I really wanted to read and was really looking forward to, and I wasn't disappointed.

Dick's fantastic ideas and his futuristic world aren't at all dated (as could be expected from science fiction based in a time that is now past).

I have enjoyed every minute of reading this book but, considering the schedule now posted on my bedroom door, I need to get a move on and read something else on the long list, to pass the time that is spreading ahead of me like butter on toast (growing thin).

Books

A box of books arrived today - 16 books all for me to read over the next few months, books that I will take my time over and read (although I will be taking a week off the study reading when HP 7 comes out).

I have been looking at the books that arrived (they arrived while I was at yet another job interview), and I just can't decide which one to read first. Being honest I am actually looking forward to a number of them.

I have been reading a book I was really looking forward to getting, but right now I can't seem to get into it - it's not written as well as the other books in the series and this is a cause of frustration for me. The other four books that I have read were really well-written, funny, well-structured and enjoyable. This book, the fifth in the series (the sixth has only just been released in hardback) has made me feel more than a little bit disappointed in the way that the characters have failed to develop and, as with a few other series that I have come across of late, this strange need that the author has to retell so much of the other stories, as though the people reading this book haven't read the others. Oh well, only a few more pages until it's finished, and in the mean time I can read Rebecca or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and wallow in the magnificence of their composition.

Over...

Well, it's been almost a month since I finished my essay and started the revision for my exams. Now, I am really really happy to be able to say that the exams are over, and I have a summer without TMAs to look forward to. In two months I will find out whether all the panic and hard work has been worth it.

I have signed up for my next course already, A(ZX)300, which is the online version of 20th Century Literature: Texts and Debates, and the books are due to arrive any day (ordered them last week).

To be honest, right now I am actually looking forward to the arrival of the new books, so that I can start studying for the course starting in September. From the feedback I have managed to obtain from students already doing the course I have gathered that it is very demanding, and will require a lot of dedicated study time. While I am upset that I am still very much unemployed (I am not unemployable...just finding it hard to get a new job), at least I can use the time properly in study for what I hope will be my eventual career.

Oops

Another day, another day of lazing around (well, if you call pulling up weeds, putting in plants, and doing a mile on the elliptical cycle being lazy).

I am now sitting here, half-watching TV and listening to music...I am also participating in a fic-writing challenge with a friend. I have managed over 700 words in 30 minutes thus-far and we are going to be doing another 30 minutes shortly, hopefully this will signal a finish to the story :)

Studying will resume tomorrow - I hope! Well, actually no hope about it - I have just over 2 weeks until the exams and I NEED to revise. I am putting it off after a hellish week last week doing the assignment.

Lazy

I've been lazy this last few days - well, not lazy exactly, but doing job searches and going to agency registration interviews etc - rather than hitting the books.

I have a load of stuff on both PCs to look at - so I will be hitting the books tomorrow (promise) and then the real hard work starts.

I have a job interview in London next week (4hrs on the train in total) but the job itself is local, so I will lose another day of study then, but I will have to make up for that in the days before and after...I am keeping my fingers crossed that this interview goes well...I really want the job - not only because it sounds interesting, but because the money is decent, AND I will be back at work again (after three months of listening to granny going on and on about my not having a job! I didn't exactly ask to be made redundant you know!

It's out of my hands...

It's been posted. Yesterday I printed it and put it in the envelope (along with the compulsory submission form that goes with every assignment) and then this morning Granny took it to the postbox when she went to get her newspaper (okay, so they had sold out, but at least it wasn't a totally wasted journey). I am now sitting here with a pile of books beside me (one side text books, the other smutty books about sexy highlanders from the 1500s!) contemplating how exactly I am going to go about starting the revision that needs to be done. I do know that come Wednesday when I have an interview over in Hove about a job I applied for last week I will also be purchasing a mic and some CDs so that I can record poems onto CD (Erin pointed out that this is how we have always effectively learned song lyrics, and she's right!).

I have just had a letter about the day school for the revision (talk about cutting it fine...the course is only 9 days before the exam itself), but I am thinking about going. The course will likely come in really handy as I am totally useless when it comes to revision and the taking of exams...and I really need to get a good grade on this exam because of my poor performance where the past TMAs have been concerned!

Oh well, the first day of a new week and I am starting to get a bit nervous about all the things I need to know, but I am determined that I will get there. I have to!

Celebrations

It's just gone 5pm on Saturday - aka Day Five - and I have just saved the final draft of my essay. To say that I am ecstatic would be a huge understatement. The essay - after much reworking - is just under the 1500 word maximum (16 words) and I am happy with how it has turned out.

Tomorrow I will begin the revision, but for the rest of today I am going to relax, read rubbish and maybe even break into the box of uneducational and (for this reason alone) entertaining books that were delivered yesterday. I promised myself that I wouldn't touch them until the essay was a part of my educational history (well until it is marked at any case).

