Mini-Update

Just over a week ago I received my TMA02 back from my tutor marked with a grade I have to admit I wasn’t happy with then, and I still am not hugely happy with now. As is always the case when the subject you are studying is one that is close to your heart you tend to be more sensitive to the grades you receive, and possibly a little bit blind to the faults that went with what you see as an "amazing piece of prose” that couldn’t “get any better”. Unfortunately for me my tutor didn’t see the same potential in the piece as I did, and I can’t help wondering if he hadn’t purposefully found a few faults with just to say he found them (I know I am not perfect, but this lack of constructive criticism on my assignments is really starting to get to me). I don’t know what other people are getting or how they feel, in my tutorial group there may as well not be an online forum, they are so quiet, they don’t post anywhere other than in the specific ‘tutorial group forum’ but that is a rare occurrence and they are about as communicative as a pile of dead twigs. To say that this course is proving frustrating is a definite understatement.

The next assignment is the poetry (the one I have been whining about for the last month or more). I am still finding reading through the exercises about it a drag, and would rather do anything BUT write poetry-related paragraphs, sentences, pages; but needs must! I have currently written 31 lines, of what will make the 40 line whole, 3 poems that are about a range of depressing and draining emotions that I have felt while writing them. I am not sure what to think but as this classes as publication I am unable to actually post them until I have submitted and had the assignment marked. I have to be perfectly blunt and state here (for the record) that I believe our tutor will provide far more extensive feedback on this upcoming assignment than he has on anything thus far. I am going to go on record as stating that if this does prove to be the case then I am not going to be backward in making a comment (or two, or three) to someone higher up the OU ladder about how he is proving to be less than helpful when it comes to the elements of the course that are of less interest to him (such as prose). We’ll see what they have to say if he actually provides anyone with constructive criticism on this assignment when he has failed on the first two rather blatantly. I started this course for two reasons a) a treat to mark getting past the halfway point with the degree, and b) I wanted help to make my characters and story more rounded. I didn’t join this course to find out that ‘all writers have to like and use poetry’ and ‘poetry is more important than prose’ (mostly because I completely disagree).

The writer’s group I am setting up for work is moving along really well. We are meeting next Wednesday for the first time and the interest so far has been promising. I have set up a blog for the group and an email address that I will be using from now on. With any luck things will continue to progress and interest will continue to grow.


Reading

Holy Smokes (Aisling Grey 4) - Katie MacAlister (The final book in the Aisling Grey series finds Aisling and Drake on their way to a wedding that eventually happens after disaster visits them several times. To be honest this series lost something about halfway through book 2, had to finish it to finish the series, but I don’t think I will bother reading the spin off series about the other Wyverns).
The Corset Diaries - Katie MacAlister (A funny look at reality TV though not in the form of a straight forward expose, well written and a better modern chicklit without the supernatural elements better known by MacAlister)
A Hard Days Knight - Katie MacAlister (Another modern chicklit by MacAlister following the adventures of Pepper as she visits the ‘glamorous’ world of jousting tournaments in Canada, accompanied by a large cantankerous cat called Moth [short for Behemoth] and finds true love with a broken down and angry ex-jouster forced out of retirement)
Undead and Unwed (Betsy 1) - MaryJanice Davidson (The first in Davidson’s best known series, introducing us to Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Taylor and inviting her into her undead life, as she discovers on her 30th birthday that not only has she lost her job and turned 30, but life is about to get VERY interesting after getting run down by an Aztec [car] and discovering she is in fact the Queen of the Vampires, a responsibility she is as keen to take on as she is to take on her ‘consort by default’, Eric Sinclair).

TMA02 Returned

I finally got my assignment back today. I was really pleased with the assignment I had produced, but obviously it wasn't quite as good as I had mentally prepared myself to get a poor grade because I get the funny feeling my tutor isn't hugely keen on my writing. I managed to scrape a high B (79%) but for some reason I wanted more. Oh well, next up is the bloody poetry that nearly had me withdrawing from the course. I am guessing that I did myself no favours when I made my views on poetry known to my tutor - I think it's a colossal waste of my time. I know my writing style and, without sounding too cocky, I am not that bad at it, so being told by a 'published' poet that I need to know poetry in order to write (when I have managed fine without it for the last 26 years), really grated on my nerves. I am not very confident about most elements of my life, writing is not one of them. Part of me is wishing I hadn't taken this course - but looking at the number of courses I have left to take this was the last level 2 in the group so I didn't have a choice. Originally I thought it was a treat, I considered it to be my treat for getting past the halfway mark, now I think of it as a torturous nightmare that I have just 5 months left of...

