OK, in all honesty I'm really starting to run out alliterations here. I'm firmly stuck between the Rock of rapidly decreasing alliterations and the Hard Place of being too lazy to think of another title format and my OCD is refusing to settle on another title pattern. So there you go, first world problems at their finest there.
This week was a week for finishing up and sending in my assignments but, in what I think constitutes personal growth, I haven't been too much of a nervous wreck. When I first started studying the idea that there would come a time when I could write and submit an assignment without any tears, panic attacks, throwing of highlighters or drinking of wine seemed like an impossibly wonderful dream. It's been a gradual process (one glass of wine less while writing this essay, one less highlighter for Hubs to dodge while referencing this assignment) it has eventually paid of and I now finally feel like a full blown student. To celebrate being a full blown student in my own mind now I did what all good students do, went and mooched food from Hubs parents and came home to be smug on the Internet. See, I really am getting the hang of it.
One thing I have managed to do this year (except from reducing my Kleenex and wine bill) is finally get around to going to tutorials. My first 3 modules I never managed to make it for one reason or another, but a few weeks ago I went to my first tutorial for DD206 and I've just had a quick check of the calender and found myself pathetically excited to have another one next month. If anyone is dithering on whether or not to go I really want to encourage anyone who has the ability to go to a tutorial to get yourself there. Yes, meeting new people is awkward and yes, it does feel pretty much identical to the first day of school (I even got lost in the wrong side of the building and bumped into a scary looking girl who looked like she was about to demand my dinner money and/or loudly judge my outfit) but once you get over that it's a really positive and reassuring experience. Studying with OU it's really easy to feel like you're the only person on your course. We sit behind a screen reading quietly and occasionally seeing a comment from a fellow student pop up and that can be pretty isolating but getting to a tutorial seemed to prove to me that other people are doing the same course in the same way. It's reassuring to realise that your not just a singular keyboard warrior colour co-ordinating by subject matter, there's a ton of other crazy (and probably normal) people out there too and they completely understand in a way that even the most incredibly supportive and empathetic of family and friends would struggle too.
TL;DR Go to your tutorials!
Monday, 3 November 2014
Friday, 24 October 2014
Deferrals and Disasters.
After putting this post off for what seems like (and physically is) months I feel like it's finally time to just suck it up and get this over with. I'll start with the crappy bits first to give a build up to a nice happy ending (quality story telling at it's finest right here).
So after the bombshell from student finance early in the year turned out to be a standard administrative error that actually only required a form being resent and 2 quick calls to OU all was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of W100. It wasn't the most exciting course ever but I got a decent, passing grade out of it and it actually turned out to teach me some fairly useful, practical skills so all in all not particularly thrilling but a solid, useful module and something that I think was definitely worth doing and in particular worth choosing over the other options I had to get the credits.
I cant remember if I've mentioned it here before and to be honest I'm far too lazy to trawl back through my ramblings to double check but in February I also start DD206 (Use of Social Science). Like my original module (DD101) it's a generic Social Science module that pretty much everyone doing an OU degree in this type of subject ends up doing. As far as the work went it was actually pretty interesting, the case studies were on occasionally odd but always interesting subjects, the subject itself is really interesting and my tutor was absolutely brilliant. Even my Student Finance went (relatively) smoothly. Amazing. I think at the start I was pretty worried about doing the two modules together and whether that would be too much work but actually they fit in perfectly and being two entirely different subjects it was pretty easy to keep track of what was happening where.
After submitting my W100 final assignment and breathing a quick sigh of relief I was really looking forward to being able to get on with and concentrate on DD206 on it's own for a change but as it turns out it wasn't exactly meant to be.
Summer turned out to be what I think you could diplomatically call; a massive shitstorm and as I think happens more often that we realise life just seemed to get in the way. It's not my place or my prerogative to whinge on about the minor failures of life but I just felt the need, for whatever reason, to justify my decisions to strangers on the internet.
The long story short was that in the end I just didn't have the time, concentration, or energy to focus on the module. I did a few calculations and figured out that getting just 20 or so marks from the 4 remaining assignments would have still scraped me a pass but I always feel that half arsing an assignment takes only marginally less effort than doing it properly and in either case it just wasn't something I was going to be able to do. The other consideration was that as I'm now in my second year these marks and bare pass grades will have a direct effect on my overall degree classification and whether it's petty or not I've waited far too long and worked far too hard to throw the chance of a good degree classification away. So for the combination of all my many reasons I eventually found myself sitting on the staircase on hold to OU before eventually hanging up. Before phoning again. Then hanging up. Then phoning again, ad nauseum. Eventually I resolved to sleep on it and woke up the next morning knowing that I'd made the right decision when I'd originally decided to call and so finally ended up in a little room in the back of my office hysterically explaining the last 4 months of my life to a brilliantly calm and empathetic woman (who's name I genuinely regret not taking) who explained really clearly that deferring the remainder of my course would be no problem at all and that I could just restart again in October. With the wonder of hindsight I'm completely aware that everything I'd looked up said this as well but having it explained verbally like that was an absolute weight off my shoulders.
