I'm moving...

Blogger is a bit limited these days. You'd think with all of its money and resource, Google could develop a better website creator than Blogger.

So I've moved.

Besides. This is a brand new chapter of my life and I think 'dogsbody to doctorate' doesn't accurately describe the direction I'm headed in any longer. So I'm starting afresh with a new blog, new design and a fresh perspective.

Head on over to my new home:

https://carrieonlearning.wordpress.com

Those who've known me a while will recognise the now common play on my first name. I'll never tire of it now.

The autodidact: Part 1

autodidact

ˈɔːtəʊdɪdakt/

noun

1. a self-taught person

When I was a little kid, my parents bought me a teeny weeny keyboard one year for Christmas. It was about the size of a credit card and had numbered buttons on that you pressed in a particular order (as per the song sheet you got with it) to play different tunes. They were tunes like Twinkle Twinkle and Mary Had a Little Lamb - real simple basic tunes, but I loved this little keyboard so much they bought me a slightly bigger one soon after. Then came another bigger one until finally I ended up with a full size Yamaha keyboard. So I went to JG Windows in Newcastle and bought some keyboard books and taught myself how to play the keyboard. I reached a respectable level of skill before my parents offered to send me to lessons to develop my talent even further. I had lessons for a few months before I gave up and stopped going.

I didn't enjoy the rigidity of the lesson structure. I spent too long - in my eyes - doing scales and going over things I could already do. I see now that it was to help build up my tolerance and keep my fingers nimble, but the fact was that I was better learning in my own way. So what if I didn't put the right fingers on the right keys - I was still playing the tune properly... It's the same now with typing. I was taught how to touch type and did a GCSE in typing, but now I can't touch type to save my life but can still knock out about 60 words per minute using my own unique way.

I've always been like this. I learn best when I can do it my own way and I'm really good at learning things as a result. My continual thirst for knowledge really benefits from this too. I suppose that's how I ended up at The Open University - despite being given all of the information you need and any amount of support you could wish for it's still up to you to do the studying in your own time and in your own way.

Now that I'm part-way through my paid-for courses I'm turning my thoughts to how I can continue on a far more cost-effective path once they're done. I have quite a few options, all of which I'm really eager to get stuck into.

Lately - mostly since 2012 - a trend has emerged for Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC's as they're more commonly known. I've completed a few already just as tasters, and there are a wealth of companies offering them. They're sort of like bite-sized chunks of bigger modules offered by some of the world's leading universities and although they don't offer any formal qualification or credit points they're an absolutely ideal way to build up knowledge in either a broad range of subjects or even specialist areas. Some have designated start and finish dates, some are just a 'sign up and go' scenario but there are plenty of companies to choose from, each with a different offering and some with ever more interesting ways to claim some kind of additional value from their courses to the world at large.

Courses are all very well and good, but there are still certain things I want to learn more about that aren't readily available as courses and provable learning. I want to learn more about programming in Visual Basic for example. I've dabbled a little bit when re-writing a Time in Motion sheet earlier this year, but I would really like to get to grips with it properly and not have to rely on getting the answers from Excel forums. I would also like to learn more about particular training methods, however finding courses about developing as a trainer are more difficult and so I'll probably have to resort to learning from books and Internet sources.

The difficulty with self-directed learning like that is how you prove it's value. You don't get a qualification at the end of it, you don't even get a completion certificate so, aside from the natural passage of time to allow you to fully demonstrate these newly acquired skills how can you prove you have them?

This is what I'll have to to a bit of research into. There will likely be a way to claim some valid value from completely autodidactic learning, but as yet I don't know what it is.

Translational Momentum

I've got momentum again! After passing my Prince2 Foundation exam on Sunday I've felt spurred on again. A few people have congratulated me - one in particular seemed quite excited that I'd passed - and it's given me the impetus to carry on while the going's good. It feels good to have educational energy again.

With all the changes following my exit from my last job I completely lost my way and started concentrating on other things (running, for one. I did LOTS of running in 2013). I had always expected that I would never stop learning and I would be a student in some guise forever, so disappearing from the learning arena so unexpectedly and for so long took its toll on my confidence.

I'm so out of practice at studying. I found it really hard to concentrate on what I was trying to learn during the Foundation study, and I found it even harder to get myself sat down in front of the computer to actually do the studying in the first place. I just kept thinking of the satisfaction I used to get from my OU study; the happiness at having really nailed a module and how good it felt to get a good mark on your TMA (as they were called in those days) and it helped keep me planted at the laptop.

So now that I've passed the first level, I thought it would be wise to carry that momentum forward so I've booked the Practitioner exam for the 18th January. I figured that I'd book it for a couple of weeks into the New Year so that I've got the Crimbo hols to do the requisite studying for it. I've also cashed in the voucher for my Six Sigma course so I have access to that from now so the aim is that once I've sat the Practitioner exam I'll be able to knuckle down for that.

Perhaps putting the rationale behind my decision to do these particular courses down on paper [sic] will help make more sense of it in my own mind; somehow consolidate my reasoning behind doing what may seem like a bit of a mish-mash of subjects. I'm known for having done a mish-mash of subjects in the past, from my foundation degree in Quantity Surveying to my Open degree with social science and philosophy and a few more random picks like psychology, earth sciences and ICT, but none of these were strictly for career progression; these were purely for personal gain, but now I'm trying to concentrate my efforts on a more coherent plan that will contribute to a more secure and structured future.

Prince2 is the obvious one - I could see that the company was likely headed down a project-based route and wanted to make sure I could offer some kind of value should that end up the case. Despite being turned down for company funding, e-Careers offered me the full Prince2 Foundation and Practitioner course with exams, PLUS the Six Sigma Green Belt package for £950 payable in 4 instalments. Considering that The Knowledge Academy - one of the more common companies to learn Prince with via a 5 day intensive classroom  based course - charge £950 for their full Prince package this seemed like too good a deal to pass up. I decided that the £1000 up-front cost would likely pay dividends in the future and was worth the outlay. Compared to the cost of other less vocational courses it seemed to represent good value for money when considered against potential returns.

