The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 14

Having made it into the Final Fortnight of this challenge, I’m very proud to report, that my second essay is IN.  Go ahead, clap, cheer, pat me on the back.  That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 33 minutes.  While I may not exactly be shaking my future self’s hand when I receive the result of this particular assignment, based upon its contents, nevertheless it has been submitted, both online and to my Faculty Office, at possibly the closest to the deadline I’ve ever made.  Big thanks to my housemate, Fen, for letting me borrow the car in order to make it to said Faculty Office in time for the 4pm deadline.  I couldn’t have driven any faster had I been the getaway driver for The Italian Job…

Anyway, essay number two is in, and I’m trying to remind myself that I still have two more due, with deadlines of a week tomorrow.  All I really want to do is go and lie down in a dark room right now, which is possibly due to the intense pressure of the deadline which I haven’t quite calmed down from yet, or could equally be due to the four hours’ sleep I got last night, having worked through til gone 2am re-reading The Help.  While the temptation is to relax, at least for a couple of hours, that is not really an option, due to having a uni friend come to stay tonight, and I know she’s bringing wine.  So after around 8pm, I’ll be focussed on the vino, so I should use the next three and a half hours to prep for my next essay, and make a decision on going to London to view flats at the weekend.

While the thought has occurred to me that maybe in ten years or so, I might wish I’d worked harder to get a better mark for my work, the way people wish they had in high school, right now I realise I am doing all I can.  I know I am capable of working harder, but my emotional and mental state won’t allow it, and I won’t kill myself with the stress of trying to achieve a piece of paper with a slightly different number on it.

I am at the stage now where I care little about what mark I get.  I know what mark I’m likely to walk away with, as long as I can focus long enough to write papers of half-decent calibre.  But it’s more important to me now to just graduate, and if I can’t submit a first-class paper, which would have been my ideal a year ago, then I will submit a lesser paper, because now it’s time to finish this.

While I was in high school, I was asked to represent my year at the hurdles.  I was a complete outsider at school, and was decidedly rubbish at sport, my worst subject (with the possible exception of science).  That year, I managed to run the race, coming second, which left me feeling ok.  The next year I was asked to run again.  I tripped over the first hurdle, in front of the whole school, who were sat alongside the running track.  As a teacher ran up and asked me if I wanted to finish, I embarrassingly told him no, I just want to get out of here.  Well, I’m not running away any more.  I’m going to finish the hurdles, whether or not anyone laughs at me.  Like the Jamaican bobsleigh team from Cool Runnings, I’m seeking a standing ovation for my effort, not necessarily for my actual achievement in the olympic sport which is acquiring a degree.  I want to be able to stand there with my funny hat and my gown in September, with the people I love watching, knowing that I did what I had to do, to get to where I want to be.  While that may not be what others may do, it’s what I am doing.  If there’s one thing I learnt at school, it’s that people won’t necessarily like you for who you are.  But it’s up to you to be that person anyway.  It’s my life, and I’ll live it my way.  To quote another great film, which actually has a similar ending to Cool Runnings, I’d like to use this line from Baz Luhrman’s Strictly Ballroom: “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”

I’ll leave you with a song that was playing in the car as I drove home from the Faculty Office.  It sums up pretty much everything I want to say.

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 42

So I slightly extended my own deadline for my dissertation.  As the official deadline is not until Monday, I will be finishing my dissertation tomorrow and handing it into the security office.  While I still have work to do on it, I can’t actually believe that I am so close to finally having it handed it.  It’s been a part of my life for almost two years now, and I’m pleased to say, that despite a little wobble a few weeks back, I am actually enjoying writing my dissertation.  I’m even, would you believe, enjoying putting the referencing in!  For anyone who is not academic, referencing involves noting the details of a book’s title, author, publishing company, city and page number.  Might sound simple, but it does get a bit complicated, and can be a bit mundane.  I realised the other day that I incorrectly referenced in my assignments that I did before Christmas, although only because I put a reference in the body of the text rather than in the footnote at the bottom (I now understand what my tutor meant when he said to do it differently so there’s more room for work!).

