Saturday 24 September 2011

College - Week 13...(Final Week)



Counselling was a bittersweet occasion for me personally. The closing session of what’s been a rather stressful course felt like a millstone had been lifted from around my neck, but the day was also the last class for a couple of people who’ve become close friends during this short period of time together, and I’ll miss them.

My counselling tutors have shown great tolerance in times of worry, confusion and sheer bloody-mindedness on my part, and for that I’m hugely grateful. What grades I receive for the three written assignments remain to be seen, but I’ll endeavour to give it my best shot.

A wander over to J22 rewarded me with an A4 sheet of dayglow yellow paper which has thankfully managed to unravel the mysteries of social policy for me. I had a rough idea in my mind that it was something remotely sociological, but I now have the facts, and look forward to starting my new subject in January.

I.T. was a flurry of completing unfinished work and playing around with Word Art. I’ve never spent much time using this particular feature of Word before, so it was nice to be able to allow my creative juices to flow into what eventually turned out to be a Happy New Year poster. I resisted the temptation to create a certificate proclaiming myself The World's Greatest something-or-other.

I appeared to have left my brains at home during numeracy, and I struggled with even the basic concepts of using my funky scientific calculator. It must be an end-of-term thing, but with support and assistance from my self-sacrificing classmates, I eventually completed my homework….. along with the corrections from last weeks worksheet….. before lunchtime.

Due to the fact that I’m slowly but surely becoming sick of the sight of jacket n beans, I treated myself to jacket n cheese n beans instead.

'Coffee & Chocolate Group' assembled in study skills for the grand handing over of the group project, after a few minor but vital alterations. This has been a very long and tedious task, which will not be fully over and done with until after the timed written essay in January, but at least, for now, I can forget all about on-screen violence, and concentrate on my counselling and sociology assignments.

Sociology, again, was greeted with building work going on nearby, so banging and drilling punctuated the entire lecture. Added to this irritation, was the discomfort of the central heating system. At one point I felt as if the menopause had hit me with a rather hefty hot flush. I tried, mostly in vain, to grasp political perspectives, but lethargy got the better of me, and I’ll have to read my notes several times before I finally learn my left from right wing.
After a quick 'healthy option' salad sandwich, I made my way upstairs to 'the den' for the inaugural meeting of the Mature Students Network. Eight of us in all attended, and the main topic of discussion was the desperate need of a place for mature students to chill out, without having to encounter hip-hop at 100 decibels or the fever pitched squeals of hormonally challenged teens.

Various options were discussed, and the idea of using a key system for making access to the den a privilege seemed to be the easiest and most cost effective method. Exclusion (or “non-inclusion”) seemed to be a bit of a grey area. We’ve agreed to keep in touch via e-mail and to schedule another meeting for the new term.