TMA? Too Much Aggro!!!

So, the first draft of my first assignment is now done. God knows if it's any good or not. I'm so worried that I've strayed way off the question because I wanted to avoid my old, bad A-level habit of answering the question very obviously e.g. "I believe the author conveys mood & meaning by...blah blah blah". I've followed the helpful guidelines they've given in the paper but have I done so at the expense of the question? God I hope not. I asked Alison last night if she'd give it a quick read through to see if it at least tries to answer the question but, alas, she was too shagged out after a busy day. I'll have to wait now until tonight for a verdict.

What can I say about its creation? Utter, utter hell. I was supposed to start on Saturday but as Alison wanted some space to work on something difficult she needed to do, I was restricted to a minimal amount of research work on the piece's background. Then, I spent 3 or 4 hours on Sunday desperately trying to sound like I was writing to the "intelligent man in the street" (as the AGSG says I should) but I probably ended up sounding like Vicky Pollard talking to her mates! I think I wrote 180 odd words in that time but it all sounded so amateurish, so GCSE-lite. I have so much self doubt about this important start to my second academic adventure. I know the course will be fascinating fun but the enormity of the tasks to prove the fun has been worth the money, scares the hell out of me. It's great when you interpret texts and then ideas develop in your head, but stringing these out to impress an audience scares the f**king s**t out of me. The ideas are there but my voice sounds like a struggling sixth-former who's keen but hasn't got the talent to match the keeness. I know every student on the OUSA 103 Forum says we all went through the same when we started, it's not graded, "don't worry" but....I need this to be at least good for the sake of my confidence. Something that will please the tutor and make me walk away and say "Yes, you can do this! Go on & enjoy yourself!".

Since I started writing this, Alison has called me on the mobile after going through this first draft this morning. She almost gave me a huge shock - 'it doesn't answer the question". My heart sank as that meant a bloody re-write of the essay I'd taken all of Sunday afternoon & Monday to shape. But - thank god - she equated her assessment by clarifying that it was the conclusion that was the problem: the 'answer' they were probably looking for wasn't there. Well, that's not too bad I suppose. I should be able to correct that in the time that I have over next few days. She thinks the rest of it's fine but will tell me in more detail a bit later. Oh, and the other problem with it - apparently - is that it's currently 74 words over the target. Bugger! Let's hope the tutor doesn't include quotes in her word count!

By the way, I'm getting a tad annoyed at those on the OUSA Forum who keep going on about working on TMA2! Oh, come on guys! Spare a thought for those who are just starting this! I haven't even opened the bloody box yet - one thing at a time!

"Well, I'm Beginning To See The Light! I Wanna Tell All You People now....wooooo!"

Bally stroke of luck! Office was deserted today for quite a while and as I have sod all to do...I started it! Work on the TMA1 that is. You know in AGSG when it says at some point something will 'unlock' your difficulties with the text and everything will suddenly be made clear? IT'S TRUE!!!! Ha! The piece we're all writing about seemed too easy to be analysed for anything other than what it was so obviously saying and then ta-daa! Found something that gave me a different angle to it that made it all come to life just like that! I just wish I could tell you what it was but I might kicked off the course for giving tips! Maybe after the deadline.

I have to say I was dying to dance around the office like a mad eeijit all excited but then one of my colleagues came in and I had to stop. The work, that is.

Wa-hay a good start! Who'd have thunk it?

Did anyone fire the starting gun? Well, I didn't hear it go off!

So the blind panic that means the real start of A(ZX)103 has begun. Although the 1st batch of stuff arrived in October and I had been working on AGSG quite casually since then, I kinda had the impression (like others on this course) that it all really got going in Feb! WRONG!! A quick proper glance at TMA01 proves that I've not made a good start on this.

It wasn't until last week when my tutor got in touch by post that I realised my number was up and I really started going mad. I hadn't even done the Preparatory Booklet let alone start tackling the 1st assignment - and the former takes 4 weeks!!! Cue stress pains, endless worrying and panicky posts to the A103 Study room. So knowing my prime weakness - not having written an arts essay since 1992 - I had this gut feeling that I needed to at least skim through the PB to get a rough idea of how to approach TMA1. This did involve going back to the AGSG to refresh bits which normally would be fine but, god, I am a slow reader. Not in the conditional/medical sense but in the 'I really need to fully understand this so start again' sense.

