|
|
all part of the process
Sigh. The end of the summer term is fast approaching. The last
three weeks or so have been blummin' crazy - Holiday for a week, moving house on what felt like the hottest day of the year,
and feeling like I had no study time at all; not that I could find any of my books amongst all the boxes anyway.
I'm wondering what to do with myself over the summer break, and it's depressing me to think that
most of the other students will be making the move to University this year.
When I think about University it scares and excites me at the same time. My sister beat
me to it, though she's about eight years younger than me. My experience of it won't be the same as either hers or my
fella's, I know.
I've been reassuring a dejected friend that if she keeps long term goals in mind, and takes little
steps every day, she'll eventually get there. It's not easy to keep the faith - it's much easier to tell other people
to! I don't seem to do supportive mates - I tend to play the role of the supporter even when I feel like I need a day
or two as supportee.
I'm still heading in the right direction, I know that, I just feel like I'm in swimming class
at school again. I was rubbish at swimming - I got dunked in the water so often that I developed a fear of it (some
may say a healthy one). When the teacher gave us a float, told us to hold it out infront of ourselves and kick our legs
to go forward, I just used to go round in circles in the same bit of the pool. It was embarrassing.
I suppose I'm feeling disconnected. My fella's been there, done that, got the t-shirt with
the suggestive slogan; he's a Maths bod. While most of the group from the course are off to University, I realise that
I will once again find myself in a minority group - in this case the minority that have another year to go. I suppose
that everyone has their place in life - if being in the minority is mine, thenI will humorously and self-deprecatingly relish
it. Does that make me a bit twisted?
June 2006
|
| Emily Bronte - student motivator from beyond? |
emily's my homegirl
Been doing a Wuthering Heights essay. Reworked it and burnt the midnight oil more than once;
setting my keyboard aflame.
Distracted (of course) by the tv, started watching about Muriel Spark - enthusiastic and prolific novelist,
quite reluctant celebrity.
She wrote 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', which was filmed with Maggie Smith
(she's great).
Distracted from my essay for half an hour, BUT learnt something!
Muriel, wrote a book about Emily Bronte!
Some camera shots of the Bronte parsonage in Howarth put me on a guilt trip as I sat with an unfinished
file on my laptop.
A sign from beyond the grave - Emily Bronte herself saying 'get on wi' tha' t'essay lass?!'
Who knows...just incase, I got back to it sharpish. Call me superstitious, but she was a bit of a
nutter.
May 2006
|
| a can a day... |
brain food
Plethora of commercially motivated upheavals at work.
Tense shoulders have loosened since getting back to college and brain stimulation. I hadn’t realised how dried up my brain was.
Despite the impression my mother might have been given when I was a lass, I love
learning!
The world makes more sense when you look at how society has changed and how people
centuries ago behaved so similarly to people today. Society, politics, and human
behaviour are inextricably linked to history and the way we live today has not come about by some freak accident.
In a feat matched only by the Reduced Shakespeare Company in telling all Shakespeare’s
plays in the space of an hour, our tutor took us on a whistle stop tour beginning at the dawn of time and travelling
through to the early medieval era in under ten minutes.
For someone like me, who has more gaps in her education than you’re likely
to find in a chunk of Swiss cheese, it was quite a helpful overview.
Also studying Othello. I confess,
I am a bit fond of Shakespeare (to my boyfriend’s chagrin). No scholar,
it’s true, but I do think it’s quite amazing how his work holds such appeal four hundred plus years later.
What I find so fascinating about foreign languages is the fact that they can
be quite different from each other, while in so many ways sharing characteristics. The same goes for 'Shakespeare speak'.
Picking out phrases, words and characteristics of construction that are used
across different languages (look, for example, at the number of apparently English words that exist in French, Spanish, or
Italian and vice versa!), illustrates how they are connected to each other in ways seldom consciously recognised.
If you sat down with a couple of Shakespeare’s plays and took out the expressions
that are used in some form today, you would have quite a lot of them.
