This week-end I have had it easy as the TMA, not due until the 27th was submitted on the 20th whilst I was at work. I pretty much had to do it at work as I have real trouble submitting using my laptop at home. The problem is easily surmountable I suppose, I only really have to convert the file, but the more complex the operation the more anxious about the submission I become. And I don't need to increase my discomfort any more than I have to.
That said, I already have. Like an idiot I forgot to put my name or personal identifier on my work before clicking the submission button, and I didn't want to get into what seems a complicated process, the trying to reclaim it business. Quite how I forgot to do this most simple of tasks I don't know, this is my fourth course for Heaven's sake, I'm not exactly a rookie with the OU. I know the mechanics of the business I must have submitted at least 25 assignments before this one. Schoolboy error.
The assignment itself proved to be quiet a challenge. Earlier on, at the beginning of the course I glanced at the Assignment booklet (once I realised I had to print it off, an odd change if ever there was one) and read the TMA01 details. At this point I thought it looked unbelievably simple. I was even looking forward to it, something that has never happened before. Bit of a free write, short auto biographical memory of some sort, then a little reflection on how I felt about the thing, Oh and how did the book and all its advice help me. I stored something like that in my memory which remained there until I arrived at TMA time at a canter.
The free write was no problem. I'd done loads. I wasn't at all bothered about losing consciousness whilst writing. Losing consciousness whilst driving, or during meetings at work, that concerns me - for the latter I might be sacked or at least feel embarrassed and old, in the case of the former I might turn my wife into a widow and my children into orphans. Neither are good conclusions. And I do lose consciousness during a free write when I sit in bed at 1130ish and I'm knackered from my day's hassles at work. Frightened myself a bit the other night as I watched my fingers try to type 'there are dead people in the...and I pulled back with a heart thud in case the word 'room' materialized. Quite frightening, but no-one is going to lecture me on how to free write. Got it down to a fine - if slightly disturbing art. Or rather it has me down to an art.
The free write I worked with was the genuine one. I took Charity Shop as a prompt and ran with it. Typed all kinds of crap - even worse than this blog entry. The only issue was that it was way over three hundred words so I had to edit quite severely, the challenge was to maintain the essence of the freedom that went into the free write. But I managed this quite well, ensuring that the final line which was to be my jump off point for the 750, stayed in place - though I added a little element to it (cheating? I don't think so) to allow the join to be seamless.
The 750 words was pretty tough if I'm honest. I was determined to test myself by going for a piece of fiction rather than something I would have found easier - I'm here to learn and I have to stretch myself. Got myself into a right old tangle with points of view and tenses, and disappeared up my own backside several times with the story, its purpose, its length, its characters. But I felt myself to be learning through the pain and the tears and the blinding headaches from too much screen-staring. I also had moments of confusion over the fragment versus completed story debate that was ongoing on the various forums. I was determined to go for something of a conclusion, and even if this loses me points, I feel that I have at least completed something this early in the course and consequently I feel that these are points towards the greater good, if not towards the course.
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