The next day the Eager Dragon wanted to tell her new friends all about the book and how much fun they would have when they read it all together, but she knew that she might spoil it for them if she did.  So the Eager Dragon tried ever so hard not to talk about it until they were ready.

She didn’t say anything about it on the first day, distracting herself with shiny crystals.

She didn’t talk about it on the second day by going to paint pictures of a town far away.

She didn’t talk about it on the third day.  Instead she wrote down all the things she wanted to talk about in her notebook, so that she could bring them up when everyone was ready.

And on the fourth day the Eager Dragon and her new friends all went to the library enjoyed the book together.

By which I mean, I’ve started doing the activities for A174, but I’m writing notes in a word file rather than posting them on the forums so that I can discuss them when we’re supposed to.  Although, in my defense, the next couple of weeks are going to be really busy, so it will be very useful for me to try to get a bit of a head start.

I write this blog so that I can track my progress in my degree, keeping a note of my highs and lows, the troubles and the successes. When I started writing it I tried to set myself some guidelines, some of which can be found here, while others I have mostly kept in my head, until now.  These include:

4. Do not directly refer to how I will answer the TMA question I am working on at the moment.

5. Try not to mention the grades I have got.

One of the many hopes when I started writing this blog was that one day other students, or potential students, may stumble across it and find that they are not alone.  Someone is going through, or has been through exactly the same thing that they are – I find it reassuring to know that I’m not alone.

But, what you will not find here is the questions I answered or the answers I gave.  I’m very proud to say that all of my TMAs and ECAs have been entirely my own work and I do not intend to share them.  You will, however, find references all over the blog (including here, here and here) that discuss how easy or difficult I was finding them, or how I was faring in getting them completed.  In fact most of the posts with the “assignments” tag (see left) discuss exactly that.  Also, as my sitting on A210 was the last sitting I have discussed the exam here.

Meanwhile, with regards to my marks, I don’t actually think that it’s useful to mention exactly how I did.  In fact I wrote something along those lines here a while ago, although my expectations have become more realistic since then.  Generally I try to say how happy I am with the grade, because it doesn’t really matter how anyone else did, but if I did as well as I could have done due to my own unique circumstances.  Ultimately, I will have done as well, worse or better than you depending on each of our abilities, how much time we have for our studies and all sorts of different factors.  Assume you did better than I did, if only to boost your ego and help you get the next assignment out.

That’s not to say I haven’t slipped up and mentioned my grades at times, I am imperfect after all.

Now that is all said, I’d just like to say that I hope you are enjoying or looking forward to your Open University studies.  Overall I’ve really enjoyed the time I have spent studying with the OU.  There have been low moments when I’ve felt that there isn’t enough time to do everything I need to do, or when I’ve skipped an assignment or two.  But there have been more high points, those times when I’ve got the phrasing exactly right, or surprised myself at how much I know, they keep me going.  I still think it’s worth it, which is exactly why I’m starting my fourth module this month.

So, if you want to have a chat, leave a comment here or on any of my other posts.  If you’re looking for help, however, I’d suggest you get in touch with your tutor or regional support team – they really are much better at things like that than I am.

But most of all good luck and keep going.

The first course of 2012 is the short course A174, Start Writing Fiction. Although it is a misnomer as to tell the truth I started writing fiction when I was in primary school; the first of which I remember was when I was sitting at my Grandma’s house writing a story about Superman.  Unfortunatly even then I had trouble finishing the tale; bringing my stories to a conclusion is something that has plagued me ever since, both when I’m writing and when I used to GM games.  I don’t seem to have so much trouble with short stories, fotunately.

Anyway, back to my preparations, having received the small bundle of exciting paper in the post last week I’m taking a look at how much of it I can start right now.  It advises that I should listen ot the audio CD to get an idea of some of the key areas that will be studied.  I’ve just loaded that up on my computer and track 2 has the first hurdle – “morning pages”.

Apparently “morning pages” are what one may produce upon waking up before setting about any other tasks.  Upon reaching full wakefulness one gets out of bed, sits in ones writing space and allows the words to tumble onto ones preferred writing materials.

I’m sure it’s something I’d like to try at least once, so long as it’s not on a weekday, as I would struggle to fit it into my morning schedule:

5:35 – put second alarm clock on snooze

5:40-5:45 – jump in the shower

6:00 – 6:18 – get dressed and prepare to go to work

no later than 6:22 – leave the house

6:32 – get on the train and start commuting to London

8:00 – start work

Now, I’m sure that I could probably try to do some writing in that hour and a half when I’m on the train or tube between Reading West station and Tower Hill, but frankly I barely manage to be human at that time in the morning.  Also, I have to deal with other commuters, who are all just as tired as I am and just as pushy and eager to get a seat on the train/tube.

So, as such I’m going to provisionally say “‘morning pages’ will be something I try on a weekend”.

Now all I need to do is enjoy the rest of December and all of January until my next course starts in February.