Whether that's Shakespeare's genius, a freak historical accident, or the heightened
pace of the development of the English language in Elizabethan times, is something historians and literary enthusiasts have thrashed
out over years of passionate debate and will continue to for many years to come.
April 2006
newsbeat
Not much has been going on, apart from working my cotton socks off at work. College is on a break
for easter and there's no homework to be getting on with, other than familiarising with Othello.
The essay due just before the holidays was hard work; really hard work. Too little time again and
I feel like I struggled to make sense at all when I read it back to myself now. I suppose the management of time and
clarity of thought are things that I'm going to learn with practice.
There is a dreaded restructuring taking place at work, which is largely motivated by a desire to give large
shareholders more money and to 'streamline' costs. As a student, young person, unmarried female over 25, one of my chief
concerns is how it will affect my monthly income.
The next college trimester is nearly here, so it's back to study with a vengeance for
a few short weeks, before jetting off to summer jollies in Portugal. In the words of Ronan Keating (and I never thought
I'd say that!), 'life is a rollercoaster' at the moment, and I've 'just gotta ride it'!
Until all the upheaval is through with, I'll enjoy the fact that there's Shakespeare to be studied this
term, and try to "accentuate the positive"; in all the other stuff.
April 2006
Another day, another essay.
Been trying to get to grips with the 'academic essay'. The question was "whether the technological
revolution in electronics and communications has, or will precipitate a change in the purpose and values of a traditional
education system."
Having scanned the final product ten times over, satisfying myself that there were no evil personal pronouns
in there, I'll be damned if there wasn't one that managed to sneak past me! -"The world around US."
Grrrrr on you, pronoun, grrr.
It's difficult to get used to writing in a way that feels kind of clinical. I suppose it is a more
of a report. Opinions are out, personal pronouns are out, soapboxes are confiscated and don't even think about monkeys.
Because nobody gives a monkeys.
I've written poems and stories since I was a teenager, and part of the process is putting yourself into
the position of the characters and imagining their opinion of people and events. Even when studying my GCSE in English,
it was about the characters in the material and, especially with poetry, things are not so cut and dry as to mean one thing
and not another.
When it comes to academic writing you have to get your opinion in more subtely than just writing down 'I
think that...blah blah blah.' You have to be unemotional and present the arguments, and the evidence for them in a way
that feels detached in style. I might even go so far as to say that it feels a bit sneaky, trying to examine sources
and build up some commentary and linkage between them without responding in an emotional manner.
After just one Sociology class I felt that my mind was opening up to all sorts of interesting concepts that
I hadn't thought about before. I felt like I was learning things about the whole world - things outside of my comfort
zone. When they made us sing 'he's got the whole world in his hands' at school, it wasn't about God or Jesus, it was
the teachers who had the world - a world of knowledge to be shared with us, if only we opened ourselves up to it!
March 2006
The reality of learning
Life at college has not been as I imagined it would be. The first time I went to college I studied
Media and TV and Video Production - scornfully referred to by my manager at work recently as 'pretend subjects' - not that
he's really one to judge, having confessed to studying Leisure and Tourism. Pah!
Another management course - no thanks. I much preferred walking the streets of Teeside trying not
to let the wandering chavs steal our camera equipment.
Much of the two years were spent in classrooms or studios, editing bits of tape and typing endless, theoretical
budgets, scripts and running orders. Inbetween nipping out for a cigarette and a coffee of course.
Life at college this time is a different kettle of fish (to use an expression I'm quite fond of).
Up to now, we have had some fairly intensive classes, requiring us to analyse, disect and discuss principles, motives and
influences within some pretty intense material. Some of the literature and articles that we have looked at have required
us to open our minds to new concepts and ideas and review our own ideas about the world and human existence - spiritual and
physical.
That is, many people would point out, exactly what the study of Literature and the Humanities is supposed
to do for its students. That is, for me, the appeal of studying and the backbone to the inspiration I feel
as a result.
According to Germaine Greer, as she wrote in the Guardian this week, students (university ones in particular)
should be sitting in coffee shops more often than lessons, as it is the discourse between students that develops the intellect
as much, if not more than the actual classes. I can think of a number of reasons why I would be happy to go along with
that, but from personal experience I often find it astonishing just how much can be learnt from listening to what other people
have to say about the world - good and bad. I suppose there's a lesson there somewhere for quite a lot of people in the
world.
