Procrastonation Rules

Despite having taken my night-time medication, including something to help me sleep, at about 10pm yesterday evening, it was well past 2am before I got to sleep. I woke at about 7am to answer a call of nature, then climbed back into my nice warm bed and instantly fell asleep again. Sleep is always the first thing that suffers when I am depressed but I am reluctant to use the sleep medication too often because of all the other medication that I have take.

Having had extra sleep I feel a little better than I have done for a few days. But by the time I had roused myself and got dressed it was past midday, and it was snowing, so the parcels have not been picked up. However, another day in the sorting office won't hurt.

I should be doing some studying and getting myself in the frame of mind to try to write a 1500-word story for my final assignment of the course that I am working on. I still have 10 days in which to do the work but I would like to get it completed early if at all possible. Fifteen hundred words is not a lot really. Many of my posts on this blog are at least that length, but for them I can write whatever I feel like saying at the time. Having to write a piece of fiction, including at least one of a number of items, is a little more difficult.

Procrastination has set in and I really can't be bothered to pick up the folder that contains the course material and sit down to read the sections that I have not yet looked at. Perhaps I will feel a little more like doing that later this afternoon or this evening, and I am not yet working myself up into a frenzy about it.

I feel that it is more important that I am comfortable with sitting down to several hours reading than forcing myself to do something that I am just not in the mood to do. So, while I may be procrastinating I am also thinking about my wellbeing and trying to ensure that I do nothing to make me feel lower than I do already. I have other things that I can do to occupy myself. I need to write a letter to Mr Smiley, and I have my knitting too.

I am sure that I can leave the studying until tomorrow, for as Scarlett O'Hara says, "Tomorrow is another day."

Just Before I Go To Bed

I managed about one hour of sleep last night. Actually it was this morning between 5 o'clock until just after 6 o'clock. I left home and stepped out into the freezing cold, but I had made sure that I was well wrapped up. Standing at the bus stop for 10 minutes was no fun, but once on the bus I knew that I had only a few stops before I had to get off again because I wanted to call into the shop where I get some of my knitting supplies because I needed to get some double-pointed needles.

This entailed another five minutes in the cold while I waited for the shop to open; when it did I made a bee-line for where they hang the knitting needles and found what I wanted immediately. I paid for them, stashed them away in my handbag and went out of the shop to wait at the bus stop for another bus. Fortunately the bus stop is almost outside the shop so I didn't have to walk far and luckily my bus came within a couple of minutes. I have to get two buses to get to the buildings that house the CMHT, and when I got off the bus to make the change, where I normally have to wait about 10 minutes this morning the wait was less than one minute. I couldn't believe my luck.

It was quieter on the roads this morning than I had expected it to be. It seems as though some people must be taking a few more days off work, so this journey, which usually takes me something like an hour and a half from home to the CMHT buildings, was completed in less than an hour and that included the time that I spent in the shop buying the knitting needles.

I had a long chat with one of the HTT; usually I'm with whoever sees me for about 20 minutes, this morning it was something like 50 minutes. After having signed out of the building, I walked down the road to the bus stop and I only had to wait for a couple of minutes before a bus arrived. When we got to where I have to change buses, I didn't have to wait at all. I literally stepped off the first bus, walked to its rear and climbed on the bus that would take me the rest of the way home.

I did try to have a nap this afternoon; I was in desperate need of sleep, but it didn't happen. So I have got myself ready for bed, and as soon as I have finished this post I will take my night-time meds and snuggle under the duvet, perhaps trying to read for a while and hopefully drop off to sleep reasonably quickly. I'm yawning as I type this, so I am fairly optimistic that sleep will come fairly easily tonight.

I would like to have a lie-in tomorrow morning, but that won't be happening. I have to get myself up fairly early because tomorrow is psychotherapy day. I have some library books which need to be returned so I shall do that after I have been for therapy. I also need to sit myself down to write a letter to Mr Smiley, and the library might just be the perfect place to do this.

When I get home tomorrow I must settle down to do some studying. I need to read the rest of the course material and then start working on my final assignment. I am hoping that I can get the assignment finished over the weekend, which will mean that I can submit it well before the cut-off date. I'm thinking of doing another short course if I can find something that interests me, so that I keep myself in a frame of mind to take a long course come the autumn.

