Surviving

Well, I have managed to survive Christmas, even if I did spend much of it in bed with a rotten cold. Christmas dinner was bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potato for the non-British readers) with a lovely thick onion gravy. It was washed down with a mixture of Australian sparkling wine with cranberry juice added.

I seem to have spent most of my waking hours watching various films on television although I did manage to do a bit of knitting yesterday and I am hopeful that I will feel energetic enough to do some more this afternoon/evening. I have also managed to record lots of films to watch later so I will have something for when there is nothing worth watching.

I haven't been to the sales; I haven't even left the house for nearly a week. Tomorrow I will need to go out to buy some supplies and get a bit of exercise. I'm feeling low, but not so bad as I did this time last week.

I must also sit myself down with my OU course material and work my way through it so that I can complete the second TMA for my course. It has to be submitted by the middle of January so I had better get a move on. This TMA has only two parts to it; the first part is the most important one and requires me to write a short story or a chapter of a longer piece of writing of 1500 words. It also requires me to include something that relates to one or more of a number of supplied words. These are places or feelings and the one that I have chosen to include is 'abandoned'. I have an idea of what I am going to write, but having an idea is not actually having the words ready to write.

I think some sessions in the library are called for because if I am there I can't be distracted by what's on the television.

How Am I?

I had a comment today about my last post. Bendy Girl was asking how I was now.

That's the nice thing about bloggers; when you're not feeling your best they rally round with lovely comments and send you virtual hugs to help you feel better.

To be honest, I am not feeling brilliant. I'm trying to take one day at a time and not thinking about Christmas if I can help it. When I was at psychotherapy on Tuesday, the first thing that JR, my psychologist, asked me was how I was feeling. So I told him. I said that I could feel myself going downhill as each day passed. We discussed it for about 10 minutes and then got on with the real stuff.

Perhaps, because he knew I was feeling a bit low, he didn't work me as hard this week as he did last. He asked how I had been after last week's session and when I replied "like a limp lettuce," he laughed. Little did he know that I had described how I was feeling in exactly those terms in this blog.

Today I have been delivering the items that I had been commissioned to knit. 'D' was absolutely thrilled with the cardigan that I had made for her new baby. We had a cup of tea and a good chat about how we had been since leaving hospital. She is a different person to the one who arrived on the admissions ward a couple of days after me, and being back at home with her new baby was all that she hoped it would be.

That took care of this morning, and this afternoon I delivered the cardigan that I was asked to knit by the lady who worked at the assisted-living accommodation that I stayed in when I left hospital. She loved it. The colour that I had chosen was perfect, and it attracted lots of admiring comments from those staying in the accommodation at the moment and from the staff who were there. And there is likely to be another commission in the near future.

So, I have managed to get through another day and while I am not exactly full of the party spirit I am doing my best to keep active and not think about things. When I got home and checked my emails I found one from my OU tutor saying that he had marked my TMA and it was ready for me to collect from the eTMA system. I got 63%, which is not the highest mark I have ever received, but considering I had to cram about 6 weeks work into 2 weeks, and that included asking for a week's extension for me to do the TMA, I am more than happy with it. It's just a short course, but it is helping me to get back into the swing of things, and as it is a creative writing course, there is no right or wrong answer, just how good your writing is. He liked my first and second short stories, but he felt that my third one let me down a bit. I knew that it wasn't as good as the first two, but I have to admit that I find writing fiction quite difficult, so to have written two convincing short stories has pleased me no end.

Computer Away, Knitting Needles Out

The short stories for my TMA are typed up and the finished document has been sent on its electronic way to my tutor for him to pull to pieces. I think that I have a book in me (they say that we all have one book in us) but I don't think that it is fiction.

I rarely have to struggle to find words when writing posts for this blog, but all that is written is factual and has happened to me or is me commenting on strange or annoying or funny things that I have seen or read. Much of my working life was spent writing reports, and these were often very detailed, technical and based on a great deal of analysis. It seems that while I have a way with words I don't have the sort of imagination that would allow me to create characters and situations needed to become a successful novelist.

I'm taking the weekend off from studying. I'm now only about a week behind everyone else on the course and I hope that I can make that up by a concerted effort next week. While this course is not exactly important to me, after all I am not going to be using the credit from it towards a qualification, it is an excellent way of making sure that I have something to focus on and put my energy into.

This weekend I am going to be knitting. I have been commissioned to knit a jumper for the grandson of one of the ladies who worked at the assisted-living accommodation that I lived in when I came out of hospital. I saw her at the bus stop yesterday when I was waiting to catch my bus home. A huge smile broke out on her face when she saw me and she enveloped me in her arms and commented on how well I looked. As we were chatting she asked about how my knitting was going and I told her that I had finished the little jacket that I had been knitting for 'D's' baby. Then she asked if I could knit something for her grandson, in maroon, and could I get it finished in time for Christmas.

I managed to find a nice pattern this morning and some wool which I think will look lovely when it is knitted up. Fortunately her grandson is only two, so it is still quite a small size that I am going to be knitting and with a bit of luck I should get at least half of it done this weekend. I've cast on the stitches for the back and completed the first row. Once I have finished this post I shall make myself a cup of tea and then settle down with pattern, needles and wool and knit away all evening.

Getting Into The Writing Mood

I didn't get much sleep last night but it wasn't too much of a problem because I had enjoyed some extra hours in bed yesterday morning. I was awake about 6.30am, I jumped out of bed, got myself into action mode and managed to be ready to leave the house at just after 7.30. Then it was a quick walk up the road to the bus stop to catch a bus. By 8.10 I was in McDonald's ordering a bacon roll for my breakfast.

