By Friday this should all be a distant dream…. Hopefully! May 22, 2012
Posted by phoenixaeon in A330, BtVS, Diablo 3, ECA, End of A330, I am a new kind of crazy!, My poor brain, Mythology, OU.5 comments
I’m so close. Like <-> this close. But now the writing of every word is as painful and frustrating as getting Princi to throw her smoothie cartons in the bin. Nigh on impossible!
Yes, I’m talking about the mythology EMA. In the words – or abbreviations – of today’s youth: Oh. Em. Gee! This essay is a headwreck! And 3,000 words for a final essay? That’s just a joke! The should have been more. At least a thousand more! I feel like I’m picking a gnat’s teeth trying to weave my way through the sparseness of this word desert. Holy heck, I tell you. Holy heck! But at least I get to watch Buffy as study. So it’s not all bad.
And soon the studying shall be over! Woohoo!
Who am I kidding? It’s all bad. But as long as I get 70%. I could make do with a pass 2. I won’t say happy, as happiness comes in distinctions, but I doubt I’ll get that with my rubbish. I’m not even sure if I’ve answered the ‘question’/statement. Oh well. Only time will tell.
My lonely and forlorn copy of Diablo 3, slowly being consumed by a small pile of clean clothes.
So, three more days and I should be done. Freedom, here I come! And freedom consists of reading something I am really looking forward to reading, buying a new laptop, and playing Diablo 3. Oh, I’m so excited! Both have been sitting there patiently – the story and the game, that is – quitely calling for me to pay them attention. But Pandora has nearly arrived, and I shall… Oh, best rethink that sentence! That was bordering on uinintended innuendo! Yep. This essay has officially driven me crazy.
So on that note… *disappears in a puff of pinky/purpley shimmery smoke*
And then there was one. April 13, 2012
Posted by phoenixaeon in A330, ECA, My poor brain, Mythology, Oh £$%* I've fallen again, OU, TMA05.add a comment
Well. The final TMA for the mythology course Tronned its way through the matrix this morning. So glad! It was an evil bugger, and the guidance notes that accompanied the question related to the question for last year’s intake. That was a stumbling block, I can tell you. But I’ve managed to scribble some rubbish, and as long as I get 55% on it I should still be hitting in the distinction range for the OCAS (overall course assessment score, or something like that!), so I can’t complain there . 
That just leaves the 3,000 words owing for the end of module assignment: ‘Analyse the different representations of death or love in classical mythology.’
I have chosen love. Death is too easy. There is a shed-load of primary and secondary sources in the course materials for death. What challenge is there in that? No, I must make it difficult, I must find my own secondary sources, I must have the opportunity to let my brain focus on something that it enjoys. Yes, I am my brain’s bitch! So, with that in mind, and with deciding that I would push it into the boundaries of reception studies, I have decided upon a long-winded title – that will hopefully get the go ahead from my tutor:
Pandora, Pygmalion, Echo and Narcissus: Filial Pietas and Self-love in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse.
Now, don’t ask me to explain what I’m going to do. I have some ideas – obviously, or I wouldn’t have the title – but there will be some representations of family love and sacrifice alongside representations of selfish love, based on the reception of the mythological characters mentioned. But that is for next week, as I am planning to use the weekend to recover from the mental abuse of the last TMA and the painful bruises on my noggin and bottom, the results from my hips choosing to wimbaway without permission and therefore causing a nasty fall on Wednesday.
Although… Maybe now is a good time to start deconstructing the mythology to keep my mind off the pain…
***EDIT*** (14/05/12)
The title and idea was somewhat given the go-ahead by my tutor, with the compromise of cutting it down a bit. So I ditched Dollhouse and Echo. So now I have about a week and a bit to get the essay finished. It currently stands at 1,500 words down, 1,500 words to go. So I best get back to Narcissus and homosexuality in Ancient Rome, before tackling the Buffy section and conclusion. Wahey!
Oh, and TMA05 came back with a cracking mark, leaving me cacking my pants with expectation and stress at getting the 85% and up result for the EMA (end of module assessment. Why they had to change it from end of course assessment – ECA – I have no idea. All a bit Constantinople to me!). Please let me do a good job of it!