I applied internally for a Projects Officer role in the summer. I didn't get it because of my lack of actual project experience, but it was the General Manager who interviewed me and he gave me some tremendous feedback which really buoyed me. He assured me that there would be additional opportunities on a more team-based scenario to get involved in projects in the near future and this just confirmed to me that I had made the right decision choosing to do Prince.

The second course I signed up for at the same time - the Six Sigma Green Belt - seemed a little trickier to justify at the time, but is going to end up being a really clever choice on my part. I had spent a bit of time looking at some profiles on Linked In, and had looked at the types of qualifications people had and I often saw Six Sigma twinned with Prince2 so it seemed a natural course to investigate further. When I looked it up and saw it was all about process improvements, efficiencies and error reductions it sounded really appealing to my inner-geek. I'm actually quite interested in elements like that and thought if I could foresee myself heading down a management route it would be a useful set of tools to have in my kit. I toiled between the yellow belt and the green belt (two different levels with black belt being the highest) and decided if I was going to do it, I might as well go for the higher of the two. At the time I signed up for it the team was brand new, I had barely been made Lead Analyst and there was no need for me to be thinking of process improvements or error reductions. Was there?

When my new team first started, our work volume doubled almost overnight. Since then it's been a constant battle against a raging torrent of work. All things considered, we've done really well. The team is profitable, we get good feedback on quality from our clients, and our staff are a bunch of really intelligent and switched on people. But there are some fairly major gaps that need filling. Because of our constant fire-fighting we've not had any opportunity to conduct additional training or follow up on training already done because we simply haven't had time. Our Training and Development Lead has been busy with other teams and I think, because we've had to concentrate all of our efforts on getting up to date with our ever-burgeoning workload, we've been kinda left to it.

I've made mental (and actual) notes of all of these gaps I've noticed over the 11 months we've been 'in business' with some rough ideas on how to address them even though that wasn't part of my job (at the time), but now that I'm Training and Project Lead I'm really thankful I started jotting notes down all those months ago because now they provide an index of issues to help me as I prepare to start this Six Sigma course and prepare to get stuck into my new role in the new year. It seems my decision in March to buy the Six Sigma course - while fuelled mostly by a mix of curiosity as to what it was all about and a slight desperation to find something that would give me an edge - has proved to be one of the wisest I made at the time because I'll be reaping the benefits in no time.

So at least I can provide some reasoning behind the two courses I've paid actual real-life money for. It would be foolish of me to sign up for all-and-sundry courses and spend a fortune I don't really have. I have to be really selective with this, but also very cunning. I may need to invest a bit to achieve a grander plan and that's fine, as long as there's solid justification behind it.

I'm still fairly sure I can get some really incredible added value from other means too. There's a growing trend for more auto didactic styles of learning. They're more difficult to prove, but still not impossible. Now there's something for me to give some thought to.

*breathe out... and relax... again*

I'm transported back to a post I wrote back in the day about having finally finished and submitted a TMA.

So here goes... "breathe out... and relax". I passed my exam. It's subject to confirmation that I didn't try to cheat (they use your web cam and microphone to record your activity, so unless they think one of the cats was mouthing the answers to me I should be okay) but as far as the actual scoring of the test goes, I passed. By quite a good margin too.

I finished answering the questions with 17 minutes to go of my allotted 60. Foolish, you may think, that I exited the exam with so long left, but I knew if I went back through my responses I'd end up doubting myself and run the risk of mucking it all up. So I went with my gut and ended it once I'd given a response to them all.

Everyone who knew I was sitting the exam was sure I would pass, but for once, I genuinely wasn't. Perhaps my past failures have bred a more apprehensive nature in me. Perhaps I feel I've been away from education for too long now to go back. I cannot describe the relief washing over me right now knowing that I was wrong and everyone else was right.

This exam is the start of a whole new direction for me. After this I move straight on to the Practitioner level of the qualification which will see me gain the requisite skills to fully assist the project manager and potentially play more of a role in company-wide projects. But that's not all I've got planned.I have a burgeoning list of things I want to do - both qualifications I've got in the pipeline and methods, techniques and new skills I want to learn on a more auto didactic basis. I get far too carried away with myself and my incredible friend Hannah regularly tries to rein me in by telling me to concentrate on one thing at a time, and she's right. I know she's right. But I really do struggle with this.

I'm nowhere close to being in the kind of financial situation where I could afford to pick up my postgraduate studies again. I think that's a long way off to be truthful so for the time being I'll have to make the best of any alternatives that are out there to me. I have a couple of small qualifications in the running to follow on from the Prince2 Practitioner. A Green Belt in Six Sigma is next on the agenda, along with a Level 2 qualification in Lean Organisation Management Techniques. The latter is actually a BTEC. Who'd have thought - 34 years old and studying for a BTEC! The qualification is actually free via Vision2Learn and is worth 15 credit points so to be honest, I'm not going to look that particular gift horse in the mouth and it will teach me some good foundation skills for my new role. There are umpteen other things I want to do too, but I'm taking heed of Hannah's advice and concentrating on one thing at a time. I'll get these actual qualifications done and dusted first. Then, and only then, will I move onto spare-time learning and/or something bigger.

I've got to prioritise here, and episodes of learning that have tangible outcomes are by far the most sensible for me to allocate my resource to at the present time.

It's almost like I'm project managing my own progression.

A not-so-lazy Sunday afternoon ahead

I'm studying again. Well, I'm trying to study but my stupid ancient laptop keeps refusing to believe it's connected to the Internet which puts a rather big hurdle in my way. I'll have to find a way around it because I've got an exam on Sunday.

Hang on, let's rewind the calendar a bit. Let's go back to the beginning of the year.

In February I set up desk on my new team. It was a brand new team for the company working on a product unfamiliar to the company. It was quite an uncertain time to be honest; we weren't sure if the product would be a success or if our client would continue our contract beyond the initial 3 month trial period, so there was always a big question mark hovering over the team. Given this uncertainty, I tried to think of a way I could make myself slightly less dispensable to the company (having gone through redundancy less than a year earlier I didn't fancy my chances again). I looked at the company as a whole and tried to find a niche I would work my way into. That's not to say that I wouldn't go back to the team I had come from, but I preferred the idea of moving forward given that I was selected for this new team in the first place.