Yes, this was a bit of a cop out; I could have made myself a bacon sandwich at home, but I didn't have any bacon and the bread ran out last night. I sat myself down in a corner to enjoy my bacon roll and to help pass the time I got a book of Suduko puzzles out of my bag and got stuck in to them.

The reason that I was on the go so early this morning was that I needed to get to the library for opening time at 9am so that I could find myself a quiet corner, unpack my laptop, course material, writing paper, pen, pencil and rubber, and then get down to the important task for the day.

I was late starting my present OU course (A174 Start Writing Fiction) because I was in hospital. By the time I was home again and getting into a frame of mind where I could realistically hope to make some sense of the course material and get to grips with what was required for the first TMA it was almost time to submit that TMA. I had sent my tutor an email when I was in hospital (yes, I did occasionally manage to get my fingers on a computer keyboard) informing him that I was a patient in a psychiatric hospital and that I wouldn't be able to start work on the course until I was home again. The first TMA was due in last Friday, but I negotiated an extension from my tutor and I had told him that I thought that I could get through all the necessary course material and do the TMA (that's five weeks studying and a week for TMA preparation) in two and a half weeks and that an extension of one week ought to be enough.

I managed all the reading fairly easily, and I must admit that I cheated a little and didn't do all the writing exercises because I just didn't have the time. I even managed to come up with possible scenarios for two of the short stories that comprised parts 1 and 2 of the TMA. The third part required me to listen to the radio and pick up something that was on air which I could use to write another short story. I put my headphones in my ears, called up BBC Radio 4 on my computer and listened to a short snatch of Woman's Hour. I couldn't believe my luck. As I started to listen there was a brief discussion going on about the difficulty of buying Christmas presents for men.

It didn't take me long to think up a little story about someone going to do the last bit of Christmas shopping and the difficulty that she was having buying presents for two 20-something males. I needed to write 500 words and they flowed from my pen at an impressive speed. As I completed each paragraph, I would take a break and quickly count up the words that I had written. As with all OU courses, the word count is important and tutors will dock you marks if you exceed the word count by more than 10%.

Trying to put together short stories with such a strict word limit can really exercise the mind, but this morning I managed to write three short stories, all of which were slightly over 500 words in length, but none of them anywhere near where I could have marks taken off. I need to finish typing them up now and then I can use the electronic TMA system to send the finished assignment to my tutor. I hope he is kind to me when marking it; I don't think I could cope with a poor result at a time when I am just about managing to keep myself busy so that I don't have time to think about being depressed.

(Just so you know, there are 741 words in this post)

A Nice Crispy Cos

After yesterday's session with the psychologist I felt like a limp lettuce. I managed to last until 10pm but then I decided that bed was definitely the best place for me. I fell asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow and slept through the whole night, not waking until about 7.15am. I got up, did a few bits and pieces, took my medication, switched on the computer to deal with any emails that had come in and wrote an email to Mr Smiley. By then it was about 9.30am and I couldn't keep my eyes open. So I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately not waking again until about 1.30pm.

How do I feel now? Pretty good really. My mind seems to be working reasonably well although I haven't managed to do any work on my TMA. So tomorrow I will get up early and head to library and I will stay there until I have written my three short stories (each 500 words), typed them up and sent the TMA using the OU's eTMA system.

Today I am not a limp lettuce; today I'm like a nice crispy cos.

Playing Truant

I'm feeling a bit like a naughty schoolgirl today.  I should be spending the day working on TMAs for the two OU courses that I am currently doing, but I am going to play truant.  I did some work yesterday, but today I feel that I need to spend time on myself.

I still have just over a week to get the three TMAs completed so it isn't exactly imperative that I work on them today, but the sooner I get them completed the better.  Yet, today I have woken up and decided that I shall have a lie in, just because I can, and that I shall have a lazy day just doing things that I want to and that I enjoy. This is a little bit naughty because I have just had a couple of days away from studying because I was feeling very depressed and I was unable to concentrate.  But there is a big difference between not doing something because you are unable to, and not doing something because you don't want to.

Today, it is very much a case of the latter.  So I am going to indulge myself.  I'm going to do whatever it is that I feel like doing, and I am going to eat whatever I feel like eating.  I shall be naughty and not count the cost or the calories.  I shall do a bit of knitting, read a book, or watch a film on TV.  If I feel like having a quick nap, that that is what I shall do.  I am going to be selfish and think only of myself today.

I shall just have to work twice as hard tomorrow.  That is one of the penalties for playing truant.

Six Months Of Blogging - I Didn't Think It Would Last

Tomorrow it is six months since I started this blog. I'm still not sure what possessed me to do it, but I am glad that I did. There are times when that six months seems like a life time, and others when it has seemed to pass in a flash.

I wasn't really sure what I would write about when I first started, except that I felt that I needed to explain what it felt like, for me, to suffer with depression. My depression was not something new, I had been suffering for nearly 10 years, but because I live on my own it often feels as though there is no-one who I can talk to about how I feel, and even if nobody read the blog, I felt that I was at least speaking my thoughts out loud and not keeping it bottled up inside. I have been asked why I called myself Madsadgirl, and all I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm not mad, although there are times when I have doubted my sanity, I am sad some of the time, but there are also times when I am quite happy, and at my age I am stretching a point to call myself a girl, but the name sounded catchy and I couldn't think of anything else.