Just before I head for my bed, I would like to thank everyone for the comments that have arrived over the last few days. It really does mean a lot to me that there are so many of you out in the blogosphere wishing me well and sending virtual hugs.

Going Downhill

I don't know what is wrong with me. I got through Christmas and I had hoped that things would start to improve a little, but if anything I am going downhill at a rather alarming rate. Last night I had absolutely no sleep whatsoever and I am not sure that tonight is going to be any better.

Today has seen me just sitting around doing nothing because I had neither the energy nor the inclination. I had hoped to get some studying done today but I can't concentrate on anything for more than about 10 minutes so that was a non-starter. I've also managed to lose one of my knitting needles that I am using to knit the wrist warmers so I am stuck with the knitting on three needles and no needle to transfer onto. Yes, they are knitted on double-pointed needles so I am knitting in the round which means that the stitches are spread around three needles and you use the fourth needle from the set to knit the next set of stitches and then when they are all off that needle, it becomes the spare. But I'm not sure that I could have concentrated on the knitting enough to do some anyway.

And I haven't managed to cook myself anything today either because I just couldn't be bothered, but I have eaten. I have to phone the HTT tomorrow for my weekly report (as a concession to it being the holiday season I can report over the phone and not go in person for them to eyeball me) and I'm not sure how I am going to answer the questions that I will be asked. Do I tell the truth, or do I give non-committal answers?

I also have a half completed post for the Tackling the Mental Health Minefield waiting for me to sit down and finish it. I want to do just that, because I still have quite a few more posts to write for the series and I don't want too much time to pass before writing them so that my recollection doesn't become too hazy. Fortunately, most of the remaining posts will be somewhat shorter than Parts 1-6 were, so perhaps I can work on them at the rate of one a day and then publish them over the next few weeks.

I'm going to take my night-time medication in a minute and then head for my bed. With a bit of luck I might manage to get to sleep before morning arrives.

Knitting For Sanity

Whether or not I post to this blog can be an indicator of how I am feeling. When Mr Smiley sent me an email yesterday he noted that I hadn't posted anything since Thursday and without me having said anything to him knew that I was feeling down. He was right; I'm having a bad time at the moment and while I often have things that I want to say, I don't have the energy or the enthusiasm to write anything.

For many this would not be a problem, but while writing on this blog is not actually a life-defining occurrence, it does have some meaning for my future studies with the OU. Later this year I will be taking a course in creative writing and taking a more advanced one next year. These courses will lead to me completing my second degree but will also give me a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing.

Studying with the OU has been a life-saver for me over the last nine years but it hasn't all been plain sailing. Over the last few years I have only managed to complete one course because depression has made it impossible for me to continue with courses for which I was registered. I am hoping that by taking some creative courses rather than purely academic ones I will break this cycle of having to 'drop out'.

One of the few things that I manage to continue with while I am deeply depressed is knitting. I have become a little manic about it over the last few weeks and have more projects on the go than is usual, even for me. However, I am coming to the end of one of them, a beautiful circular lace blanket that will keep me warm next winter; I should finish it today because I am knitting the edging at the moment and as it is only a 6-row repeat pattern, it seems to be moving around the edge of the blanket at a good rate.

For the first time ever, I have also joined a KAL. For the uninitiated this is a knit-along, and it is for a mystery shawl. The 'mystery' is that none of us, except the designer, know what the finished shawl will look like. The pattern will be available in seven 'clues' which are published weekly; the first was posted on the KAL site last Wednesday and I made the decision to join on Thursday. Having found some yarn in my knitter's stash that would be sufficient for the project I set to work and had completed the 54 rows that made up the first clue within 24 hours. I now have to wait until tomorrow for the second clue which will give me sufficient time to finish knitting the blanket today and sew in the few yarn ends that need to be done before notification of the clue having been posted arrives tomorrow.

The designer lives in the US and plans to post the clue at about midday EDT so that means that it should be available for me to work on tomorrow evening. Once I have finished the second clue I will have to wait again for the next one so I shall get to work on a cardigan for myself in the meantime.

Knitting is keeping me sane at the moment, I am having so much trouble concentrating on things that I am not even able to read. So I have a couple of books sitting beside the bed waiting for the moment that the depression lifts and I can get back to another of the things that I love to do in my spare time.