The niche I was looking for showed itself in the form of Project Management. I could see that some of the departments were starting to go down a project-centric route, and after a bit of research and discussion with a good friend who has a lot of PM experience, it seemed a logical and cost-effective route to go down. A website called e-Careers had an offer on their Prince2 Project Management course at the time, and so, armed with a justification in mind, I sought an audience with the Operations Manager, pitched my idea and asked if the company would be willing to fund my study. He said no. So I signed up for it anyway.

I feel I ought to add, the company did put me through a different PM course - the APM Introduction to Project Management course which proved incredibly interesting and has been quite useful, but I had already seen that a lot of PM jobs specifically asked for Prince2 so I considered it an investment in a more commonly used framework.

I sit the exam for the first part of the Prince2 qualification on Sunday, and frankly, I'm nervous. Given my sudden exit from education and the massive change in career path since, I have concerns over my ability to do this. I've fallen into the world of business purely by accident and find myself frantically waving my arms around trying to figure out where I am. What if I fail at something as basic as this? What if I've just been out of the education game for too long now?

If I manage to pass this first Foundation level, then I move on to the Practitioner level of the qualification which is slightly more involved. But given that I was made up to 'Training and Project Lead' only a month or so ago I really need to make this happen. My manager gave me this role with the knowledge that I'm doing my Prince2 course, so in my head the continuation of this role is contingent on me gaining this qualification. It's probably not, and even with the knowledge I have I can provide support to the Projects Officer, but I'll be of far greater use if I get this qualification.

I dearly hope I manage to pull it together on Sunday. There's more resting on it than I can bring myself to put down in writing just yet, and passing it will undoubtedly unearth the thirst in me that I thought was buried the day I withdrew from Durham Uni.

I have plans. Big plans. Once again I'm trying to forge a path into my future that leads somewhere and doesn't just meander through the troughs and valleys I'm so familiar with. Finally, someone has pointed a finger in a direction completely new and uncharted to me but the proverbial grass is so lush over here and I'm truly loving it.

I really need to pass this exam on Sunday. It's the catalyst for a truly exciting looking future.

A Little Miss Management

So once again I'm finding myself at another fork in the career road. Not long after making it to Deputy Team Manager (a role I had been coveting for a good few months), my ops manager threw me a curve ball. I had tried to prepare myself for a journey into management; joined the Chartered Management Institute and was about to start some volunteering, subscribed to some management newsletters and was trying to figure out ways of improving my technique so that I could make myself a better manager than I was giving myself credit for.

And then the curve ball hit. In the summer the company put me through a Train the Trainer course and I became one of a group of people the company could call upon to deliver training. I haven't actually carried out any company-wide training because of time-restraints within the team, but I've done a lot of training and presentations for my department, and it turns out I'm actually pretty darned good at it. Even earlier than the TTT course it had obviously become apparent to the ops manager that I have a bit of talent when it comes to writing training programmes, juggling departmental figures and coming up with ways to try and improve processes in the team, because about 2 months ago the ops manager asked if I'd like to take a side-step away from management and into training. It's something that the group who owns the company had identified as a 'high priority need', and given my knowledge of the department and my apparent skill at training etc. I seemed the obvious choice; after all, it's probably easier to back fill a management position than find someone else to do training.

I had to give it some serious, I must admit. The thought of standing in front of groups of people day in, day out, delivering training fills me with dread. Just because I'm good at something, doesn't mean I enjoy it. I'm much more interested in the juggling the figures side of it, and the - what I loving refer to as - fiddling about with spreadsheets. I was firmly assured that my expectations of the role were right and that I wasn't going to be delivering training constantly (although it would be a bit part of my role in various forms), so I graciously accepted. After a 6-or-so week lead-in so far with another 2 month handover to the new DTM ahead of me, on Monday 1st December  I 'officially' start my new role as Training and Project Lead.

In the 6-or-so weeks since I accepted I've written down a hundred different areas I want to focus on; areas I'm aware need some attention to improve processes / quality / efficiency on the team and I'm itching to get started and put my head-bursting amount of ideas to some kind of practical use.

The difficulty with it all is that it's yet another side step for me. I'm worried that I'm going to end up taking so many side steps that I'll never move forward. The saving grace this time is that I was actually INVITED to do this by a manager. Someone actually recognised some skill or talent in me and invited me to do this before it was even on the table as an option. I had been almost blindly following down the management path because I thought it was the only real option within the team and in my haste to get somewhere I just kept on going. It's only now that this new option was given to me that I see why it's a far more suitable choice and one I'm more likely to be able to develop into something better. THIS is my chance. The management route has developed me in ways I couldn't have expected within the last 10 months. It has given me a certain confidence in myself and an assurance of my ability to lead but it's not really for me. I'm not saying I wouldn't have made a great manager because to be honest, I think I would've. I COULD'VE done it, but as I said earlier, there's a difference between being good at something and enjoying it and I don't think I would've truly enjoyed management. I see now that I like getting to the end of the day and having something to show for my day's work. You rarely get that in management because most of your day is spent checking other people's work and making sure your team is doing their job and the client is happy. In this new role I'll have something tangible to show for my efforts - a new training material or feedback sheets from a training session I've carried out, or some completed documents for a project I'm working on. It's measurable, and I'm all about measuring progress.

I'm just hoping that my enthusiasm and skill for the job will keep me moving forward. It's really difficult at this stage to see where it might lead and I'm having to stop myself thinking too much about it because it will drive me mad. For the time being I'm just going to have to get on with it and make sure I do it well and hope that it will naturally lead to something in the future.

I preach to the analysts in my team that if you want to get noticed and if you want progression, the best thing you can do is carry on doing your normal job, but do it REALLY well. You're far more likely to get notice for doing your actual job better than anyone else than for volunteering for all and sundry but doing a half-baked job if it. It's about time I started practising what I preach.

