Last essay of EA300 on the way, Degree nearly done ... who would have thought?!

Its a beautiful sunny day here, with the breeze blowing my washing on the line in my garden. I can see my neighbours celebrating a birthday with balloons and bunting glinting in the sunshine and the clouds are scudding through the heavens on an endless journey across the English countryside.

I am sitting at my kitchen table, working on the last essay of my Open University course. At least I was before I had this little break! Its due in a week on Thursday - the 24th May. I am so near and yet so far from achieving my goal of graduation.

I have been studying with the Open University for 3 years now and should be heading for a 2:1 Honours Degree if this last piece of work goes well. I started studying as one of those 'bucket list' things that I wanted to tick off before I grew too old and grey. There have been times when it seemed like an impossible task and each new year has found me looking at the fresh list of essay titles with fear and incredulity. Still, I have learnt so much along the way and this year my average score is 90%. I am proud to have achieved that.

When I dropped out of my original Degree course 27 years ago I thought that gaining a Degree would be something I could never do. I felt that I had failed to achieve my potential and yet dropping out was somehow meant to be. If I had not dropped out I would never have met my husband, had our children, worked in casinos, travelled around the world ... Back then I had the academic ability, but not the strength of character to continue.

I remember writing miserable poetry, alone in my room at Leicester University. I have never felt so lonely. I was due to travel to Rome for my last year of the course, to write a dissertation on 15th Century mosaics. I had dreamt of speaking fluent Italian, sitting in cafes discussing the world of art and literature. As it turned out I never made it to Italy. I couldn't face it. Now I look back and wonder what my tutor, whose name I can't remember, was doing when she didn't even reply to my letter saying that I couldn't continue and was leaving the course. Now I think with amazement of the lack of support given to a lonely, miserable girl who spent so much of her time in tears...

But to be honest, I don't spend more than a couple of seconds thinking that way. I am so grateful that I have come this far and shown the determination to keep going when things have been tough. I am glad that I have proved to myself that I am intelligent, I am determined.

Three years ago the journey to gaining my Degree seemed a long and impossible one. Today it is less than 2 weeks away. I am struggling with this essay, but I know that I will get it written and it will be in on time. I am so looking forward to the weeks after I have handed it in when I will know that I have achieved my goal and that I will never have that weight of work hanging over my head again! I am never going to write another essay!!!

This summer holiday I will not spend my time reading and taking copious notes. I plan to read books for pleasure, with no notes at all!!!

I am so grateful to my husband and boys for their unerring support in all this. I have, on occasion, not been an easy person with which to live! And I am forever grateful to my lovely sister-in-law who made me realise that I could do this, who encouraged me and who is just wonderful!

One day soon, in the next year, I know that I will attend my Graduation Ceremony, wear my gown and receive my Degree. I shall post photos of it when it happens and it will be one of the proudest moments of my life.

*Reminder to self - buy water proof mascara.

Normal service resumed ... no politics!

I am getting closer and closer to the end of my B.A course with the O.U. I have 3 more essays to write and then that's it ... job done. At the moment its a struggle. Not because of the course itself, but because of other factors. Work is very stressful at the moment and I seem to have lots of things on my mind.

For the first time this year studying EA300 Children's Literature I have had to ask for an extension. I just couldn't face writing it this week as I have been just too on edge. Luckily my tutor is fantastic and very understanding so I have an extra few days.

I am so looking forward to having nothing on my plate other than running my house and allotment. My thoughts of training to be a teacher are disappearing fast as I head towards the age of 50. Do I really want to be working full time, under masses of stress? I am in the fortunate position where I don't have to work full time. I think I would rather spend my afternoons digging my vegetables, going for runs, meeting friends.

I think I would be a good teacher, but I'm not sure I want to be one. Part of me thinks that maybe its my pride that is suggesting being a teacher. The pride in being able to say "Oh yes ... I'm a teacher" instead of doing a job where people look down on you, consider you just a gluer and sticker.

Its crazy isn't it? I am a bright girl, heading at last towards a B.A with Honours, either a 2:1 or possibly a 1st and yet I will probably do nothing with it. Part of me wonders why I threw away my degree all those years ago. Part of me is so proud that I am finally finishing it after a gap of 25 years.

Not long now and I will have my graduation ceremony, get my certificate and then lie by a pool in Turkey with a beer, a smile and no essays in sight!

Children's Literature ... essay number 2 - done!!

I have been waiting for the results of my latest essay to come back. I am studying Children's Literature with the Open University and this is essay was about the models of boyhood in Little Women and Treasure Island. I hadn't thought my essay was particularly good as I found the subject matter a bit dull, although I felt I had done better with my referencing this time.

At my tutorial I was told that all was well, but I still didn't quite believe it, so you can imagine when I saw the email in my in box telling me I could collect my result, I was a bit nervous. There is nothing quite like the emotion of both sending off a piece of work to be marked and then collecting it and seeing one's score.

Each time my fingers hover over the send key I feel sick. Each time I click to collect I feel sicker!! Its an odd feeling, to have sweated over a piece of writing, reading and re-reading, trying to link ideas and incorporate supporting evidence, and then sending it off to be marked and judged. By the time I send it I can hardly see the wood for the trees and often have a distorted view of how good or bad it actually is...

My first essay came back with the best mark I've ever received. I have just picked up my second essay and received an even better mark. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am!!! This part of my degree course is to gain the Honours part of my degree and I have to say I am really enjoying it. There is no exam at the end, but a longer essay and the set books are marvellous.