Once I have the myriad of knitting projects back to realistic levels again, I may do some crocheting as a little light relief. Sending There and Back a book on 'How to Crochet' as part of her birthday present and receiving emails from her letting me know how she is progressing, has reawakened my enthusiasm for this craft. I have decided to make a new throw for my bed and I will be building this from 6-inch squares of various designs from a wonderful book that I bought a few months ago. Having decided on the colours that I am going to use I have to now decide which squares I am going to make and how to lay them out to create the overall effect. This will be the first time that I will have designed something on this scale and I know that it is going to be one of those projects that will take some time to complete, but the joy of crocheting squares of this size for joining together to make a larger object is that the project can be picked up and worked on in any spare moments.

So while I may not be feeling at my best I am still making sure that I find things to do to ensure that my brain doesn't atrophy and that I am engaged in something constructive to pass away the hours. And this has reminded me that I need to charge the battery for my camera so that I can post a few pictures of the projects as they are completed or are progressing.

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.

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.

The Week Before Christmas

Well, I have finished making my Christmas cards and I must finish writing them today so that I can post them tomorrow.  I have just finished ordering my big shop online and that will be delivered on Friday.  I still haven't decided what I am going to have for my Christmas dinner; I shall go to one of the local supermarkets next week and see what I can find.  One thing is sure; it is unlikely to be turkey.  Not that I don't like turkey, but it really isn't worth it for one person.  I may get myself a gammon joint and roast that with an absolutely glorious glaze for the final stages.  There won't be any Christmas pudding or Christmas cake either as I don't like dried fruit.  While writing this I have just remembered something else that I needed to add to my order so I have now done that.

Today I must finish making two Christmas presents.  One will only take a few minutes to finish and then I can wrap it up.  The other is going to be a real morning's work and I hope that it looks good when it is finished.  Then when that is done I shall have to get down to the essay writing.  Three essays are required, a number of other short answer questions to be dealt with, a review of a completed TMA and a rewrite of portions of one of the essays in that in view of comments made on it by my tutor, and the thing that I am least looking forward to, a number of maths-based questions.  I have to admit that I have managed to work out what numbers I need to be using for these answers, it's just a case of the working out that will cause the problem.  I think that I know which number is divided by which and what needs to be multiplied and when.  One thing is absolutely certain, I will never be taking a degree in mathematics.

This evening I will be getting back to my knitting.  The Shetland hap shawl is progressing; I have now managed to complete the edging around one and a half sides, so hopefully the second side will be finished tonight.  Sometimes it is more difficult to do something with just a few stitches to the row than things with lots of stitches.  This shawl is complicated by the fact that the shawl has been knitted in the round so having to keep turning the knitting as I complete each row means that I am constantly getting myself tied up in knots with the knitting and the wool.  However, I am sure that the end result will be worth it.

I suppose that I should get my nose to the grindstone otherwise nothing will get done.

What Do You Write About In A Milestone Post?

This is the 200th post to my blog.  I knew that the milestone was close, so I checked the total a little earlier.  Surely such a milestone requires a really good post.  But that means that I have to wait until I have got something significant to write about.  I didn't feel like writing a summary of what has gone before.  So this post will cover some of the things that I have written about in the past, not as they were when I wrote about them before, but as they are now.

One thing that I have regularly complained about is the work that is currently going on around my area of London in an effort to replace the capitals aging Victorian water mains.  The work is still on-going and when I went to the bank today I saw that yet another road has been closed to through traffic.  So far the work within a one mile radius of my home has been going on for almost a year and I am sure that it will be continuing for some time to come.

I have continued to study with the OU; I've completed one course (which I got the result for this week) and I am currently working on two more.  I have had a bit of a rough time with the studying over the last couple of weeks because I haven't been feeling on top of the world.  However, I am going to have a concerted effort this weekend to try to get two of the three TMAs that are due at the beginning of January written, so that I can get the other one completed before Christmas too.  That way I can start the New Year up to date, or even slightly ahead of where I need to be.