The Laws of Serendipity

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;"

When hubby and I were on holiday a couple of years back we were walking along a beach on the Arbroath coast and saw an entrance to what looked like a cave.

We got to the entrance and stared into the pitch blackness in front of us. It could have been infinite. We had only the faint flash on hubby's phone to guide us through and had no idea of the terrain we would face under-foot or if it even led anywhere. We shuffled into the entrance, me squeezing his hand so hard as if letting go of it would see me somehow plunged into the murky depths of hell. Onward we shuffled, upwards, further into the darkness until we began to bear left, tracing the wall as we went. On a sharp bend in the wall suddenly it was there, right in front of us as if it always had been - light!

The S-shape of the cave meant that light couldn't pass around the corners and resulted in the pitch-blackness we entered into. In fact, the cave was very short and joined on to another secret beach at the other side which was like a little private oasis. What originally seemed like such a frightening prospect (I'm petrified of the dark) turned out to be short-lived and unworthy of such fear.

As my head begins to fill up with thoughts about studying business and how to go about it, I sort of feel like I'm at the mouth of the cave again. It's pitch black. I've no idea what the terrain is like. I've even less idea what's on the other side of it, but if I stay where I am I'll always be where I've always been.

And so I'm taking this leap of faith and stepping into an unknown world. Having experienced what can be on the other side of the cave, I freely admit to feeling a bit excited at where this might lead, but I'm also fearful that with no glimmer of light to guide me, I might just lose my footing.

... Of Mice And Men

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!"

My life never ceases to astound me.

In the last eighteen months it has become an unrecognisable beast barely resembling its former self. I just had to roll with the punches as they were blown at me, ducking for cover when needed and grappling to adapt to the new arena I found myself fighting in.

I didn't finish my Masters degree at Durham uni. I had to withdraw from my second degree at the OU. I don't work for the building firm I'd spent nine years at and I'm now a married woman.

A lot can change in eighteen months. I found that out during what turned out to be the most dichotomous time of my life. I won't go into detail because it's neither necessary nor interesting. Suffice to say my life is somewhat different now, some in a positive way and some in a negative way. But even the negatives aren't necessarily bad.

In February 2013 I got made redundant. The firm I'd been at for just shy of nine years no longer had a place for me and so I was given eight weeks to find a new job. After five weeks I started a new job as an analyst for a private medico-legal firm and as of this month I find myself a newly appointed deputy team manager looking after a team of thirty on the path to becoming a team manager.

Where did that come from? How did I find myself suddenly involved in the world of business? One minute I'm studying with the hope of becoming a social science researcher and then I find myself doing daily MI reports and worrying about SLAs and talking about my team in terms of FTEs. How did my career take such a big turnaround, and most importantly, how do I feel about it?

The truth is, I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that I'm enjoying this job far more than any I've had before. I'm annoyed that I'm looking forward to what the coming months have in store for me. I'm annoyed because I'd never considered business as a potential career option before and I'm actually really enjoying it.

I remember my schoolmates taking Business Studies as a GCSE option and me sniggering at them behind their backs because it sounded so boring. Twenty years later they're having the last laugh because now my thoughts are turning toward resuming my efforts at an education but - to coin the American phrase - switching majors to Business.

A great and inspirational friend of mine has an MBA - the ultimate accolade for an aspiring business student. She works for The Open University and so was able to gain the qualification at no cost - one of the many perks of working for such a brilliant institution. Unfortunately for me, an MBA would come at a very high price, somewhere in the region of £15,000 (which I simply cannot afford). So for now, a self-funded MBA is out of the question.

So. If I want to continue my educational journey and delve deeper into the world of business what are my alternatives?

Dear anonymous student

Dear anonymous student.

No, you don’t know me. You may have seen me or my face spewed somewhere on the Internet but you don’t really know me, but I know you. I’ve followed your progress for a number of years now and wanted to let you know how inspiring you have been to me, albeit unknowingly.

You’ve achieved so much with so much left to do; I’m in utter awe of you for your mindset. I wish I could be more like that – driven, determined and capable but instead I have only stubbornness and jealousy to push me on. They have worked sufficiently well thus far however I fear my grace period may be coming to an end and if I want to succeed it will require a completely different kind of person to any I could ever possibly hope to be. This, my anonymous friend, may be the end of my road.

People often say to me things like “I don’t know how you fit it all in!” referring to my work/studies/extra-curricular activities but in truth I’m just trying to be more like you. My impatience to catch up forces me to flood my life with more than I can realistically cope with but I’m so desperate to get to the end I’ve convinced myself I can manage. Is there an end? Am I chasing a myth? I wouldn’t expect you to respond to me and even if you did your words would probably provide little relief to my anguished state.

You seem so composed and able to cope with it all, is this truth? Behind closed doors do you battle with self-doubt and feelings of frustration like the rest of us? I have a pristine image in my head of you as untainted by the negativity that blights my own progress but the reality is no doubt different. I suspect this because I know it to be true of my own self - despite my weekly ramblings about struggling with motivation and my continual self-deprecation people focus on the positives and see that I am in fact making progress in spite of myself. How do they do that? How do they choose to ignore the negatives? Perhaps the same way I so admire you; I want need someone to ‘look up to’, someone to compare myself to so that when the doubt begins to set in I can refocus my efforts by looking to someone like me who CAN cope.

It’s funny though isn’t it, that you don’t know me. It occurs to me that I’m presenting myself in a somewhat stalker-like manner but let me assure you that’s not the case. My progress thrives on comparisons and emulation so please, consider it a compliment from me that I respect your ambition and intellect. I hope to one day be in a similar position and would be beyond thrilled if someone were following my progress and finding inspiration from my doings so take assurance that my admiration for you is just that.

The last two years of my life have been a cyclone of activity and they have seen an incredible shift in my attitude towards my remaining days on this mortal coil. I will be a long time working and I don’t relish the prospect of waking up full of resentment every day until I retire. This proved to be my greatest epiphany and I owe thanks, in part, to you.

