Recently in Sociology Category

What was I talking about the other day?

Now, now, now. We cannot complain about a course average of 81% can we?

Edited to add: Comments now appear to be working on here. Fat lot of fucking good that I didn't realise they weren't until having a go. Grr to MT4.

Here I am, banging on about that course again. Will I ever stop?

The course finished officially, for me anyway (in my mind at least), at the date of cut off for submission of TMA 06. That was June 10th. It's been almost two months. I have checked almost every day to see if my TMA result has changed from "Received" to an actual result. It has not.

Yet, when I logged in today, my course record says this:

Before today it was saying that they should be available by 6th August. Does this mean it might be before 6th August? Will I find out a week today? Will it be dead on 6th August? Is this just a way to tempt us? It's only a week woman!

I'm not worried about it. Although at first after submitting TMA 06 I was worried that I hadn't tried hard enough. Then a couple of week later I had almost forgotten about it completely. Now with only one week to go, I am again pondering how well I may have done. Surely I can't have bombed it? My scores throughout the rest of the course would prove my worth so to speak. Surely I am not bad enough to have performed poorly on just the last one?

It's only one week woman. Just wait it out!

It is now.

Yep. That is definately it. My mini-meisterwerk was posted today, and I am hoping that it will arrive either tomorrow or Saturday. And so it ends. Now it is entirely in the hands of a random tutor somewhere in Britain, and their discretion as to whether I get over 30% in it. I would bloody hope I do - I spent enough time trawling Government websites to get good, firm and up to date data for it.

Eight Months ago tomorrow was the start date of DD100, 6th October 2007 and here I am, 5th June 2008 and it is all over. Wow. How time flies. Part of me really cannot believe that it is over. And it's all going to start again in October when I take up AA100 - The Arts Past And Present. It's another Level 1 course, but it's required.

And now what am I going to do with my afternoons? I'm sure I'll find something, probably relating to real work, or of course tidying up the house. Yeah, I don't think so.

So wow. It's all over now.

Weighing in at 1,491 words (at the moment), the essay is finished. All that it requires is a read through by someone else, perhaps some tweaking of words and then posting off to Milton Keynes.

Dude. A whole year's worth of work is now over. Where did this year go?

Now I'm approximately half way through my essay. Strangely I am enjoying the fact that I started it so early and am able to just write lots of crap in the document, then strip it out later. Plus, as DD100's TMA06 gives me free reign over whatever part of the course I choose (so long as I reference three seperate modules), it is somewhat easier than being constrained to 200 pages in one book. Also, now that I have been able to download my course books in PDF format, I can quickly search them for keywords, rather than having to spend hours going through each real book and never quite finding what I am looking for.

Tomorrow I have every intention of finishing up the essay before making it good and proper next week. Next week it's back to [real] work, therefore my time will be somewhat more limited, and it will be better if all that I have to do is edit it.

I'm so close to the end. I'm this far, *indicates with thumb and forefinger*, from the end of my first year as a university student. It's a weird feeling. All of that effort, and a slight amount of worry for...what? Nothing at the end of this year. Nothing for at least another three years. How much does that suck? Quite a lot I will have you know. I am quite a results and reward - I started to type "retard" there - driven person. It will take ages before I get the result of this TMA, as it's sent by post, and even longer until I get my final result, although I can estimate that myself. Bleh to waiting.

And do you know what is annoying me today? They said it wouldn't rain, so I put a wash on. It's now raining. Balls.

I finished reading The Great Gatsby a couple of days back. Very good book, I rather enjoyed it. Now I have picked up Stephen Fry's autobiography but have not started it. Autobiographies are strange creatures to me. I never know whether I really want to read them, I feel as though I am somehow intruding on someone's personality and privacy. I feel as though I may come out the other end having learnt something that I did not want or need to know. That's the reason why I've only picked into Gordon Ramsey's autobiography a few times. I'm sure I'll get to the end of it one day. It's sort of like the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde that I have - I get into it for a bit, then abandon it for months for fear of reading something that I don't like. I'm a strange creature.

We had a huge thunderstorm the other night. It cost me an hour worth of sleep. It had this lightning that was utterly blinding, and thunder that wasn't just the rolling, deep sound that spreads out across a large area, but the truly amazing whipping, cracking thunder as though the earth had just been split in two.

Talking of halfway there, I am pretty much half way through my waking hours. Got up a little earlier than I was expecting this morning. Gave me a good start on the essay though. I had already done the Wii Fit stuff and the essay by 1pm. What joy. Now I've just been mooching around with little idea of what to do. I guess I will probably get back on the xBox very shortly. I'm just a few achievements away from almost completing a game. What joy.