Knitting has been one of the things that has helped to pass the time when I haven't been feeling wonderful.  I've knitted four jumpers and a cardigan to keep me warm over the winter, and a hat to keep my ears warm.  I also have three different shawls in progress as the moment.  The Shetland lace shawl that is being knitted for a baby due in February is growing slowly.  It is a difficult pattern to follow and is definitely not for periods when I am feeling very depressed as it just makes me feel worse when I have to unpick it stitch by stitch to correct the mistakes.  The second shawl is a beautiful shawl which has grown quickly and probably could be finished in a couple of evenings when there is nothing much on television.  It will be lightweight, weighing less than 75 grams, and very soft and fluffy as it is knitted in a mixture of mohair and silk. The third shawl is a Shetland hap shawl and this afternoon, I finished the main part of it and now I am knitting the border.  I started with 800 stitches on the circular needle which it has been knitted on, and 17 stitches on a separate needle which were the start of the border.  One stitch from the main shawl gets joined to the border on every other row and there are 160 repeats of the 10-row pattern that makes up each point of the shawl.  I have so far managed to complete 5 repeats so there are only 155 to go.

The other two subjects that have represented a major part of this blog are depression and psychotherapy.  I still have very long periods of depression, followed by short periods when I don't feel so bad.  Sometimes I can fall into a trough in a matter of hours and other times it happens over a period of days or weeks. Psychotherapy has made a difference to my life; it has allowed me to find out so much more about myself and to understand why I am the way that I am. Psychotherapy has been hard; it has sometimes been traumatic; it is often very emotive.  But psychotherapy is certainly helping me to cope with things better, to regain some self-confidence, and to increase self esteem.

So a lot has happened over the time that I have been writing this blog, and I am sure that a lot will continue to happen as the months go by.  What started off as an exercise to see if I could write anything worthwhile has turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to me for quite a long time.  I hope that I will continue to write for a long time to come, and that people will continue to read this blog.  It has been a bit of a lifeline over the last five and a half months and has brought me a lot of new friends.

This is what I have decided to write about in this milestone post.

Achieved - Yet It Doesn't Feel Like An Achievement

Earlier this year I had to give up studying for an MSc because I was having real problems with being able to concentrate while studying.  It is quite common for those suffering from depression to have periods where their capacity to concentrate on anything becomes severely impaired, and my worst one to date occurred in March.  But the problem with giving up studying was that I was left with more time on my hands with nothing to do and so the depression got worse.

I have always suffered withdrawal symptoms as each OU course finished and I waited for the next one to begin, but this time it coincided with a total lack of confidence in my ability to write an essay, something that had never occurred before.  I knew that like getting back on a horse after you have fallen from it, I needed to find something that would help me to regain some sort of confidence in my ability to write, which was something that had always been one of my strongest attributes when I was working.  To this end I decided to take one of the OU short courses.

These courses were not available when I started studying with the OU; they have, however, built up quite a selection of these courses over the last few years.  I looked at the courses that were available to see if there was anything that took my fancy.  Having read through the options several times I decided to settle for the OU course 'Starting with Psychology'.  There was a book to read, two TMAs to submit, and a long essay which counted as the examinable component of the course.  If I successfully completed and passed the course (the OU calls it 'achieved' rather than 'passed' on these short courses because you have to show that you have achieved a number of learning objectives, so are not give a numerical score for the work), I would earn 10 points which could be put towards the 360 points needed for an Honours degree.

I did the course, submitted my ECA, and yesterday the course result came out.  It says that I 'Achieved'.  But what did I achieve? I managed to write a couple of essays. I must have managed to take on board some of the course material because I showed that I had adequately used that material in the compilation of the essays.  I had managed to include references, to show how certain aspects of the material related to the questions set.  Yet at the end of it all I don't feel as though I have really learnt anything at all, and because of the way that things were marked I have little idea whether I wrote a good essay or not.

I'm still having trouble putting an essay together.  I have got to write three over the next three weeks on three different subjects. This should be easy enough for me to do, and yet I have not got any confidence in my ability to write a reasoned piece of prose at the moment.

The OU has decided that I achieved the standard necessary to be considered as a successful candidate on that course.  I, on the other hand, don't feel as though I have achieved anything.

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 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.

Psychotherapy And All That

Yes, I had a psychotherapy session on Friday; it's taken me more than 48 hours to get over it. Actually that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I did need to gather myself after it, and part of that gathering process required me to get some sleep.

