I was taken to Barry Island on Sunday by my mother. She bought me a 20p egg from a talking parrot. The old fashioned ones. The ones I always desperately wanted as I child. Inside was a stick-on moustache. I've been carrying the egg around with me ever since. It was worth 20p, for sure.
Spent today sorting through the mountain of unsorted paperwork I have been creating over the past few months. There were three courses all mixed up along with post, notes, and various bits I've printed off the net to 'help'. Now I have 3 very neat piles. I have the S3 pile, current; the B3 pile, current; and the 'other pile', massive.
I have had no success with getting my assignments into words. I know with B3 a large part of the problem is not knowing my marks, or comments, from the earlier assignments, due to all the confusion over the past few months, but I am told I will have them tonight. Maybe that will spur me on.
S3 is stressing me out more than I had expected. Primarily because I am so far behind. I just need to get the first assignment in, a week after which B3 will be completed, and then I can focus on catching up. Well aside from the two T1 courses I booked onto starting at the end of this month. Idiot.
Certain family members are an unfortunate distraction at the moment; behaving entirely unreasonably and playing on my weaknesses to achieve their own desires. However, unfortunately (or at least poor timing in terms of stress levels), part of my instruction for my mental well-being is not to play along with such games any more. The difficulty is, is that it makes me feel incredibly guilty, and then bad, and then utterly miserable. And then angry. And then round and round. Insomnia has set back in and I have slept for no more than a few hours at a time in the past 2 weeks. April is always the same because of certain events that occur during the month. Not usually the best timing for a number of my OU courses. October on the other hand is usually fine, which is convenient for those that I have taken exams for.
I started reading the books on anxiety and insomnia that I am supposed to have read. I feel like I am jumping through hoops to meet my needs. I find the books entirely unhelpful, and the over-the-phone 'support' utterly ridiculous. Not because it is ridiculous, but because I already know what's coming. It's text book, and that doesn't work for me. The only thing that I did find interesting (so far, of course) was about the stress response. I had never thought of it in terms of deadlines. Admittedly this wasn't the aim of the chapter, but I did find it interesting, that there is a stress performance curve, and when we come up against a deadline, the old fight-flight response kicks in, which temporarily allows us to perform significantly better than we otherwise would do. It won't kick in until we feel stressed though, and for me, that isn't until a few days before the deadline at best; a few hours before at worst. In order to achieve an early submission I would have to try to increase my stress levels, which is the opposite of what all this 'support' is striving to achieve. I've only read 16 pages. I have 119 more to read before my next session. Really though, that is very low down on my list of priorities, the S3 and B3 deadlines falling within that time-scale. And then of course here I am blogging. In fairness, today has been quite productive. Anyway, time to get back to it.
Rock on May!
I was taken to Barry Island on Sunday by my mother. She bought me a 20p egg from a talking parrot. The old fashioned ones. The ones I always desperately wanted as I child. Inside was a stick-on moustache. I've been carrying the egg around with me ever since. It was worth 20p, for sure.
Spent today sorting through the mountain of unsorted paperwork I have been creating over the past few months. There were three courses all mixed up along with post, notes, and various bits I've printed off the net to 'help'. Now I have 3 very neat piles. I have the S3 pile, current; the B3 pile, current; and the 'other pile', massive.
I have had no success with getting my assignments into words. I know with B3 a large part of the problem is not knowing my marks, or comments, from the earlier assignments, due to all the confusion over the past few months, but I am told I will have them tonight. Maybe that will spur me on.
S3 is stressing me out more than I had expected. Primarily because I am so far behind. I just need to get the first assignment in, a week after which B3 will be completed, and then I can focus on catching up. Well aside from the two T1 courses I booked onto starting at the end of this month. Idiot.
Certain family members are an unfortunate distraction at the moment; behaving entirely unreasonably and playing on my weaknesses to achieve their own desires. However, unfortunately (or at least poor timing in terms of stress levels), part of my instruction for my mental well-being is not to play along with such games any more. The difficulty is, is that it makes me feel incredibly guilty, and then bad, and then utterly miserable. And then angry. And then round and round. Insomnia has set back in and I have slept for no more than a few hours at a time in the past 2 weeks. April is always the same because of certain events that occur during the month. Not usually the best timing for a number of my OU courses. October on the other hand is usually fine, which is convenient for those that I have taken exams for.
I started reading the books on anxiety and insomnia that I am supposed to have read. I feel like I am jumping through hoops to meet my needs. I find the books entirely unhelpful, and the over-the-phone 'support' utterly ridiculous. Not because it is ridiculous, but because I already know what's coming. It's text book, and that doesn't work for me. The only thing that I did find interesting (so far, of course) was about the stress response. I had never thought of it in terms of deadlines. Admittedly this wasn't the aim of the chapter, but I did find it interesting, that there is a stress performance curve, and when we come up against a deadline, the old fight-flight response kicks in, which temporarily allows us to perform significantly better than we otherwise would do. It won't kick in until we feel stressed though, and for me, that isn't until a few days before the deadline at best; a few hours before at worst. In order to achieve an early submission I would have to try to increase my stress levels, which is the opposite of what all this 'support' is striving to achieve. I've only read 16 pages. I have 119 more to read before my next session. Really though, that is very low down on my list of priorities, the S3 and B3 deadlines falling within that time-scale. And then of course here I am blogging. In fairness, today has been quite productive. Anyway, time to get back to it.