Your silent and unknowing support has been beneficial to me in ways you will never discover. You have helped me make sense of the myriad mental images floating around in my glue-filled head of the different versions of myself I have dared to imagine over countless unfulfilled years. I can now focus those thoughts into something resembling a coherent plan and although I still have a lot of emotional mess going on up there I’m beginning to cope with it all and can now see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Thank you, anonymous student. I am indebted to you.

Yours, with admiration,

Me.

Good news and bad news all rolled into one.

It turns out that mountain biking was a very fruitful hobby to have taken up those many moons ago and has provided me with some very clever and useful brains to pick regarding PhD applications.

The initial group of mountain bikers I went out with in 2006 included a young lad who was studying at Newcastle University, he was 25 years old, a great mountain biker and intelligent beyond his years. He's now 31 years old and is a lecturer in Economic Geography at Northumbria University and more importantly he has agreed to help me through the painful PhD application process. I invited Dr Jon Swords over for tea (that's 'dinner' or 'supper' depending on how posh and non-Northern you are, not simply a cup of tea) with the agreement that I could barrage him with questions and to his word, he's answered all of them honestly which means I got both good and bad news from his visit.

The bad news is that I really need to be completely realistic about how competitive the studentship competition is. I knew that already, I mean you can't ignore how many different places and people tell you how much competition there is for places but it's something I need to reinforce. I need to be thinking about what to do post-MA now based on the assumption that I won't be starting on a PhD. The rapidly approaching prospect of being made redundant in March just adds extra impetus to that need.

Another potential negative which I've only just started thinking about recently is that I don't know exactly when I'm expected to finish my MA. The Durham uni website says that part time it takes "2 years plus completion of dissertation". What does that mean? Is that 2 years or 3 years or 2 years plus an extra term?? When am I due to finish it? If I get an extra term or longer then I won't have finished it by the time the PhD would be due to begin thus surely meaning I wouldn't be able to start it? That's something I need to find out for definite from the PG office because ultimately this may scupper my plans entirely so I've emailed the PG secretary to find out but she's unavailable until Monday. Slightly missed deadlines scuppering my plans wouldn't surprise me at all, after all, they're the reason I couldn't do my MA/MSc with the Open University (they withdrew all PG Soc Sci provision just as I was about to finish my BSc - I missed the final registration by 6 weeks). Sometimes it really does suck being a part time student; very little is coordinated properly to suit you and you get far less of the benefits of being a student (many associations don't grant you concessionary membership rates unless you're a full timer, as if somehow those of us who work full time, study part time and pay our tuition fees up front must surely have the financial wherewithal to pay the standard rates).

So there are two negatives - one potentially plan-blowing but I'll not dwell too much on it for now otherwise I'll just upset myself.

Oh the plus side, Jon seemed to think there might be some mileage in my ideas. The two ideas I have don't seem to have been directly researched so a literature review will have to draw on adjacent research to show how mine would 'fill the gap'. Each idea could go in about a dozen directions so that's something I would need to narrow down. He's suggested that I get in touch with a potential supervisor asap - as he rightly said, if applications close in February then allowing for time off over Christmas then marking in the new year etc. it doesn't leave a lot of time for an academic to speak to students so I'll get an email sent off to the lecturer I have in mind this weekend.

Huge thanks to Jon for his sound advice, I don't think pizza and belated birthday cake quite made up for the wisdom he passed on so I greatly appreciate it.

It's all a bit much for me at the minute truth be told. Imminent redundancy and the need to start serious job-hunting, the fast-approaching deadline for PhD applications along with the possibility of not even being eligible to apply, and ongoing studies with looming assignment deadlines are all just sapping away my emotional stability and will soon leave me a gibbering wreck. The job situation is the worst. I fear I may be served my notice any day now and to be completely truthful I'm not qualified to do anything yet so I don't even know what jobs I should be looking for.

I'm in limbo. No man's land. That awful place where I need a new job but am too far away from having a qualification which might just enable me to get a job I like. At the minute I'm not really qualified to do anything, and I suppose to be honest, even if I was the job situation in the North East of England is dire at the minute so you never know, next time you call into Greggs for a corned beef pasty it might just be me serving you.

Doctorate demons

It's no big secret that I suffer - quite badly at times - from lack of self-confidence. Although it's something I've experienced for the majority of my life I wouldn't ever really say I've 'battled' with it, in fact right from the beginning I've just sort of, well, dealt with it. It doesn't really bother me. It would be nice if it would sod off and blight someone else for a while so I can know what it feels like to be rid of it, but for the most part it doesn't actually hinder me at all.

Despite it causing infuriating levels of self-doubt which manifest themselves in some peculiar forms I can by-and-large ignore it. Now that's not to say I've 'cured' myself and it doesn't affect my thoughts anymore, it's just that I've found a way of getting round it.

You see, the problem I face is that I constantly feel like an imbecile. Whenever I speak to someone about my studies or what I'm aiming for I somehow feel they're going to haul me up as a faker, a bluffer, someone who has managed to blag their way this far thanks to a reasonable grasp of English and not much else. I accept that some people may think that's a ludicrous thing for me to think but the fact remains that I think it.

Take this PhD application for instance. I would absolutely love to study for a PhD and in my own little head I think I'm quite capable of doing it and succeeding, but I have this nagging little demon telling me that everyone is probably snickering at my clueless audacity. "What on earth makes her think she's capable of something like THAT??" they're saying under their breath. It's horrible, having people fictitiously calling you names behind your back. It unnerves me and often makes me want to hide away and not face the possibility of failure in the first place, but that would be stupid so I shrug it off as best I can, make apologies for my own petulance and just carry on. To quote Susan Jeffers, I feel the fear and do it anyway.

It works, for the most part. I suspect that had I not felt the fear but done it anyway I might not have taken up mountain biking - which led me to meet Gordon. I might not have got a place on a Masters programme at a top 3 university - which I still think was a fluke since I didn't technically meet the entry criteria. And I probably wouldn't have signed up to numerous things throughout the past few years which made me feel nervous - conferences, OUSA, Platform, Great North Run to name a few.