Oh well, Shakespeare will be more challenging, and more academic AND even better than that, more motivating because it has to be.

Since starting this course I have felt far less drive, I haven't done all the reading - in fact I am about 10 weeks behind on the reading, yet I apparently managed a well-rounded character, a complete storyline and good editing...go figure - to think I could do all that without the benefit of reading the book.

Whoa

Okay, the next 16 months are going to be an absolute nightmare, and REALLY hard work, but I have signed up for it now and most of me doesn't regret it, though I am terrified.

I can hear you asking "What the hell is she going on about" so I am going to tell you.

A few days ago I started to work out how long it was going to take me to graduate if I took the courses that I really want to take to finish my degree. My original schedule is as follows:
A207 October 2005 - June 2006 (From Enlightenment to Romanticism)
A210 October 2006 - June 2007 (Approaching Literature)
A300 October 2007 - June 2008 (20th Century Literature: Texts and Debates)
A215 October 2008 - June 2009 (Creative Writing)
AA316 October 2009 - June 2010 (The Nineteenth Century Novel)
AA306 February 2011 - October 2011 (Shakespeare: Text and Performance)

This is of course if I selected the courses I really wanted to do - From the beginning I really wanted to do Shakespeare, but the Feb-Oct schedule just mucks it all up. Going by this original schedule I wouldn't officially graduate until 2012 and wouldn't be able to get enrolled on the Teacher Training until September 2012, essentially adding another 4 years onto my degree.

For some reason I started thinking of this just as the following announcement went up on the OU website "Closed to enrollment unless you are a returning student". Giving it very little thought (as is my wont on matters of this nature), I sent an email to the finance department - wanting to find out if I would be able to get financial aid to pay for a second course in a year. I got a little anxious so I called them yesterday (Thursday), and then again today (Friday). They told me that I qualified for further aid and that I can start studying on the Shakespeare course this February.

Now, instead of being a Degree that finishes in 2012 (the year of the biggest waste of taxpayers' money ever in the UK) my schedule looks like this:

A207 October 2005 - June 2006 (From Enlightenment to Romanticism)
A210 October 2006 - June 2007 (Approaching Literature)
A300 October 2007 - June 2008 (20th Century Literature: Texts and Debates)
A215 October 2008 - June 2009 (Creative Writing)
AA306 February 2009 - October 2009 (Shakespeare: Text and Performance)
AA316 October 2009 - June 2010 (The Nineteenth Century Novel)

In just 18 months my degree will be finished and I will be able to enrol on teacher training - the final stage in my plan to get away from where I am and onto where I want to be.

Yes, it will be 16 straight months of hard work, with the Shakespeare course overlapping both A215 and AA316, but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, I have been studying for longer than it takes most people (in full time education at least) to get this degree (this is my fourth year) but it's going to be done soon and I can't wait.

Bored

For some reason that I am at a loss about completely, my brain is in 'friday' mode already. I know, I know, it's Tuesday, and there are still a good few days to go until we reach that elusive peak of the working week, namely the end; but that doesn't mean I stop wanting it more than anything.

I acknowledge that another year has started and already I am wishing it away, but I just can't seem to get enthused about the normal Monday-Friday routine of getting up at stupid-o'clock and leaving the house when it's still pitch black and only the insane pensioners who seem to never sleep are out getting their newspapers and a pint of milk.

I must be insane, and in desperate need of mental punishment though. I have just sent an email to the OU enquiring about the possibility of my late enrollment on the Shakespeare level 3 (aka AA306) course which starts in about 2 - perhaps 3 - weeks. I really want to do Shakespeare because I have long loved much of his work, but it unfortunately doesn't fit into my course schedule as it currently stands. If I decide to take it then I push back my graduation by another 6-12 months, meaning I won't qualify to join the teacher training course until 2012 (when I am 38) rather than being qualified to teach by that point if I follow the original schedule and forego the experience of Shakespeare for the 'wonder' of Level 3 Creative Writing or 19th Century Literature (yes, I have to take one of these whatever I decide, but right now I am prevaricating, part of me is saying "You love to write", the other part is saying "But it won't be as much use to you, or put you in such good standing as 19th Century literature"). The only reason I am even contemplating a course that starts in such a short period of time is that I have suddenly realised that if I am going to double up on the courses then I need to be able to miss out on something. The current course I am taking is only a Level 2, and there is no exam. Granted, the Level 3 creative writing also doesn't have an exam, but to do TWO Level 3 courses at the same time is likely asking for all manner of issues - not least to my sanity!