Thankfully I managed to give myself a decently hard mental slap and get my life reasonably in order (as much as it ever is) enough to get started this month. The deferral for DD206 means that I'm finishing the module off at the same time as starting DD203 but it's turned out to be absolutely brilliant timing. DD203 (Power, Dissent, Equality) is the first Political Science module of my degree and without being even more of a nerd than usual it's absolutely brilliant. The really interesting subject combined with a great tutor and some head battering (in the very best way) assignments are making it by far the most exciting module I've studied and a with W100 the subject matter is so completely detached from DD206 that keeping them separated is no problem at all and it's brilliant to be finally getting to grip with my degree subject at last.
All in all it's been an eventful few month for pretty terrible reasons but as usual it's all turned out for the best and I'm back to enjoying my modules, occasionally broken up by launching a highlighter at the wall, but mostly enjoying them. So there you go, the promised marathon whinge-athon with an uplifting happy end. I'm nothing if not predictable.
So after the bombshell from student finance early in the year turned out to be a standard administrative error that actually only required a form being resent and 2 quick calls to OU all was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of W100. It wasn't the most exciting course ever but I got a decent, passing grade out of it and it actually turned out to teach me some fairly useful, practical skills so all in all not particularly thrilling but a solid, useful module and something that I think was definitely worth doing and in particular worth choosing over the other options I had to get the credits.
I cant remember if I've mentioned it here before and to be honest I'm far too lazy to trawl back through my ramblings to double check but in February I also start DD206 (Use of Social Science). Like my original module (DD101) it's a generic Social Science module that pretty much everyone doing an OU degree in this type of subject ends up doing. As far as the work went it was actually pretty interesting, the case studies were on occasionally odd but always interesting subjects, the subject itself is really interesting and my tutor was absolutely brilliant. Even my Student Finance went (relatively) smoothly. Amazing. I think at the start I was pretty worried about doing the two modules together and whether that would be too much work but actually they fit in perfectly and being two entirely different subjects it was pretty easy to keep track of what was happening where.
After submitting my W100 final assignment and breathing a quick sigh of relief I was really looking forward to being able to get on with and concentrate on DD206 on it's own for a change but as it turns out it wasn't exactly meant to be.
Summer turned out to be what I think you could diplomatically call; a massive shitstorm and as I think happens more often that we realise life just seemed to get in the way. It's not my place or my prerogative to whinge on about the minor failures of life but I just felt the need, for whatever reason, to justify my decisions to strangers on the internet.
The long story short was that in the end I just didn't have the time, concentration, or energy to focus on the module. I did a few calculations and figured out that getting just 20 or so marks from the 4 remaining assignments would have still scraped me a pass but I always feel that half arsing an assignment takes only marginally less effort than doing it properly and in either case it just wasn't something I was going to be able to do. The other consideration was that as I'm now in my second year these marks and bare pass grades will have a direct effect on my overall degree classification and whether it's petty or not I've waited far too long and worked far too hard to throw the chance of a good degree classification away. So for the combination of all my many reasons I eventually found myself sitting on the staircase on hold to OU before eventually hanging up. Before phoning again. Then hanging up. Then phoning again, ad nauseum. Eventually I resolved to sleep on it and woke up the next morning knowing that I'd made the right decision when I'd originally decided to call and so finally ended up in a little room in the back of my office hysterically explaining the last 4 months of my life to a brilliantly calm and empathetic woman (who's name I genuinely regret not taking) who explained really clearly that deferring the remainder of my course would be no problem at all and that I could just restart again in October. With the wonder of hindsight I'm completely aware that everything I'd looked up said this as well but having it explained verbally like that was an absolute weight off my shoulders.
