Following on from my last tutorial and using the pomodoro technique, I was able to get a lot done this morning. I created a mind map diagram and a skeleton of an essay seems to be emerging, all I need to do now is to make sure I have all the relevant information in organised paragraphs.
Mind Map Diagram Open University
The Tutorial last night was excellent with Tutor Mary. She talked to us about time management, and how we can make the most of the study time we are able to find. I especially liked the Pomodoro technique (timed slots), which we were able to try out in the tutorial for practise.
For 20 minutes we had to be silent and focus, concentrating on a certain task, so I decided to do note taking, I also concentrated on the TMA guidance notes. I was able to expand upon this for 20 minutes. At the end I was surprised how quickly the time had passed and that I had wrote 2 full pages of expanded notes!
We came back together and talked about this for a while and then did some brain storming, with lots of great studying tips for writing an essay. I felt really inspired!
There was then another 20 mins given us, to write about the study techniques we will be trying out. I was very impressed and couldn't wait to try it out at home. All I have to do now is to find a spare 20 minutes!
I will now be setting my alarm clock very early in the morning! lol! 🕖
Today I have been reading the Resource text book again. I found it interesting about health, and I wrote a lot of notes down, so all I have to do now is turn my notes into an essay.
I have a tutorial this evening, so this will help me a lot to organise myself into the right mindset of doing a TMA. My Tutor Patrick also gave me some good feedback about organising my paragraphs correctly.
I am getting back again into reset after a brief pause. 👍
This week I have been reading block 3. It is a quite a large block mainly about "Health" and "Health related issuesI" as a carer, I have always been interested in health, I am finding it all very enlightening, writing reports on health is something I am very keen on.
Writing about health in general. 'TMA 03' will be all about writing about health, so this is useful and will give me practice in writing that I need about this subject . I am really looking forward to TMA 03.
Why is the earth so beautiful despite all the trouble and sorrow?
I was thinking this to myself this day. After briefly watching the news, which was as usual very sad and depressing. I then went out for a slow walk via the park(I am still suffering from a leg accident, so I have to walk slowly) then I turned onto the country lane, leading behind the cemetery, and alongside the field. I looked across at the woods, where once I had seen a beautiful red fox, as he ran out playfully into the field in the summer.
Now, instead it is cold the pale winter sunshine had illuminated the trees, these were all covered in last night,s rain, and it made them sparkle like crystals. It was a dazzling display to watch, like hundreds of little lights suddenly been turned on! A bird sang a melodious tune up in the trees. The tune sounded so cheerful and hopeful , that it actually made me smile. Can life really get better? I wondered, or is it just all doom and gloom e everywhere.
Out here in nature all looks well and life goes on full of hope and then I suddenly feel a part of it, like so many people who sometimes stop to appreciate the nature around them.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart" Ecclesiastes 3 v 11.
The creator God has made us and nature for His and our good pleasure to enjoy and appreciate. We remember what God has done, by forming the earth and filling it with beauty , a perfect place for humans to live in peace, love, harmony with nature and animals. In nature we can feel the presence of God.
"My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." (Job42.5)
When we look at the creation we are seeing God's own handiwork.
It is also a hope for the future when once again God will replenish the earth and we will dwell there with God. God will dwell with us, and once again the glory of God will cover the whole earth.
He shall wipe every tear from their eyes and they will study war no more !
How we long for that time!
Until then we can but strive to live in peace, harmony and love.
Happy New Year!
I woke up this morning to a thick white frost. It may even have snowed during the night (not sure). I let the cat indoors, he was out all night poor thing, but I had left the little shed door open for him, in my 'Hideaway', so he stayed there some of the night hidden amongst dozens of cushions!
He also had a plate of leftover turkey stew and a saucer of milk to keep him going.
I am still recovering from an accident, but I can just about limp and walk to the shops. My husband can't walk yet (he was more injured than I was) and he is still resting up.
I have to do everything alone now, but I manage ok somehow, with my trusty trolley. I have to take pain killers to ease the pain sometimes.
Today, I have managed to read some of the Bite size ebooks, so that was a good start. I have also scan-read some of the texts in the Resource Texts on health, which was very interesting. I hope to read it again in more detail. Some information I already knew, from a past study in a carers course.
Other information was brand new to me and the medical language was important to remember too.
I do hope I will be able to concentrate and keep all these facts in my mind!
👩💻📚
I Hope everyone is ok and getting on well with their studies.