Tizzyfits in car parks. August 2, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Cinema, ECA, End of EA300, Stupid wheelchair, The Principessa Files.add a comment
What an almost disaster today turned out to be. Don’t get me wrong, it started out fine – Princi (after a little lapse in concentration) got herself dressed, then became an absolute superstar as she helped me put my socks and DCs on. (Just to put this in context, I can’t lean down to put socks/shoes on, so Grandand usually helps me.) Princi amazed me with her patience whilst helping me, and she backed that up by amazing me with not getting all flustered putting her own DCs on – she usually throws a fit and complains that they ‘just won’t fit!’ Then, when we got to the car, Princi sorted herself out in her car seat and even belted herself in. Talk about a perfect child, I wondered where the pod was! So all was going according to plan, until we got to the cinema…
Grandand set the wheelchair up, then lifted me out of the car. Slowly but surely, I tottered around in a semi circle, positioning myself so I could sit in the chair. Princi stood on the side, amusing herself by watching a spider climb up a brick wall, still acting as if she was the most perfect child this side of Mars. Then I sat down. Oh crapadoodle. The chair didn’t feel right. The right side of the seat didn’t have any support. ‘It’s not right,’ I said to Grandand. He pulled my up out of the chair and I grabbed hold of the car for support. Checking the wheelchair, we noticed that there was a piece of plastic lying on the floor next to the wheel. Yep, the bit that held the support in place had snapped off. The chair was unusable.
‘Babes, we’re going to have to go the the cinema on another day.’
Cue the tizzy. Princi brought out the big guns, and started with an extra-loud ‘WWWWAAAAAHHHHH!’ Bugger. She was so looking forward to this.
‘But Princi, the wheelchair is broken and Mummy can’t use it or I’ll get hurt.’
‘WWWWWAAAAAHHHHH!’
‘C’mon, we’ll go tomorrow. I promise.’
‘BUT I WANT TO GO TODAY!’
‘We can’t. Right, we’ll go and get a new chair now so we can go tomorrow.’
‘BUT I WANT TO TO TODAY! WWWWAAAAHHHH!’
Despite the wah-ing, she got back into the car and Grandand belted her in. She was still crying, so I handed her the iPhone with Plants vs. Zombies loading up, which seemed to calm her a little.
‘But I was so excited to see Toy Story 3.’
‘I know you were, babes. Tomorrow, I promise. But we’re still going on a little drive now, so we can buy a new wheelchair.’
So off we went on our jolly jaunt looking for a mobility shop. Everywhere where there used to be a shop, it had closed down. Why is it, when you don’t need something it is there in abundance, but when it’s a necessary evil you can’t find it? We drove around for an hour hunting down a mobility place, we even stopped a policewoman and asked her if she knew of any. We finally found one tucked away down a back road, but yay! A solution to the problem. Grandand went in, came out five minutes later:
‘It’s going to cost £300.’
Yikes! That’s a lot. ‘Get it,’ I say, ‘I need it to get back into the house.’
So Grandand went back in to purchase the chair. I was hoping it might have had a Cerebro attachment or something, maybe even some mad Professor X mind reading skills when I sat in it, but no. It was £300 for a normal wheelie wheelchair. Sigh!
Once it had all been loaded into the back of the car and we had managed to ditch the old seat with the mobility shop, I talked Grandand into going to a cinema that was about 10 minutes down the road. This made Princi very happy, which in turn made me happy. And then I sat in the new chair…
And it was so comfortable! Wow! This is what I’d been missing out on. I haven’t felt that much comfort sitting in a wheelchair since my first chair (this is my third). It was worth the money just for that relief and for the fact that it didn’t hurt my left leg like the old chair did. It is a wonderful, wonderful chair.
So into the cinema we went, bought our popcorn, got ourselves settled down to watch the film, and ended up having an enjoyable afternoon out after all.
And as for the question that popped up on the blog search… No, I haven’t had any results for EA300 as yet! But good luck to everyone who is waiting on results.
The day cometh. May 27, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in A210, Downstairs, EA300, ECA, End of EA300, OU, The Principessa Files.5 comments
And…
The end of EA300. At 12pm the course will officially finish. That is the cut-off time for the ECA. I submitted mine last Friday, then spent the weekend agonising about whether or not to resubmit as I knew I needed to change around 100 words. I swayed back and forth between ‘No, I can’t, it’d be like cheating,’ and ‘But it’s like revision. Exam day isn’t until the 27th,’ to ‘I’d be stupid not to, if the option is there.’ So come Monday gone, I fixed the words, referenced them, then checked everything else was fine. Yikes! Good job I did, as I found an unreferenced quote. So I fixed that, corrected the rest of the numerical references and sent the bloody thing back. Although the essay is a bag of pants (yep, that old chestnut again!), I am glad I changed that little bit in the essay. But oh gosh! Am I happy the course is done! It was by far the most challenging, albeit the most enjoyable/frustrating, course I have ever done. But given the chance I’d do it all again. I LOVED it!