Thankfully I managed to give myself a decently hard mental slap and get my life reasonably in order (as much as it ever is) enough to get started this month. The deferral for DD206 means that I'm finishing the module off at the same time as starting DD203 but it's turned out to be absolutely brilliant timing. DD203 (Power, Dissent, Equality) is the first Political Science module of my degree and without being even more of a nerd than usual it's absolutely brilliant. The really interesting subject combined with a great tutor and some head battering (in the very best way) assignments are making it by far the most exciting module I've studied and a with W100 the subject matter is so completely detached from DD206 that keeping them separated is no problem at all and it's brilliant to be finally getting to grip with my degree subject at last.
All in all it's been an eventful few month for pretty terrible reasons but as usual it's all turned out for the best and I'm back to enjoying my modules, occasionally broken up by launching a highlighter at the wall, but mostly enjoying them. So there you go, the promised marathon whinge-athon with an uplifting happy end. I'm nothing if not predictable.
Sunday, 25 May 2014
Distressed, Distracted and Desperately Hopeful.
Another month, another disaster was the other title I was thinking of for this post but, to be honest, I couldn't find a way to work any more alliteration into that so off to the scrap heap of deserted blog titles it goes (it's a bigger pile than anyone should have to be honest) and back to the point of the post I go.
To put the last few weeks down as a disaster would be quite possibly the understatement of my life. In between crashing the car I bought two months ago, having to take nearly two days off work, trying to catch up on my much neglected reading for the W100 EMA I've got due in 4 days time and trying to make the Mr's delayed birthday the best it could be under the circumstances I've essentially been a nervous wreck since I last posted here. And then the email came through.
Seen as I've got a module ending this week and a collaborative forum starting for my other module I've been getting a fair few OU related emails this week so when yet another one popped up on the list I rolled my eyes, prayed it wasn't from my W100 tutor and opened it while still playing Candy Crush in the background until I seen the words I dread reading about every year "Student Finance". Not only was it not another email reminding me to apply for next terms Tuition Fee Loan (already applied for and approved) it was an email from OU to 'remind' me that I'd told SFE I wanted a Tuition Fee Loan for one module and would be paying the other £2500 in full to the OU myself. The panic of seeing that big a number and 'payment' in the same paragraph is a feeling of dread pretty much all under 30's will relate to. That just isn't a payable amount, it's not even a receivable amount, it's just an abstract number relative to the sort of people who collect interest on their current accounts and have to worry about which ISA gives them the best rate. Not the type of person (i.e. myself) who checks their bank with crossed fingers at the end of the month and keeps a running count down to payday.
Having said that I realise I'm not the most organised person in the world and any other time I would have put this down to me filling in a form wrong or not understanding a question but as my many previous posts will attest last years Student Finance application dragged on for weeks and involved a ridiculously long (and expensive) phone call to their call centre and much clarification of exactly how much I was entitled to and what that would cover. So for the first time ever I am 100% sure this isn't my cock up. I applied for the full amount I was entitled to and clarified this would cover two OU modules in an academic year so getting an email almost a year later saying something completely different was a bit of a kick in the metaphorical balls.
As if to add insult to injury the email came through on a Friday afternoon before a bank holiday meaning I cant actually hyperventilate down the phone to anyone relevant until Tuesday by which time I'll be at work.
All in all I've had better months, more sleep and generally a high percentage of time where I didn't feel like my head was about to burst with the internal pressure but as my thigh tattoo says:
"Smooth Seas make for Poor Sailors"
and holy fucking shit if this doesn't turn me into Ellen MacArthur then there really is no hope for me.
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Cushiness and Conflict
For some reason today is a day where I really feel the need to update this blog. And, as always, when I say "update this blog" I mean "think out loud on the internet".
I think the reason for the sudden need to vent may be a realisation I had at work today which is that, while I'm no less focused on my course I feel as if I have completely lost sight of the end goal somewhere down the line. I don't mean that I've drifted away from my modules at all, I'm just as focused as ever on the course work, assignments and desperately trying to claw a decent degree out of this. I don't doubt for a single second that this is what I want to do and, even when I'd really rather spend my time doing something other than sitting on my bed with a laptop (the table just doesn't feel right to type on) I'm always happy to have stuck it out and done the work every week. What I mean by having lost sight of the end goal is that I feel like I may have ended up far too comfortable in my role and somewhere down the line I've told enough people that I'm studying as a 'hobby' rather than for any kind of professional ambitions that I've started to believe it myself. Leaving my call centre hell to end up doing 9-5 business sales was a brilliant decision. I'm by no means living the dream here but it's decent money and a pretty cushy job as these kind of things go. The key point here is, I think, cushiness. It's so easy to fall into a comfortable trap of making decent money and working good hours and losing sight of the fact that there may be something, somewhere, outside of this.