Aside from getting it referenced and proof-checked, I also need to get it bound.  Not had to have any other assignments bound before, so I’m not sure what the process is, although I’m sure there will be queues in the library for it.  I remember in the first year we were told by one of our tutors not to put our work in those plastic, shiny wallets, because it’s a nightmare when they’re trying to mark them on the train…

Anyway, not quite sure why I am reminiscing about uni like this, when I have a dissertation to finish, so let me cover the rest of the blog and then I can get back to it.

Today I had another thanks-but-no email from yet another publishing company.  While it’s nice to know that I can rule out that particular job, it’s disappointing to know that I haven’t even been shortlisted.   So I’m going to tell myself it’s because it’s not the right time yet, and that there’s a better job waiting down the line.

You may remember a few days ago I mentioned a phone call I’d had from a recruitment company about a job in my home city.  Well turns out it wasn’t anything spectacular, just a recruitment job itself.  As much as I’d love to find other people jobs, I think I’d rather concentrate on getting myself one first, thanks.

Anyway, time to get this done, and by this time tomorrow, I should be reporting that my dissertation is printed, bound and handed in.  I can’t wait.

 

 

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 41

Despite saying yesterday’s was going to be a quick post, Day 40 actually turned out to be rather long.  Today, however, is critically close to the deadline of my dissertation, and thus, I really am going to have to keep this short and sweet.  Also, I’m aware that I have 8 minutes to get this done on time.  I seem to recall Eminem may have had a similar problem in the past, but anyway, let’s not go off on any unnecessary tangents.

This afternoon kind of hit rock bottom for me, for reasons too lengthy to go into here.  But it left me climbing into bed by 4pm, and a two-hour intervention from my Life Coach, Jon Richelieu-Booth, to lift me back up again.  With five minutes left before I turn back into a pumpkin, I don’t have time to go into it all here, but needless to say, I appreciate everything Jon has ever done for me, and when you can’t see the woods for the trees, you need someone like him there to point out your strengths.

Anyway, six hours later, I’m back on track, working on my dissertation.  I’ve excelled past the word count and back again; I’m finishing the editing and writing my conclusion tonight, and tomorrow I will do referencing and whatever proofreading remains.  I’m going to be up for most, if not all the night, and being completely full of cold and having sneezed about 50 times already tonight, I’m not really looking forward to it, but as a friend once told me…a little bit of suffering is sometimes needed.

On the job front, I had another thanks-but-no-thanks letter from the same company as yesterday, and my mum promised to buy me a copy of To The Lighthouse when I finish my dissertation.  Result!

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 36

With a week until the deadline for my dissertation, I’m currently working on it now, although I figured I should get this blog written as I’m getting tired and don’t want to miss it should I suddenly decide I’m too tired to work and want to go to bed.  Also my Have You Blogged Today??!! reminder has been going off for the last hour and it’s starting to do my head in.

I’m still working on the Harvesting the Heart chapter.  Because it’s been so long since I read the book, I’ve been flicking back and forth trying to find suitable quotes to use, which has taken me a while.  I’m still not sure I’ve got everything I need, but really I need to start pulling everything I’ve got together now or I’m going to go over my word count, and that will make editing even harder than it should be.

Slowly I do feel like my dissertation is coming together, although I’m worried that I may fall into mad panic mode at any moment.  Probably not for another few days, but sooner or later I’m bound to get to a point when I realise I can’t do what is needed in the short time scale I have left.  Tomorrow is going to need some serious work if I want to avoid major meltdown.