I am learning so much and my tutor this year is fantastic - so helpful and understanding. Now that I have this essay back I feel I can fully concentrate on the next - motherhood as presented in Peter Pan and 2 poems of my choice. I am looking forward to getting my teeth into this one and feel quite excited that I am doing well this year.

For this evening though I am going to sit back on my laurels, open a bottle of wine and toast a successful result!! Who would have thought 3 years ago ... ??!

jack of all trades and master of none.

Well thank goodness for that. Essay number 5 has been written and sent off. I had to write about the relationship between work and identity in Madame Bovary and The Woman in White. Good grief. After 200 words of a 2000 word essay I had just about said what I had to say. I even had to ask my tutor for an extension and was granted an extra week in which to complete it.

I have crawled my way to the 2000 word target. I have fought all the way in a mire of boredom and disinterest. But I got there. I sent the darn thing off today - 2025 words of drivel. I just wish I could be inspired. I feel that I am working completely alone. You could as well have just sent me the text books and told me to get on with it.

Whereas last year I would look forward to my tutorials and come away inspired this year I sit through them trying not to slash my wrists. We learn nothing of interest or relevance. I question myself really. Obviously my tutor is very learned with a wealth of knowledge - so it must be me. I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew. I enjoy reading the novels and I understand what the critics are saying, but good grief... It is so dull, with so little relevance to my life.

I have lost all confidence and sit wondering about position of commas rather than depth of content. I could understand my tutor's interest in punctuation if I was a bad writer, but I am not ignorant. I do know when to insert a comma, but my tutor's preoccupation with it rather than in what I am writing has thrown me off track. It is all so frustrating. I have resigned myself to getting a poor mark for this course.

I wonder if I will end up getting a degree which is not really worth having - yet another mediocre attempt by me to succeed at something. Another reminder that I am a jack of all trades and master of none. Maybe I will get a reasonable mark for this essay, but I doubt it. Please forgive my pessimism. I would just like to actually be good at something for once.

And I am studying AA316 ... why??? Time for a wobbly moan.

I started essay number 4 of my course today. For those of you who don't know I am studying a level 3 Open University course - The Nineteenth Century Novel. Last year I managed to get a Grade 2 pass in Approaching Literature in my goal to gain an Honours Degree in Humanities with Literature.

This afternoon saw me reach an all time low in my confidence levels. Although the title of the essay is quite a promising one - looking at how the critical essays in the course book can help us understand the relationships between men and women in Germinal and Far from the Madding Crowd - I am finding it very difficult to get into.

I think that my main problem is a lack of motivation/interest/enthusiasm, closely followed by a lack of belief in myself. I have been ill for a week and in spite of this I have tried to keep up with the work. I have read the books, read the essays and written notes on them. When it comes to getting this thing done by next Friday though I am stuck.

The stuff I have written so far is dross. I just don't have the knowledge levels to be able to write to this standard. Last year I did well. This year I am struggling. Working with the OU means an awful lot of studying alone. There is no discussion, little feedback. The tutorials are frustrating this year. The last one I went to I ended up making myself be quiet because I felt few of the other students were contributing. I ended up thinking 'Why should I give them all my ideas?' I was about the only one who appeared to have actually read the novels we were talking about.

I suppose I should think that in that case those students will be struggling more than I am... but it doesn't work that way.I am beginning to see this course as a 'get througher'. I just need to get through it and do the best I can. But at the moment that is a thankless task.

I am trying to hold down a job that is practically full time at the moment, organise a family, blah, blah,blah. I know - worse things happen at sea. There are people out there who would cut off their right arm to swap places with me. It doesn't really matter if I don't get a great degree. I don't 'need' it. But I want it. I want to be able to teach and right now everything is being thrown in my way to stop that goal.

I tell you what - I will make bloody sure my children don't give up a year off their degrees when they are at Uni. When I look back and think how close I was all those years ago, and yet I threw it all away... What a fool.

Thanks for listening to me moan. Let's hope my tutor replies to my email and I feel better after a good night's sleep.

My chest is gurgling like an old radiator...

I am lying on my sofa, bored out of my skull, off work for the third day with what is something very similar to if not actually the flu. I am reluctant to say I definitely have the flu, but I ache all over, have a temperature, keep coughing and sleeping. I have not been on my computer for 3 days either, so that really shows you how ill I have felt. I think and hope that I am rounding the corner to being better. I am usually a very fit and healthy person and this virus has just laid me low.

Thank goodness for friends is all I can say. My lovely friend has been taking and delivering home from school my son. I just have been unable to get out of the house. Getting downstairs to make his packed lunch has been a huge effort each morning, so the thought of getting in the car to take him to school was an impossibility. It has been a case of setting my alarm, making his lunch, ensuring he had eaten breakfast, seeing both boys off and then collapsing back into bed. I have been sleeping for huge amounts of time. Ridiculous.

I am becoming more worried as the time goes on, however.I have a 2000 word essay which is due in to my tutor by the end of next week. I am so behind on my reading for this course and goodness knows how I am going to be able to write this one.The course is awful.I know you are probably bored of hearing this, but its a case of just getting through this one. I just sat down to try and read some critical essays on Thomas Hardy, but I am finding it very difficult. I know that it will get done, by hook or by crook, but I wish I could find more enthusiasm.

I suppose I am just affected by this illness. As I get better I will regain energy, but right now I barely have energy to think.My chest is gurgling away like an old radiator. My mission for today after I have written this, is to have a shower, get dressed, and pull myself together. You will not get the best of me, you fiendish germs!!