Many of my early posts were about depression, but I was aware that this would make a pretty boring blog and may not attract much in the way of readership if everything that I wrote was negative, so I also included posts about being a student with the Open University, about things that I had seen in the news and that I had strong opinions about, about the way that members of the medical profession, particularly GPs, were being vilified by some members of the government, particularly as these men and women do a difficult job and rarely get the thanks that they deserve.

Sometimes I wrote about things that were happening around me, for example the dreaded roadworks that are a consequence of the replacement of London's Victorian water mains, and I wrote about the sometimes funny and sometimes beautiful things that I saw around me. Knitting has also been a subject of a great many posts, even if it was only to say that I was having to unpick what I was working on and start again because I had made a mess of it.

Of course, depression and the effect that it can have on a person still remains one of the main reasons that I write this blog. I have written about the discrimination and stigma that those with mental health problems face, and I write about them through experience. I have also written about what it is like to undergo psychotherapy, not short-term cognitive-behaviour therapy that many undergo, but long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy with the traumatic issues and feelings that this can raise, and the relief that it can bring in being able to understand why I am the way that I am.

Sometimes I write almost every day, sometimes more than once a day, and sometimes there can be days between posts. My aim has always been to write something meaningful and that will cause anybody reading it to think about what life can be like for other people. I hope that I have achieved this aim and that what I have written over the last six months has helped people to understand what life is like for someone with depression and that it has given hope to some who find themselves in a similar state.

All bloggers say that they are surprised that anyone reads what they write, but we would be liars if we did not admit that there is a hope that someone else will read what we have written. I will never have the following of some of the blogs that I read, but I am thrilled that I have managed to attract more than 4600 hits since the blog started. I am honoured that some of my posts have been considered of enough value to warrant such worthy bloggers as the Jobbing Doctor and Dr Grumble to select them as shared items on their blogs, and I know that each time they have done this I have experienced a marked increase in traffic to the blog. Thank you, Gentlemen; it has been much appreciated.

Like many bloggers I tend to see what leads people to read my blog. Obviously the word "depression" brings up many hits when a Google search is carried out, and this is a way that a few find their way to my blog. Another frequent search term is Open University, or OU, sometimes with the word "studying" sometimes without. Psychotherapy is another term that has appeared frequently, with or without other search terms. I have been amused by those studying with the OU who have found their way to my blog when trying to get ideas for the particular TMA that they are working on at the time. That has happened for both of the courses that I am studying at present, but I am afraid that they will have gained nothing from what I have written other than to learn that even after many years of studying with the OU, I still find it extremely difficult to sit down to write an essay for a TMA.

I have made a number of virtual friends through this blog, and I have met one blogger, with whom I now correspond on an almost daily basis outside of this blog and who is now much more than a virtual friend. I started to write this blog anonymously, and I still think that was a good idea. I didn't tell anyone that I was writing it until it had been going for almost a month, and even then I only told a couple of people. Six months of blogging and there are still only a handful of people who know my real name and anything about me, and I find that something of a comfort. This means that comments received on my blog mean that much more because they do not come from people who feel that they have to make a comment because they know me.

So here I am, six months on. Has writing a blog made any difference to me? The answer to that is definitely a resounding "Yes". I have written about the good times and the bad, I have written about the funny and the sad, and I have written sometimes when my heart was breaking but I knew that writing was the only way that I could carry on. And receiving comments when I have written at these difficult times has helped me through them and helped me to come out smiling on the other side.

To all of you who bother to read this blog I say a big "Thank You", you have made life worth living again, and to those who comment "Keep commenting, I love them", and to those of you who read and don't comment "Why don't you?"; although I moderate comments I have published every one that has been written.

Manic Monday

Sometimes you have one of those days where everything happens. Today has been one of them for me, hence Manic Monday. I knew that I had a few things to do, but I was not expecting to be running around like an idiot.

The day started normally enough with me waking at some unreasonable hour because of my bad sleeping pattern.  I didn't mind because apart from having to do a few things this morning I was expecting the rest of the day to be quiet and I really thought that I would have a restful afternoon.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

I went to see my GP for my normal monthly visit.  I did need to talk to him about the allergic conjunctivitis which is becoming a real nuisance, but I thought it would be a quick in and out appointment.  No, GP decided that he would check how I was, what I was doing for Christmas, whether I was having enough communication with others, and so it went on.  My 10 minute appointment extended to 25 minutes because my GP was keen to make sure that I wouldn't have a crisis over the next few days.  I was embarrassed about walking out through the waiting room when I did eventually leave because of those who were going to be late for their appointments, but it really wasn't my fault.  And there are some who seem to think that our GPs don't seem to understand or care about their patients.  I can tell them that they are wrong.

After leaving the surgery I had to go into town to the Post Office; I needed to send a package by special delivery.  There was a huge queue in there, but they did have lots of positions open so I didn't have to wait too long.  Then it was a walk back towards home via the chemist to get the anti-histamine tablets and the eyes drops that my GP had given me a prescription for.  I only had to wait a couple of minutes for them and it was time to go home.

So by 11am I was ready for an easy day, maybe doing a little bit of one of my TMAs and a bit of knitting if I felt like it.  But that was when the doorbell started ringing, and it seemed to ring every 10 minutes.  It was one delivery service after another with various things that I had ordered over the last week or so.  And my next-door neighbour came with a card and a present.  Every time that I attempted to go to the loo, the bell rang again.

