The Thief Got More Than He Should Have Done

I have to admit that I wasn't entirely successful yesterday, and that old thief Procrastination did rather well as a result.  However, all was not lost, because I did manage to download a lot of my course resources onto my new netbook (my Christmas present to myself) and this means that when I go to the library to do some serious studying, or when I go away anywhere, I have all the materials that I need to continue studying and they are all on a computer that will fit into my handbag.  Admittedly, it will have to be one of my larger handbags, but a handbag nonetheless.

Some work on the TMAs did get completed so I am nearer completing one of them, and I have an extension for another, which is good because although I have done much of the work for that TMA, I do still have a long essay to write and as it is a Science Course it is more complex to write than an essay for a Humanities Course.  So it is going to be a busy weekend as I try to get everything back on track again.

Today, I am having a trip out.  I'm meeting my friend Mr Smiley for lunch; we haven't seen each other for ages as our last three arranged meetings have had to be cancelled owing to illness or changed working priorities.  It will be nice to see him again and catch up on the news about his lovely grand-daughters.  And lunch will probably be quite nice too.

Procrastination - The Thief Of Time

It's a well known saying, and if you read any blog by someone who is studying, procrastination is a word that occurs frequently.  I have had a bad night where I haven't managed to get much sleep. That's a bit strange as the thing that I expected to cause me sleep problems was cancelled and I should have slept quite well.  

As the making of the video has been cancelled it means that I can now spend the day working on my TMAs, something that I should have been doing for the last couple of weeks but I have managed to find reasons for not doing as much work as I should have, although to be honest depression has made concentrating on anything more complicated than a Ladybird book somewhat difficult.

So this morning I must get down to it and try to finish off a 600-word essay about the Dalai Lama.  Then it's on to another essay, this time relating to two poems.  If I knuckle down to it, it should be well within my capabilities, but that thief Procrastination comes sneaking up and distracts me.  I have decided that today I am not going to let it influence me too much, so I shall close down my browser so that I don't get lured into reading blogs, shall get my books and notes, sit down with a drink (diet Coke) and pull these essays into shape.

I am determined that Procrastination will not win today.

Sleep; If Only I Could Manage It At The Right Time

It's been a strange weekend where I seem to have spent much of the daytime asleep and much of the night-time awake.  The problem with not sleeping properly at night is that I have a tendency to drop off to sleep exceedingly easily whenever I sit down somewhere comfortable during the day.  And it's not just a catnap either; I am regularly sleeping for three or four hours at a time.  I still manage to get to sleep when I go to bed at night, but I wake up after just a few hours and can't get back to sleep again.

I'm hoping that having a couple of weeks with no appointments will allow me to get back into a proper sleep routine.  A routine where I sleep at night and not during the day.

With just a few days to go until the dreaded Christmas Day, I am feeling surprisingly calm.  I am not too anxious about the coming days, I'm not too upset about the fact that I will be on my own, and neither am I too upset about the thought of having to spend some of my time writing essays.

And best of all, I don't have a terrible cold and chest infection like I did at this time last year which meant that I didn't have the strength to get out of my bed on Christmas Day.  

A Fairly Relaxed Weekend

In three weeks time, Christmas will be over bar the shouting.  I have spent the weekend trying not to think about it too much, but if I watched a television channel that had advertising almost every advert was aimed at Christmas.  

Saturday was a leisurely day, not least because I didn't sleep too well Friday night, so I was a little fragile.  I managed to finish knitting another jumper, that's four finished now and a cardigan, and I then finished sewing it together.  I'm glad that I decided to make a number of warm jumpers this winter as with it being so cold over recent days, jumpers have been an absolute necessity.

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday; a leisurely day, a little bit of knitting and a bit of television watching.  I fell asleep watching television and woke a couple of hours later and took myself off to bed.  I went to sleep pretty quickly, but then woke at about 2.30 this morning and I have been awake ever since.

This week is going to have to be spent working on a couple of essays as well as trying to sort out making Christmas cards.  I think that couple of dozen should fit the bill, and if I put my mind to it I can get them made in a morning or an afternoon.  That will be another thing ticked off the list of things to do, the only problem being that the list never seems to get any shorter because it seems that for every one thing that I tick off, I have to add another two or three.

While I am not exactly jumping for joy at the moment, neither am I feeling quite as low as I was last week.  I think that part of the reason for this is Friday's psychotherapy session.  It is so often the difficult emotional sessions that have the greatest impact on me, and last week was no exception.  I am already feeling a little apprehensive about next Friday's session because my psychotherapist has told me that he wants to pick up where last Friday's session finished.  I know that this means another very emotional session because the subject matter disturbs me greatly and is capable of making me very angry even after the passage of a couple of years, but I am sure that I will survive the experience and hopefully benefit from it.  Only time will tell.

Now it is time to publish this and get down to the real business of the day.  Course books, pad and pen at hand I will start to work on an essay about the Dalai Lama, to be followed by one comparing two poems.  I know which one I am going to prefer writing.

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.

A Pretty Good Day

I may have procrastinated (what a fantastic word that is) a bit today but I did eventually sit down with my books and get on with some studying.  Well, not actual studying, it was a case of essay writing actually.

The first TMA for my present module requires me to write two short essays.  The first was drafted some time ago but today I spent some time going over it and polishing it so that it now reads pretty well.  It certainly answers the question posed and I think there is sufficient use of references to make it worthy of a reasonable mark.  It probably still needs a little work on it to try to cut out a few words as it is a little over the required word count, but not seriously enough to attract penalty.  I still have several weeks before it needs to be submitted so what I will probably do is take another look at it next week by which time it will be like looking at it afresh and will therefore be easier to amend as necessary.