Nothing for it really; I have to wait and see what the OU financial advice unit suggests when they send me their response (I am not sure if I would have to fund the second course myself - a mission that is completely unrealistic as my funds are stretched to the extreme as it is). At the end of the day I just have to sit on my hands and hope that the answer I get is a positive one, and hope also that they can speed through the application process...if I am able to do it at all. In all likelihood I am too late and will end up doing my two Level 3 courses at the same time, or at least overlapping just a little.

My reading list progress

As a member of a mailing list all about books I have decided to participate in their annual "50 books in a year" thing. This year has started off a little more slowly than I would have liked, having different responsibilities than in previous years has led to my being a little slower...

Books I have read so far this year:

Dead until Dark – Charlaine Harris (I thought I would give Sookie Stackhouse another try as I found her rather unreadable, un-likeable and annoying the first time out of the box – she is far more readable the second time around, though I still think she should be with Sam, Bill is a twat!)
Living Dead in Dallas – Charlaine Harris (still don’t like Bill, think that she would be better off without him)
Club Dead - Charlaine Harris (why did she rescue him at all? He’s a pillock)
Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris (thank goodness she has seen sense, though I found myself wishing she would just write him off – and perhaps accidentally trip him so he fell on a stake!)
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire – Kerrelyn Sparks (the first in a series by an author I only came across late last year)
Be Still my Vampire Heart – Kerrelyn Sparks (though I have book 2, for some reason I have never enjoyed reading it, so this time around I skipped)
You Slay Me (Aisling Grey 1) – Katie MacAlister (I enjoy this book, the first in the Aisling Grey series, I especially love Jim and his witty asides. Aisling initially comes across as rather strong if a little bit unusual, but then to suddenly have these powers that everyone recognises except for her is a little irritating…Drake is too perfect!)
Fire Me Up (Aisling Grey 2) – Katie MacAlister (the follow-up to “You Slay Me” finds Aisling in Budapest, the characters she meets are irritating and, at best, of very little importance, but far too much time is taken up with her worrying about her split responsibilities and she fails to remember that she is independent, easily and worryingly rather quickly, falling under Drake’s thumb, at least to my mind)
Secret Vampire (Night World 1) – LJ Smith (first in a wonderful – but currently unfinished – series of Young Adult novels based in the Night World – a world like ours but full of werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters and demons. In the original run of the series – though I hear this is to change – we are in the run-up to the millennium and a war that could lead to the destruction of mankind. Poppy and James are likeable if a little dull, the second book has always been the best, Ash Redfern is the ideal bad boy).

I don’t think that 9 books in 12 days is all that bad – though by this time last year I had procrastinated my way through about 30 (if I recall correctly I was trying desperately to avoid doing homework that was due, using the flu that I had managed to contract as a reasonable excuse, though if I am being honest, a severe case of reluctance was my main reason for avoiding homework like the plague)…

TMA02

The first real full week of 2009 and I am already done with the first assignment of the year (and the second of the course). I had expected the assignment to be easy - heck I have been writing stories since I was 8 years old - but for some reason inspiration completely eluded me until the Saturday after Christmas, though the inspired moment was brief and fleeting, just long enough for me to write the first 152 words and figure out who I was writing about.

Of course the deadline is in less than 3 hours, but I have managed and 2 hours ago I submitted the finished article, complete with the 500 word (well, 487 words if I am being accurate) commentary about how I came up with the idea and how it developed on the page.

Though I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about the story and what I was writing, I eventually warmed to the plot and managed to develop it into something that I know would be better as a longer story but works as it is.

Being honest though, I am just relieved that I have managed to finish the 2200 word (well 2307 words really) story and (amazingly enough) submit it before the deadline.

Roll on the one after next - next up is poetry and I hate it, 40 lines of sheer hell...