This started out as yet another entry about my TMA. I'm almost done. Not just the TMA but also the entire course. Keep thinking of that...I'm almost done.

Oh the melodrama more like.

I always find starting an essay far more difficult than writing the bulk of it. Once I've started, it's pretty cool and it flows, but getting started is like trying to get an anorexic to eat a chocolate éclair - difficult, and only occurs if held firmly down. Today was one of those instances.

Funnily I did not suffer the normal:
"OH MY GOD! I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO! FUCK OFF ESSAY! I DON'T CARE!"

After a few biscuits, many hours of procrastinating, an hour on Wii Fit, more than an hour pissing around online, and at almost 3pm, I finally started it. Well, I wrote out the plan at the top. Good stuff. At least that gives me somewhere to go with it. What worries me slightly is that my tutor isn't going to see it. This is going to be sent to some random tutor somewhere in Britain who has never seen me, spoken to me or even knows of my existence. I hope the mark I attain is as good as the others, and it's not a case of, as The Boss says, me being the "Teacher's Pet". I'm sure that if I work hard enough, and don't take quite as blasé an attitude as I currently have towards it, then I will do fine.

However, it is TMA06 of DD100 - that's the only essay you really must submit, and you must attain something like 30% in it to pass the course. Nah, I'll do fine. Srsly.

As I've finally started ripping this DVD clip, I need something to do. Thought I would write something worthwhile here.

This morning, in the few moments before going to work I decided to turn on the computer. I then decided to have a quick look at my OU Student area, just in case my latest TMA had been returned. I was pleased to see that it had. I then went to collect it, and was mighty surprised by the mark.

90%

Yes, that is correct. 90 Fucking Per Cent.

I wish I could understand just how I keep on doing this. The previous two assignments have been on subjects that I haven't been terribly interested in, yet I got pretty high scores in both. 80% previously, and now 90% in the latest one. Maybe it's more a case of my tutor going mad?

This was TMA 04 on DD100. The question was something like "The emergence of a single global culture will benefit humankind. Discuss". I discussed it in 1,503 words and got 90% for it. Not so bad. I did use some pretty strong language in it, including at one point the phrase "rape and pillage".

A while ago I believe that I wrote an entry saying that I still felt pretty inadequate even though I was getting scores of 80% in my essays. I recall saying that I was a little more bothered by what I missed in that remaining 20%, than the fact that I got 80%. Well, this time round, I do not really feel like that. Not so much anyway. I feel as though, I have got 90%. Woo! Good for me. I must have tried a little harder than I realised. I'm still a little miffed as to what I missed in that remaining 10%, but the feeling of 90% is a little more encompassing.

I really have to get rid of this idea that I'm not doing well enough because I quite blatantly am. With two final TMAs to go, I do not think that I will have much chance of failing this course. The coming TMA, which is TMA05 and is regarding knowledge/philosophy seems a little more interesting and a subject that I am more likely to enjoy tackling, especially as I have the choice of Medical, Environmental, and Religious knowledge. I have already chosen the Medical route - what with having spent a good proportion of the past decade in and out of hospitals a huge amount, I think that I am fairly well versed in what it is like to have more or less choice in things.

Oh well. Clip is done. Phone call over. And I guess that this entry is over, as I have little other to say than what I have already said. 90% isn't bad at all. Let us hope that I can keep that up.

One of the most boring things in life is having to wait for someone or something to turn up. I missed the electricity meter reader yesterday afternoon, the note in the door said that he would come this morning. I got up before 8am. He hasn't been yet, although it is barely beyond 9:30am. I thought that, as I was waiting around I would muse on a few of life's issues.

Getting older scares me.
I had a mini discussion about this the other day with the Boss. I asked him what age he would like to be if he could be one age forever. His answer was the age that he is now, which is 24. I concurred and said that I would like to perpetually be 22. It's a nice age. I'm not yet "getting old" as I'm not near 30, but I'm not so young that I'm still excluded from doing things. I am a proper fully-fledged adult. It's a nice age. However, later this year I turn 23. Next year I turn 24. In 2010 I turn 25. In 2015 I turn 30. Ugh. Just the thought of being 30 strikes fear into my heart. And to think, this is coming from someone who, mentally, feels about 40.

At the age of 22, I know that I have another 40 years worth of work in me. At the age of 30, I still have another 30 odd years of work in me. By the time we get to what is considered "retirement age" now, I am sure that the retirement age will have been changed to..."never". You retire when you die. That would solve a pensions crisis.