I had been told that I would definitely be having psychotherapy on Friday when I phoned the hospital earlier in the week, but it still didn't stop me half expecting it to be cancelled.  I had been having some problems sleeping (nothing new there) and Thursday night was no different, except where I do usually manage a few hours sleep, Thursday night I didn't get any.  I have to admit that I spent the whole of the journey to the hospital clutching my mobile in my hand half expecting the call to say that my psychotherapy had been cancelled again.  But the phone didn't ring.

My psychotherapy session started with an apology over the recent problems, and then my therapist decided that as it had been so long since my last session that he wanted me to tell him how I had been over the last month and what I had been doing.  I was able to tell him about my meeting with There and Back, and my foray into the education of GPs with my recently retired GP, B at a medical education establishment.  I was asked how I had felt when addressing the doctors and I told him that I had felt very anxious when I entered the lecture theatre and saw all the faces, but that when it came to me doing my demonstration, even with the difficulties of not being able to get into the live system, things seemed to have gone quite well.

I was asked how I felt after the demonstration and the question and answer session that followed it, and I replied that I felt as though I was high, but that things had started to go downhill a few days later, and that I had never really improved since then.  I told him about the conjunctivitis and how that had made just about everything impossible for several days.  I suppose that I should have told him that it was the psychotherapy sessions being cancelled at such short notice that had played a significant part in how I had been feeling, but I didn't say anything.

The session then moved on to how I was feeling about things at that moment.  I told him about how Christmas is such a difficult time for me and that everywhere I turned at the moment everything seemed to be focusing on Christmas.  The rest of the session focused on this and what were the things that affected me most of all.  We talked about loneliness, how I cope with it, about the lure of drink and tablets and how I usually have the strength to turn my back on them.

It was a difficult session, as I had known it would be after such a long break, and I felt very emotional both during the session and afterwards.  I am sure that the lack of sleep had a great deal to do with this, but it wasn't the sole reason.  Anyway, the session ended and I left the hospital and made my way to the bus stop to catch my bus home.  When I got home I had an overwhelming urge to sleep, so I went and lay on my bed and was asleep in minutes.  I watched a little television Friday evening, then had an early night and slept quite well.  I woke several times but soon fell asleep again and finally woke at about midday on Saturday.

The rest of Saturday was spent in a leisurely fashion, the most energetic thing that I did was some knitting.  I again slept Saturday night and dozed on and off most of this morning, although this afternoon I have done quite a bit of knitting while I have been watching the television.  The awful weather has precluded me doing anything more energetic.

Tomorrow I must get back to studying.  I did spend some on Thursday night, when I couldn't sleep, working on the TMA for my biology course.  I managed to make notes for several of the questions and I suppose that the most sensible thing to do at this time is to write these answers up in a proper fashion so that I can see how much work I have left to do.  Once I have done this TMA, which I hope will be almost completed by this time next week, I must get back to the material for my other course so that I can write the essays for the next TMA for that course.

But this evening, I shall not think about my studying.  I shall sit with my feet up, a shawl round my shoulders, and my knitting to hand.  I have been knitting a very pretty shawl for the last few days, that is nearing completion.  It is knitted in the most wonderful yarn and is a very pretty pattern that is simple to follow.  I am thinking of giving it to a friend as a Christmas present, but while knitting this I have realized that it ought to be quite easy to adapt as a scarf pattern and I think that I shall get some more yarn and knit a few scarves to this pattern over the Christmas period.  There are a few people that I want to give presents to and I think that they would appreciate a hand-knitted scarf that is like gossamer, and yet warm at the same time.

Somedays I Wonder ...

... whether anything good will ever happen.  Yesterday I thought that things were getting a little better, but today I'm not so sure. I've spent most of the day fighting back tears, though I have no idea why I am crying.

I've done a little bit of studying, but not as much as I wanted to. The problem was that I was reading the words, sometimes several times, yet I had no idea what it meant.  After about an hour of that I decided that it would be better not to bother, because I am going to have to go over it all again to make sure that I really do understand what I have read and to ensure that I have some reasonable notes for when it comes to time to revise for the exam.

I've also had a horrendous headache for much of the day, although it is now receding and I am hoping that it won't be too long before it has completely gone.  I just hate having a headache, especially when it's one of those where every movement that you make just seems to send more pain shooting through your head.