Later I went over the notes that I had already made for the second essay and started to draft something out to see whether there was enough information in my notes to compose a meaningful answer to the second question. From this first draft it looks as though I may have judged it quite well.  I have even managed to find some interesting data from sources outside the course material to help with my argument so I am feeling quite happy that I can work at this essay over the next day or two and produce something that flows quite well.

I have also managed to do a bit more knitting so my jumper is nearing completion.  It is progressing so well that I hope to have it finished and sewn together by the time the weekend is over.  It will be nice to have something new and warm ready for the winter.

And this is my third post of the day.  Okay, so they have been shorter than many that I write, but the fact that I have been able to write three posts, each covering a completely different subject is an indicator that I am feeling quite good.  When I am feeling really bad, it can be difficult to write something, and when I have got something to say it may take some considerable time to actually compose the post.  However, today each of them have flowed from my fingers quite easily and that also helps me to feel better about myself.

This blog has been one of the better things that I have undertaken in the last few years.  In some respects I wish that I had started earlier, but perhaps I wouldn't have been ready for the commitment at that time. I think I am now, and I know that it has been useful in helping to promote my self-confidence.  So I will continue to blog, and write whatever comes into my mind at the time. While I may still find it difficult to talk to people face to face, at least I am managing to articulate how I feel and what I think through the written word.

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.

I'm Getting There

I had a bit of a lie-in this morning after a bad night for sleeping. Not too long, but enough to feel the benefit of it. Then having got myself fed and watered, and ready to face the day, I set off for the local library so that I could work on the end of course assignment for my current OU course. I took the long route to the library so that I could get some exercise too, and will probably do the same thing on my way home.

The good news is that I have actually done a lot of work on my essay. I have written more than 600 words of the 1000 that are necessary, and I think that I have enough material still to use, and a reasonable conclusion to sum the whole thing up, so that it will be completed within about 50 words or so of the limit, and more importantly, completed today.

The result of this is that my mood is starting to lift a little as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as this course is concerned. I think that it was just unfortunate that I chose to do a psychology course at this particular time, and that the most important essay for it (the main part of the ECA) happens to be about happiness, something that I often find eludes me.

Anyway, when this post is published, I shall sit and type the essay as it stands so that I can confirm the word count (I do count each paragraph as I draft it, but I'm number dyslexic so sometimes I can make quite large errors in my count) by using the tools on the word processing application. I shall then email the draft to myself and try to complete the draft of the essay before heading back home again.

Even with the noise outside the library, and the gentle tapping of keys on the computers, and the occasional squeal from a bored young child, the library does seem to be a more conducive environment for me to write my essays than home. I suppose that it is the fact that I can't get up and do something else that keeps me firmly in my seat and writing away.

So, if all things go according to plan, by the time I write my next post I will have completed this assignment and will be looking forward to a change of subject. The next course is the OU's new Arts Foundation Course, which covers literature, history (particularly the history of science and the history of medicine which are subjects that I have already covered at a higher level), art, and religion (I've done the history of religion too). On successful completion of that course I will be eligible for a BA, but the Creative Writing course that I will start this time next year will see me graduating with a BA (Hons) in Humanities focusing on the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. Then it will be Madsadgirl BSc (Hons) BA (Hons). It sounds rather good, doesn't it?

Essay Writing And Other OU Things

Three days on from my post about working in the library to try to complete my end of course assignment, it still isn't finished. I haven't been procrastinating (what an incredible word that is) it's just that other things have taken priority.

I did quite well on Monday. While I was in the library I managed to write the draft for the reflective part of the assignment, check the word count (I have a maximum of 200 words to look at three aspects of the learning experience on this course) and polish what I had written. I have managed to reflect on my learning skills and answer the three questions posed in a total of 185 words. Close enough to the word limit, I would think.

I also went through the course material and selected the information that I wanted to use for the main task of the assignment, a 1000-word essay about happiness coming from outside and within. Having selected my data, I wrote an essay plan and started selecting specific examples that I would be using as references in the essay.

One thousand words is not a lot to have to write, many of my posts on this blog are longer than that, but over the last year or so I have been finding it increasingly difficult to write essays, so this short course was really intended as something to provide me with a no-pressure opportunity to do a little essay writing. I was pleased with the amount of work that I managed while in the library on Monday and thought that I would do the same again on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Tuesday was one of those days where I found it very difficult to drag myself out of bed, so the essay was forgotten. Yesterday was a no starter because I was going to have to disappear for a couple of hours in the middle of the day to go for a mammogram, and to do some shopping while I was at the large supermarket in whose car park the screening unit is situated. However, today I think I will attempt some time in the library again and with a bit of luck I will get the job done.

I want to get this assignment finished; while the course has been interesting it perhaps wasn't the brightest choice of courses for someone in my position. But, never mind, it has kept my mind active and added to my knowledge, and I don't think that I could have asked for more. But the real reason that I want to get this course finished is because I want to start my next one. This next OU course will really help me with my essay writing. There are seven tutor-marked assignments and an end of course assessment in lieu of an exam, and the essays seem to range from 500 words in length to 2000 words. This should exercise me much more because instead of there being only one course book as there is with my present course, the next one has four course books, two books of illustrations, four set books, audio CDs, DVD videos, and DVD-ROM. With such a multitude of material from which to draw for the essays, getting all the information into the word counts is going to be the problem that I face, rather than being able to drag out the argument to get close to the word limit.

Mind you, the real reason that I am looking forward to doing the next course is because it will be bring me closer to the final course for my second degree. What is the final course going to be? Creative writing, of course. I can't think of better preparation for it than writing this blog. I mean, this is creative writing for real.