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).