February 2006
Something's gotten hold of my mind
I had an appointment with my tutor today, in which I got feedback on the rough draft of the essay that has
been driving me crazy. It was better feedback than I thought, which was good.
But it brought up something that I find hard to deal with.
The problem I have is that the question I have chosen is really the one I'm going to struggle with the most;
education. Specifically, what are the purposes and values of a traditional education? The question actually asks
whether the modern revolution in technology and communications has changed them at all, or continues to change them.
The problem is that in large part, the social education that pupils get in school is just as significant
to their existence as adults as the teaching they receive in literacy and numeracy.
It's a problem for me because I was never involved in whatever intermingling of sub-cultures went on in
the school corridors, and I have little personal experience of the socialisation that took place in secondary schools.
It's a problem for me because I have to admit to all the things I missed out on. Things that
I can't get back now, things that I will never experience, things that made me so scared. Things that make me feel
like a coward.
It's my proverbial can of psychological worms, I know. Even as I walk into college, it looks like
a school, it feels like a school, and yet there's something different these days. I'm different.
Or am I? Am I really more courageous than the frightened little girl that spent so much of class time
hoping nobody would notice I was there, and that the teacher wouldn't decide to do group work? Have I really changed
since the days I spent wandering around, sitting in a field on a hill somewhere, reading a book and living in my imaginary
world until hometime came? Or have I just grown more layers? Have I turned into an onion?!
It's difficult to tell really. Sometimes I feel so glad not to be back there, in that time, waiting
to be sixteen and escape. Sometimes I feel like I've won, because I have 'turned out okay', and I am a good person,
and I do have more confidence.
But sometimes I feel like that frightened kid is still hiding - except now she's hiding inside me, and every
now and then I can see her, and I feel like her, and she knows that being a good person isn't always enough, because sometimes
life is just shit however hard you try.
Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever be convinced otherwise.
January 2006
Back to Earth with a bump
This is the week that a capsule full of comet dust, from the Nasa Stardust craft, returned to Earth, probably
with a bit of a bump. Appropriately so, as this was also the week when this blogger returned to Earth.. well, college
with a bump too.
How outrageous to be expected to turn up at 9:30 in the morning! I have seldom in my whole life been
much of an early morning person, in fact I only get up early in the morning if:
a) Dehydration: from sleeping next to a heater/too much alcohol/not enough water the night before.
b) I'm having a stressful time and my mind won't let me relax enough to reach REM sleep.
c) It's a Sunday and the bells of York minster start ringing at about 10:00am.
d) Because we live at No.1 in the apartments, every time a leaflet person, Postman, delivery man, or tradesman
of any description wants to get in they ring our bell.
The essay is not going great as xmas, work and other stuff got in the way of doing virtually anything over
the holiday. However, the reading of Wuthering Heights is going a lot better. I tried to start reading the book
before we read it in class, but found that I had a hard time trying to work out what was going on. Added to that, something
kept distracting me - the image of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh having a barney at the front door, and him basically telling
her to get knotted; "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"
This distraction was fortunately overcome when I paid a visit to my Sheffield-based cousin Tracie, who set
me straight, after having had a good laugh at my expense while I sat dumbfounded. "Well they weren't even in Wuthering
Heights, that was in the film Gone With the Wind, that bit!" Oops. The reasons for my reputation as lost younger
sister of Phoebe from Friends (in the dippy/crazy stakes) become clearer.
January 2006
|
| copyright BBC |
Home sweet home
Christmas was good this year. I got through the whole festive period without having a full blown argument
with anyone about Christmas tree lights, or where to put presents, or even simply because I'd had one too many and gone on
a rant about something completely insignificant to the existence of man, the universe or anything.
I don't know quite what it is - maybe it's the pressure many of us are under to deliver the perfect Christmas,
for everything to be just right and for us to enjoy it!