Fortunately things seem to have calmed down now.  I have given up any idea of working on the TMA today, so I am watching television and contemplating picking up my knitting to do a few rows.  I shall heat something in the microwave a bit later to have for my dinner, and I shall head to bed fairly early, take some medication to help with sleeping tonight, and hopefully sleep the whole night through.  Tomorrow I have to go to the local sorting office to pick up a parcel that the postman tried to deliver while I was out this morning, then I shall get the few bits of fresh fruit and vegetables that I need for the rest of the week, and I shall head home with no intention of leaving the house again until Christmas is over.  I shall lay out my study materials in three piles on my desk, one for each of the three TMAs that I need to do over the next couple of weeks, and I shall spend a couple of hours each day on them, drafting my essays and then typing everything up.

Lets hope that Manic Monday doesn't lead on to Traumatic Tuesday.

The Year Is Coming To An End

Can you believe that it is December already?  It doesn't seem five minutes ago that we were seeing in 2008 and we are nearly ready to bid it goodbye.  Although the sun is shining, the air is very cold, so if you are outside you can feel that it is winter.  This makes a change from the last couple of winters which have been very mild affairs.

I've been busy working on my biology course this morning.  I am going to do a little more this afternoon to see if I can get the data together to answer the fourth question of the TMA.  There are nine sub-parts to the question and I have already got the answers to two of them and I am pretty sure that they are right so that should give me 4%.

This evening I shall do some knitting, although there are quite a few things that I want to watch on television too, so I think it will have to be easy knitting tonight. This means that shawl knitting is out and it will have to be work on my red jumper that gets done. This is straight forward stocking stitch so I think that I should be able to manage that without too many mistakes.

While still not feeling brilliant, I am feeling a little better than I have done for a couple of weeks.  I'll have to see how things pan out from here.

The World Is A Little Clearer

I can report this evening that the world is no longer blurred; well not very much.  Although my eyes are still oozing all the time I am not suffering with having to look at everything through a thick haze.  I'm even able to do my knitting which is great as I have missed being able to do some whenever I sit down for half an hour or so.

I have been very low this week and having conjunctivitis which has curtailed some of my activities quite a lot has not helped any. Tomorrow, being Friday, is psychotherapy day.  Let's hope that it is not cancelled at the last minute again.  I really need to talk to my psychotherapist about some of the things that I have been doing over the last few weeks and how I have been feeling too.

Hopefully I shall be able to get back to my studying too.  I haven't been able to read for the last few days because of the blurred vision, so I have some catching up to do with my studying.  I might even have a go at answering a couple of questions on my biology TMA.  There are five questions, some with sub-questions, so there is a lot of work to do.

Another New Jumper

Yes, I've finished another jumper. Nothing very special this time, just something for wearing about the house or when I pop to the shops.  This time I didn't procrastinate over sewing it up either, which makes a change.  I only finished knitting it this afternoon and I got going on the sewing up immediately.

Knitting keeps me going during the evenings while I'm watching television, and as this one wasn't too complicated to follow, it meant that it grew quite quickly. I should perhaps have been doing some studying rather than working on this jumper this afternoon.  I did about an hour and a half on my Human Biology course this morning, but my eyes started to glaze over and I could feel myself drifting towards sleep, so I gave it up for a while.  I shall look to see whether there is anything worth watching on television tonight and if there isn't I shall try to spend another hour or so with the books.

There was a message on my student home page on the OU website on Monday letting me know that my first TMA is due soon.  As it is not required until 14th November, I don't call that soon.  I'm not worried because an hour or so with the TMA will see it ready to send in, but I think it may have been a bit worrying for those new to the OU because this week's reading forms part of the material for the TMA.

On a different note, I see that I have now written more than 150 posts for this blog, and this evening will probably see the visits counter hit the 3000 mark. Not a lot of visitors by the standards of some blogs, but it is more than I ever expected when I started writing this blog in the summer, at a point when I was feeling pretty low.  The fact that I regularly get comments to the things I write also helps to brighten my day.  So I must say thank you to all of you who take the time to read my blog and write comments; I really do appreciate it.

Not Quite The Day That I Planned

I didn't manage to sleep right through the night.  I fell asleep pretty quickly last night, but woke several times. However, each time, except for the first, I was asleep again within about five minutes.  I eventually decided that I had slept enough and decided to get up about 10.30 this morning.  But it is such an uninspiring day.  There have been brief periods of sunshine, but in the main it has been cloudy, and the howling wind doesn't make going for a walk a particularly enticing proposition.  So I decided to have a lazy day.

I've read a few pages of my library book, I've watched a little television although there hasn't been that much worthy of my attention, and I have indulged in some bacon sandwiches for my lunch.  There is something about bacon sandwiches that always helps to make me feel a little better.

I decided that my TMA can wait until tomorrow so I am having a study-free day.  I have had a look at the OU website though and I see that I now have access to the website for my second course, which means that the books should arrive soon.  And I have found that it is possible for me to view the study calendars for both courses at the same time so that I can keep an eye on when TMAs are due for each and ensure that I manage to keep up to date with the work for both courses.  I have spotted one possible problem area and that occurs at the beginning of January.  I have to submit three TMAs (two for one course and one for the other) within a few days, and as I hope to be going to Canada for Christmas and New Year it means that I will have to work hard over the next couple of months to make sure that the TMAs are completed before I go away.

The rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing, perhaps reading a little and maybe doing some knitting (I shall be starting a new jumper if I do), and undoubtedly watching a little television this evening, or watching a DVD if there is nothing much on.  Perhaps it isn't what I had planned for today, but I have at least managed to catch up on my sleep and I feel as though I will be ready to face another week of studying, and all the other things that I have to do.  I may not be feeling brilliant, but neither am I feeling like I did a few weeks ago.  

It's A Roller Coaster Ride

Yesterday seemed like a pretty good day.  I managed so much work on my TMA that completion today seemed like a formality.  Then yesterday evening I managed to finish knitting my jumper. All that was left to do was to sew it together; not a job that I enjoy but I thought that it would be something for this evening.  However, things haven't quite turned out that way.

I had another bad night for sleeping.  Although I hadn't slept well Thursday night, I had managed to achieve a lot yesterday, and when I went to bed I felt sure that it would not take me long to get to sleep.  But sleep was still evading me at 3am when I again put on my glasses and picked up my book to read a little more.  I know that I managed to read a couple more pages and then I must have just drifted off to sleep because I woke at about 6.30am with my glasses still on and the book in my hand. I went to the bathroom, got myself some breakfast, took my tablets and then, because it was still not particularly light, I went back to bed to read a bit more before getting up to work on my TMA.

That didn't happen.  Again, I fell asleep with my glasses on and the book in my hand.  It was gone one o'clock when I eventually woke up.  But the euphoria of yesterday had dissolved and today I had no enthusiasm for the essay at all. How could things change so fast? Why had my mood plummeted like that? I'm not sure, but I suppose that is just the way that things go.

Anyway, this afternoon I have made an effort towards finishing my jumper. The shoulder seams have been stitched together, one sleeve has been sewn into place and the second about halfway so.  One side seam has been completed, so just one more to do.  Fortunately, because the wool came in 400g balls, there are no ends to be sewn in.  Another hour's work will see the jumper completed and it will be ready for the colder weather that is sure to come.

I'm hoping that sleep will come a little easier tonight.  In a few minutes I will take my evening medication, and in addition to the usual ones I will take a couple of little blue tablets which will hopefully help me tonight so that I can sleep right through, and then tomorrow I will have another go at the TMA.

And Steph, when I have charged the battery in my camera, I will take a photograph of the finished jumper so that you can see what it is like.

The Essay Progresses

Sometimes I have real problems finding enough to say in essays to fill the word count required. For this course it seems to be that I am having the opposite problem.

I have drafted and redrafted the essay for the first part of the TMA, and I am still a few words over the limit set but it is possible that by careful rephrasing in one or two sentences I can lose the excess 24 words fairly easily. That is one of my tasks for tomorrow.

I felt from the start of preparing the material for the second essay in this TMA that I would have significant problems saying enough to reach the word count. My notes have been massaged, and drafted a couple of times, and I have just sat down to type up what I have written so far and I find that I have already used 417 words of my 500 word limit. This would not be a problem if it were not for the fact that I still have the two most important areas for comparison to write. It seems that this essay is going to turn out to require in excess of 600 words to carry out the task set.

The OU is very strict in its word limits for essays in the TMAs. If they say that the limit is 500 words, it must mean that it is possible to answer the question set in that number of words or slightly less. This means that after I have finished drafting this second essay, I am going to have to wield a fairly strict 'blue pencil' and ensure that I express myself a little more succinctly. I'm sure that it can be done, but I'm not sure that it is going to be a quick job. It looks as though there is quite a bit more work to be done on this TMA before it is ready to be sent off.

However, I have checked the course calendar, and with the additional reading that I have already done on later chapters of the course book, and the activities and exercises associated with them that I have also carried out, I am about 6 weeks ahead of schedule now. Part of this is because I am finding this course fairly easy after having spent a couple of years studying at postgraduate level, and partly because I am finding it so interesting that I don't mind setting aside the time to do the work.

The bonus in all of this is that because I am finding it fairly easy to keep myself occupied, my depression is nowhere near as bad as it was just a couple of weeks ago. Studying was my lifeline in the early years of my widowhood; it seems as though it is still maintaining my sanity and helping to lighten my mood even after all these years.

I Am Going To Be Firm With Myself

I didn't sleep very well last night, but never mind I don't feel too bad.  I have performed my morning ablutions and I decided that I would sit down and get to work on my TMA.  But I haven't started yet, and the reason is that there are just too many distractions in the house.

So, in an hour or so I am going to pack my books in a bag, make sure that I am equipped with notebook, pencils and pencil sharpener, and take the short walk up to the library.  I am determined that today will see the completion of the second essay for the TMA, so to ensure that I don't get side-tracked it's going to be the library for me.

Going to the library today also means that I can change my library books.  I shall make the most of the next few days, which may well be my last opportunity to read a book for relaxation for some time.  This morning I have paid for my additional course and hopefully by this time next week I will have the books from the OU to be able to start studying this course too.

This is going to be the first time that I have studied two courses at the same time.  When I was working full time it was absolutely impossible because I often had to work very long hours.  But as work is still not a feasible option for me, I intend to make the most of my time and for the next two years work towards two different degrees.  And I don't think that I could be doing two courses at the same time that are more different to each other.  I am already working on the OU's Arts/Humanities Foundation Course, and my new course is Human Biology.  I have to hope that I can maintain the momentum that I have achieved on the foundation course; I'm about four weeks ahead of schedule at the moment and that should help me to spend a little time on the new course when the books arrive.