I started my degree originally as Politics, Philosophy and Economics and toyed with the idea of changing to International Studies before finally settling on politics. The main points that all these subjects have in common is a connection to the larger world outside of the small boxes we all fit our lives into. I started studying to try and develop an understanding of why the world works the way it does and to try and use that knowledge to change it for the better. The end goal was always to work for a charity of some kind, preferably one attempting to deal with poverty at an international level (i.e. Oxfam and co.) but ending up in a comfortable position made me lose sight of that.
I don't want to complain about being too content because this whole irritation is, frankly, ridiculous but at the same time I feel like it's important to remind myself that there is an end goal. Not only that but my end goal should be the same as everyone else; to make sure that when I leave this world I've made some baby step, however minute, to leaving it in a better state than when I got here.
Sometimes it takes realising you've forgot that to remind yourself that that should be the end goal above pretty much everything else.
I think the reason for the sudden need to vent may be a realisation I had at work today which is that, while I'm no less focused on my course I feel as if I have completely lost sight of the end goal somewhere down the line. I don't mean that I've drifted away from my modules at all, I'm just as focused as ever on the course work, assignments and desperately trying to claw a decent degree out of this. I don't doubt for a single second that this is what I want to do and, even when I'd really rather spend my time doing something other than sitting on my bed with a laptop (the table just doesn't feel right to type on) I'm always happy to have stuck it out and done the work every week. What I mean by having lost sight of the end goal is that I feel like I may have ended up far too comfortable in my role and somewhere down the line I've told enough people that I'm studying as a 'hobby' rather than for any kind of professional ambitions that I've started to believe it myself. Leaving my call centre hell to end up doing 9-5 business sales was a brilliant decision. I'm by no means living the dream here but it's decent money and a pretty cushy job as these kind of things go. The key point here is, I think, cushiness. It's so easy to fall into a comfortable trap of making decent money and working good hours and losing sight of the fact that there may be something, somewhere, outside of this.
I started my degree originally as Politics, Philosophy and Economics and toyed with the idea of changing to International Studies before finally settling on politics. The main points that all these subjects have in common is a connection to the larger world outside of the small boxes we all fit our lives into. I started studying to try and develop an understanding of why the world works the way it does and to try and use that knowledge to change it for the better. The end goal was always to work for a charity of some kind, preferably one attempting to deal with poverty at an international level (i.e. Oxfam and co.) but ending up in a comfortable position made me lose sight of that.
I don't want to complain about being too content because this whole irritation is, frankly, ridiculous but at the same time I feel like it's important to remind myself that there is an end goal. Not only that but my end goal should be the same as everyone else; to make sure that when I leave this world I've made some baby step, however minute, to leaving it in a better state than when I got here.
Sometimes it takes realising you've forgot that to remind yourself that that should be the end goal above pretty much everything else.
Monday, 17 February 2014
Changes and Challenges.
While I hate to be one to state the obvious: this blog has been horrendously neglected.
I'm assuming no-ones been hovering around desperate for an update but still, its an appallingly neglected blog and for some reason I have genuine guilt about that so I figure the only way to counteract that is to get off my butt (figuratively obviously, I'm blogging from the sofa) and get blogging again.
Since the last time I updated was September (yes, I did have to go check that on the main page) I think it might be worth mentioning that I did eventually get my End of Module Assessment submitted and by some miracle managed to pass DD101 with Distinction. Hurrah! I was naturally insanely excited about this and there was much enthusiasm for the beginning of W100.
Unfortunately this enthusiasm lasted precisely as long as it took to open the first text book before I realised what a terrible, terrible mistake taking a Law module had been. I feel like I should point out that this is in no way a winge about the OU, their Law department, or the course material. They are, quite frankly, the best possible examples of what is sadly an incredibly dull subject. Obviously with anything like this it's completely subjective, I'm sure my mind numbing tedium is another persons thrilling and life affirming journey into education. Sadly knowing this does not make ploughing through this module any easier or any more rewarding.
My overall course is a Combined Social Science BA with a Politics specialty and to do this meant taking an additional level 1 module to effectively bulk my credits out. Out of the choices I kind of thought Law would be the most directly connected and applicable to a Politics degree and that having a good understanding of the legal system would tie well into having a working knowledge of the political systems around it. Unfortunately Social Science and Law are polar opposite subjects and the enthusiasm and interest of DD101 is just not there in W100, my assignment scores are lower, its a real struggle to make myself do the reading and I have little to no interest in doing anything above the bare minimum required to pass this module. I feel like I spend 50% of my study time for W100 reminding myself of the phrase 'a means to an end' and the other 50% reading news articles to remind myself what I'm doing this for and what the end goal is.