*bounces*

As for me, I’m in the middle of enjoying a few months between courses.  Next year is my creative writing year, so I’m hoping to do a little brushing up.  I wrote a whimiscal poem on the tube yesterday, which I will, eventually, post to my literature blog.

I’m also slowly pondering birthday presents.  I like the idea of getting a dslr, but I also like my idea of a tattoo of two magpies.  I don’t think my Mum would be happy if I spent birthday money on a permanent scar, but I think 30 is a good year to find the art that suits me.  Mind you… I guess a dslr would also help me to find my art.

The dilemma.

I’m already in that odd place of desperately hoping the next course will come along.  The last course was tough, but I want the next one already – is that the sign of an abusive relationship? 

Man, hope I don’t scare the freshers off.

I knew from the outset that I was going to answer question 1, the ease of having the text right in front of you and knowing which play or plays to revise was just too tempting to say no to.  I had also decided to do the As You Like It extract, because I didn’t particularly enjoy The Rover, particularly not when I really got to know Willmore* for the TMA.  When I opened the exam I was very pleased to see that the extract was from Act 1 Scene 3, as it was a scene that had been given some very close attention on the DVD.  Overall I think I did quite well for this question, I discussed production options, the use of language, in particular the use of formal language by Celia when she is trying to convince Rosalind of her love and of the potential homosexual undertones that may have arisen from the name Ganymede given that originally the women would have been played by men.

For the second section I chose question 4: “Whether the novels use realist or non-realist methods, they teach a moral by representing characters in the process of learning about themselves”. For which I chose Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein as my novels to discuss.  The notes my tutor shared with the tutor group were exceedingly useful for this and I even managed to get a paraphrased quote from a critic into the essay for each novel as a result.  Otherwise it was the usual discussion of Elizabeth being taught to overcome her pride and prejudices** in order to be rewarded with the fairytale castle (non-realist technique?) of Pemberley… er, I mean, the lovely Mr Darcy.   While for Frankenstein I discussed the unnaturalness of life created without women, relating it to the unnaturalness of the patriarchal society, which is highlighted by the lack of female characters in the book – specifically that all the women in the book are stereotypes and not characters in and of their own right.  Thinking about it, I may have gone off on one a bit for that section of the essay – oh well!

My choice for section 3 surprised me slightly, I had expected to tackle questions 7 or 9 before I read the questions and I ended up doing question 8.  I knew from the start that poetry would be my weakest section, and I really did struggle with it.  Anyway, the question was: “Female poets present challenges to the stereotypes of women in a range of ways”.  To tackle this I used the Lady of Shalott as an example of a stereotypical representation of a woman, challenged it with the representations presented in the Goblin Market and then used Against Coupling as a contemporary challenge to women needing men at all.  It was all a little rushed.  I’d only given myself 45 minutes for the question and I hadn’t done an essay plan at all.  I barely quoted from the poems and I definitely didn’t use any examples of the use of language or poetic techniques.  On the other hand, I did write a full essay.

Overall I was happy that it was over and that I’d managed to write three complete essays.  I definitely won’t be so scared of Open University exams in the future, although I’m still tempted to do the level 3 course without the exam, rather than the Shakespeare course as I did find the revision to be very stressful.

The plan now is to spend 2012 on my creative writing.  I’ve signed myself up for A174 starting in February and I’ve pre-registered for A215 starting in October.  Until then I’m going to relax, try and write when I can and wait for my results in December *gulp*

* I still vaguely wish I’d made a point about Aphra Behn’s naming conventions in the TMA… “will more women be able to satisfy Willmore?”

** I actually hate referencing such obvious titles in essays, it feels so cliched and a little bit cheap.  However, I did miss out on a point or two in my TMA by not referencing the title, so I included it this time around.

I know that one of my main problems is that I don’t contact my tutor, in particular, but also other students often enough.  But how do I make myself change this in the future?  My grades have been okay without the contact, but would adding the contact in help me to improve?

My other worry is that I feel like I don’t have a good overview of English Literature as a whole, just of the texts that I considered for my course.  Maybe it’s to be expected?  I mean, no course could really provide an idea of how the entire subject is supposed to be, right?

I definitely did enough to pass, or at least I hope I did.  I came out the exam smiling at least and wound up using three answer booklets, although most of that was because I left some blank pages and double spaced my answers.

I may write up everything once the exam paper is up on the net, but until then I shall keep my knowledge in my head – apparently some people still need to take the exam.

To celebrate I had a beer with friends and then a burritto with my husband.  I also had a little dance when I got home.  There’s a really nice sense of freedom from being study-free until at least February.  And I didn’t give up!  Go team me.

Now I’m going to spend an hour doing things I want to do and then go to bed in the hopes of being well enough to go to work tomorrow.

Otherwise, I’m suffering from serious study-fatique, but I really can’t let it all go now.

If I’m able to improve my grade on each assignment, then it’s a sign that I’m learning!  Although I do still worry if I have enough time to do all the studying.