The home stretch?
I have two semesters left of the course it feels like I've been doing forever. All these years I've been unofficially collecting module credits without being formally registered on a programme, but I've finally sorted that out, although said programme is a bit different from the one I was aiming at when I started. The subject is "Combined Studies with English Language and Linguistics"; the Combined Studies arm of it has the title "Changing society: print and internet". And it's all finished now apart from my honours-qualifying modules...
This semester, I'm taking one taught honours course, Psychology of Language, which I don't really have much of an idea about yet. We've looked so far at animal 'language' (chimps learning sign language, dolphins, parrots, bees etc) and at human brain structure, but by the lecturer's own admission the course is a bit of a rag bag of bits and pieces, rather than a coherent entity.
In the other half of my day a week of being a student, I'm working on an 'independent study', which is like a mini-dissertation, and is supposed to link in with my Combined Studies title, rather than with an existing field. I don't have a completely clear idea about this yet, either, although it's getting clearer every time I look at it. The working title is "Victorian values for the 21st century", and it will involve making a website for the Girl's Own Paper, (a Victorian magazine for girls and young women), and writing some sort of narrative document about how such publications and their audience have changed (or not!) in the last 130 years.
Next semester I'm doing my actual dissertation. Well, not precisely next semester, because the convoluted rules about such things insist that they are done over two semesters, to be handed in part-way through the second. So what I'm actually doing is scheduling my own semester starting just after Christmas and doing it all in one quick burst, rather than tamely studying when I'm told to by the university ;-)
I had a meeting with my dissertation supervisor yesterday. He didn't seem unduly bothered by my refusal to do things when I'm told to, grumbled at me about something which is related to my work role but beyond my power to change (which he does every time I see him), and lent me two other student dissertations to read. I'm now trying not to be either daunted by the size of them, or sneering about their presentation or the quality of writing contained within ;-)
And after next semester? I've got the theoretical agreement of my line manager to stay part-time after this degree is finished, so I can do another one. It's possible this is crazy talk, of course, and that I'm only relaxed about the idea now because I haven't yet hit assignment deadline madness, but the idea of finishing makes me sad. I've found bits of the course challenging, I'm bad at managing my time and bad at actually knuckling down and doing some work (witness me writing this entry when I could be working on the independent study), but on the whole I've loved it. I've felt as if long-unused sections of my mind are opening up and coming back to life, and that new mental landscapes are becoming available to me. And I don't want to stop.
This semester, I'm taking one taught honours course, Psychology of Language, which I don't really have much of an idea about yet. We've looked so far at animal 'language' (chimps learning sign language, dolphins, parrots, bees etc) and at human brain structure, but by the lecturer's own admission the course is a bit of a rag bag of bits and pieces, rather than a coherent entity.
In the other half of my day a week of being a student, I'm working on an 'independent study', which is like a mini-dissertation, and is supposed to link in with my Combined Studies title, rather than with an existing field. I don't have a completely clear idea about this yet, either, although it's getting clearer every time I look at it. The working title is "Victorian values for the 21st century", and it will involve making a website for the Girl's Own Paper, (a Victorian magazine for girls and young women), and writing some sort of narrative document about how such publications and their audience have changed (or not!) in the last 130 years.
Next semester I'm doing my actual dissertation. Well, not precisely next semester, because the convoluted rules about such things insist that they are done over two semesters, to be handed in part-way through the second. So what I'm actually doing is scheduling my own semester starting just after Christmas and doing it all in one quick burst, rather than tamely studying when I'm told to by the university ;-)
I had a meeting with my dissertation supervisor yesterday. He didn't seem unduly bothered by my refusal to do things when I'm told to, grumbled at me about something which is related to my work role but beyond my power to change (which he does every time I see him), and lent me two other student dissertations to read. I'm now trying not to be either daunted by the size of them, or sneering about their presentation or the quality of writing contained within ;-)
And after next semester? I've got the theoretical agreement of my line manager to stay part-time after this degree is finished, so I can do another one. It's possible this is crazy talk, of course, and that I'm only relaxed about the idea now because I haven't yet hit assignment deadline madness, but the idea of finishing makes me sad. I've found bits of the course challenging, I'm bad at managing my time and bad at actually knuckling down and doing some work (witness me writing this entry when I could be working on the independent study), but on the whole I've loved it. I've felt as if long-unused sections of my mind are opening up and coming back to life, and that new mental landscapes are becoming available to me. And I don't want to stop.