Apart from that, I Skyped with some friends today, who I studied and travelled with when I was in the US.  As I remembered the good times we had, it made me want to make that decision to go to the States for the summer.  But I realise that I am not in the position to be able to make that decision yet.  As much as I’d like to, I can’t make any decision until I am finished with my uni work.  This is probably a good thing, because as much as I feel like I could just go to America for the summer, I’m also excited at the prospect of moving back to London, finding a new job, a new place to live, and planting the roots for the next stage of my life.  I’m sure that whatever I decide to do will be fun, and an adventure.  As long as things go to plan, and I am disciplined enough to get myself through these next seven weeks, then all my work will be in, and that freedom I have been chasing for so long will be mine to do with as I please.

Somebody made a comment on my blog earlier, suggesting that I should add some photos or videos to it.  The comment was filtered straight into the ‘Spam’ folder, which I always check just in case anything slips through.  I think the comment was genuine though; it seemed to be.  Anyway, this has given me something to think about.  I’ve posted the odd picture in my blogs, most recently the ones of me and my idol, Eric Martin, which you can see here https://33andlostinlife.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/the-twelve-week-challenge-day-25/.  I’m guessing people would like to see more pictures, and it would break up some of the wordage.  I can’t promise too much during the next week of this challenge, but I will see what I can do.  I’m still relatively new to blogging, so any feedback or comments are always welcomed.

 

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 33

I hold my hands up.  I’m rubbish at this getting-blogs-done-on-time crap.  This blog is now over twelve hours late, and I have no excuse.

However, yesterday, I did manage to get a fair bit of dissertation work done.  I knocked out 400 words and structured it a little more.  That took me all morning and most of the afternoon, but after dinner, I just wasn’t in the mood for more work.  I had intended to pick it up again later in the evening, but my mood had been soured, resulting in watching television and doing puzzles.  I decided around 10pm to get an early night, and took my laptop with me, with the intention of writing the blog before I slept.  But while procrastinating over the blog, I fell asleep, and awoke the next morning with the realisation that I had yet again missed another deadline.

When I woke up yesterday, not having written my blog from the night before, I made writing it the first thing I did.  This seemed to work. I got the blog written and posted and then for the rest of the day worked on my dissertation.  But today, I didn’t do that.  I watched my two episodes of Frasier, and then started working on my dissertation.  I’m writing about women writers, their female protagonists, and the links between, marriage, creativity and self.  I guess I’m trying to find some answers myself.  I’m using two well-known stories (in academia, anyway) from the 1890s,  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, and comparing them against novels by two contemporary female writers; Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult, and Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs.

Yesterday the 400 words I wrote were on the chapter about The Yellow Wallpaper.  A story about a woman, suffering with post-natal depression (although it wasn’t recognised back then) who goes mad, after being locked in an attic by her physician husband.  I can relate to that (the going mad part at least).

The second book I’m using, The Awakening, is about a married woman who leaves her husband and goes on a sexual and emotional journey; an awakening.  This is a journey I too, I have taken, and in fact, am still taking.

This morning I have been working on my favourite novel of them all, Jodi Picoult’s Harvesting the Heart.  Like a modern-day version of The Yellow Wallpaper, maybe a what-happens-next?, Picoult’s character, Paige, leaves her three-month-old son, Max, and husband, Nicholas, and goes on a pilgrimage to find her mother, who left her when she was five.  Harvesting the Heart is about finding the answers, and the journey you must take to do so.  Perhaps the reason I can relate is because my own journey, these last three, well, six years, if I’m honest, has been about finding the answers.  Why do I feel this way?  Where should I be in life?  What should I be doing?  When will I start to feel happy in my own skin?  As I have mentioned before, this chapter is coming to a close, and perhaps that is why I am panicking.  Because I don’t feel like I have all the answers yet.  I have a huge bundle of memories; of good times and bad, of lessons learnt, some easy to grip and some hard to swallow.  But how I put those memories together into one final picture that makes sense; well that is about these last few weeks.  Recently I feel like I’m working on a jigsaw puzzle where most of it is done, but all that is left is a hundred little bits of blue sky, that all look the same.  Until recently, I couldn’t face finishing the puzzle because I didn’t know where to start.  But now I seem to have managed to find one piece that fits, and this has given me the push I needed to try and fit the rest.  It’s a painstaking job, though, like my dissertation.  I must take the notes and references I’ve collected so far and put them into a piece of work that flows; from the introduction, through all four chapters, to the final conclusion.  This is the story of my life over the last six years, and it’s time to read back over it, and see what I’ve learned.