Apart from the course ending, other things have been a little different too. It’s been almost two weeks now since I moved into the downstairs room. It’s all good apart from when the bedroom floor gets wet, as I discovered on Monday. The OT had popped by to see how I was getting on in the new room and to see how I was managing with transfers from the shower chair to the bed using the banana board. Yeah, it’s a bit of a struggle, but I can manage it with a struggle and a little panic in the middle. However, I hadn’t expected there to be any water on the chair. But there was. And it dripped onto the tiled floor. After the OT had left and as I stood up from the bed, wouldn’t you know it, but that little drop of water sent me tumbling to the floor like a sack of blindfolded elephants. I am so surprised that my head didn’t bounce off the floor, the only part of my body that didn’t! We spent the best part of half an hour working out how to get me up, as we soon discovered that the inflatable lifter was out of power and the power plug hadn’t been replaced despite telling the Moving and Handling Team of the problem last November. We ended up having to use the BathBuddy to raise me up enough so that my Dad could lift me up onto the bed. So not fun. Still, at least now I know to keep some kitchen roll in the bedroom to dry the floor after having a shower!
Despite the teething problems with the new room, it’s really nice to be down here. The room is full of light and it is amazing to wake up in the morning bathed in sunlight. I just need to get some potted fruit trees around the window and get the rest of the garden sorted and I’ll be a happy bunny. Princi is still having trouble with the move downstairs, she has taken to sleeping in my bed again. It’s not very comfortable as the bed is six inches narrower than a normal double bed. I am hoping that once the little room upstairs is sorted out for her that she will be more willing to sleep on her own. But I don’t expect that she will, although I hope that she will surprise me.
Anyways. Enough of my babbling. Off to read Frankenstein – one of the set books for my next OU course!
Of disability and Glee. May 20, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Disability, ECA, End of EA300, Glee, Joss Whedon, OU, Safety Dance, TV.3 comments
So, yesterday I finally got to see the episode of Glee that I had been waiting for: Whedon Glee. Yes, Joss Whedon directed the episode and being a Whedonoholic I had to watch.
At the end of the episode – titled Dream On, I didn’t know whether or not to feel offended. I know I felt a bit grrr. You see, the episode focused on Artie, the disabled kid confined to a wheelchair. Now, while it’s good that there is a disabled character in the show, I had already been through the yay! then the grrr! when discovering he wasn’t actually disabled (yeah, the ‘Why couldn’t they have hired a real wheelchair user’ argument flared there), but this episode added a new dimension to that argument. When, in the middle of the show, he says he’s been trying out the new therapies and that they’re working, I was thinking, no, they can’t do this. First, one foot off the footrest. Then the other. Nah-ah! Then he stands, walks over to a CD player and puts the music on. ‘All I wanna do is… dance,’ he says.
Well, I felt as if it were mocking the people stuck in wheelchairs. I watched in stunned disgruntledness as he danced, jumped, leapt up stairs. Not good. (Yep, can you see the chip on my shoulder yet?)
As it got to the end of the episode, I was still feeling a little bit grrr. But then I thought about it – because I often react before I think, something I really should get under control. Anyway, it occurred to me that the scene was actually quite deep and I could also see the sense in hiring an able-bodied character to play the part. You see, when I dream, I never dream of myself being disabled. I’m always able to walk (and I mean walk properly, not the doddery wobble I call a walk!), run, climb, whatever. So having an able-bodied actor in the part of a disabled character makes sense if you want to demonstrate this. I can’t believe I had been so blinkered not to realise the potential at the beginning.
I hadn’t realised how bitter I felt about losing the ability to walk until now. Eep. I think I need to sort that out, as it really is just a sad fact of life. Ho hum.
Anyway. Enough of this ECA avoidance. I have just under 150 words left to conclude the pantsness of the essay and then EA300 is done. And then I can relax. Maybe read a book that I don’t have to analyse. Like I’m ever going to be able to read a book un-analytically again now!