The only concern that I have about the new course is that I have to sit an exam at the end.  I'm afraid that exams always cause me problems, but I am sure that if I endeavour to write proper notes throughout the course I will be able to revise for the exam effectively.  Note taking has always been one of my weaker skills but I seem to have improved a little over the last few months so I shall have to persevere.  And I also know someone who has taken the course already and she has offered help if I get stuck at any point.  I've never had that kind of support before, so it is already making me feel a little more confident about embarking on such a programme of study.

A Busy Couple Of Hours

I got a better night's sleep last night thanks to a little blue pill.  I got myself up and into the bathroom at a reasonable hour with the intention of heading off to the library again today.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of going back into the bedroom, climbed into bed and dropped off to sleep again.  Oh well, I was only making up for what I missed over the weekend.

By the time that I got up the sky had clouded over and it started to pour with rain, so walking to the library didn't seem like a good idea.  Never mind, I thought, I can do some work on the essay that I have already written, tidying it up and making sure that it fits in the word count.  I knew that it was a bit over the required count, but there was a hint of repetition in it, so if I removed that I should be okay.  Two and a half hours later I still haven't started doing any work on the essay.

I switched the computer on, had a look to see which of my favourite blogs had been updated, and sat down to read them.  Then I found that there were a couple of comments to my posts, so I moderated those.  Next port of call was the OU website so that I could see whether there was anything new there.  There was, so I read all the new stuff (well some of it anyway) and then marked everything as read.  More comments had come in on my blog.  Then there were new blogs to read.  Before I knew where I was the middle of the day had disappeared and it is heading towards time to consider what I am going to have for dinner tonight.  There's nothing much in the fridge so it's either going to have to be something out of the freezer or I am going to have to go out to do some shopping.  Decisions, decisions.

But the first thing that I must do is to sit down with the books and get on with some studying.  I can't face the essay at the moment, so I think that I will put the TMA on hold for today.  Instead I shall wrap myself up warm, put my feet up and do some reading.  I'm well ahead of the course calendar at the moment, and I want to make sure that I stay that way.  So even if I only spend an hour working on it this afternoon, I am maintaining the momentum that I have built up with this course.

For new students to the OU that can be the most difficult task.  It is daunting starting to study after what can be a significant time since school.  Many OU students have never studied at this level before and panic about whether they are going to be able to cope.  The answer is to find a time and a place that is your time, your study time.  Some people decide that they will spend a certain period every evening studying.  This is the favourite strategy of those that work full-time.  Others will choose a couple of evenings a week and make up the rest of the time at weekends.  And those that don't work can study whenever they want to.

When I worked, I was very strict with myself and did a couple hours each evening Monday to Thursday, then I would spend all of Sunday morning or afternoon with the books.  It wasn't easy because there were times when my depression was so bad that I would have to read things many times in order to understand the material and to absorb it.  Now that I don't work, I am finding it a bit easier.  I try not to leave things to the last moment.  This is mainly achieved by cracking on at the start of a course when I am full of enthusiasm.  Even though my mood has been very up and down over the last couple of months, I have managed to complete a short course almost a month ahead of schedule, and I have got to grips with my current course, that doesn't officially start until the weekend.

Some of my fellow students are quite worried by the fact that I have progressed so far.  They shouldn't be.  Most are new to this form of study and they will find out as the course progresses what the best method of arranging things is for them.  I need to get ahead for two reasons.  The first is that I never know when I will get a period when studying becomes impossible.  The second is that I am hoping to go to Canada for Christmas and two TMAs are due in at the beginning of January.  As I don't want to be having to study while I am away, I am going to have to get these assignments completed before I go.

Studying has become a way of life for me.  It's an addiction that doesn't harm, although I must admit that you can get withdrawal symptoms when a course finishes and you have to wait for a number of months before your next one begins.  It is a means of keeping my brain active, and there is a wonderful sense of achievement when I finish a course, but it can also be nerve wracking waiting for the results to come out.  My graduation day was one of the proudest days of my life, probably more than it would have been had I gone to university straight from school.  I don't think that I could live without it now.

Success!

Yes, I can report success on two fronts today.  I managed to get the first appointment of the day with my GP and got the prescription for the tablets that were missed off Friday's prescriptions and then I went to the pharmacy and got the little blue pills.

Then I went off to the library, and spent the day there working on the first TMA for my current OU course.  I managed to draft the first essay and compile the notes for the second one.  That made me feel good.  And then I had a brainwave.  Why not look to see if the library had any books about Cezanne and Matisse, the two artists whose works I was going to have to compare for the second essay.  I found a book about each of the artists, and on scanning through the book on Matisse I found that his painting that I have to look at was painted in tribute to Paul Cezanne, so there is a nice reference for me to include in my essay showing that I have read around the subject.  I decided to take the Cezanne book out on loan because although it does not include the painting that I have to write about, it does include many other examples of his still life paintings and it will enable me to make comment about his repeated use of certain objects.

I had planned to take myself out for a meal at the local Italian restaurant in celebration of my successful day, but I am too tired after having three bad nights, so I have got myself ready for bed, I've taken my night-time tablets, including one of the little blue ones, and I am going to have an early night.  I'm hoping that the successful day will lead to a successful night.  After all, I might enjoy having a meal out more on a day that hasn't gone quite so well.

