TMA2 - Done! Onwards to Block 2!

It's been a while (13 days!!) so where was I? Oh yeah..

Last Monday (the 6th) was a great day. After struggling with the vexing Music question on that ill-fated Sunday before, I finally managed to nail it on my day off. If ever do this again, I know that any method other that using headphones & my iPod simply is not good enough. When you are right in the middle of the music you can hear the contrapuntal phrases, the dynamics etc but not when you have the sound halfway up in a room full of distractions. That was my mistake. I managed to etch out a lot of notes in several hours and as a result managed a decent answer to the question. It's still rubbish but I can live with it (it answers some of the questions and uses the right terms). Mind you, if I ever hear 'La Ci darem Di Mano' again in my life, I'll kill myself.

The rest of the week I spent reading over the other bits of the TMA, checking again and again to see if they read ok and fit within the 10% word count rule (i.e. no more that 330 words). Getting it down to the limit without ruining your key points and the flow of the piece is a absolute nightmare. I was wrong to think it could be done quickly. In fact I ended up taking my efforts into work & sneakily toiling with it there when no-one was looking. I'm glad I did as I would not have been able to get it done in a reasonable time without resorting to the olde 'midnight oil'. I had to substantially alter the 'Art History' answer 3 times before I was happy with it. The same for the Poetry bit.

By Wednesday night, I thought I was done and ready to ship out the next day but when I returned from the tutorial everything changed. Alison had been naughty and read my answers while I was away. She told me she wasn't sure about my answer to the Philosophy question as she thought I'd got it all wrong. This was the easier of the 4 questions to do as it involved 'solving' problems rather than analysing them so I completed it very quickly the previous Saturday. I'd based the answer for the last part of the question on a well-known mathematical theory and doing further research that night I found I'd completely got the wrong end of the stick. I had to go back & think it all out again. This time I walked away from the maths and looked at it in a layman's context. Within an hour or so I got it and luckily I found the right theory from Newton to back it up! My problem was simply that I restricted it to just 2 premises when what I should have done was added another one to help it follow through to its conclusion.

Now at the tutorial, I had a stroke of luck. It looked like the majority of people there had also had difficulty with putting their own TMA2 together and they all asked for an extension! So, I thought, why don't I? It's true that I could have sent it on Thursday (albeit in a hurry) but an extra day would have given me time to go over it at the last minute and check for mistakes. It was lucky that I did ask (and was granted it) because earlier in the day I had accidentally saved over one of my final drafts after I printed it out. Then late that night I found out I'd made a spelling mistake when I proof read it! Arrrghh! The next morning I had to re-create the erroneous page in my copy, print it out and then photocopy for my safekeeping. When I finally handed the envelope to the teller in the Post Office last Friday lunchtime I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Done. What a bloody nightmare!

After taking a well-earned break from studying this weekend (and boy did I need it!), I pushed on with Block 2 on Monday - The Colisseum. I'm rather enjoying it so far. Fascinating insight into the "games", its cultural context and our modern perceptions of its cruelty. Not something I would previously have enjoyed but after being at the beautiful yet tragic Pompeii last year, I'm starting to take a real interest in Roman culture. The only downside of this block is that the TMA's deadline is halfway through our upcoming mini-trek through Europe (April 7). I'll either have to ask for another extension 'till the following week or get it in early. It's going to be hell getting it done, I know.

As regards TMA2....I've just gotta wait, boy.