A Gate at the Stairs, is as the title suggests, about confinement.  But it is also a story about identity and about not making the same mistakes.  Learning, from past mistakes.  Tonight I must get my blog written on time.  If I want to move forward, I need to learn that self-discipline.  I cannot keep making the same mistakes, or how will I ever move on?

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 31

I’m actually highly embarrassed writing this blog post.  It’s 2:14am, and this blog is 2 hours 14 minutes late (at least, since you also need to add how long it takes me to write it.  But hopefully that won’t be too long at this ridiculous hour).  I was only talking to my Life Coach, Jon Richelieu-Booth, earlier today about how I’ve pretty much managed to stay on top of these blogs, with only a handful of late blogs during this challenge.  But here I go again, and the reason being, you won’t be surprised to hear, is a member of the male species.

As I finally switch off my iPhone’s Have You Blogged Today??!! reminder, which I’ve been snoozing every five minutes since 9pm, I realise that I have a history of making the same mistakes over and over again.  During the time of my university career when I need to be focussed on my work, I have let myself get distracted by the idea of meeting The Perfect Man.  I had just about given up; or at least parked the idea until after I was done with uni.  But no.  The internet dating site I was telling you about the other day, the one where you can’t actually talk to people came up trumps, with a rather good-looking guy sending me a message along with his mobile phone number.  To quote an Eric Martin song, I’m a Sucker for a Pretty Face, and the idea that this particular pretty face may finally be the Man of My Dreams was just too much to ignore, even for two weeks while I rid myself of the dissertation that has been haunting me for the last two years.

So I started messaging said guy, and arranged to meet him this week.  He doesn’t live nearby, so it would have meant a full day away from home.  Long story short, something just didn’t feel right and I had to go along with my gut instinct, and actually walk away from aforementioned hot guy.  He didn’t seem particularly upset, sending me a “Bye babe x” text.  Babe.  Even if it was only for two days, I enjoyed having somebody call me babe, and the excitement of thinking this could be the one.

Of course, afterwards, I went into mini meltdown.  I couldn’t do anything, except cry my eyes out, and lay on my bed.  I’ve somehow managed to snooze while snoozing my blog reminder.  It’s a miracle it’s still going off to be honest, a lesser person would have just switched it off hours ago, but like the reminder for my tablets, I refuse to switch it off until I’ve actually done what the reminder tells me I should have done, otherwise I will forget (hence the reason for a reminder).

I realise that I let myself get distracted because, deep down (or on the surface really) I just want what I’ve always wanted – to be in a loving relationship with the guy of my dreams.  Maybe the reason I’m struggling to finish off my uni work, is because it will finally mean doing what I’ve been trying to do for years, which is to escape from my home town and all its ghosts.  After 34 years, 22 of them spent hankering after the guy I thought was “The One”, well I finally have to admit I was wrong.  He wasn’t the one.  He wasn’t even a maybe.  By finishing uni, and moving away, I’ll finally be putting the last nail in the coffin on The One That Got Away, as I always thought of him.

I am prone to repeating the same mistakes and not learning from them.  A reminder of that came in the form of a letter, received while I was away over the weekend, from a debt collection agency.  It was asking if I was indeed the person named who used to live at blah blah address.  Yes I am.  But I worry as to why it is asking me this, in relation to a “Business Matter”.  Read: unpaid debt.  This is from a time when I was married, in fact I haven’t lived at that address for over four years, and I thought all our debts from that time were paid off.

