Recently in Open University Category

I fancied writing this down. I'm not the kind of person who believes in or does new year resolutions, but rather I prefer to think of things that I would like to achieve at some point in the year, new year or not. I'll break this down into categories, and bear in mind that this will not only be the good/interesting/fun things that I want to do, but also a few predictions.

Degree
I have a set goal with my degree: to finish it, and get a proper job. I know, easier said than done I am sure. Within the calendar year of 2009, I will have sampled three seperate courses. There's AA100 which I started in October 2008. Then there's A210 which begins in February 2009. And then in October 2009 I will start U211. Three seperate courses in one year. Beyond that, there's only two more courses to do. The realisation of that is quite a strange one, because it feels as though I have only just begun and that I have a very long way to go. In truth, I don't. It's not that far away, and graduation should be in the summer of 2011. What a strange feeling. I hope to meander my way through A210 to the best of my ability - I am sure it is not as difficult as the rather threatening material makes it look.

Books
Last year I made a book list that I intended to get through. No such luck. I sucked in every attempt that I made, and judging by my previous entry about my reading in 2008, I wasn't anywhere near as erudite as I wished to be in my literary choices. This year, I hope to change my piss poor attempt into a much better one. It's only 5th January, but I am coming towards the end of the most recent book that I purchased, which is 600 pages. I am hopeful that I will read more this year. I am also hopeful that I will read better stuff too. As I have two books by Ayn Rand, a number of romantic writings, and the complete works of William Shakespeare to get through, I think I am on a much better path than 2008.

Work
With one of our guys off for the long haul, I fear and very much feel that we were going to get heavily rammed. Arse. With The Boss being forced to take two weeks worth of holiday this month, there will only be two of us in the department, and with me only being a part-timer, for half of the time there will only be one person. Not looking good. Our problem is not the work and the stuff that we are required to do, it is other people and their lack of tact as well as their impatience. I will definately not resolve to be nicer to people because most people that I come across that I have to work with don't deserve it because of their bad attitude towards us. It's going to be a difficult start to the year and I hope it doesn't last too long.

Learning for Learning's sake
I like learning. I'm one of these people who can put the Discovery channel on and watch it all day. I love learning solely for the sake of learning new stuff. I think that we are a rare breed of people and it saddens me that there are not more of us. Anyway, this year, my challenge is to start learning a new language. I've mentioned it before - Russian. I am under no illusions that I can learn much of a language with a Cyrillic alphabet within the space of one calendar year. However, I simply wish to start learning as we all have to start somewhere, and I really want the challenge.

Games/Consoles/Computers
We have rather neglected our xBox recently. That must change. Not only that, but I have been seriously neglecting the games that I used to play on this machine. Since installing a new Razer gaming mouse last week, I have started playing Day of Defeat: Source again. It is fun, and I think that I had forgotten that. It's nice to be back, even if I do suck at it. I do resolve to do one thing: take better care of this machine. It was running hot recently (35ºC immediately after being turned on, and 55ºC while playing games), and today I hoovered it out. Now it's 10-15ºC lower which can only be good, surely? You should have seen the disgusting amounts of dust in there, especially under the CPU fan. There's a lesson for you - hoover out your PC every few months, it can make a massive difference. On one more unrelated note, for as long as EA keep advertisements and spyware in their new release of The Sims 3, I am not buying it. Sorry EA, but you've just lost yourself a very loyal customer of 8 years.

Life in General
On the morning after our second anniversary, The Boss and I were sat having breakfast in the hotel in London. The Boss could see a family behind me and he was annoyed by the behaviour of the children. We then started talking about children. After a short pause, he said "One of us should get sterilised", or words to that effect. I agree, at least one of us should get neutered. I may only be in my early twenties and he in his mid-twenties, but we know that children aren't for us. We're more the work focussed type. We don't want interruptions or to have to take time out for someone else. I also don't want to ruin my relatively nice body - I'm very happy with the way it looks now. In 40 years time, I want to look like Helen Mirren in a Bikini, not like a lot of these women you see on things like Embarrassing Illnesses with massive amounts of stretch marks and extra skin. Nah, not for me. In 2009 one of us will probably be neutered, which one is yet to be decided. As I have had abdominal surgery before, I need to see a gynaecologist first (I hate the word gynaecologist, it makes me want to hurl). As shallow as we may seem, the choice to remain without children is a more difficult one than to blindly follow society and have some because "everyone does it".

We might travel a little. Apparently I would like Prague.

We might get a dog. Rescue dog of course - what breed and age we do not know, but it is something that comes up in conversation quite regularly.

Beyond all of that, there really is little to talk about. I hope that 2009 won't be terribly exciting in a bad way, but I also hope that the world doesn't come to an end. I'm not ready for that yet. Are you?