There is, however, one possibly good bit of news.  I have rung the hospital this afternoon, and it seems that I am definitely going to have a psychotherapy appointment this week.  So, on Friday morning I will set off for the hospital and just hope that my mobile doesn't ring while I'm on the bus.

Feeling A Little Better

I'm feeling a little better today; much better than I was feeling on Friday.  I haven't managed to start studying again, but I have planned things for the rest of the week, and I shall be getting back to the books tomorrow morning.  Fortunately, I am still well ahead of things on one of my courses, and this means that I can spend all my time working on the other one, at least for the rest of this week.

The weather has turned so cold over the last couple of days and I am having to make sure that I keep well wrapped up as feeling the way that I do I could quite easily fall prey to any bug that is going around.  The conjunctivitis seems to be almost better; my vision has returned to normal and it is only while I am asleep that my eyes get gummed up, but it is reasonably easy to get them cleaned when I have a wash when I get up.

I have watched lots of films over the weekend and done quite a bit of knitting.  I have left the Shetland lace shawl for the time being as I don't think that I could face it if I made a mistake and end up having to unpick some of it.  Instead I have been knitting myself another jumper; just a plain one this time, knitted in bright red aran wool.  It should be another winter warmer when it is complete.  I have also been knitting another shawl.  This is a Shetland hap shawl; hap is a mediaeval word meaning a cover, or to wrap snuggly, and these shawls were one of the commonest items of knitting that Shetland women made for themselves.  They were everyday items and were usually made in thicker, darker wools than those used for Shetland lace shawls meant for export. My shawl is being made in shades of grey and is a very simple pattern in comparison to that for the baby's shawl.

Tomorrow I will be contacting the hospital to see if they can find out for me whether or not I have a psychotherapy session on Friday.  I have no intention of making another trip to the hospital only to find that the journey has been wasted.  This is the longest break that I have had between sessions since I started in May, and all other breaks have been known about well in advance.  It is the lack of notice that has caused me the anguish over the last few weeks and is what I need to talk about with my psychotherapist.  So let's hope they have good news for me and I can start on the therapy path again.

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.

Things Are A Little Bit Clearer Now

Regular bathing of my eyes seems to have made a bit of difference.  They still keep filling with a lot of sticky muck, but my vision is a lot less blurred.  I can see to read things on the computer screen now, something that was impossible earlier today, and I have been able to do some knitting this evening too.  This is a good thing because it means that I have now been able to get back to the point where I was when I unfortunately pulled the needle out with the result that I had to start from scratch again.

I must remember to bathe my eyes just before I go to bed, although I expect I will have to prise my eyes open in the morning.  I might even be able to manage some reading tomorrow, which will be a good thing because I need to do some reading for my biology course.

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.

How Do You Make Notes?

One of the things that I have always had a problem with while I have been studying with the OU is the compilation of notes.  Practically every course has a section in its Introduction booklet or Study Guide entitled 'Note taking' or 'Making notes'.  Every year I read this section and tell myself that I will make sure that I do indeed compile good notes so that when the time comes to revise for the exam I will be prepared.  But I never manage it.

I start every course full of enthusiasm for the task. Reading the course material and carrying out the activities and exercises that are proscribed is not a problem. However, producing notes that will help me to remember all the necessary information to help me pass the exam seems to be completely beyond me.  I have read various books about strategies for this task, and no matter what I try, I never seem to be able to succeed.

The last few courses that I have completed have not included an exam, a substantial piece of written work being submitted in place of it.  This suits me fine because I am afraid that exams cause me to go into a state of extreme anxiety, which generally starts a couple of weeks before the exam date and is likely to continue until I get the results.  I have never failed an OU exam yet, but I have had a couple of close run things.

While the first of the courses that I am taking at the moment is one that relies on a long written piece in place of an exam, the second course does not, so note taking is something that I need to address again so that I can revise for the exam in as efficient a manner as possible. So, how am I going to produce these notes?