At the time when my divorce is almost finalised, I’m less than impressed to receive something like this out of the blue.  Almost like a reminder that your past will always be there to bite you on the ass.

After I finish writing this, I will switch off my laptop, crawl under my duvet, which hasn’t hosted me since Wednesday night, and switch off the touch lamp my mum gave me last time she came over.  I’ll go to sleep, with The Bish next to me, and when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll start on my dissertation.  Time to banish those ghosts.  Get those last 2000 words written, and then time for editing, before getting it bound and submitted in time before the deadline.  No more distractions.  I can’t afford to lose focus on what’s important; that I am a third of the way through this challenge, and therefore a third of the way closer to being able to say goodbye to all past mistakes, and move on to a brand new page, and the chance to reinvent myself.  I cannot lose this second chance at life.  My parents are waiting to see me graduate this September, along with the person that matters most.  Myself.

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 27

After yesterday’s non-day, today has been quite busy. Last night I ended up with about four hours’ sleep. I started out with a 9am meeting with my Study Coach at Uni, where we discussed my remaining presentations and I raised my concerns about hitting, or rather not hitting, the deadline. We had a long chat about it, but in the end, I felt that I am not behind with my work, and as long as I can work through the meltdown, should it arise (who am I kidding?!), then it’ll be fine.

After seeing my Study Coach, I went to a presentation being given by BUNAC, the company that can help me get a student visa for America to work for the summer. I have to say it’s very tempting, and having almost completed my degree in American Studies, it would be good to know what it’s like to work in the States. Following that, I headed to the train station where I caught the train to Bristol, where I my cousin and her family.

Anyway, I almost dozed off just then in the middle of this blog! So time to switch off and get some sleep…

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 20

Today has been a fairly productive day, although not as much as I would have liked.

On the future side of things, I got my application in for the US summer internship, so now all I have to do is wait with my fingers crossed.  I also started a cover letter for another internship in London.  The closing date is tomorrow so that will have to be finished tomorrow.  Yes, I know I am a last-minute person.

While I was relatively organised in applying for jobs before the closing date, somehow the realisation that tomorrow is Friday has crept up on me (maybe because I have two, five-minute presentations to do at uni, although how I could forget that I have no idea.  I blame my age). I basically have to outline what I’m going to do in my final project for that class.  They are unmarked, but mandatory.  Kinda like your first year of university.  All your tutors tell you that the first year doesn’t count; as long as you get at least 40%, you’re through to your second year.

I hadn’t intended to have arrived at Thursday evening without any substantial progress on my presentations.  But considering I arrived back from dinner with friends at around 8pm and suddenly realised I didn’t even know what film I was going to use for one of my projects, that was a slight problem.

All you have to do, I told myself, was go through your DVD collection.  Pick something that you know like the back of your hand, and apply all that American Studies stuff you’ve learnt over the last three, no four years, and Bob’s your uncle.  Sounds easy, but I struggled to even pick a film, let alone apply any academic theory to it.

I even watched Steve Martin’s 1989 film, Parenthood, thinking I would do something about fatherhood in the 20th century.  I watched the whole film, and in the end decided that I would go with Bridesmaids instead.  I’ll write about the role of the 21st century woman, or something like that.

My other presentation/project will be on Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series of books.  As you’ll know if you’ve read some recent blogs, I’ve been working my way through the first couple in the series.  I’m going to look at Stephanie and her love/hate relationship with copy Joe Morelli.  There’s a big battle of the sexes going on there which should give me plenty to write about.

Anyway, I just noticed the time and think I should get myself to bed soon, and set my alarm for earlyish in the morning.  I’m not like other students, I can’t pull “all-nighters”.  I need my sleep, and would rather get up early and stare the deadline right in the face to get what I need to done.

Day 20.  Roll on the end of this challenge.