Underneath this rough, and rather sharp exterior is really someone who is quite worried about getting older. Uncertainty worries me. Wow. That's coming from a person who doesn't give a flying fuck about decisions being laid down. It's not uncertainty in terms of "oh, what am I going to have for dinner tonight?" That kind of thing I don't care about. It's not me being worried about how much I will be earning aged 30, or where we will be living, or who we will know, or whether members of my family will still be alive. No no. Nothing like that.

It's the uncertainty of what I am going to do. As ever the student does, I do not know what I want to do with my life. I never have, not truly. I've theorised many a time about what I might like to do, but I do not truly know. I don't think that anyone ever does. They may think that they know what they want to do, they may get that "dream job", and then realise that they hate it - therefore they did not know.

[Slight pause while I make myself a pot of tea...]

What possibly makes it more difficult is that the Boss reminds me on a regular basis that it is a soft, bit of a Mickey Mouse, "arty" degree. Heh. Yeah. Says he, the one who is always asking me on correct English usage!

A large proportion of people who take an English degree end up in secretarial or administrative roles. No thank you. Been there, done that, it made me lose any faith I once had in humanity, and made me realise that a majority of the great British public are a little on the dim side. I'll give that one a miss thanks. But where does it leave me? A good degree in English generally proves that one is good at research. I enjoy research.

Would I take up a research role? Well, there are research roles, and then there are research roles.

There are research roles for large companies, whether that be in their production, testing or marketing departments. The kind of thing where you are researching the same thing, day in, day out. Can you imagine me working in a marketing department? Meh. I don't believe in anything - I certainly wouldn't believe in a "product". Except maybe Twinings Teas. But what research can you do about that? Tea is good. Tea is wonderful. Drink Tea. There you go, research done.

And then there are research roles. The interesting research roles. The ones for television production companies, whether that be the Discovery Channel or the BBC. That would rock my rainbow toe socks. Many different subjects over time. Good shit. And there's another type of research role that falls into the interesting category. That of research in a University. Heh, that would generally require me to take a PhD. Yeah, any PhD that I took would be a crock, lined with 200 pages of bullshit. It would be an absolute crock of shit.

And then when I think about where this degree might lead me, and I become ever more confused and uncertain about the whole thing, I start to wonder if that's the only reason that I'm taking it - to get a job. Of course it's not.

A very shallow part of me is taking this degree in the hope that it will turn me into some cultured, learned, well read, literate polymath. Will it? Will it change the way I think? The way I speak? My sense of humour? My social (in)abilities? Who knows.

I want to do something of consequence in life. I want to read Pascal's Pensees, John Le Carré, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and other frightfully pretentious sounding authors. I want to appear well read. I want to think that I am fairly well read. To look at my collection of books at the moment would just appear a joke. Full of Fry, Wodehouse, Sociology, and Wilde. To some, insipid up to the hilt. Oh well. I can hope that this year, my bookcase (when I finally bother to get one) will start to fill up with the likes of Blaise Pascal, John Le Carré, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Ernest Hemingway. Now let me chuck a few poets in there too, Philip Larkin, John Clare and of course Wilde.

But why do I want to do this? The answer to life, the Universe and everything does not lie in good books. No of course it doesn't you bloody fool, it's 42. You see, I must have learnt from this bloody sociology course, because I have come to what feels like the end and I am no bloody closer to an answer, I am merely getting more fucking questions. Arse.

Perhaps I'm not really meant to know what I want to do? Perhaps I need to do a whole load of things and see what fits? Perhaps I need to make a huge amount of mistakes before I realise what is for me? Then again, perhaps somewhere out of the blue something will fall into my lap which is just perfect? Hmm. I don't hold my breath. I'll keep trying and searching for something and see if anything does just drop. Until then I shall get back to my pretentious authors.

This is an issue that has plagued me for years, quite possibly since I was a child. I have always been quite hard on myself. That is, in terms of self-denial and self-denigration. When at school and of course, like everyone else trying my hardest, I never thought it was quite good enough. Now, doing this OU course, trying my hardest, it still isn't good enough. I'm sure that to most people 80% is a bloody wonderful mark and I know that there are some people who, no matter how freaking hard they try, they cannot get marked at 80% and tend to fall somewhat short. But you know, 80% isn't 90%, nor is it 100%, therefore it is not good enough. I also appreciate that by sustaining a mark at 80% and above I will in all chances graduate with a first class honours degree. Absolutely wonderful.

However, I know that I have it in me to do far better than 80%. I know that I can get 90%, and I'm sure that if I ever do get 90% I will be convinced of my abilities to get 95%. I just know that I have it in me. It is nestled safely somewhere in my brain, quite possibly between the cortex that is attempting to animate my voice some more and the other part that is attempting to release my sense of humour. It's okay now, you don't need to be scared of your sense of humour any longer. But my problem seems to be that I think about it all too hard. A case in point will follow.

