Fresher's week

I went to see Cirque du Soleil: Totem yesterday and it was amazing. Highly recommended!

With my first mailing of course materials was a 'Welcome Week' handout of activities to do over week one of the course (4th - 11th Feb). It is, essentially, an induction into the world of the OU.

Unlike half the people on my course, I didn't do the welcome week IMMEDIATELY ON RECIEPT OF THE MATERIALS. I decided to wait until vaguely approaching the actual start date, so I could gauge my working speed more accurately. I feared that sprinting through the work in a fit of excitement would lead to faltering discontent as the weeks became more demanding.

Time allotted for running through the welcome was six hours. However, since this included up to three hours to work through the IT guide, I didn't think it'd take me quite that long. I was right - the IT guide took me fifteen minutes, but then I've worked in IT for eight years.

Another activity - 'buy your set books' - I did MONTHS ago (thanks again, Vickie).

The course welcome DVD actually settled me down quite a bit. I've been feeling a bit generally dreadful about life for the WHOLE of January, and was starting to think I'd made a terrible mistake deciding to do ANYTHING other than sitting on my arse, in a catatonic state, for seven years, and then working at Lidl. So, I watched the DVD and it was reassuring. I suppose that is the point of it. It wouldn't be much of a welcome if it just showed people screaming down the lens, glassy- eyed and rending their garments. Heh.

The module guide was similarly reassuring, though I did laugh at the italicised exhortation to BUY the set books. Saying that, I have noticed people moaning that the set books are available through StudentHome. They aren't, this is fantasy and nonsense.

I then had a brief look through the study planner and assessment guide. This is getting everyone's knickers in a twist. Some people seem to think they should be able to write their first essay RIGHT NOW.

OU study, at least at entry level, is incredibly structured. I'm doing a nine month course, split into six blocks. Block one is an overview, blocks two to five are the main body of the course and block six is a 'moving on' type of affair. Each block is split into units and I'm allotted a unit per week to study. The units are linked up with two set texts and a DVD-Rom. There are various activities to do. Alongside this are the tutor and module forums online.

At the end of the first five blocks, I'll have to submit a Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA), plus an extra one around the mid-module group project. Each TMA is split into three sections: an essay, a shorter activity on care skills and a retrospective. My first marked work will be an introduction that I have to email to my tutor by the 16th. I sent this off this morning. I doubled the word count, but apparently it doesn't matter this time.

At the end of block six is an exam. Yeah, the exam I kinda didn't notice. Woo!

On top of all that, I have to do five interactive Computer Marked Assessments (iCMAs). These are based on numbers and statistics. Remember I said I was dyscalculic? These are going to be FUNZ.

So, I am officially a student, after ten years of being a worker bee/mother/disgruntled (ex)wife. It's a curious sensation, made stranger by the fact that I am still a mother and disgruntled ex wife. So many things to juggle!