The Twelve-Week Challenge: Day 9

So this challenge hasn’t been going so well lately.  On Friday I started getting a cold again, and have been feeling pretty crappy physically ever since.  Today started out ok; I got up around 11:30am, made coffee and sat outside in the back garden, soaking up the sun and the fresh air.  While I was sat there I decided I needed to live somewhere where it was warm and sunny all the time.  I have previously had this idea about living in Gibraltar and did a quick online search for jobs there.

I found a job that I was interested in, advertised by a recruitment agency, filled in the online application and sent it off.  After that, it was downhill all the way.

This afternoon I went to bed for a nap.  I never used to be able to sleep in the day but nowadays, if I get tired, or, like today, I feel I cannot cope with what I am feeling, I go to bed, in the hope of sleeping and shutting it all out.

This evening I have done nothing productive, with the possible exception of watching the CSI: Season 9 box set I bought on my last visit to LA in 2011.  If I had a penny for every game of Spider Solitaire I’ve played, well, I’d be quite rich by now.

As you know if you’re a reader of this blog, I do suffer with pre-menstrual tension.  Today feels like one of those days, although I still have a week and a half to go until my period is due.  So I don’t know if I can put it down to this, or just down to my depression.

I haven’t done any uni work for ages now, and my dissertation deadline is looming.  My dad said to me the other day he had seen my blog, and he hopes I’m not just writing my blog, but that I’m doing my work too.  Well, if you’ve been reading the blog, you’ll know I’ve been writing the blog but the work side of things has been tailing off.

I can’t tell you why.  I think I am scared of doing an essay.  I am scared of applying for jobs.  I am fearful of wanting anything for my life, because what if it doesn’t work out?  I have been so lost in life for so many years now, it is final coming to end of the tunnel time.  But what if the light of the tunnel is just someone with a torch?  Or worse, the headlights of an oncoming train?

My counsellor pulls me up for using the words “What if…”  I know my fears are irrational, but right now I don’t know how to get past this.

So bear with me while I try and get myself out of this deep blue funk.  Writing this blog has helped me, I can feel myself calming already.  Yet I still feel tears in my eyes.   I guess the sea is going to remain choppy for a while yet.

 

 

 

You’ve Got (To Deliver) Mail

Today I became the most expensive postal delivery person, when I hand-delivered my Fulbright Scholarship application to their office in Battersea. In fact, Postman Pat gets paid more than me, since I did in fact pay the train fare to deliver it myself.

You may be asking yourself why I just didn’t get it done earlier and avoid the costly process of travelling to London. I wish I could be that organised; unfortunately I am doomed (due to genetics) to be a last minute person. And on more than one occasion it has cost me where it hurts most – my bank balance. Anyway, I got it in in time, so that is half the battle. If I don’t get a scholarship, then at least I’ve proven to myself that I can write a good Personal Statement. I was hit by the divine inspiration I needed at 5am this morning upon receiving an email from my Professor, Judy Katz, at Juniata College where I studied in 2011, to say that she had submitted the reference. As I put in the reply to her, I couldn’t imagine submitting my application without a reference from her. She is the one who I will forever be indebted to for my love of Women’s Studies, which may have started in Lincoln but was definitely sealed into my heart during her Women & Literature class. There i learnt how to look at how women’s issues are reflected in classic and contemporary literature and how these applied to my own life, as well as writing autobiographical journals, which is really where this blog has its origins.

I’m on the train home now, and it’s overcast, although I see the sun and some blue sky trying to break through. I like the sun but today I’m working on 4 hour’s sleep, so I don’t mind the grey. I just need to stay awake long enough not to miss my stop.

I feel pleased to have my application in, not only because at least I have done what I can to make this dream happen now and my fate is with the Gods, but because now I see a clear path to the other uni assignments which are due, starting at the end of this month and finishing mid-December. After that I shall breathe a sigh of relief – before the next round of Life starts in the new year.