Long time..no here!!

I started this blog just over a year ago as a cathartic way for me to vent my frustration (and abject panic) when facing the new challenges ahead of me in this academic arena. It also was suggested by 'The Good Study Guide' that doing any kind of writing 'for fun' is a good way of preparing your creative faculties for writing essays. So, here I am again indulging in this very public soul-searching format and in good time. It's even worse this one year on...

Before moving on, I should really fill in the blanks of my life left since my absence here in Blog-land. I got married in July 2006 to my lovely and precious Alison and all went well. The honeymoon was a tiki-tour of Scotland that ended up on the furthest point north you can go on these islands - Herma Ness on the Shetland island of Unst - via Gateshead, Edinburgh, the Highlands, Orkney and the Firth of Forth. All this by car, don't you know. Tried to do some work on bloody fecking Medea (unreadable and lifeless to me, sorry) to little avail whilst on on the way and it showed in the following essay. Although I enjoyed 'Wide Sargasso Sea' & 'Pygmalion' I ran out of time to explore their intricacies as a back up for the shortcomings oin studying Medea. That was my lowest point on A103. I wrote a utterly vile essay that and hated doing it all the way. Draft #1 started out at 5,000 words and by draft #12 I managed to skim it down to just a few hundred words over target, but I felt ashamed of myself when I posted it off. I knew it was awful and it exposed how I had struggled with the book. I got a 69 for it which was my lowest mark of the course until then. I was devastated as I really thought literature would be up my street.

Luckily, the next Block was one I had been looking forward to for the whole duration of the course: The Sixties. I have always been fascinated by this era of modern history since I was a teen and I knew that this would be at least a little bit interesting. I absolutely loved it and dived in, drinking every little bit of theory on Warhol, the counter-culture, the anti-war movement in science etc. I really researched the era a lot not just because I knew it would help the accompanying essay, but also because I wanted to. I'm proud to say the essay was a joy to write and I finished it in a few days. That's how much I loved doing it. The joy must have been evident when my tutor marked it- I got 95!!!! I actually cried when I read her gushing praise on the pages in front of me. The impact of how good my essay was really came home to me there and then. It was also the confidence boost I needed after the disaster of my last effort.

The endgame that is the final exam was approaching and I utterly dreaded it. I've always hated exams and there was the extra pressure that my handwriting since last doing one had become "criminally vulgar", to quote Morrissey. I just cannot write neatly. I decided to take a day off and stick rigidly to the conditions set for 'home exams' but I allowed myself some creature comforts: I made a big cup of tea (my preferred 'brain drink'), got all my tools ready, made sure the chair was comfy, the blinds drawn to avoid the sun and then I was off. The questions were actually ok. I remember thinking at the time that I could tackle these and write something about them. Of the 4 questions, I chose poetry and art. The choice of a Velazquez painting was great as it had so much in it to draw on and Rossetti's poem followed the traditional sonnett forms. I managed to finish it all well within time and didn't panic too much (another fear that I had). Once I put that pen down, I let off a huge sigh of relief. That was it. All done. Had I done enough? I believed I had.

So, after getting just one poor grade all the way through, it was no surprise to find out that I PASSED! What did surprise me was that I got 80 overall! Finding that out made me jump up and down like an eejit when I got the news online at work (although I was disappointed recently to find out I got 67 in the exam...never mind). The congrats came in from all my concerned friends and colleagues, especially my wife who believed all along that I would pass.

That's my story until now. New year, new course: DA204 - Understanding Media. I'm running out of time now to tell how much of a bitch it's been so far so, watch this space and I'll reveal more next time.