I asked a friend (who is not doing the course, or even in this country) to cast an eye over it to make sure that everything was how it should be - a few minor errors were discovered but that was it - and now it is all ready to be printed and posted. Come Monday the essay will be out of my hands, and my grading (unfortunately) will be in the hands of my tutor.

So now it is on with the reading pleasure and then the revision - I am actually on schedule (last year I struggled) and I am more than a little bit relieved.

Day Five...

Well, the essay isn't finished yet, but it is over halfway done. Having decided upon the characters I managed to write over 1900 words of planning and observations, which has actually made it much easier to put the final essay together. All I want now is to finish it, proof it and send it to the tutor (the sooner I finish this the sooner I will be able to move on to a new tutor in a new course - I live in hope that the new one will be better than this one has been).

I have written almost 900 words - and while this will mean I require clever editing to write about the characters from The Rover, I will do my best - it will also mean that I will be able to edit and take out a lot of irrelevancies about the Cheapside characters (I was very wordy about them, that's for sure!).

I feel quite proud of what I have managed to achieve. Granted it has now taken me over the four days that I hoped, but I have admittedly been rather lax in writing, spending much time reading odd bits that are of no relevance but hold an interest for me.

With any luck I will be able to post later on today that I have completely finished the assignment and it is ready to be printed :)

Day Four...

Well, it's day four of the essay from hell "Socially Marginal Characters blah blah blah" and I finally have decided upon the characters that I am going to write about, and I have managed to write something about three of the four so far. Granted what I have written is notes and observations thus far, but what I have written totals up to 800 words - which in itself is an achievement.

I have even more motivation now to get the essay written and edited - this morning I received a delivery of nine totally frivolous books. None of them have anything to do with revision or Shakespeare or Aphra Behn, in fact they are totally pointless when it comes to academia, but they may just help me to maintain the few ounces of sanity I have left after nine months of this course (hmm, wonder if that's nine books for nine months?).

I am going to put my nose to the grindstone today, because I have already told myself the books are a reward that I am not allowed to touch (although I did already to unpack them and put them in the laptop bag at my feet), until I had finished the essay completely (or at least until I had finished the draft that I was going to leave for a day before printing!).

With any luck the next post will say "FOUR DAYS AND FINISHED", but I am not holding my breath right now...still have chores to fit in, and sitting on this chair for the last three and a bit days has meant that I haven't done my normal exercise routine (well, normal in that I started it four weeks ago, and until this week had managed to maintain it perfectly!). Once this is finished I have to get back into the routine of exercise again and reading pleasant un-academic books.

On a totally unrelated note...what the hell happened to the weather? It's horrible!

Day Three...

I would like to say "and all is well" but that would be one huge (a whopping great, in fact) lie. I am still struggling hugely with my assignment, but at least now I know which characters to write about from both Henry V and The Rover. With any luck, now that I have that basic decision made, I will be able to get something written and then refined before the end of the weekend (the assignment has to be posted by Tuesday in order to arrive by Thursday).

I am keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well with this particular assignment as I have just enrolled for year 3, a course (luckily) that doesn't have an end of year exam, just ongoing assessments throughout the 30-odd weeks that the course runs (from end-September 2007 to mid-June 2008)...one more course down will take me one year closer to reaching my goal. This next course is 20th Century Literature, with plays by Berthold Brecht and novels by Virginia Woolf and Phillip K Dick.

One thing I do know is that I have no plans to stay up until 6am this morning (it is already Thursday here after all) like I did on Wednesday. Now that I have everything outlined I will start to put it together tomorrow, analysing the characteristics, comparing them with the characteristics apparent in other characters from Henry V and The Rover.

I know that I am definitely going to be using the voucher for an Indian Head Massage that my sister gave me for my birthday once the nightmare that is the assignment and the revision for the exam is over.

Even more...

I am still having problems with Henry V and The Rover. It feels as though my brain has developed some kind of block where the studying is concerned. I don't know what it is about this particular course but I have found the whole thing to be a rather unpleasant experience. I just have to get through this last TMA and the exam (with a decent enough grade), and then I can move on to the next one with a clear conscience.

Luckily I have managed to find some wonderful help in the people on the boards at the OU - just a shame my tutor hasn't been in any way co-operative or willing to offer advice.

I feel like I have been working my butt off for months and as yet have nothing much to show for it :( but I have faith in myself and the fact that eventually I will get there.

The Rover...

I am very tempted to just scream and say "okay, I give up" right about now. It's nearly 1am and as yet I have 10 words of a 1500 word essay about 'Socially Marginal' characters in Henry V and The Rover. Prior to this assignment (well, the course really), I hadn't heard of Aphra Behn and her plays...and while part of me is wishing I never had, I realise that The Rover isn't my problem, it's Henry V and his decidedly obvious lack of 'Socially Marginal' characters for me to compare the glut of the characters that appear in Aphra Behn's work. I keep on hoping that I have misread the question and we are meant to write about Othello...but alas, that is not the case.

In maybe a week I will be relieved. Sure, revision-time will have begun, but at least I won't have to think about 'Socially Marginal' characters again for a while!