I can't feel joy when I'm under pressure to do so, I just can't. I have to feign joy while feeling
mightily stressed about the whole situation and my muscles tense up so badly that I feel like I've run the London Marathon
again. Okay, maybe a half marathon.
When I was little, my mum was constantly stressed about the dinner, the present buying, someone sitting
under the tree and knocking it over, having the cheesy Christmas cassette tape cued up, and the list goes on. I felt
her stress keenly and it made me stressed up until the day I went to work in the hotel trade and Christmas became ordinary.
It also became much longer; from October to February there were Christmas parties going on and after three
years or so of that I'm all 'Christmassed' out.
Dec 2005/Jan 2006
|
| Little Red |
Little Red 'Riding' Hood
Not since the 'decapitation incident' have I felt so shocked.
See Odd-bob page, number 5 or 'THE HARD PART' bottom of page.
Well, there was the first time the expression "take you out and shoot you like dogs" was used as a threat
to students who might consider plagiarism, use of personal pronouns in an essay, or letting a deadline pass them by.
But it is with a sense of betrayal almost that I found out this week just who Little Red really
was.
Since the day I heard about the run-in with the Wolf I had thought her to be a sweet little girl,
albeit one who had gone against her mother's advice and strayed from the woodland path.
Then I discovered that she was nothing but a promiscuous little harlet, living in a fairytale world overwhelmed
by sexual connotations, pubescent suggestion and flirtatious encounters with complete (sexually predatory) strangers.
Had it not been for the fact that the notes of literary criticism, opinions of the other students and tutor
alike confirmed these revelations, I might have thought it were all a mis-representation of the facts conjured by my sordid
little mind...
Nov 25, 2005
|
| everyone wants to study these days... |
Scribble scribble, kiss kiss
The art of academic writing appears to differ greatly from other styles of writing.
In a letter, a diary entry or a short note the style is much more relaxed and to a certain extent opinionated.
The writer may even go so far as to slip in some abbreviations or slang terms and will of course include lots of personal
pronouns. Within the realm of text messaging the vowels can disappear altogether, or even leap around the 'sentence'
all on their own; "c u in shps @ 8 luv u."
Every day the english language as we know it is deconstructed a further step, with both the spoken and written
forms becoming less formal in everyday use.
So, when it comes to producing a piece of 'academic' writing for college, it can be quite difficult to make
the style of your work fit with what is expected academically. It's far too easy to let your own beliefs and opinions
sneak into an essay or an assignment with those devious little personal pronouns popping up - the "I's" "we's" and "my's".
So, it's "time to kiss goodbye to the descriptive essay" and welcome the all-new academic stylings of York's
latest batch of prospective University candidates. Look out world, here we come...
Nov 16, 2005
TOP OF PAGE
Gremlins
My lack of self-confidence, which has taken years of sweat and toil to embed its deep roots in the fabric
of my consciousness, continues to stalk me.
Like the ugly little gremlins that follow people around in those adverts telling them how rubbish they are
at reading and writing, my very own 'study buddy' hovers round me as I stare at my latest assignments.
The gremlins can be overcome by your increased focus on the tasks before you, and of course good old fashioned
hard work, but its difficult to put your heart into those tasks when you're nagged by a feeling that someone is going to tap
you on the shoulder and ask what you're doing there; with the adults.
Having said that, 'adults' is a subjective term I've realised, because I still don't feel completely like
one at the age of twenty-six. Perhaps our culture is lacking some sort of official 'rite of passage' to make it
clear when I'm supposed to start behaving like one.
As a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew you are confirmed, blessed, or go through some ceremonial or celebratory
ritual and therefore become a proclaimed member of the religion.
As an employee you are promoted, given a new name tag, job title and pay rise which signifies that
you now occupy a new position.
As a parent, quite clearly, a child is born and you are assigned to its lifelong care (I'm told that the
obligations of the role of 'parent' never end!).
As a person who does not follow any particular religion, I feel that one of the things I simultaneously
envy and despise, is the lack of any such ritual in my life.
For while I feel a sense of freedom in being able to carry on living like a teenager if I choose
to, there is a sense in which I am lacking some kind of social guidance in my life.