I would like to wish all the OU students
A Happy New Year 2025! 🥳
May you be successful in all your endeavours!
🥂🍻 📃 🏆
Unfortunately, I have not been able to do as much reading as I would like to have done. However, I have managed to cast a glance over block 3 introduction to " Health" section, so I am slowly making in-roads, bit by bit into this block.
Christmas was good, but hectic, and just before Christmas, I had an accident (as a pedestrian), 🚌👩🦯but I can't go into that at the moment except to say I am still alive to tell the tale!
Anyway, it makes a change from Covid or the Norovirus I suppose!
🏠🎄🎈🎇 🎆🎂🥂
1, Having a warm house with the heating on.
2, Switching on the twinkly little lights, a candelabra in the window, and lighting lots of battery candles around the house. It is a good cosy feeling , dispelling the Winter darkness with bright lights!
3, Putting up the Nativity Scene with ' Baby Jesus and the Holy family' on display.
4, A Christmas Tree (I can take it or leave it) I just have a little tree in the corner of the living room.
5) Going to the Church/ Cathedral for Mass with Carols.( or watching it on TV!)
6, A Traditional Christmas dinner!
7, it is the celebration of the birth of our Messiah Jesus who came to show us the way to God the father.
Happy Birthday Jesus!
At the end of this week it will be the short break from studying Academic English L185 and language studies. I will be off for a day out in town, for last minute shopping in preparation for the Christmas, although
I do already have most things bought, including food, which I have previously ordered in advance on line.
I am not going to get overly stressed or anxious about anything. In fact everything is cool and under control!
As for the family, everyone is catered for including the meat eaters and the vegetarians! The food will be cooked the day before then just heated up on the day.It will be a nice quiet, family occasion.
Studies -
Holiday Reading
Today, I did some reading, at the moment I am reading "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, and "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. I often read 2 books together or one after another! I have read these books before in the past, but I wanted to revisit them again, as I hope it will help me to improve my English skills.
I am still reading french novels in the french language, and will soon begin another book from the "Maigret" french detective series. As well as that, I will be casting a quick glance over the coursework before starting TMA 03, which should be interesting as the topic is "Health Studies". I have studied the subject of health before, but this is much more recent up to date study, so I am looking forward to reading that, and will be taking some notes.
So my brain will still be a bit active over the holidays!
However, I will mostly be relaxing with the family at home, and enjoying the Winter holiday feeling.
It will also be my birthday, but the least said about that the better! lol! 😄
Happy Christmas Holidays Everyone !
Translation of a prayer by Saint Ignatius of Loyola;
Translation in English
Teach us , good Lord , to serve you as you deserve ; to give , and not to count the cost , to fight , and not to heed the wounds ,
to toil , and not to seek for rest , to labour , and not to ask for reward , except that of knowing that we are doing your will."
God give me your love and grace. That is enough for me. Amen.
Apprends-nous, Bon Dieu, à te servir comme tu le mérites ; donner et ne pas compter le prix, se battre et ne pas prêter attention aux blessures, travailler dur et ne pas chercher le repos, travailler et ne pas demander de récompense, sinon celle de savoir que nous faisons ta volonté.
Dieu, donne-moi ton amour et ta grâce. Cela me suffit. Amen.
🙏
This weekend I was able to submit my TMA 02. There were a few teething problems with the newer computer (a gift from a friend), because it needed too many updates doing to it, so to save time and to be quicker (or so I thought!! Ha! )
I had to use my old dinosaur computer, which is on it's last legs, but is familiar, tedious, slow but fairly reliable. However, at one point I couldn't even find the TMA I had written, it had completely vanished somewhere!
Anyway, it eventually did turn up in doccuments after a long search! lol!
Then I couldn't read all the functions on the computer, because the writing was too small I need some new spectacles and the light outside was fading fast, but somehow I managed to get it sent off, via the OU TMA system.
I was so pleased to receive the e- mail with receipt of the submission. Thank goodness I managed to do it!
👩💻👍
I have to wait for the TMA 02 submission service to open up tomorrow Saturday, then I can send in my TMA. I feel quite confident, and feel I have considered every possible angle on the subject. I could even have wrote much more than 400 words on this topic!
Now, just biding my time and preparing to send off my essay. 👍
I have been reading a great deal and thinking about the structure of sentences.
In the past, I used to just write down whatever came to mind, naturally without thinking about it. Now I think carefully about how sentences are constructed and organised. The ebooks I had downloaded earlier, have helped me a lot, to understand about these processes.