So I ultimately might be making a fool of myself even thinking about applying for a PhD. I might not be actually capable, intelligent or academic enough to do one, but I won't ever know that for sure unless I apply. There are myriad quotes I could cite to substantiate this theory: "shy bairns get nowt" (my mother), "if you never try you'll never know" (unknown but it's common as muck!), and my personal favourite "of course you can't become, if you only say what you would've done" (Len 'Steal my Sunshine' - one hit wonder).

I'm feeling the fear (for 'fear' read 'self-doubt'), but sod it, I'm just gonna do it anyway. I've not got much to lose when all is considered so I might as well. You never know, I might have just what it takes to do a PhD and I just don't know it yet. I might be a born learner. I'm very much doubting it but then stranger things have happened.

Two ideas but only one proposal, how do I choose?

I feel sick. No, that's not a theatrical exaggeration for the purpose of sounding more dramatic, I actually feel a bit queasy. My head is a complete whirl of thoughts and directions at the minute and it's making me feel dizzy.

So as I mentioned in my last post, now is the time I need to really get my game face on about applying for a doctorate. I thought I was really starting to get somewhere last week - I had begun drafting out some notes for the proposal, I had gathered together a heap of articles to sift through for a literature review, I had selected a couple of potential supervisors to approach and I had asked a lecturer friend of mine for some help in forming my bitty shards of ideas into something more cohesive. I really thought I was starting to get somewhere.

But now disaster has struck. Not quite disaster, but it's behaviour so utterly typical of me that I'm surprised I actually function day-to-day. A second proposal topic has come into my head and is now lodged so firmly I can't shake it, it's there, dizzying my thoughts into a whirling mass of incomprehensible gloop.

Both topics are of interest to me yet both are completely different. How do I choose between the two?

I feel sick.

Sixpenny mix-ups and my ongoing quest

Am I just lazy or can I cite being busy as the reason I abandoned this blog somewhat vehemently at the start of my Masters career? Sadly I feel laziness wins out in this particular battle but there's a slight sense of urgency slowly developing in my quest which I feel warrants its resurrection.

It is November. I am presently almost half way through the first term of the second and final year of my Masters degree. I still feel like a fraud. I don't belong in a lecture theatre with such intellect and I fear that one day someone will stand me up in the middle of the class, pull down my pants and proceed to point and laugh at me and call me an imbecile while I stand there, shaking from the horrific truth of the situation. My poor sense of self-worth obviously still haunts me, I fear it will never leave and we seem to have developed a strange symbiosis now. I am blighted.

Much has come and gone since I last posted but I shall edit out the gash and mention only one - I graduated. Almost nine years to the day since I embarked on my further education escapade I graduated with honours at Manchester Bridgewater Hall with my beloved in the audience giving me (I hope) rapturous applause. It was an emotional day filled with pomp and circumstance and for a lot of the students in attendance it was the final curtain on what may have been a lengthy and emotionally trying event for them. But for me it was simply a formality to confirm the permission to jump from one stepping stone to the next. It was a handshake that said "yes, you were allowed to make that leap 12 months ago, go forth and study harder".

In the time since my last mental out pour I have both progressed AND regressed. True, I am now halfway through my Masters degree. But also true is that I have begun another Bachelors degree. It occurred to me upon completion of my Open Degree that it resembled a 6p mix-up in its construct. Over the course of the degree I had picked up the following:

• DD100: An Introduction to the Social Sciences. This was my white chocolate mouse -1p - firm favourite and always a good starting point for a successful mix-up. 
• A211: Philosophy & the Human Situation. This is more a sour cherry - 1p - some people love them, some hate them, guaranteed to make your face squirm up in discomfort.
• AA308: Thought & Experience, themes in the Philosophy of Mind. This is like a sour fizz bomb - 1p - those who don't like sour cherries simply cannot understand why you'd pick a sour fizz bomb straight after the facial contortions of a sour cherry. I consider it a test of endurance.
• DD305: Personal Lives and Social Policy. Definitely the cola bottle - 1p - an average all-rounder, no one objects to picking one out but it doesn't really get your taste buds tingling.
• Transferred credit: Foundation Degree in Quantity Surveying. This is my pontefract cake - 2p - I don't even like liquorice but it got offered for free and I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So no real coherence within the degree; no theme running through it, just a mash-up of bits and pieces that don't make sense together. So I've gone back to the proverbial sweet shop and started again. This time I'm concentrating my efforts on a BSc in Criminology & Psychological studies (would that be like a bag of chocolate eclairs - they look quite fancy and special but really everyone's eating them...). I wasn't even considering torturing myself again as an undergrad but I got caught up in the heat of the transitional fees moment and registered, somehow convincing myself that I'd be stupid not to do another undergraduate degree since it was being offered at the 'old rates'. My logic truly defies logic although I'm sure it made sense at the time. *sigh*.

So here I am again. I'm either an under-postgrad or a post-undergrad depending on which makes most sense to you. The time is almost upon all post grads aiming to take this madness one stage further - it's doctorate application time. Soon doctoral training centres and postgrad departments the length and breadth of the country will be inundated with proposals from students desperate to eek out their love of education just a smidgen longer and eager to dedicate three years of their lives to a quest for specialised knowledge.

I aim to be one of those desperate students. In that case I ought to decide on a proposal topic.

My fabulous new haircut and why I can't bring myself to like it

I got my hair cut today. It's quite a rare occurrence for me since I'm usually either too lazy to book an appointment or too skint to go. But this morning I awoke to the greasiest most uneven mop of lank locks dangling uninspiringly from my scalp and decided that today had to be the day.

I tried my usual salon but they had no available appointments until the end of next week (a sure sign that it's a good salon but didn't help me in my impulsive hour of need), so I found a salon in the student quarter which had a cancellation I could take. I explained to the stylist what I was after - a tidy up of the style but one which takes no maintenance. Now when I say no maintenance I MEAN no maintenance. If it involves anything more than pointing a hairdryer in its general direction for more than 10 minutes it's too much effort. I don't want to put any product on it and I don't want to have to faff about with brushes and straighteners, I just want to wash it and dry it - end of story.