In a time where anarchy is the 'in thing' and anti-disestablishmentarianism is increasingly en vogue, I
have to admit that rules and regulations (written and unwritten) do sometimes give me a warm and fluffy feeling of reassurance
at the orderliness of the world. (Heh heh, order? You what...) November 8, 2005
 You give me fever
The half-term break has been tainted by a bout of illness that has left me with an annoyingly persistent
tickle in my throat, causing me to cough every few minutes. Very annoying.
Due to that, I'm in a very grouchy mood, can't concentrate on any of the work I'm supposed to be finishing
and find that I'm getting through bottles of cough syrup at an alarming rate.
If I carry on like this, I'll end up addicted to the stuff and start hanging around with the tramps that
mope about York trying to get you to 'lend' them a quid. At least, I think that's what that bloke said to me.
I think you stop listening after a while and just hope they don't chase you when you walk right past them,
pretending not to notice.
Maybe that's why the beggars in bigger cities have concocted such elaborate stories nowadays to try and
weasel some money out of you.
"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you, right.." As soon as I hear the opening line I'm trying to decide
whether they'll become violent when I try to leave without giving them what they want.
I was once stopped twice in one day, by the same young man, who told me a completely different story the
second time around. When I pointed that out to him he got a bit nasty and...well, let's just say he wasn't so polite
anymore. To be honest, he wasn't very convincing either of the times I met him - some lessons might not go amiss if
he wants people to think he's being genuine.
Mind you, I don't imagine he'd get much of a response on the street then; "Excuse me mate, sorry to bother
you, but can you lend us a quid so I can get some acting lessons?"
November 1, 2005
 It was a silly week
This week a collection of very silly things all seemed to happen within a short space of time. Here's
the first.
In I.T. a giant wasp (it was HUGE!), flew out of a cupboard and menacingly teased me with it's stinger causing
me to Ieave the room pretty sharpish. I watched through the slit window in the door for several minutes while a few
of the menfolk tried, with surprising chivalry, to get the pest - dead or alive.
Ironically, the one person wearing a Superman logo-embossed t-shirt was also the same person dashing up
the stairs with a yelp, while one of said menfolk carried the wasp - now captured inside an A4 punched pocket, outside
to be released.
Needless to say, the wasp was not too chuffed.
October 21, 2005
Deadlines
Deadlines, we were told this week are also extremely important. In some universities it is even possible
to have the BEST essay of the year, Helen told us, and find yourself with a B at best because you handed it in late.
I felt most of all for the student who, upon arriving just a couple of minutes late to hand in their assignment,
found that the lecturer refused to take it.
Because of the strict adherence to deadlines, 1200 meant 1200, not 1205, 1201or even 1200 and thirty seconds.
Imagine yourself as that student, who watched as the lecturer actually folded his arms behind his back so that the document
could not be forcefully put into his hands! The student failed the module of course and had to re-take it, despite having
done the work.
This was shocking to someone like me, who has been late for virtually everything in her whole life (including
her own birth). The cold, unforgiving light of early day now shines on the reality of higher studies and I think that
many in the class were a little scared by these tales of evil lecturers who will fail you for being a minute on the wrong
side of 12 o'clock.
I imagine I am not the only one to be studying more this weekend than I have so far, and making an effort
to build some kind of structure into my studies - and avoid becoming the student of the lecturer that unforgivingly folds
their arms at me in such a way.
October 15, 2005
Scary steps
A few days into the course, those nagging feelings that the building and the amount of noisy teens in it
were making the experience far too much like being back at school, are beginning to dissipate.
Even as 'mature students', who have presumably spent some time in the big wide world of work (or at least
the big wide world), there are still the typical rituals to go through in a college environment, just as there were in school.
You know, you start off learning one or two people's names, then you've appointed them your 'familiar faces' of the group
- someone to smile and nod to in recognition when you enter the classroom and find yourself panicking about where to
sit.
Then comes another hurdle for those of a nervous disposition, as lunchtime approaches and awful memories
of school canteens resurface in churning motions in your gut, making it difficult to contemplate keeping any lunch down there
for very long regardless of what it may be or how hungry you are.