On Being An Open University Student

I started studying with the OU as a means of filling the empty hours in my life after my husband died.  I still worked full-time, but I found it difficult to cope with the lonely evenings and weekends, and after two of the most important people in my life at that time spoke to me within days of each other about finding something to fill some of the time, I started to think about what I might do.  Neither of them suggested anything, so the decision had to be mine, and after a few months I came to the conclusion that the thing that most fitted the bill for me was to find a course with the Open University.  At that time, I had no real thoughts of working towards a degree, that came later.  I sent off for a prospectus read it from cover to cover many times, and eventually settled for S103, the Science Foundation Course.  When I announced that I had decided to study with the OU, both of the people who had suggested I find something to fill in the hours were shocked and both commented that this was not what they had in mind.

That first year of study was difficult.  It was a long time since I had left school and getting into a routine of sitting down to a couple of hours study each night after work was not easy, but after a couple of months it became easier.  Some parts of the multi-disciplinary course I loved, but some parts I found almost impossible to understand.  I had studied physics and chemistry at GCE O-level, but these areas were almost beyond me at undergraduate level.  It wasn't only the fact that they were much harder than I remembered at school, the subjects themselves had moved on significantly in the intervening 30 years.  However, the biology, oceanography, geology and cosmology were easier to digest.  

I survived the tutor-marked assignments (TMA) quite easily, but I knew that the exam was going to be a different thing altogether.  Trying to revise for an exam when you suffer from depression and extreme anxiety is not easy.  However, I managed to answer as many questions as I could in the first part of the paper and the requisite number in the second part and I just had to hope that it was enough to get me a pass.  At that time practically all OU courses started in January/February, and had their exams during a two week period in October; marking all the exam papers must be a logistical nightmare.  The problem with an exam in October is that it means the results are released just before Christmas, so the wrong result can really put a damper on things.

As luck would have it (okay I worked pretty hard too) I managed to pass all the courses that I took and at the end of six years I had earned myself a BSc (Hons) degree.  It wasn't a brilliant degree, but it was a degree nonetheless.  However, by this time I found that studying had become a way of life, in fact, it had become more than this, it was an addiction.

Since then I have undertaken some study at postgraduate level, completed a short course, the result of which I will get just before Christmas, and I have just started the OUs new Arts/Humanities Foundation Course.  Fortunately this course does not have an exam, so that is one less thing to worry about; then it's one more course and I will have earned another degree.

One of the best things about the OU is the quality of the course material they provide.  Some courses require you to buy a few set books, but in the main all the material you require will be provided by the OU.  In addition you will have access to a tutor who will provide guidance and tuition for certain parts of the course at periodical tutorials.  The OU is broken down into regions and each region will have a number of facilities that they use for tutorials.  Your tutor will also mark your TMAs and provide you with feedback for all the work that you submit.  When your course materials arrive it's like having Christmas several times a year.  Few courses have all the materials delievered in one go, for example the course that I am doing at present has four mailings spread throughout the year.  Each mailing date is approximately one month before the material is needed, so it is unusual to not have it ready when you need it.

As the years have progressed, the OU has embraced more computer technology for its coursework and these days it is possible to complete a course without ever having to write any notes (there is now a computer application provided to do that for you), go to a library to look for reference material (the OU has a fantastic online library that is there for all students to use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), there are course forums, many course websites have all the course material in pdf format, so that you can access your books wherever you can access a computer, and many courses have an electronic TMA (eTMA) system for submission of TMAs and even for end of course assessments (ECA) in some cases.  This is a marvellous development because it means that assignments are no longer held to ransom by this coutry's sometimes appalling mail service.  One other benefit of everything being online is that you get access to your results a few days quicker too as you no longer have to wait for that letter from Milton Keynes that has to fight with the rest of the Christmas mail, although many long courses no longer start in January with an October finish, so this means that results come out at other times too.

Well that's the serious side of being an OU student, but there can be a lighter side too.  Unfortunately, it is usually because of other people's failure to use a little commonsense that leads to these funny occurrences.  Some of the funniest things can be found on the various forums that each student has access to, although the practice forums, and the forums that are set up for each course, which only students for that course have access to can be the best.  Most OU students could be classed as mature students, although the number of youngsters who chose this method of getting a university education is getting more each year.  Many see the benefit of taking a little longer to get their degree, but being able to work full-time while they do it.  And there is no doubt that many employers are willing to sponsor their staff while gaining qualifications from the OU.

So what sort of things happen?  Well, many new students commit the cardinal error of jumping into the course material without reading those all important bits of paper that also come with the mailing.  So the forums get littered with questions about "What is a dummy TMA?" (it's explained in the booklet about using the eTMA system); "I can't find out who my tutor is?" (it can be found on your course website, and you will receive an email giving his/her details sent to whatever is your preferred email address); and "Please help, I'm stuck on the first assignment" (this is before the student has read the course material that is required for the assignment, before the course has officially started, and also about five weeks before the first assignment is due).  But there can be lighter moments too, because on every course there will be some with a wicked sense of humour, so that you get things like "What are we going to do for Fresher's week then?" and amongst those on my course a Facebook group has been set up for those who are over 40 years of age, and yes I am a member of it.

So, you can see that there is a lot to being an OU student.  We may be spread all over the country, and we may never meet more than a handful of the other students on the course that we are studying, but there is a camaraderie that is unique to this very special institution.  And it is quite amazing how many people with mental illness study with the OU because it helps them to survive through the bad periods.