The stylist seemed to understand what I was after and did it - no blunt lines, heavily layered, fringe just short enough to skim my eyebrows - job's a good 'un. I thanked her and reluctantly handed over the £30 for the privilege of her mad skillz (my usual salon is less than £20, how does a salon in the student quarter get away with charging 50% more?).

Now that I'm home I'm checking it in every mirror I walk past and just can't quite bring myself to love it. It's exactly what I ask for in a style and everyone will probably think it looks great but somehow I just can't love it myself.

I put this inability to love it down to the fact that I'm incapable of thinking I look good full stop. No matter what I wear, no matter how my hair looks, no matter whether I've been to a professional stylist or make-up artist and have been glammed up for a photo shoot (never happened) I will still never think I look good. It's just the way I am.

I want to love my haircut, I want to swoosh it about in front of the mirror and flash myself a winning smile knowing that I look like a presentable member of the society in which I live. But I can't at the minute. I'm overweight and underfit and it's dragging down every ounce of confidence Gordon has helped me gain in the 5 years we've been together.

On Wednesday I start something new - I take up running. I'm joining a beginners running group organised by Active Newcastle in the desperate hope that it will change my opinion of myself. I don't want to have to put more effort into my hair, I don't want to have to start wearing make-up, I don't want to suddenly start forcing myself to wear dresses and heels every day to make me feel more confident because that's just not me. I'm not really interested in changing the things about me that everyone else sees (although shedding a few stone would be more than welcomed), I just want to not think all day every day about how much of a mess I look. I want to be more interested in doing something which takes my mind so far away from what I look like and makes me feel great for a completely different reason.

I want to go to my usual salon, only pay £20 for a haircut then not think about it for the rest of the day. Wish me luck.

School's Out

Well. That’s me finished now until October. No, seriously, I had my last lecture a couple of weeks ago and don’t have any more until Michaelmas term. I have two summatives to hand in on 2nd May but I don’t have any more attendance at Durham this academic year. This probably sounds a bit strange or confusing, but the reason is pure and simple – it’s because I’m a part timer. The trouble with this course is that it’s not really a part time course – it’s a full time course which I’m ABLE to do over 2 years instead of 1. This means that during the summer term the full timers are busy doing their dissertations so that leaves me as a part timer with pretty much nothing to do until the NEW full timers start in autumn.

Before I get lambasted, I’m certainly not complaining. But I don’t plan on wasting my summer. A fellow classmate has offered to give me copies of the reading lists for the modules I’ll be taking next year so I can get a head start over the summer (as well as having Open University study to carry out too), but it gives me the opportunity to do a bit of extra reading as well.

For now though, I have summatives to think about and oh boy, it’s all I’m gonna be thinking about until they’re handed in. Luckily (for my studies that is, not for me), I have 3 weekends in a row of pure study potential – my better half is at work Saturday and Sunday for the next 3 weekends so that’s my chance to hit the library and get 14 hours of study and revision in. 14 hours of pure uninterrupted study is a LOT for a part timer but in truth it’s still not really enough. I just need to make sure I make the most of that time and try and fit in a bit of extra study/think-time alongside it. I’m absolutely determined to do well.

So Durham will be without me for 6 months and it will seem strange since I was only just starting to get used to the twice-weekly pilgrimage. Not to worry though, on the plus side it means I’m better off financially as it means I don’t have to take unpaid leave from work to get to lectures for the next 6 months, I don’t have the 120 miles worth of fuel to account for each week and I don’t have the £4 of parking charges to fumble about for either. I know it doesn’t sound like much but all-in it equates to about £50 a week on top of the cost of fees. Actually, when I look at it that way this MA is costing me a bleedin’ fortune! Makes me all the more relieved for my 6 months off.

Although I say '6 months off' but it's not really the case. I have 2 Open University modules starting up at the beginning of May to keep me occupied, and either excitingly or stupidly enough I've just reserved myself a place in the Great North Run in September so considering the fact that at present I can't run for more than about 30 seconds I have a LOT of training ahead of me. More details to follow on that, but for now I just wanted to reignite the blog and say hello - I'm still here.

My first day of school

I sat huddled in the corner of the lecture theatre trying to pretend I was invisible as scores of third year undergraduates poured into the pews pushing me further and further into my seat of ageing oblivion. I don't belong here do I? What am I doing in a lecture theatre surrounded by twenty year old students? I must stick out like a sore thumb, sat there with my bought-not-borrowed course book and the keys to my mortgaged house and bought-outright car in my bag right next to the keys that let me into the building I've worked in full time for the past eight years.

What am I doing here? I feel like such a fraud. Any minute now someone is going to turn around and ask what the hell I'm doing here, then they're gonna call security and have me escorted out like a charver caught shoplifting in JD Sport.

But then the Professor walks in and launches rather excitingly into an 'Introduction to the Social Policy and Society module' and my fears quell as everyone's attention is thankfully shifted to him. He's quite a lively fella and I immediately get the impression that I'm going to enjoy his classes. He's the Professor of Social Policy at Durham University and introduces the module with an eager infectious vibrancy; just what I need to get me right into the thick of this course.

I know there aren't many postgrads on this module compared to undergrads but I only recognise one other person, Rachael who I met at induction on Tuesday but my corner-huddling worked against me as she'd managed to come in and sit down without having seen me so I'm transported back to my first day of school where no one knows me and no one wants to speak to me because I'm the weird looking kid who doesn't belong.

Professor Greener is still introducing the module and announces that he has a module guidebook to hand out but that there are different ones for undergrads and postgrads. I already have one, I printed it out at work thanks to my continuing paranoia that I've forgotten something drastically important so when I saw it on DUO (Durham Online, Durham Uni's version of Blackboard) I printed it off along with every other minor snippet of information available for my course at that time for the fear that I'd be castigated and given a dunces hat if I didn't. As it turns out I was far better prepared than many having already read through the introduction lecture and module guide and having already bought the set module book which Prof G has just told everyone they need to get hold of before next weeks lecture.