In TMA 02 I have given a lot of thought to this. I have wrote about 3 different versions on the definition I have to describe. However, in the end, I had to choose to go with just one of them!
Things are difficult at home, there's lots going on and my son is not very well, so I have to spend a bit more time with him at the moment. I am just glad I had started working on the TMA early on, so now it is almost ready to submit. I must get it sent off next week, as quickly as possible!
📱📖🖨👍👩💻
The area where I live is a village, it is very small and quiet, it has one main high street. There are four churches and four public houses. Various shops including charity shops and a large supermarket. The village is surrounded by fields, farms and countryside. There is a bus service but a lot of people prefer to have a car, as the buses aren't always regular.
The village is divided into 3 groups, mostly people of middle class,,( 1) local elderly who have lived here all their lives, and (2) retired people from cities Then there re are also (3) families from the working class who commute by bus or car to work. These workers include agricultural workers, gardeners, plumbers, builders, shop assistants, care workers, childminders, and admin/clerical. The middle class mainly live on the outskirts of the village and own their own homes. The working class live nearer the centre of the village and live in private rented accomodation, Housing associations or are buying their own home.
The elderly people living in bungalows like to go to the luncheon club or church as they can meet friends and socialise. There is also a small library and the market place where they can meet. For younger people ( and not so young!) there is the pub, where they can sometimes host live local bands. Although it is quite isolated where I live, there are still some activities happening.
Today I feel alive, it is one of those days that I feel my blood surging and have that feeling of optimism again.
It doesn't happen often so I am savouring it!
I usually feel pessimistic in the approach to winter ( I often suffer from SAD) but for now I am looking on the bright side of life!
There is no particular reason that I can think of
for this feeling, except perhaps it is because my TMA02 is almost finished and I will soon be sending it off to be marked! Hurrah!
🙂
I read my TMA 02 draft for L185 over again, and I soon realised that I have put some information in there, that was not in the OU materials. It was something I had just found by chance, but it was not related in any way to the Social Sciences subject that we are studying at the moment, so I have decided that I am going to remove that paricular paragraph.
Now it's back to the drawing board again and re-draft everything.
Sticking to the question, the whole question and nothing but the question!
Today I am sat working in the kitchen and I made a coffee with a few biscuits, then started studying some e-books that I downloaded earlier, which will relevant for the TMA 02 that I am currently undertaking. I also read some texts from the resource book, which are particularly constructive towards my TMA. I managed to watch a video on how to successfully carry out a TMA which was very useful! All this took up most of the afternoon, I then went to look on the student forum to see how other students are getting on. A few recent posts to read, everyone seems to be doing well.
As I wheeled the dustbin out into the street for collection tomorrow,
I noticed that the weather was now becoming much colder with a slight glittering of ground frost. The village is surrounded by fields so it gets very cold late afternoons.
Indoors I put the oven on to do some baking, so this will soon warm up the kitchen.
I am now going to prepare vegetables for our main meal which is going to be a delicious hot vegetable curry!
Country lane with some late autumn sunshine.
I had a good weekend this weekend. By way of thanking me (for looking after him after his operation), my husband took me out on Sunday for a lovely meal, in a fine establishment, that serves a good roast dinner. 🍲🍷🍷
Mushroom soup to start with, which was the best I had ever tasted. The roast dinner was excellent especially the vegetables, roast potatoes and gravy. Dessert was a sticky toffee pudding and I had just one glass of wine!
We then got chatting to some very charming people on the next table, so the food and company were all most enjoyable.
I wish we could do it more often- (if only!)
This week it was back to work again on my TMA 2 for L185 I feel quite confident.( I think!) Hopefully I can get this essay in order before the cut off date !
The process of Translating
Before starting the translating process. It is important to have accurate knowledge of both languages, and a few good text Books which are gathered to aid the understanding of the translation process
Le petit Robert french Dictionary
The Oxford Concise English dictionary
Thesaurus ( English)
Book of idioms French, book idioms English,
Advanced French Grammar book. 📚
I will also be using my Digital notebook and laptop computer.
As well as using the online tools.Google Translate
Lingee. For checking spellings and meanings of unfamiliar words. 👩💻🖥🖨
First, I place the books on the desk beside the computer desk top. These are the books I will be using to get a correct translation.
I already have a rough copy of the translation on the digital notebook. I then have to cut and paste the copy using the software application onto word processor.
