Do the shuffle... Do do do do do duh-doo do do...

I wanted to go mountain biking this weekend. I can’t. I wanted to go on holiday in October. I can’t. My other half and I were talking of starting a family this year. We had to change our minds. All of this is the result of my studies. Should it be? Life can only accommodate so many things and there are only so many hours in a day and sadly that will never change so certain things have to be kept at the top of the pile and some things inevitably get shuffled further and further down, don’t they?

I love baking, and I love knitting, and I love dressmaking, and I love reading, and I LOVE mountain biking, and I love walking, and I love making presents for people. I love doing far too many things I just don’t get time to do at the minute. This sort of infuriates me though, you only get a finite amount of time in which to live your life so is it actually worth sacrificing fun things you really enjoy so that you have more time for studying (which might not be construed as fun by some...)? What if you end up running out of time to do those fun things? It could be argued that people who study with the Open Uni are a different breed; they’re studying because they WANT to be, they’re volunteering up their spare time for the purpose of studying anyway so they’ve got no right to grumble about having to make sacrifices have they?

People keep telling me that I’m making this journey for the greater good. I’m striving to ‘better myself’. But what if I’m aiming for the wrong kind of bettering? What if the kind of bettering I’m striving for makes me miserable and the kind I should be aiming for is the kind which makes my life richer by way of the fun and enjoyable experiences I have? Ooh well this is a minefield, what’s classed as fun? What’s classed as enjoyable? What’s classed as NOT fun and NOT enjoyable?... I suspect I’m of the boring variety of person because I actually do find it enjoyable going to committee meetings and lectures and visualising myself on my final graduation day in my floppy cap and ridiculously big gown. That’s not for everyone though and of course I appreciate that. I had a conversation with someone yesterday who came out with the old gem “how do you find the time, I just couldn’t motivate myself to do it”. Well matey, if it was something you really wanted to do/achieve then motivation comes hand-in-hand and you just make the time to do it. I still find time to go to gigs/theatre/cinema/restaurants etc, it’s just a case of prioritising different things at appropriate times.

Am I so sure I’m doing the right thing with the sacrifices I’m making though? Putting off starting a family until I finish my journey, when I’m currently 30 and my other half is almost 40 would be considered by many people as careless or selfish. I mean by the time I get to the end of my journey then according to some folks my 37 year old eggs will be all shrivelled up and my biological clock will only be capable of telling the right time twice a day. On the plus side though if we do start a family late we’ll be able to utilise some time-saving routines. For example my other half can collect his pension on his way to pick the kid(s) up from school. Voila – kill two birds with one stone etc. I doubt it will be quite that bad, and apologies to my better half for mocking his age, he’s still far fitter and healthier than I am and he’s only 9.5 years older than me. Neither of us has a burning desire to have a family beyond furry four-legged friends anyway so who knows, we might just skip that bit altogether.

And on reflection the sacrifices I’ve had to make so far won’t exactly damage my life irreparably anyway; so what if I can’t go mountain biking this weekend; once I’ve finished my TMA and before I start work towards the next one I’ll go mountain biking then, and have TWICE as much fun because I’ll have earned the time to ride and won’t feel guilty that I should be studying. And so what if I can’t go on holiday in October, we’ve talked about it and decided to start saving now towards a SUPER-DUPER-NO-EXPENSE-SPARED holiday to Iceland NEXT October by which point I’ll have completed my first degree and we can use the holiday as a celebration of my having completed stage one of my (immensely long!) journey. So the sacrifices I appear to be making aren’t really sacrifices at all. They’re just logical shuffles to allow me to fit in everything I want to do in a sensible order.

Dad - have I earned my macaroni cheese yet?

I often listen to BBC Radio 4 in the car at work. Mostly for the fact that I can’t abide listening to the same rubbish chart music repeated hour after hour on other musicy radio stations (what a snob eh). Well this morning one of the articles on Woman’s Hour was about the recent increase in the utilisation of home tutors by parents of school-aged children and the debate as to whether it’s educationally helpful or socially divisive.

Home tutors? Is that like when your parents help you with your homework?

Apparently not. It would seem that increasing numbers of parents are resorting to the services of hire-by-the-hour tutors to help children from primary school age right through to a-level and are paying anything up to £50 per hour for the privilege. Is it just me or does that sound crackers? When I was at school there was no way on God’s green earth my parents could have afforded extra tutoring, the nearest I got was bribery to get my homework done on time (by means of the promise of macaroni cheese for tea) and a kick up the backside in the general direction of the library when assignments loomed, and after discussing this with t’other half he confessed that he didn’t so much get encouragement to DO his homework, but got threatened with a punishment if he DIDN’T do it (“you can’t go out and play until you’ve finished your homework”). What the heck has changed? Why are parents so competitive now? It’s perfectly understandable for parents to want the best for their children and if they’re struggling in a particular area then extra tutoring could be an excellent way of helping that kid keep up in class, but to get extra tutoring to get AHEAD in class? Doesn’t that just make a mockery of the National Curriculum; the Government mandated education scheme put in place to standardise the content taught in class to enable ongoing, regular educational progression?  It runs the risk of kids being segregated within their schools or even bullied for being swots (do they still have swots at school, it's a long time since I was there...). The competition for school and university placements is intensifying so greatly it seems parents will do anything they can to try and give their children a leg up (coincidentally enough I’m writing this whilst watching a documentary about parents who either move house or claim they’ve moved house in order to get their children into their preferred choice of school).

