TMA 2 Done! *sigh of relief*

Well, thank f**k for that! On Sunday afternoon I finally completed this monster of an assignment and after much judicious editing, I submitted it online last night (a few hours before my extended deadline). I'm absolutely delighted I got to the bloody end and submitted something half-decent, although I'm not too happy with a few of the areas I covered in it (I don't think I proved the points I was trying to make). But, by the stage I was at at the time, it was too late to make any drastic amendments so, meh, I left them in. If I lose out, well the mistake was made in my original planning & the over-reaching attempts I made last week to look clever.

One horrible aspect of editing I throughly dislike is ditching stuff you've worked really hard at (in this case explaining the history of something the question was asking about). I realised that I was 300-400 words over which was the same length as this bit - the only bit I'd kept in after my drama last week - but I simply couldn't make any more edits elsewhere. So as it wasn't strictly relevant, it had to go. Leaving it out did make the word count more managable but I felt rather sad at stifling my creativity at the expense of economy. Oh well...

By the way, there was something new I had to grapple with in this TMA which I am going to find difficult in future. Up until the last essay I had been using footnotes for all my referencing. I found them easy to use and they made the text flow easier. However, in my last report back from the tutor I got criticised for not using the "Harvard System". This involves putting a brief reference in the main text e.g. (Jones 2005, p. 12). As you might guess this, unfortunately, adds to the word count which I am not very happy with. All these references pile up and add an unnecessary strain on the word count. Why? What is so wrong with what I was doing before? I'm going to have a good rant on the DA204 forum to see if anyone else agrees with me.

Anyway, I have to get my head down now for the next bit as I'm now two weeks behind schedule! The next TMA is at the start of June! The panic starts here!!!!!!!!!

Getting Better All The Time...

Well, it's been a better 24 hours since I last posted here. I made a very big decision late last night that has taken a huge weight off my shoulder. Basically, the whole reason I got 'lost' at the weekend is because I was trying to 'force a square peg in a round hole', so to speak. After trying desperately to angle a key 'external' work into my narrative ( to the point where I even forced disparate quotes together to fit my theory) I gave up. At 9pm last night I knew the game was up - I was deluding myself into trying to force this very broad research in a specific context. So I decided to ditch it.

Knowing that freed me as I could now see a 'direct' example in the main course book and from there I began to make some headway. Hopefully, tonight I can get cracking again just like I did before I hit my recent stalemate. Also, my tutor (bless her) has given me a week's extension to today's deadline and that gives me a little more freedom to 're-start' and 're-imagine' this work. Thank god she gave me so much time. I was expecting a few days!

It was also good today to see others on the (usually quiet) DA204 forum whinge about the course so far. Like myself, my fellow posters also came at this from an arts background and they too have been struggling with all this complex social science. Some are panicking at the thought of trying to memorise all this before the exam in October. Others are wondering if the opinions in the forum are being watched and perhaps the OU (and new students) may be warned of the difficulties we are having. Best of all for me was the confession of one or two students who thought it was arts based because it was recommended as part of their BA degree plan! That's why I did it! Oh dear. At least I'm not the only one!