He hands out piles of the undergrad module guide and asks the students to pass them round and then announces that the best way to hand out the postgrad ones is for the postgrads to make themselves known so he can give them individually.

I put my hand up along with the five other postgrads in the eighty-strong room. A mixture of embarrassment, pride and hubris wash over me all at once as for the first time the magnitude of my situation hits me. I'm a postgrad.

I really am. And I made it into my first choice university without any question of my abilities. I think that justifies my brief moment of self-importance, don't you.

Freshers

Today is the day after yesterday, and yesterday was my inaugural trip to Durham University.

I had to take a day off work (unpaid) to attend the postgraduate induction day during which I was introduced to the department staff, got the chance to meet some of my fellow students and collected my campus card which gains me that all important access to the library. However yesterday was also the first day of the Freshers Fair and never having been to any freshers events (with never having actually been a fresher) I felt almost obliged to pop my head in and see what all the fuss was about.

Firstly let me just reiterate that I'm 31 years old. Now despite not feeling it, I probably look it so being surrounded by 'real' freshers was a daunting prospect for my ageing neurons to cope with. But nevertheless I persevered and set off on the surprisingly short pilgrimage from the SASS (School of Applied Social Sciences) building to the students union building. On the way I passed numerous young-uns handing out flyers and free stuff to the hoards of excited teenagers roaming the streets like the already owned the place, but no one was handing flyers to me. I'm old. I can't be a fresher, surely. I wanted to have a name badge on saying "don't ignore me, I'm a fresher too!" but alas I fear I would've looked like even more of a plonker and so carried on my merry way until it happened. Someone stuck their bounty filled hand out in front of me and said... wait for it... "free condom?".

*sigh*

Oh well. I'm never one to turn anything down so I sniggered, took it graciously and then sniggered again at the Durham University sticker on the packet before sealing it away in my handbag.

On my entry into the murky depths of the students union building I was hit by a wall of warm dampness oozing from the hundreds of students trying to cram their way through the various halls and rooms to sign up for everything they could and blag as many freebies as they could. I imagine if you spent enough time wandering round and talking to all of the stalls you could probably blag enough free stuff to keep you going for a while, certainly in pens, notepads and sweets at the very least.

I must admit though, I didn't bother grappling with the kids to get freebies. Despite my usual 'owt for nowt' attitude I didn't fancy my chances so all I bothered with was a Durham University Library pen and a free slice of Dominos pizza (I hadn't had breakfast so it came at just the right time). I did however sign up for a couple of societies and have my eye on a couple of others so I'll see what happens with those and report back with any exciting news.

I suppose I had always thought that the whole freshers experience had passed me by so I'm glad I got to go to the fair, if for no other reason than to see how utterly mental it was! And here's me thinking that Durham Uni students would be all civilised and sensible. How wrong I suspect I am.

A little perspective

A colleague of mine from the board of governors has just tweeted today to say she's been offered a place at Newcastle University to do a Masters in British History. I'm thrilled for her, naturally, but this will be her THIRD masters degree. She already has an MA from Newcastle University in European History and an MRes from Northumbria University in History. Brainiac or what?! Love it.

Makes me feel a bit pathetic for all the hype I've given to my own masters degree and puts it into perspective a little. I haven't even started my Masters yet and here's Helen about to start her third, I've gotta rein in the excitement a bit...

She's hoping this next masters will bolster her chances of getting accepted to do a PhD. She certainly deserves it; you have to admire someone with such determination and eagerness to learn.

Helen, I tip my hat to you, you're an inspiration.

T-minus 10 days

10 days. That's all that's left.

In 10 days time I'll be getting ready to drive down to Durham for my first lecture as a postgraduate student. How am I feeling? Am I nervous? Am I scared? Am I excited? Am I anxious? Honestly, I don't know. I sort of feel like it's just another day as a student. That it's going to be just the same as a new Open University module starting, but I don't think that will be the case.

Next Tuesday I have to go for a postgrad induction day where I get my identity verified by the department, meet my fellow pg'ers, get introduced to the faculty members and sit through a talk about what's expected from us and what it's like to be a pg student and THAT's the bit I think I'm most nervous about.

I've never been good at going in blind to things like this, I always find it very uncomfortable being in a room full of people I don't know for the fear that no one will want to talk to me. It's rarely the case and I've no doubt I'll have plenty of opportunity to get chatting to people but it's still causing a bit of a flutter in the pit of my guts.

So the countdown begins. I have loads to do in the meantime; EMA to study for and write, next months articles for BDT to research and write, Platform to write, S154 to start... Plenty to keep me going but in the back of my mind the countdown clock ticks by.

Sponsorship of a different kind

I recently did the Great North Bike Ride. A 57 mile bike ride down the North East coastline for which I managed to raise a respectable £250 in sponsorship. I've also managed to coerce a couple of the BDT girls into doing a 17 mile hike through the Peak District in November for which we're seeking sponsorship too.

But yesterday someone agreed to sponsor me in a completely different way. I went through to Morpeth to buy some stationery in preparation for my multiple studies starting any day now and knew before I even got to the shop that I was going to buy an Oxford A5 notebook. I had bought one last year and was really impressed with it. I know that's a strange thing to say about paper, but this particular notebook is excellent. It's spiral bound, perforated AND pre-punched, quite a rarity for an A5 pad, and to top it all off they do this special Optik paper which is super-white and has a satin finish which makes it perfect for writing on both sides (something I've always done and get annoyed when I see other people wasting half their paper). I love A5 pads too as they're easier to carry around and I often find that because my handwriting is quite small a whole A4 page of notes is just too much for my feeble little brain to cope with so A5 is easier for me to take in.

After admiring my new notebook I decided to email the company and plead my studies and so I am now very proudly sponsored (in stationery) by Oxford. Some products are on their way for me to try out so keep eyes peeled for reviews.

In the mean time though, W H Smiths and Tesco currently have offers on the range so if you're in need of any stationery for studies or the office I highly recommend them.