Next, I have to proof read what I have written, first I check spellings. For this I use the French Dictionary(and the Oxford English Dictionary) and if using idioms I check these in the idioms book to see if it is appropriate for the text I am writing. I also have to check tenses, whether if it is past, present or future.
Many words could be used for the 'same' word so it is important to have to Iook at the list of synonyms for that particular word, and then find the most precise word in respect of the context and syntax.
I then check spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Finally, When I am fully satisfied with what I have translated. I Check once again for any errors, I can then print out the final copy.🖨
Are you a sheep or a goat? 🐑🐐 ?
The Parable of the Sheep and Goats is found in Matthews gospel 25:31-46. In the Bible.
In this parable, Jesus uses the example of a shepherd who separates his sheep from his goats in order to help his followers understand what judgement will be like.
🐐
Goats are those nasty creatures who are. self willed and disobedient they like to kick and head butt people who get in their way. They spread lies and deceit and can't wait to kick people who are down already!
Worse than that they reject Jesus' salvation and his teachings.
🐑
Sheep on the other hand are gentle creatures who want to help others and are actively involved in doing small acts of kindness and mercy.
Jesus explains that people will be separated into two groups:
Sheep 🐑
• Are those who have lived good lives and believed in God will be put on one side and have a place in Heaven
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Goats🐐
• Are those who have rejected the belief in God and have sinned in their lives will be placed on the other side and will go to Hell.
🧔 Jesus explains that helping a person, whoever they are, whatever their need is just the same as if they were helping Jesus himself and is therefore a commandment for all Christians to obey.
Ref:
New Testament of The Bible.
I think that modern methods of communication have actually improved my English language. This is because 'I text a lot', and this has enabled me to get a lot of information written down into one short text. This along with my course L185 is enabling me to write in a concise way and to become more of an academic writer.
Hopefully I have made a break through in my writing technique.
I saw this photograph on a book cover. I just thought that it captures a deer in nature very well at this time of year. We also have some deer where I live, so I have sometimes seen them grazing next to the sheep in the fields.
Red Stag in Winter UK Giedrius@ Shutterstock.com
Today I managed to reduce my word count for TMA 2.ModuleL185. Thankfully I had some inspiration after talking to another student about it who offered me some good advice.
It is great that we can learn from one other and pick up tips from each other!
Welcome to Winter!
Like many areas in the Uk, there is deep snow where I live. Instead it feels like winter has arrived too early, in autumn rather than winter!
The row of trees in my garden are looking just like christmas trees all sparkling and covered in snow glinting in the pale sunlight.
I am working with my little lamp on as it is difficult to see as the light is fast fading outside.
I am getting to grips with TMA 2. Unfortunately my word count is coming up as 650 instead of 400!
I really like what I have written, it completely covers the question, to both part 1 and part 2, it sounds appropriate but I have used too many words!
What am I doing wrong? am I waffling too much?
Yes, I probably am aren't I?
Identity includes many elements but it is not the same as personality.
An individuals name, which is given to them by their family, is part of their identity, consisting of a first name and a family name or Surname.
Each person belongs to a particular ethnic group, for example being white and British, identifies someone as coming from the British Isles, this is their ethnic group. Other ethnic classifications are: African, European, Asian, Middle eastern.
According to the governments new social occupation classifications. People may often define their identity by their employment status, as it is an essential part of their life and what they do for a living.
The Address of where a person resides forms part of thier identity. They may live in a middle class area or be living in social housing, such as housing association or private rented.
The first language that a person speaks fluently, is connected to their identity. Followed by any other languages they might speak and this is also linked to their culture.
Interest groups sports, hobbies, political affiliations or religious groups. Members for example will wear the same type of clothing, a scarf or symbol that identifies them with that same group of people.
In families people have different roles to play, which gives them multiple identities. For example a parent, a child, a wife, a husband, a sibling or grandparent.
However, conflicts could occur sometimes, around spending time with family and work commitments.
Physical limitations could be a constraint upon identity. This can be related to old age or to disabilities. Therefore they could feel lonely or stereotyped by the community.
Lack of finances due to low income may limit a person and put a constraint on their identity.
Some people do not fit in easily into the society, as they may suffer from a long term illness therefore they may feel excluded.
Having no Education may prevent a person from finding an employment and this can be financially constraining.
A lack of Education may also limit a person's understanding about the society in which they live, because learning provides positive encouragement in life. Creates opportunities to grow and better aids understanding of the way in which people live and function in the society.
Finally, individuals have to take control of their own identities, but those identities have come about by their upbringing, the society, and their relationships with others.
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