Of bogs and truths and gardens. May 9, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Bog Child, EA300, ECA, End of EA300, OU, TMA06, Uncategorized, What goes on in Princi's head?.5 comments
Eeks! Eighteen days left. 3,000 words written. Coherent argument fumbled. Too much to do, too little time?
On the plus point – got TMA06 back today. Yay! Another good mark above 90%, so chuffed to little mintballs. That means if I can get 85% on the ECA I have managed a first. That would be amazing! I would be chuffing like a chuffing train stuffed with chuffed little mintballs! And yes, that an awful lot of chuffedness! But before then, I have to battle with the rest of the ECA essay. That is really dragging me down. Sigh.
I have just under 1,000 words left to find for it. That shouldn’t be too hard. No, it’s more the constructing it into a decent argument. I am having the crisis of confidence thing with this once again. I’m worried I’m not using enough references. Worried I’m writing too much about the plot of the story. Worried I’m not getting enough depth into the points I’m making. Generally, I’m just worried. It’s making me feel ill. Gah! You know, I hate exams, absolutely despise them, but right now I’d gladly throw my hand for it to all be over in three hours. That way I wouldn’t have the time to question my knowledge, to second guess myself. It’d just have to be done and that’d be it. But no, I have eighteen more days to sit and stew. Bugger and butt nuggets! So tomorrow it’s on with Bog Child. On with The Other Side of Truth. On with Tom’s Midnight Garden. And it’s on with working out the history and traditions that tie them all together, hopefully with some pertinent quotes and decent themes. I know I will have something to submit in seventeen days time (don’t want to push it to the limit in case of server overload on the electronic submission site), but if it’ll be any good is anyone’s guess. I’ll have to wait until August to find out. Argh!
And besides, according to Princi:
Botheration! There is difficulty in the crossing between Cape Horn and the Antarctic.
So there.
(That about sums up my state of mind!)
Well, I would write 4,000 words… April 29, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Doctor Who, EA300, ECA, OU, The Principessa Files, Uncategorized.add a comment
OK. Not quite 4,000 words yet. But halfway there. The plan is to have a workable full draft by a week tomorrow. That way, I’ll have a full plan to submit to the tutor and only the rewrite to do over the three weeks before the submission date. And then that’s that. Course is over. Noooooooooooooo! Despite my feelings that this last piece of work isn’t going to be as good as anything else I’ve done (and particularly not TMA05. The result for that still makes me smile with pride), I have absolutely loved EA300. It’s been so hard to get my head around at times, but the sense of satisfaction coming to the end of it is fabulous. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like I’ve come away from a course knowing that I have learned something as strongly as I have with this. All I know is that I really want to continue on with it. But… I need to complete three more courses with the OU before I can even think about that!
Princi has also discovered something she likes to learn. She had her first session with Spanish Club in school today. She stayed back for an extra 45 minutes (I wasn’t sure she would like staying back at school, but she did. Yay!) and when she got home she told me about all the words she learned in Spanish. And she’d learned quite a bit. I was pleasantly surprised. The surprise stayed when she became really excited knowing that she could do it again next week. ‘But only on Thursday,’ she said, with a little look of disappointment on her face. Since then, she’s been playing on Spanish games on her Nanny’s computer!
Anyway. It’s time for Doctor Who before bed. Oh, and tonight it has to be old Doctor Who. She kicked off last night when old Doctor Who was all she could watch because the Broadband had gone down. Grr. But she happily watched ‘School and Chips,’ or School Reunion to the rest of us, and has decided that the old Doctor is better than the new Doctor for now. I’m sure we’ll get back to the repetitive viewing of The Eleventh Hour soon. She loves the food scene too much not to watch it again!
And speaking of the Doctor, here’s something that’s had me giggling today…
And now, the end is near… April 23, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in EA300, ECA, End of EA300, OU.add a comment
And so I face my final essay…
Or so I’d hoped. Hmph!
I sat down today, books surrounding me like a crazy paving collage of critics, the computer warmed up and co-operative, and the essay question peering over the screen like a Chad with ‘EA300 woz ere’ scrawled in magical mystery marker in the air above it. Eeks! Just another 4,000 words, give or take a few and discounting references, and it’s all over. With all the gusto you can muster when it comes to academic writing, I placed my fingers on the keys and started to spill my brain in binary code upon the LCD paper… But then, the accelerator broke. No amount of thumbs in temples would knead my failing brain into action.
