A wretched week at work doing silly hours to try to do everything. Hence something had to give, and it was working on my degree.

Did my ILP but didn't enjoy it. I know the degree is not just about getting good marks, but given that we are required to do this and that it took me a very long time, I feel peeved that it counts for nothing especially when I could have been working on my assignment. I am trying not to get too irritated hoping that it will save me time later, and perhaps it is symptomatic of the way I have worked over the last two or three years, constantly firefighting as there is never enough time to plan. But what is beginning to come through loud and clear in doing this degree is that perhaps my job and the course are incompatible in time terms, I am being torn in two feeling I can't do either well. Goodness knows how my counterpart copes doing a full time job, plus teaching dancing after work and a degree on top. Perhaps I am not just up to it, getting too old and haven't the stamina I used to. Despite having planned for doing things differently so as to manage the course better, and I was off to a good start, things have now hotted up in a big way at work - I shall have been away from the office four days having had meetings all over the place leaving no option but to work in my own time to meet deadlines for tasks as well as deal with more generated by emails.

Yes I am grumpy but working such long hours isn't likely to make me happy.

Changing the subject,found this little poem very useful to apply when starting on my first assignment:

Bolton G, p73, 2001 Reflective Practice, cites Kipling, p82 1902.

I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who

Started off my first assignment as an essay but then rethought: I needed to use different genre and having spent some of Thursday am preparing a pp presentation for Monday realised it wasn't too difficult. Saw Jane at a meeting int he afternoon and she endorsed my view. As a result I decided to convert my essay into a pp. It takes some work to condense into bullet points, and I am having to do some sort of commentary as well. But it certainly has put into context another task where we are being asked how genre.media impacts on reflection. I noticed that being so concise really focuses the mind on the critical points and has also shown me where I need to give a little more.

This is soooo annoying. Writing this has reminded me that I am enjoying my study, I just wish I had more time.

Anyhow enough for now. I need to go and get a usb cable for my new printer so I can set it up as well as get a microphone cable for the pc. I think that may be why it's not working as the microphone symbol on the back of the hard drive doesn't have a connecting lead to the monitor. Worth a try anyway. It can't be anything serious since the webcam picks up my voice.

Tricia