Still alive

Hi fellow OU-ers

Sorry for not posting in ages. Just a quick one, now that I am done with all the TMAs, to say that I am still alive.

I managed to get myself very very behind schedule, to the point where I found myself less than two weeks to the M338 TMA04 deadline having only finished C1. Not good. But I was determined to actually study the books rather than skim read them, so I had a really heavy couple of weeks of topology. I almost managed to stick to my catch-up schedule but slipped a little bit, and it was 9pm on the Monday, just a few days before the deadline by the time I got to C5.

Nevertheless, I stuck to my guns of actually studying it, so did an all-nighter to work through C5, finishing it at about 2pm on the Tuesday. Unfortunately I had work to do the rest of that day, so I didn't start the TMA until Wednesday morning. At least I got some sleep though, which I wouldn't have done if I was working on the TMA. I worked all day Wednesday, almost all night, and finally got through it some time Thursday.

This week of minimal sleep really took its toll on me, and I spent all day Friday regularly dropping off while trying to watch films on DVD. I expected to get nothing done, which was why I scheduled myself a day-long date with the sofa and DVD player (Kim was away for the weekend, so it was prime opportunity to vegetate). Even on Saturday, I was pretty useless, but I managed to pull myself together enough to paint the hallway, kitchen and stairs with primer (subsequent to us having got half of the house replastered not long ago).

I was worried for a long time that it never got to my tutor because for the first time I opted to use stamps rather than go to the Post Office. I went there earlier in the day with an A5 envelope stuffed with more sheets of A4 than I expected the TMA to take up, and got them to weigh it and measure it and sell me the stamps so all I had to do was drop it in the post box. In the hopes it would get there quicker, and be less likely to get stuck inside the postbox somewhere that the postman doesn't find it when collecting (apparently some of us do worry about this kind of thing), I dropped it in the letterbox on the main Post Office in town.

Every day I was checking the post, after enough time had gone for it to be marked, and every day I got more worried that it never arrived, or it arrived too late and never got marked. I was relieved somewhat when my tutor emailed everyone to say it was taking him a long time to mark them all, and that they would be finished as soon as possible. Then it turned up the next day. Relief. And I got 97%! I am more chuffed with this than I was with the 100% for TMA03, because that one was easy by comparison with this epic undertaking. Off the top of my head, I can't remember where the marks were dropped. It was good to see that some of the answers that I was really pleased with myself for coming up with, actually turned out to be right.

The comment from my tutor said that in some places I had gone about things in a different way than was expected, but that my answers were definitely correct. He pondered whether I had tried these different ways 'for fun', to avoid going about it the 'standard' way. I would love this to have been the case, that I was that confident that I thought I'd play around a bit, and in fact, on one particular answer perhaps it was, but generally I think these were just the ways that came to me first.

As for M336, well the jury's still out on that one. Unfortunately, due to my catch up session for M338, that course got put on the back burner for a bit, and so I found myself in much the same situation after the M338 TMA was sent. Luckily the final book for groups was a kind of revision book, so there wasn't quite as much catching up to do. However, I had to skim read some of it over the final few days and there's no doubt that this affected my TMA-ability.

Again, I was just a couple of days before the deadline by the time I started the TMA, so I had the joy of a couple of all-nighters again.

This can't be good for me. And I had to do another one for work on Sunday night just gone as well.

Anyway, with M336, it became evident to me on the day that it should be posted, that I was only going to have half of it done in time for the Post Office, so I opted to drive it to my tutor's house the next day on the deadline. She lives in Harrogate so it was about an hour away. Although I had been there once before, I did not realise how lovely a place Harrogate is until last week. In fact, we are hoping to go and spend an afternoon/evening there soon based on the impression we got of it.

Well, by about 10.00am on the deadline, I had done all but two questions of it, totalling 8 points I think it was. I could not leave it any longer, because I needed Kim to navigate for me and she needed to be at work at 1.30pm, so I had to leave those two out. I was not overly confident with the rest of what I had done, but at the same time, could not really see where anything had gone wrong.

Now my latest worry is that the assignment actually got to her. We found her house well enough, but she wasn't there. Instead I handed it to a young man that answered the door, who told me that it was indeed her house. I have no reason to distrust him to hand it to her when she got back, but I am a worrier, so until I get it back marked, I doubt I will be at ease.

Well that's about where I am now. Currently I'm revising my TMAs, by means of an A1 flip sheet and black permanent markers. I don't know why I am doing it this way, but the child in me loves writing with big black pens on large sheets of paper. I have gone through the first three of M336, and am currently on the second one of M338. I will go back to that now, but only for a short while more, because I have a lot of work to get done by Monday and unless I make a start, I'll be looking at another all-nighter on Saturday.

Happy studying everyone!
Neil H