I forgot how to formulate actual sentences. One sentence exceeded 100 words. What? Words felt like chewed bubblegum as they unstuck themselves from my fingers. Oh crap! That’s when I realised – this essay isn’t going to work. Which means, at almost 1,000 words in, I am going to have to see if I can break into the other essay question. In the words of the Mutant Enemy zombie monster thingie – grrrr, argh!
So, my plan for tomorrow is to re-plan. To give a quick read over of the construction of childhood stuff – oh, yay! Puritan madness <roll eyes> – and then to decide which four books I shall try to hacky-slashy in order to determine the extent of the preservation of the romantic conception of childhood. What fun…
At least I have five weeks to battle the essay. Maybe by the end of it I will have two to choose from. (And yes, that does mean that when I get stuck with this one I’ll go back to the first one. Glutton for punishment? Me? Nah!)
Words and pictures. April 9, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Bog Child, books, Charles Vess, EA300, ECA, Essay written, Instructions, Neil Gaiman, OU, TMA06.2 comments
Well, this has made me even more excited for the release of ‘Instructions’ by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess. I can’t wait, I tells ya!
__________________________________________________________________________
And for a second squee, I have finished the dastardly essay. Woohoo! I am going to leave it over the weekend, maybe even the whole of next week, before going back for a final read through and tidy up, then it’s gone and outta here! All I have to do before the course finishes is write a 4,000 word essay on how Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd fits into the history and tradition of children’s literature. So, I have decided on the critical essays that I need to read through again to write the essay I think I should be writing, and I shall put this plan into action next week. Still, it’s a ‘Yikes’ moment knowing that the course is nearly done. I’ve really enjoyed (so far) the challenge it presented and I really want it to carry on. Once the degree is done (another three years. Bah!) then I feel an MA in Children’s Lit might be worth pursuing. And I never, ever thought I’d say that!
And out come the wolves. March 13, 2010
Posted by phoenixaeon in Bog Child, books, EA300, ECA, End of EA300, Imagery, OU, TMA06.2 comments
I am still toying with the lost opportunities of various interesting (or what I think would have been interesting) points for the last essay in my head. Argh! If only I’d have left it a couple of days before I submitted it. But then, I had already meandered into the discretionary 10% over the word limit allowance, and I didn’t really want to stray too far from the allowance. So I suppose it could have been a blessing in disguise. Still, I managed not to include the different fonts used to differentiate between dialogue and narration (bum!) or expanding the point of the sleeper cell of wolves (or was that the humans, after all, Lucy is seen in bed/attempting sleep at various points of the story) becoming anthropomorphic and becoming a ‘human parody’. Ho hum!
Anyway. ‘Tis done. Cannot bring it back. It has gone to the cyber-woodsman for slaying and insertion of stones to weigh down its insatiable word-wobbling belly. Which leads me on to the next thing…
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
It is coming increasing close to the end of the course now – and a well received three month break (which may see me purchase an XBox360 and FFXIII, meaning interactive immersion into a story that I will endeavour not to analyse!), so I have been thinking a lot about the final ECA. Yes, I know I still have TMA06 to get through first, but I need to start planning the ECA so I feel confident writing to the extended word count. I mean, 4,000 words is a heck of a jump from 2,000, and as I have not found any critical essays on Bog Child – I am more or less sure that I will tackle this option – I am having to work through ideas and find other essays in addition to vague quotes and comments from essays in the course readers that may help the cause. So today, while having a nosy around and reading a few reviews, I found this review. Now, while it is a bog (no pun intended) standard review, it was the ending that caught my attention:
As a side note, it is curious that the cover of the US edition features the same picture of a shirtless boy in a field as the UK edition, but that on the US version, the boy’s torso has been covered over in orange highlighter. It’s hard to understand what could be the reason for this change which looks very like censorship.
I’m not sure I agree with the censorship issue, but it does have me intrigued. Why orange? I could understand the symbolic use if it represented the Orange Lodge, but if any religion was represented, it was Catholic. There was the ferrying of contraband contraception, but even that would not suggest the use of orange (would it?). So, I am putting it out there for any suggestions. What do you think the publishers were trying to imply by using orange, if anything? (And I feel there must be some sort of symbolic representation as the cover itself is fairly symbolic of religion and personal sacrifice.)