One point which was raised during the radio programme struck a chord with me though. For parents on tighter budgets, if they can’t afford the (upwards of) £5000 a year to send their children to a private school then what’s the next best option - £500 a year worth of home tutoring to ‘top-up’ the ‘free’ state education? It’s a valid point, it’s a far more accessible way to give your children a slightly more tailored learning experience and in some ways is excellent for maybe indulging particular interests a kid might develop, but as a means to try and push your children beyond the set expectations of their current level of education then why not just throw a big cream pie in the face of the head teacher instead and say “stuff you, you’re not good enough” and save yourself the £500?!

It did get me thinking though... "£50 an hour?? I wonder if there’s anything I could tutor kids on...".  Suggestions welcome.

Breathe out... and *relax*

... and I quote "Submitted On 02 September 2010 at 20:26:07 (UK Time)".  That's the detail for my latest TMA.

Done.  Submitted.  Finito.  *Phew*

There's an incredible relief which washes over me each and every time I click "submit" on my Student Homepage.  Aah.  And it's the same relief every time, regardless of how I think I might've done.  Take this TMA for example; I understood the subject and grasped the main concepts well enough when I was reading the material, but when it came time to write the TMA I had an awful feeling that I've completely misunderstood the two main objections I have to expound so in my head I've already resigned myself to the thought that I might've done pretty badly on this one (my better half tried to remind me that this happens every time I write a TMA and I always seem to do really well, but I suspect this time will be the exception).  But you know what, there's nothing I can do about it now that it's submitted so I'm not going to waste my energy beating myself up about it and I'm not going to spend the next 2 weeks (or however long it is before my tutor gets the time to mark this batch) worrying myself silly about what mark I'm going to get.  The main thing for me is that I've done it.  I've read the necessary material and actually written the essay in plain English and submitted it ON TIME.

You see it's not just about getting the good results and getting as close to a First as I can.  For me it's as much about proving that I can stick to the commitment I signed up for.  I'm shamefully known for being prone to fads.  At some point in my life I've been interested in just about everything and then almost as quickly lost interest (or been distracted by some other new interest) so if I can succeed with each TMA and treat it as one bite-sized piece of a bigger pizza then before I know it I'll be tossing dough and calling myself Francesca.

I'm also known for vague references...

I ain't afraid of no cenobytes.

When I was little I was afraid of the dark. I remember watching Hellraiser at a very young age and from then on being scared that Pinhead was going to come crashing through my bedroom walls and drag me off to the deepest darkest depths of hell for crimes against kitties any time I turned out the lights (I once trimmed the family cat’s whiskers because I thought he had split ends. He got stuck under the gate. I also once put a clothes peg on the other cat’s tail just to see if he’d notice. He did. And he didn’t like it).

Of course I’m 30 now. I’m not afraid of monsters anymore. In fact I’ve come to have a rather too comfortable symbiotic relationship with a particularly large one of the green-eyed variety.

Yes, I confess, it’s a well-known fact among my family and close friends that I suffer horrendously from low self-esteem and that I have a truly unparalleled talent for self-deprecation. I’m constantly comparing myself to other people and unwillingly manage to convince myself that everyone else is better than me somehow. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember and frankly it wears me out. It’s because I think too much, I over-analyse everything to the point of mental self-destruction and up until now I’ve always considered this trait to be a very negative thing. I mean, come on, who’d actually WANT to be constantly comparing themselves to old school-buddies, exes, work colleagues, fellow students and even strangers I know nothing about. What purpose does it serve? Answer: none other than to make me feel like I haven’t achieved anything with my 30.25 years.

In recent months however I had an epiphany. I’ve come to the incredible realisation that my jealousy is actually very productive. Confused? Allow me to explain. I recently discovered that an old friend of mine is now doing quite well for themselves. Not in the earning a 6-figure-salary sense, but has gone after something they’re passionate about and is really making it work for them. Now upon discovering this I sank into a self-deprecating mess (why, oh why can’t things like that happen to me?!). I wallowed in self-pity for a brief time and then I sat up in my chair, brushed myself off and thought to myself, hang on a minute, they’re no different to me, if this person can do it I’m blummin well sure I can too. So I started a little one-sided competition. I thought about what would be the biggest and best achievement for me, something that if I succeeded I could genuinely say I was proud of myself and other people would view me as having accomplished something good. That achievement for me is getting a PhD and as I explained in one of my earlier ramblings I started my thinking at the end goal and worked my way backwards to try and figure out what steps I would need to take in order to get there. So having figured out what I wanted to achieve I set about making it work and in quite a short space of time (few months, maybe) have already managed to improve myself, and hopefully my chances of reaching that goal, tenfold. That initial pang of jealousy has spawned my vampiritic-thirst for self-improvement. My jealousy and penchant for mental self-abuse has actually been the catalyst for me starting to turn elements of my life on their kilter.