This morning, before 9am I was sat at this very desk, using this very computer and staring at a blank Word document wondering where the hell I was going to start. I had my best gormless, or what I really much prefer to call my stupid dumb-fuck face on. I must have looked like a grade A retard. Over the subsequent five hours I went through a myriad of emotions, including dumb-fuck (for me, that's an emotion), through to worried, and then it all subsiding and easing off. And then, an epiphany! All of a sudden, out of nowhere, 1pm occured. Fuck me. 1pm. Earth shattering. And this "1pm" brought with it some amazing prophecies. I watched a couple of things on YouTube (I am becoming far too reliant on YouPube) to take my mind off the essay, and this seemed to change something in me. Immediately, on the stroke of 1pm I reopened the Word document and proceeded to write approximately three pages worth of coherent, logical and almost scholarly prose on globalisation. In fact, in about 20 minutes I wrote a third of the entire essay.

This is not the first time that I have noticed this phenomenon. Many times throughout my life I have found that when I stop thinking about the subject in hand, then I am able to come out with some good stuff. It works for humour, memories and it would appear, essays. My subconscious seems to be far more powerful than my conscious. Perhaps my problem does not stand in not trying hard enough? Maybe I should try less hard than I do? In fact, the first essay in which I got 80% I wrote the vast majority of while half pissed and very late on a Friday evening.

During the forays of my mind, which are far more common than me being totally conscious, I attain some pretty high standards of ideas. Once I become fully conscious again they tend to depart. I am beginning to conclude that thinking is not my forte. I could never be a philosopher. If I were, I would have a permanent dumb-fuck look on my face.

And I am beginning to realise that my mind is capable of far more than I understand. Even just the vast amount of information stored in there scares me. On my current playlist I have 51 songs with words. I know every single word to each one of those songs, I also know every single little nuance of each piece of music. And, subconsciously I have probably taken in all of the information about globalisation that I have read over the past few weeks, I just don't realise it. It's in there, and it's waiting to come out. It will come out when it is ready. I hope that it won't wait until after 8th April, when the essay is due.

I am capable of far more than I could ever imagine. I would probably be capable of a PhD, but I don't think I would ever seriously attempt one. I don't want to push the boundaries of accepted scholarly knowledge about Victorian Decadent literature, poetry and prose. No. I would much rather entertain. Even if it is just a giggle from the Boss. That's better than three letters after my name.

If this were a letter to my future self, aged approximately 25 to 30, I would say:
Stop being so damn hard on yourself. It's not worth it. You will only end up with a poorer relationship with yourself than you already have. Trust me, those little moments of genius are going to be worth hanging around for.

Be what you are, and become what you are capable of becoming.
— Robert Louis Stevenson

You may remember that a little while ago I mentioned an assignment that I was not looking forward to doing or to geting back?

Well, I got that assignment back today. I was rather miffed to arrive home and find a couple of envelopes on the floor, one which contained my own handwriting. I had no idea at first of what it was going to be. Once I turned it over and saw the return address, I realised that it was my assignment. The return address was the OU Dead Letter Office. What an interesting place to work, I am sure!

Upon realising that it was my assignment I could not even wait to take my coat off, and I opened it immediately. The marking by my tutor was what my eyes rabidly searched for. As they darted across the page they finally came to rest upon the mark, just above the comments.

80%

I kid ye not - same as I got for my last assignment. I seriously believed that I had done more around the 50 - 60% mark, especially as it was a timed assignment and I only had 60 minutes in which to complete as close to 1000 words as I could.

The remarks from my tutor made me smile. Apparently I had found some similarities which were very difficult to find, and to bring the element of a family and how these theories of power work in a family gained me some credit too.

Woo for me. I'm no idiot. As much as I don't really like this course, I seem to be okay at it. Now Weber and Foucault can be thoroughly put to bed. The main similarities and differences between Weber and Foucault's theories of power need to mean little to me now.

Now guys, please, leave me to get on with globalisation. As interesting as you were Max and Michel, and as much of an impact that you had on my life, I think it is time for me to move on. I realise that we were close, and it is a sad ending to what was otherwise a good relationship, but it is time for both of us to move on. I am sure that I will call on you in the future for help, guidance and perhaps reassurance, but a break is what is needed now. Sure, we'll mutually miss one another, but we will get over it eventually. I cannot deny that I have learnt a lot from both of you, and for that I am bally thankful! Now, there are many thousands of other people out there who need your help in understanding the world around them. Go forth and explain the sociological theories surrounding power. I know you can do it, together or apart, you are completely complementary to one another. Without you, my life would be that little bit more empty.