Keeping an eye on your 'familiar faces', you make a meal out of putting away books and different coloured
pens to see if you and your nervous disposition can attach yourselves, like limpets, to their shadows until you reach the
relative safety of a table and can rest assured that you won't have to pretend to be happy that you're sitting there
on your own.
For the more confident students, returning to education must be an absolute blast. For me, I have
to admit that it's a daily struggle. As I approach the gates the trepidation starts, then it gets worse as I enter
a classroom. I feel a sharp pinch of panic as I scan the room for an empty chair, while the eyes of the other
students slide automatically towards the door to see who it is that's arrived.
These feelings are not actually because of that room, at that time. At least I don't think they are.
I have a pretty good job, I live in a much nicer place than I did a few years ago, I have a great boyfriend. Things
have been on the 'up and up' recently - touch wood now if you're superstitious. I'm more confident and outspoken than
I ever used to be and I certainly wouldn't wallow in the kind of self-pity I did when I was a spotty, geeky nobody at school.
But those feelings that go with being the spotty geeky kid and with the whole set-up of being in a school
don't ever really leave you.
The ghosts of the past like to haunt you - maybe it's because they don't have anything better to do.
Who knows?
The difference these days is that I know there's more to the world and that, in the words of Randy Newman,
"I can only be me."
September 22, 2005
Plagiarism = death
It may seem somewhat melodramatic but in fact, in an intellectual sense and an educational sense, that's
exactly what it is. Plagiarise and you stand condemned academically for the rest of your mortal life.
I suppose it seems like the easy way out to some people. Who could it hurt, what harm would it really
do if I just use these few paragraphs and save myself a bit of time here...
I've often wondered how many people are tempted to resort to a bit of plagiarism in the face of fast-approaching
deadlines and a distinct lack of time, willpower, confidence or whatever it is that would make someone use someone else's
work as if it were their own. I suppose it must be selfishness - to let the person who spent all those hours producing
the work in the first place, go uncredited in your own assignment. Or maybe it's a moment of blind panic and desperation
that results in such a shameful act. Or perhaps it's just downright laziness.
The government's own civil servants seemed to get away with it quite well, when they hijacked a student's
dissertation for a report on the Iraq war. But I think that in an academic arena, rather than a more political one,
it is safe to say that plagiarism stands as the cardinal sin.
October 14, 2005
The hard part
Having spoken to friends and fellow students, it seems to be a universal thing (in the Universe of this
town anyway!) that the administrative process of getting onto a course is almost as hard as studying the darn thing.
Three weeks ago I filled in a registration form, a medical form, a next of kin form and a contacts form.
A week after that I received another form in the post which the accompanying letter told me to fill in and bring with me to
a meeting at the college. At that meeting I would get a timetable, course info., class info., be able to formally enrol
and get my i.d. card.
The next day I got another letter, which informed me of the imminent arrival of the letter which I had already
received. In the envelope were some more of the forms I had already filled in...just incase.
Off I trotted to the meeting at the college where I was asked to fill in... yes, more forms; many of which
were identical to some I had filled in and posted to the college earlier. After a bit of sitting about, we were told
that the timetables were not ready yet. Then I was told to throw away all the forms I had filled in and fill in one,
much smaller one whilst trying to listen to three other people who all seemed to be talking at once.
This was all followed by a mind numbing wait to have a digital photo taken for my i.d. card and a deflated
exit from the college buildings wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake. The next week, arriving for the first class
we found ourselves in the hilarious predicament of a class with no lecturer.
A parade of different staff came in, one after the other, asking the same questions and giving the same
answers until we kidnapped a tutor and kept him for our own.
Since then, the classes have been interesting, (our Math teacher decided to decapitate three of us to illustrate
a subtraction sum), enlightening (Sean Bean was apparently the gamekeeper in Lady Chatterly's Lover, not the gardener), and
my sense of direction has improved tenfold.
Onwards and upwards!
October 7, 2005
TOP OF PAGE
Students - People in disguise
|
|
|