To start with I am going to skim read each chapter, highlighting important points as I find them. Then I shall read each section of each chapter more carefully and make handwritten notes of significant information and producing a precis of that section.  After that I shall put a bullet-pointed version of these notes into Microsoft Office One Note with references to the pages where the information came from.  As I complete each of the course books I will print out these notes and store them in a folder with the course book and the TMA that covers this part of the course, and hopefully by the time it comes to revising for the exam I will have a comprehensive series of notes and references that will enable me to give a good account of myself in the exam.

I think that this should give me the best chance of getting a good mark in the exam; only time will tell.  But if any of you out there have any suggestions that will help me to make the notes that I need and to revise efficiently, I would be very grateful to receive them.

An Adventure

I gave up using my car earlier this year because the increasing price of petrol was making it impossible when living on a pension.  So travel anywhere these days is by bus and one of the things that I have discovered is that the buses that I remember from my childhood don't always run on the same routes as they used to.  That hasn't proved to be too much of a problem because I can go on to the Transport for London website on the Internet and enter my start point and where I want to go to and select the method of travel that is preferred (in this case bus) and a few seconds later I will be given a series of options.  So far I have been really lucky and for every journey that I have wanted to make I have only needed one bus to complete the journey.

Today I needed to go to the local DHL depot to collect a package.  I checked the Internet yesterday and the journey could be completed using one bus.  I had a longer walk to the bus stop today than I usually do because the bus I needed comes from somewhere different to the one that I have been using for most of my journeys recently.  That wasn't a problem, it was only a 10 minute walk to the bus stop and the wait wasn't too long when I got there.  Because I was unfamiliar with the route I had taken my mini London atlas with me; it meant that I could follow the route that we were taking, judge when I needed to get off the bus and then follow the map while walking to my final destination, the DHL depot.

It all went very smoothly, I found my destination without any trouble, handed in the card with the details of my package and a few minutes later I was signing for it and setting out on the return journey.  Again everything went smoothly and the whole adventure was completed in about two hours.

The package was worth the effort.  It was the books for my next OU course; Human Biology.  So this afternoon is going to be spent going through all the preparatory reading and possibly starting to read the course material. The course officially starts next Saturday, but I am sure that I can get quite a bit done in the next week although it will undoubtedly be more difficult to follow that the other course that I am doing.

So while I had a little adventure getting the books, the big adventure will be studying the material and learning a new subject.

My New Jumper ... And Other Things

I have talked about knitting quite a lot in recent weeks. It was one of the handicrafts that I was taught as a young child and I usually have some knitting on the go at all times. Sometimes it is the craft that I do in every spare moment and sometimes it takes a bit more of a back seat to things such as cross stitch, card making, or crochet.

Having mentioned the fact that I was knitting myself a jumper, Steph from the Biopsy Report asked to see a picture of it when it was finished. Caroline from Dom Care Dragon has been wondering where the pictures were as it had been several days since the completion of the jumper, but a picture still had not appeared.

The delay had been caused because my camera had decided it wasn't going to work. I was somewhat annoyed, but I bit the bullet and bought myself a new one. I can't complain because it is a good one, and I got it for a good price. I ordered it on Sunday and it arrived yesterday. After charging the battery, I set the date and time on the camera, armed myself with the instruction book and found my way round the camera, turned off the terrible beep that occurred each time I did something, and took a couple of test pictures. Everything worked fine, so I deleted these few frames. Then I got my new jumper, draped it artistically (well the best that I could manage) pressed the shutter button and 'hey presto' I had a picture of the jumper. Out came the SD card from the camera, in it went to the card slot on my laptop, a few seconds later the image was on my computer, and now it is included in my blog. So, for Steph and Caroline here you are, my nice new jumper; it was knitted in aran weight wool and cost me just less than £10 for the wool.

I am pleased to say that my cold is nowhere near as bad as yesterday. I had a reasonable night's sleep, and I have stopped sneezing; I have a bunged up nose, and I have decided to stay wrapped up warm indoors. I shall be doing some knitting this afternoon, my next jumper is almost halfway to being finished.

I don't think it is worth me trying to do any studying because I am not sure that I would take anything in. But tomorrow will be different. I have psychotherapy in the morning, then I shall be going to collect the books for my new OU course, and tomorrow afternoon will be spent glancing through them before starting the hard work for this course. It will be the first time that I have studied two courses at the same time since I started studying with the OU in January 2000. It will almost be like being a full-time student.