I believe I have previously mentioned that I'm doing another course. Well, I am. I signed up for it less than a week ago. A couple of days ago I noticed a message on my StudentHome telling me that a particular form could not be mailed as they had run out (WTG!). I wondered why I was getting this message as surely I wouldn't be receiving my materials until January?

Lo and behold! Yesterday a big packet arrived for me with all of the materials for the start of my new course: A210 - Approaching Literature. I flicked through them last night and for a fleeting moment felt "What the fucking hell have I managed to get myself into now?" I don't doubt for one second that I can do it, but do I really want to? I know why I'm doing it, but do I really want to?

The materials...look different. Unlike the very standard ones that I've had for my other two courses where the covers are similar, the layout is similar, the font is very simple and easy to read, it's in colour (DD100 wasn't), it didn't feel condescending at all. A210? Fuck me, does this feel patronising. Everything from the need to have different covers to other courses, to the font in the books which is difficult to read. By the time that the course starts, the materials will be three years old. That's something that the OU should do - standardise all of the materials across every single course.

Today, I almost started on it, but getting home from work a bit late I really had no inclination, nor did I have any to work harder on my current TMA. I'm only about 100 words from finishing it, so what's the hurry? However, I have been leafing through the Course Guide for A210. One thing has puzzled me so far. There's a part on the first page of the Course Guide, it says that this course means "you will be able to proceed to an Honours degree by taking literature courses at levels 3 and 4." Level four? Really? Are you sure? The only thing that I can find about Level Four on the OU are courses that are the equivalent of NQF Level 4, but they aren't OU specific courses. At first, I thought, maybe they're talking about an MA, but no, they specifically state "Honours Degree", so it can't be an MA. Hmm.

Further on it says "you may find occasional references to the old structure, for example in the numbering of the blocks, study guides and audio-visual material, and you should ignore any anomalies of this kind." No, how about you actually re-read, re-listen and re-watch these things and then re-issue them instead of telling people to ignore it. Some people won't read this course guide, some people will forget that bit of information, some people simply won't pay any attention to it. What terribly bad practice. Issue things to students doing current degrees and then tell them to ignore any old mistakes - that smacks of laziness, not lack of money or people to do the reviewing. After seeing this bit, I looked at the date to see when it was last printed/re-printed and it was reviewed in 2006. So, by the time we come round to using it, it will be...ding! Ding! Ding! Three years out of date.

Doing swell so far.

This particular course has an examination too. Lovely. A three hour exam, probably in Cambridge. Out of the six courses required for my degree, it would appear that only three of them have exams. Well that's quite neato. I was expecting all of the Level 2 and above courses to have them. I must have got lucky.

I can do this - I know that I can. However, I feel a bit put off by my experiences recently. Not just the things that I have pointed out above, but also that abject failure of a Day School. Please - I'm paying £610 per course for this. That's £610 of my own cold hard cash earned entirely by me (well, apart from when I get vouchers, and for A210 I didn't have any). I now work solely to pay for these courses, and paying out £610 every 6 months can be quite heavy when you're only working part time, especially when it's near to Christmas. I digress - I'm paying this £610 (surely to go up next year) and am getting materials that tell me to ignore mistakes, ignore things that throwback to old versions, get their level scheme wrong, and to go to Day Schools which don't occur because no - one knows what is going on, thus wasting my weekend.

It's not good, is it? Surely it must be better organised than this? This is, in all seriousness, my future here and a good chunk of this cold hard cash that I'm laying down for it is being pissed away on sub-standard materials and events that don't occur. That can't be right.

The Boss wants me to write a complaint and try to get a little bit of a refund out of the OU for the disasterous Day School. I am tempted. It would certainly help. And yes, I know The Boss is reading this, probably cursing the fact that I haven't written the complaint yet. I was going to ask my parents, when they finally return, for some advice on how best to word it as I am rather lost. I'm an English student, how the fuck am I lost for words? I'll feel guilty for doing it, and perhaps I wouldn't have done it if we had been told what was happening, or even better, had some kind of apology for the screw-up in the days afterwards. Instead, we heard nothing at all - and that's really not good.

It'll all be fine. Fine and dandy, I'm sure.

Left.

It certainly has been a while. Laziness strikes. Especially after two holidays. I believe that the last time I wrote anything was just before we went away for the second time? MT tells me it was 22nd September, which was the day before. Goodo. Our holidays were nice. Both of them. The second place we stayed had a hot tub and a sauna. I used both. I got the sauna up to a little above 50ºC. I was sweating at that point, but wasn't feeling light headed. I got out because I had been in for half an hour at that point, and I didn't want to overdo it, as it was an infrared sauna. And the hot tub? Well, that was outside, and I used it on our last night there as it was a pleasant evening. I was glad that it wasn't windy - the cover was hard, and if that had blown onto me while I was in there...not good.