Complaining aside the other important study change is my move to being an official 'Full Time Student'. Ho.Ly.Crap. Putting that in writing makes it seem like a real thing that is actually happening and that's a bit odd but also completely brilliant. Even if just for the purpose of making myself feel better and also slightly less of a thicko!
Moving to full time does have the bonus of meaning that, alongside the dreaded W100, I'm now studying DD206 which is incomparably more interesting and a lot easier to get through. Social Science is without a doubt a much better subject area for me, I find it more interesting which naturally makes it easier to learn and considerably less of a chore to get through. I was a bit worried in October that when February came around the full time workload would be too much but I'm finding that having to completely different modules actually makes it a little bit easier somehow.
In less OU related news (feel free to click back now) the other major change is moving to a new job. Working for a certain call center was a job I really didn't mind all that much and had been in for quite a while but ended up essentially unbearable in the space of a month for a reason I really don't feel the need to waste time blogging about. The upside is that my absolute misery of my job was the kick in the butt I needed to go change things and I've ended up in a new job with lovely 9-5 Monday-Friday hours which is making fitting the huge amounts of reading in considerably easier than it was in between the ridiculous shifts I was working before hand.
After all of that I think I may have just wrote a full page blog post to basically say 'everything always works out in the end' and that all in all things aren't going too bad at the moment.
I'm assuming no-ones been hovering around desperate for an update but still, its an appallingly neglected blog and for some reason I have genuine guilt about that so I figure the only way to counteract that is to get off my butt (figuratively obviously, I'm blogging from the sofa) and get blogging again.
Since the last time I updated was September (yes, I did have to go check that on the main page) I think it might be worth mentioning that I did eventually get my End of Module Assessment submitted and by some miracle managed to pass DD101 with Distinction. Hurrah! I was naturally insanely excited about this and there was much enthusiasm for the beginning of W100.
Unfortunately this enthusiasm lasted precisely as long as it took to open the first text book before I realised what a terrible, terrible mistake taking a Law module had been. I feel like I should point out that this is in no way a winge about the OU, their Law department, or the course material. They are, quite frankly, the best possible examples of what is sadly an incredibly dull subject. Obviously with anything like this it's completely subjective, I'm sure my mind numbing tedium is another persons thrilling and life affirming journey into education. Sadly knowing this does not make ploughing through this module any easier or any more rewarding.
My overall course is a Combined Social Science BA with a Politics specialty and to do this meant taking an additional level 1 module to effectively bulk my credits out. Out of the choices I kind of thought Law would be the most directly connected and applicable to a Politics degree and that having a good understanding of the legal system would tie well into having a working knowledge of the political systems around it. Unfortunately Social Science and Law are polar opposite subjects and the enthusiasm and interest of DD101 is just not there in W100, my assignment scores are lower, its a real struggle to make myself do the reading and I have little to no interest in doing anything above the bare minimum required to pass this module. I feel like I spend 50% of my study time for W100 reminding myself of the phrase 'a means to an end' and the other 50% reading news articles to remind myself what I'm doing this for and what the end goal is.
Complaining aside the other important study change is my move to being an official 'Full Time Student'. Ho.Ly.Crap. Putting that in writing makes it seem like a real thing that is actually happening and that's a bit odd but also completely brilliant. Even if just for the purpose of making myself feel better and also slightly less of a thicko!
Moving to full time does have the bonus of meaning that, alongside the dreaded W100, I'm now studying DD206 which is incomparably more interesting and a lot easier to get through. Social Science is without a doubt a much better subject area for me, I find it more interesting which naturally makes it easier to learn and considerably less of a chore to get through. I was a bit worried in October that when February came around the full time workload would be too much but I'm finding that having to completely different modules actually makes it a little bit easier somehow.
In less OU related news (feel free to click back now) the other major change is moving to a new job. Working for a certain call center was a job I really didn't mind all that much and had been in for quite a while but ended up essentially unbearable in the space of a month for a reason I really don't feel the need to waste time blogging about. The upside is that my absolute misery of my job was the kick in the butt I needed to go change things and I've ended up in a new job with lovely 9-5 Monday-Friday hours which is making fitting the huge amounts of reading in considerably easier than it was in between the ridiculous shifts I was working before hand.
After all of that I think I may have just wrote a full page blog post to basically say 'everything always works out in the end' and that all in all things aren't going too bad at the moment.
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