I Overdid It, I Think

After having what I thought was a pretty good day on Monday, I now think that I may have overdone things a little.  I spent the whole day studying, and I was really pleased with what I had achieved.  Monday evening I was even considering starting to write the essay that would form the first part of my first TMA.  In the end I thought better of it and sat down with my knitting for an hour or so before going to bed and reading my latest library book before settling for the night.

It took me quite a while to get to sleep, but when I did, I slept, and slept, and slept.  In fact, apart from having to get up a couple of times to answer the call of nature, I slept most of yesterday.  Sleep came pretty easily last night too; I was asleep by 9pm and then slept through the night, and after being up for a short while this morning I went back to sleep until midday.

This afternoon I have managed to stay awake.  It's been difficult at times but I have managed it.  I won't be staying up late tonight, and I hope that sleep will come easily again.  I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with me.  I can't say that it is depression that is making me like this, but I can't say it isn't either.  I have made some tentative plans for tomorrow.  I shall get up and get myself ready to go and do a little bit of food shopping.  And then, if I am still feeling okay I shall do some more studying.  I'm still not sure whether this will be achieved by starting work on the first essay or reading the next chapter in the course book.  Much as I find essay writing difficult these days, I have a feeling that it may turn out to be preferable to looking at Art History and Art Appreciation.  My problem is that I know what art that I like and what I dislike.  I do not believe that analyzing it to bits is going to make me like something that I didn't like before.  But I guess that is what I am going to have to do for the second part of my first TMA.

So I shall take it easy for the rest of this evening, go to bed at a reasonable hour, read a couple of chapters from my library book and hopefully drop off fairly easily.  Then whatever, I do tomorrow I will try to ensure that I don't overdo things.  After all, I am about 7 weeks ahead of where I need to be with my studying at the moment, so I am managing quite well.

My New Course Has Got Me Hooked

Even though I have been studying with the Open University for nearly nine years and have studied quite a number of courses (undergraduate and postgraduate) and have earned a BSc (Hons) along the way, I think that this new course has grabbed at me in a way that none of the others have quite managed. I just have to hope that this enthusiasm continues until the end of May next year when I have to submit my end of course assessment (ECA).

I am working towards a BA (Hons) in Humanities with the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. This course and one more will see me achieve this second degree, and I have already decided what my last course will be. I was involved in writing for my living when I was at work, all factual stuff, some technical and some organisational, so it made sense to take a creative writing course as my final module for this degree.

My present course is the first presentation of the OU's new Arts Foundation Course, and I am thoroughly enjoying the wide range of subject areas that it covers. The first section has been about Cleopatra, and highlighted the different ways in which she has been portrayed over the centuries. In Egyptian art she was the great Queen, to the Romans she was seen as a threat to Rome and responsible for the downfall of Mark Antony, and to Hollywood she has been portrayed as a woman whose beauty attracted both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, although contemporary art works did not show her to be the beauty that Hollywood depicted.

The second section of the course has been about Christopher Marlowe and his play Doctor Faustus. I have to admit that I knew very little about Marlowe other than that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare, and that he died young in somewhat mysterious circumstances. Additionally, I am not a great fan of Elizabethan theatre, and no matter how good Shakespeare's plays may be I will not be rushing to see any of them. In fact, the only Shakespeare play that I have seen right the way through is the Kenneth Branagh film of Much Ado About Nothing. So it was with some trepidation that I loaded the audio CDs of Doctor Faustus onto my computer, and then transferred them on to my iPod. I read the first part of the study material about Marlowe and then armed with a copy of the A Text of Doctor Faustus, I put in the earphones and sat to listen to Doctor Faustus on my iPod while following the text in the book.

It is amazing how mush easier it made following the blank verse, and iambic pentameter when listening to the actors playing the parts. There can be no doubt about it that it was a far more satisfactory way to follow the play; neither reading it to myself, nor listening to it in isolation, would have allowed me to understand it quite so well. The production was by BBC Radio 3 for the OU, and the actors were excellent, although I couldn't help thinking that one particular voice seemed very familiar to me but I just couldn't place it. Fortunately, the final track on the CD gave details of the actors playing the parts and I was put out of my misery. The voice that I recognized, and that I knew belonged to an actor that had played a significant part in something that I have watched many times, turned out to be that of David Bamber, the actor who played the awful Mr Collins in the BBC's much acclaimed production of Pride and Prejudice.

So now I have finished the second section of my first study book. Notes have been made and I have an appreciation of the Elizabethan play that I did not have before. The next section is about Paul Cezanne, so Art History and Art Appreciation are undoubtedly the areas that this section will cover.

This is a truly wide-ranging multi-disciplinary Arts/Humanities Foundation Course and I am racing through it at an incredible pace. I am already making notes for the first tutor-marked assignment (TMA) which comprises two short essays, each of 500 words. What makes this all the more incredible after the anxious time that I had getting the TMAs and ECA written for my last course, is that this course doesn't officially start until 4 October and the cut-off date for the first assignment to be with my tutor is not until 14 November.

But I know that a really awful period of depression can make studying very difficult for me. Concentration can become impossible and I can read a page countless times and not be able to tell you what it was about. So making sure that I get a good start to this course is very important to me, and I think that the structure of it, with it covering so many different subjects, and so many aspects of those subjects, is more likely to keep me on track than a course that deals with one subject matter from beginning to end.

Studying has kept me sane sometimes during these last 10 years, and have given me something to focus on when everything seemed to be against me. This course has renewed my desire to enhance my education, and my knowledge, and I am sure will ultimately help me to get through some very dark hours.