I’m undecided whether the competition is with myself, this old friend or the big bad world in general but frankly it doesn’t matter does it. I’m on the path now, gaining momentum all the time, like an ever burgeoning snowball tumbling down a hillside picking up experience and knowledge along the way.

So if I’m now a metaphorical snowball on a path towards self-improvement and mental rest, then all I have to say on the matter is “since I’ve now a place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”.*

*Bastardisation of Dean Martin recognised and profusely apologised for.

Oh dear. Oh deary dear. Oh double-deary dear!

The course materials for my final Undergrad course arrived yesterday.  It starts in October, which overlaps with my Philosophy course ending, I knew this when I signed up.

Trouble is, my Philosophy exam is on October 15th, and my first TMA for this next course is due on the 20th October!!  Yikes, that's dangerously close together...  This will require some very careful planning and LOTS of revision.

I also discovered on Wednesday that I have a Social Science Faculty meeting in Milton Keynes on Wednesday 13th October.  Why do I do this to myself?!

I did something amazing today...

I gave blood.

Utterly irrelevant to the blog I know, but I was shocked at how few people there were there to donate this time.

If you're not already a donor, why not?

Wet-eared 18 year olds and eroded pathways.

What is it about 18 year olds?! A-Level results came out last Friday and the main news topic for the following few days was the paradoxical tale firstly of record levels of pass rates and how many students are now getting A*’s and secondly how many students who didn’t get their expected grades will miss out on Uni places and how many LESS clearing places there are compared to last year. The news stories were making out like thousands of students were gonna suddenly be turfed out on the street because they a) couldn't get a Uni place, which as a result means that they b) can't get a job (no one will hire them you see, they're uneducated!).

My blood boils when I see stories like that for more than one reason. I have two simple little vowels for those masses of students who didn't get the grades necessary to go to their chosen uni - O U. Okay okay, so I know the OU isn't exactly the first choice for 18 year olds, I mean I would imagine a lot of fresh-faced 18 year olds are marginally more interested in student life and the students union than study life and library facilities but if they genuinely believe that they won’t be able to get a decent job without a University education then honestly, they could do a LOT worse than study with the OU. Besides, it’s cheaper than going to a redbrick, means you can study anywhere in the country and generally OU degrees are held in very high regard.

But why do they NEED to get a degree anyway? I don’t profess to be hugely knowledgeable on the subject (no pun intended) but it seems like degrees are two-a-penny these days anyway. When I first set out with the OU to study towards a degree I was so excited thinking how brilliant it would be to get my letters, but as time has gone on I’ve realised that having a degree isn’t anything out of the ordinary any more. In order to stand out you need something a bit more. BBC Breakfast had a piece on their Saturday morning programme about just this matter. The piece was trying to illustrate that employers aren’t necessarily as impressed with “Student X” who knuckled down at Uni and managed to get a First Class honours degree as they are with “Student Y” who still managed to get an Upper 2nd but during their time at Uni did some volunteer work, sat on a few Uni committees and gained a bit of life experience in the process.

I, on the other hand am “Student Z”. I didn’t do any A-Levels. I started them... But then got distracted by anything and everything and dropped out halfway through to get a job instead. I never regretted dropping out; it was the right decision for me at the time and didn’t hamper my opportunity to do a degree anyway so I have to question whether there would’ve been any point in doing them. My beloved, bless his almost-40-year-old cotton socks, can’t even remember what subjects he took at A-Level let alone what results he got! So honestly, is there any point? (As an aside, he did a degree in Accountancy and now works as a mountain bike mechanic... Go figure!). At 16 years old when you’re trying to decide what subjects to take (which you have to pick carefully because they feed on towards a chosen degree subject) how on earth do you know what you want to do with the rest of your life?? If I HAD thought about my A-Levels properly would I have picked subjects I thought would lead on to a decent career, or would I have picked subjects I just found interesting? The joy of the OU is that I’ve been able to indulge myself with that one subject I always fancied studying but didn’t think would get me anywhere career-wise; Philosophy. As it turns out, Philosophy links in quite nicely to the career path I now intend treading but at 16 years old how was I to know that? No one ever asked me what I wanted to do in the future so what chance would I have stood?

There’s a lot of competition out there at the minute for training/jobs/experience and whatnot so it seems in order to have the best possible chance you need more than just education or intellect, you need to have proven initiative and enterprise, enthusiasm and sensibility; something that shows employers that you’re more than just willing and able.

Who would’ve thought the day would come when a degree was barely even worth putting on your CV eh. I’d best hurry up and get onto a PhD before the same happens with them!!