The place that we stayed second time round was on a private road. Yeah. A private road that was over a mile from the public highway to the lodge. Good stuff. So quiet. All that we heard was fighter jets and geese. Good stuff - we will return there.

The entire time we were there, I was waiting for my period to start. Did it? Of course it freaking didn't. I have a problem with my periods. It finally started last night, some two and a half months after my last period, in July. Dude, please, sort it out. I would much rather not have any at all. Fuck me, does this one hurt. Painkillers required. If it hadn't have been for the painkillers that I took this morning, I may not have gone to work. It really was bad, I couldn't believe how painful it was. One hysterectomy please, Mr. Gynaecologist!

Then it was time to come back to work, and that happened last week. Eugh is all that I can say about that. I don't like working. Does anyone? Well sometimes I do, but not at the moment.

I need a cup of tea.
[Pause...]

We just seem to have had such a shower of bastards coming in or demanding our help. From the stupid new knob head of department who decided to set his own date on when something must be done by us, and continued to push us for that date, despite our department never agreeing to that date. To stupid retards being handed the items that they ordered, and then saying "I ordered 'blah blah blah'. Err, no you put down "blah blah", you never mentioned "blah blah blah". Fuckwit. And to the dude who must weight at least 30 stone and is such a pompous twat. I can barely stand to look at him, let alone be in the same room as him. He either stinks of BO or shite. Today it was shite. He's worse than the drunk retiree who keeps coming in, twitching and utterly pissed as well as stinking as though something crawled into his throat and died.

For fuck's sake, would a gentle return have been so difficult? We had a nice holiday, and what could have been a nice, quiet return to work was plagued by stupid fucks simply existing. While I realise that the start of term is "busy", it is not just busy for the academic departments. In fact, the start of term would not be busy for the academic departments if any of them had good teachers who did planning during the holidays. They just fuck off to their far flung countries for 8 weeks each summer and do sweet FA. While we, the support staff come in during the holidays, or in the case of The Boss, ends up spending half a day while he is in deepest, darkest Norfolk fixing a problem at work because they just can't cope without him. Teachers have it so fucking easy. Sure the kids can be a handful, but they only work part time, and have about 16-20 weeks holiday per year. While the support staff do not, and we get abused, bitched at, have people try to go above us, and generally get treated like utter shit by these "teachers".

A nice little message to all the teachers out there. Not only: Fuck you, for the most part, but also, you need to realise that without us, you really would be fucked. Treat us with a little respect for once, and you might get good, clean, nice service from people who want to help you. A smile, a please and a thank you go a long way. Stop thinking that you are the only reason that schools exist. You forget - the only reason that schools open after each holiday is because we, the support staff have been slaving our arses off to get 3 times our normal workload finished before you lazy cunts return. As soon as teachers start respecting me, I will return the respect. At the moment, respect is pretty thin on the ground.

What else? Oh yes, I started my course last week. I'm a week ahead of schedule. And I went to the first tutorial last Tuesday. It was in Chelmsford, I was late because I couldn't find the building, and the room was full. There must have been almost 15 people there. I'm used to just me and tutor in the sociology ones. I realised that while I was there, I seemed to be the only one who had any knowledge of, well anything. I know it sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet there, but as I sat amongst all of these other people (about 95% of whom said they were doing the course because they wanted to be a teacher. FFS.) I realised that this course was the kind of stuff I did at primary school. Hell, Doctor Faustus? - I read the Canterbury Tales in Middle English without a translation when I was in my first year at Grammar school - I was 11!

There were also people there who obviously didn't listen as one particular question about referencing was asked by someone next to me. That person listened and took notes. Then, someone behind me got the tutor to repeat his answer. FFS - seriously. He spoke loudly and clearly the first time round, and the second time he said exactly the same thing. How could that have made such a difference? At times it really felt like being in a class back at primary school. Particularly so when I realised I was the only person understanding a lot of my tutors references to other things in the arts/humanities. I know, that really does sound as though I am three miles up my own arse. But...ugh, I can just feel that subsequent tutorials are going to be painful. Maybe next time I will pipe up with stuff that I know, especially as we should be getting onto iambic pentameters, and Christopher Marlowe.

Maybe it will get better? Maybe some people will drop out, or no longer come to the tutorials? I wish I could skip OU Level 1 courses completely. That way, I could just go onto A210 or U211. It is one of these moments when I wish there was a bit of an OU selective entrance exam. If you can pass to a certain standard, you can begin at Level 2 and get your degree from there. If you can't pass at that standard, you can starting with the groundings in Level 1. Bleh. Just keep reminding yourself, young lady, that it will be over by June.

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.