The book is excellent but it also filled me with a lot of self-doubt (as did PB at times) when it came to exercises. I'd study the 'text', think about it and then answer the question. Then I found out I'd missed 'the syntax', 'the figure of Christ in the distance' or 'the light sounding language used' etc. I wondered if I really should be doing this at all and wasting valuable money on all of this. But it did make me think. The one underlying theme I got from both books was 'don't just look at [the text] in a linear way, look at the other angles'.

Once I completed the important bits of AGSG I quickly moved on to the PB properly and by Saturday, I started my first written piece on the arts. Bloody hell, it was hard - I had writer's block from the off. The sentences sounded all clunky and long as I strained to get a good argument going on the Loughborough bell tower (carillon, my arse). Three hours and after several re-writes, I was done. Then I made two stupid mistakes:

1. I posted this to someone who I'd met on the A103 Study Room; and
2. I got very pissed.

Just before I went to bed I got a reply. By that time, I was in no state to accept constructive criticism and I took my fellow student's comments the wrong way. She was fair to me, in retrospect, but at the time I really was hurt that all that hard work was 'rubbish' and cried. I told Alison to cancel everything & use the money more usefully. What a silly bugger I was! I should have read the ending -'Not bad for a 1st effort'. D'oh!

The next day, I began again and moved onto the tres difficile Spencer/statues bit. I made a right balls-up with one of the exercises. I thought it was just asking for a list of things I could see in the painting and I completely ignored the essay bit. I should have known that this would be the last time I would have a chance to experiment with my writing style with plenty of time to spare. I was really annoyed afterwards.

I've gone as far as I can now in terms of the subjects in the PB - the last chapter is all exercises which I have not got the time to do. The 'War Poets' bit was excellent and put me back on a relatively even keel (I missed a few 'clues' again, though). So, I managed to 'do' 4 weeks work in less than 6 days. Well, not really. I should have done this properly and started before Xmas. Then I could have worked & thought it through it properly and avoided the panic I'm having now. To make it worse, the 2nd mailout arrived today - it's f**king enormous. Oh dear, I'm going to lie down now.

Tomorrow is the big day - I start the TMA01 for real! I have one week to do it! ARRRGH! And I'm definitely NOT opening the breezeblock above that is the next stage - it'll freak me out too much! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Hello & welcome to my little A(ZX)103 self-therapy blog!

As some of you starting Open University arts course at this time may know, the bible of all art students - The Arts Good Study Guide - recommends doing a little writing every day to keep you in the writing mindset for the duration of the course. Given that my handwriting is criminally vulgar to start some kind of diary, I've started this ongoing blog to get into the daily habit. As well as keeping me fresh in this area, I thought that as I've encountered many frightening new challenges & had mini-panic attacks along the way (don't worry they're not real attacks), perhaps I need to put these fears & frustrations down somewhere rather than keeping them brewing for a long time.

But enough of the intro of what this is for, let me tell you about myself: My name is Sean, I'm 36 and live in Harrow with my fiancee Alison & our three lovely cats - Fingal, Oliver & Dillon. We're both originally from the north of Ireland and met at my old alma mater - The Queen's University (of Belfast) - 11 years ago. Sadly, I gradually dropped out of Queens by 1996 after suffering severe financial difficulties as well as a dwindling interest in my Bsc degree (Computer Science, now you ask). We moved over to "the mainland" in 1997 where we have remained since. My interests are music, the internet (well, duuuuh), playing on my PS2 and, okay, okay yes, it's true - television!

I've chosen to pursue A(ZX)103 - An Introduction To The Arts & Humanities. Why? Jealousy. I've always hated that Alison has a bloody degree in languages and lords it like some hauty-tauty intellectual around the house....no, I'm only kidding. Alison actually was the one who has kept sympathetically suggesting I should try something academically in the arts for some time. Being someone who has a fascination with the history & development of popular music, she sometimes stops me mid-argument when I praise the work of, say, The Velvet Underground (my fave group ever) and wonders why I won't at least try. Even when I had a 5 word review of 'Screamadelica' printed in MOJO last year (and she was really excited for me), I still said no. Finally, in the summer I conceded to her that I wanted to try and, well, here I am. I actually enrolled in October but the real work starts now.......

...and so does this blog. Of course I would really like this to not to be seen just as one mad person's account of this long ride. Please feel free to contribute with comments on what I've said or pass on anything else you may be experiencing as you do this intriguing yet terrifying course. Perhaps - for those like me who are finding it a little daunting - we can go through it together.

First proper entry coming right up!