Bad Faery

Friday, August 24, 2007

A103: Block 6

I am finally starting Block 6 of my Open University course, weeks behind schedule. I should have started it on July 28 but life has rather got the better of me of late. Still better late than never! I have quite a bit of annual leave to take so I might book a week off in September and hopefully cover enough of the course work to make some sort of half decent attempt at my penultimate tutor marked assignment.

The final TMA (number 9) of the course is a different kettle of fish from the rest as it’s a timed affair, meant to give students a little taste of what an OU exam will be like on future higher level courses. It’s basically a repeat of TMA02, in that you have to write an analysis of a given text. Unlike TMA02, you only have to answer on two out of the four disciplines which are poetry (always a sonnet), art history (always a painting), music and philosophy. It’s also a trust exercise in that most people, unless they are fortunate enough to live near a study centre, do it in their own home, sight unseen. You open the big brown envelope, write down the time you start, keep writing for two hours, draw a line, write down the time you finished and that’s it! End of course :)

My big brown envelope arrived this week and I was very tempted to sit down and get it out of the way but I think that given how very behind I am on my current unit I really need to focus on that. TMA08 is due on Sept 14, whereas TMA09 isn’t due until Sept 28. As it’s a handwrite and snail-mail affair I’ll need to give it a few days delivery time to make sure it gets to OU HQ by the 28th. My current plan is to use Sept 15 and 16 to revise the relevant units and then do the TMA on the 17th.

Given that I can’t do music (not without wanting to bang my head on a brick wall in sheer frustration) I’ll be giving that question a miss. And while philosophy was by far my strongest section in TMA02, my thought processes move at such an arctic pace that the whole two hours will probably have slipped by while I’m still puzzling through the question. So that leaves me with Art History and Poetry. This is not necessarily a good thing given that it’s been in these sections that my tutor has disagreed with most of my interpretations. Apparently for something as subjective as art and literature there really is only one valid opinion :( and it isn’t mine!

Also: I have the world’s worse handwriting. I frequently can’t even read it myself! Having to do a written paper after word processing all the others is something I am not looking forward to :(

Comments:

<< Back to main