So I’m currently plugging away at TMA04 for M257. There’s something unique about programming questions that can be eternally infuriating – it’s quite possible to bang away at a question, or portion of one, for hours on end without making any progress before you get that little “ding!” of inspiration that lets you finish the task in 5 minutes.

Let’s take, for example, Q3(c). I started that at around 7pm on Tuesday evening. At 1am I finally gave up and went to bed – and had code fragments floating through my head, with one half on my brain still trying to puzzle out the question while the other tried desperately to get to sleep. Work on Wednesday involved several piles of scrap paper on the desk with little Java snippets scribbled down to try later. The solution finally arrived in my head, with an almost-audible “hallelujah!”, at around 8pm Wednesday evening. It’s now coded, screenshotted and safely in the solution document – but I’m fairly certain all that aggravation should be worth more than 19 marks.

Not the end of the story, sadly, as Q3(e) is now giving me the same problems. And that’s only worth 12 marks. Aargh.

Probably the only time I’ll ever see that, so I’m going to enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

After doing all the sums on what it would take to get a distinction on this one, it wasn’t to be:

There’s only so much studying you can do ahead of an exam, and there’s a certain sinking feeling you get when you revise a chunk of a block and then, come the exam, find that both questions relating to that block (Part A of the T224 paper has two questions per block) come from the parts you didn’t have time to do. I got that sinking feeling in this exam. Q5 & Q6 were the guilty questions (ISO7816 smartcards and Bluetooth SCO & ACL links, for the curious), worth a total of 16 marks. I was just 6 marks short of a Distinction – so guess where I likely lost those marks. I’m something of a perfectionist, so yes, frustration with myself was the emotion of the day – but at least this won’t count towards my Honours classification…

S199 is done & dusted, and I have to say I’ve never been so happy to see the back of the course. Initially the problem was just information not sinking in – taking a break for a while (and deferring to the 2nd ECA date as a result) and starting over again solved that problem, but then technical issues with the Student Visualisation Interface app that the OU provide nearly scuppered the whole thing. With an issue that left me unable to complete the ECA, I spent 3 weeks trying to get a solution out of the OU Computing Helpdesk and the course advisers, and drew a blank (OUCH aren’t interested unless it’s an installation problem, and the advisers were a tad.. relaxed.. when it came to replying to the query). Even allowing for the problem running over Christmas, that’s not really ideal.

In the end, I solved the issue myself and the ECA is now away – but the prospect of being unable to complete an ECA, and therefore failing the course, through no fault of my own has left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again.

Whoops. A while has passed since the last update, so here’s a catch-up post.

- Wrote to my MP for the first time over the ELQ funding issue – which affects me, as it would knock short courses on the head, along with the idea I’ve been toying with of doing a BSc(Hons) Physical Science once my current degree is out of the way. Positive reply form her, and she’s signed the Early Day Motion, so I’m fairly happy with that. For all the good it’ll do, knowing this Government…

- T224 complete & results are out – Pass 2, which I’m a little disappointed but not surprised about, as I was caught out by a number of exam questions around Block 3 of the course (Bluetooth, specifically). It doesn’t count towards my Honours classification, so I can live with it. More on that later…

- S199 – which I’ve complained about previously – ended up deferring to the January submission date. I ended up starting it from scratch again – fortunately, it’s made a lot more sense the second time around, so I’m a lot more confident about it now.

- M359 and S186 kick off in February. Since they overlap with the end of M257, it’s going to be a busy few months…

- …which will also coincide with the arrival of our 2nd child, due in June. So is the M257 exam. This could be a problem…

- along with all the OU stuff, I’ve also been taking work-related exams. I now hold Certified Ethical Hacker and Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator certifications. If I ever get to use them, work’s going to get a lot more interesting…

Busy few months passed. Busier few months coming. One word: eek…

It occurs to me that anyone happening across this little corner of the ‘net who isn’t an OU student may be just a little confused by all the course codes and acronyms. If that’s you, wander over to the OU’s Courses & Qualifications page, and feed the code into the “Search Prospectus” box – all will be revealed.

From the courses I’m doing, the Txxx & Mxxx courses are all full one-year units that involve real work – the Sxxx courses are the fun little 2-month fillers I do for personal interest and to keep my mind ticking over between units. Unless it’s S199, which is rapidly turning into a nightmare of global-warming proportions. ^^;

I’ve been plugging away at S199 (Modelling the climate) over the past few weeks, and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that this may be one of those courses that’s Just Not For Me™ – I’m finding the activities very hard going, and a lot of the information just isn’t sinking in right. With my scheduling pile-up fast approaching, I’m beginning to think I may have to defer to the 2nd ECA deadline at the end of January – which then knocks S186 (Volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis) off-course. Ack.

I’m not sure what the problem is – my mind’s much happier dealing with things scientific, and studying weather systems in Geography class at school didn’t give me any problems, so I wasn’t expecting this course to present any issues. Perhaps it’s the lack of motivation from knowing I’m not going to get a score out of it, perhaps it’s the little part of me that’s still a climate change sceptic – whatever it is, it’s hugely frustrating.

Come next week I’ll be into revision mode for T224 and things climate-related will be forgotten about until more important, degree-related matters are out of the way. Hopefully the brain-freeze isn’t a general thing…

Hmm. I sense an unfortunate coming-together of deadlines across three courses that means October / November is going to be hectic…

T224 Exam: 16th October
S199 ECA deadline: 31st October
M257 TMA01 deadline: 15th November

I think my one-month break is about to come back and bite me. The original plan had been to have S199 completed by the end of September – that would have given me 2 weeks to revise for the T224 exam, then into M257 with plenty of time to meet the TMA deadline.

Unfortunately, S199 is proving to be the trickiest 10-pointer I’ve done so far, and it looks like I won’t be finished with it by the end of the month. The revision time for T224 is non-negotiable, so I’ll have to finish S199 after the exam – which then leaves me very short on time to complete the first few M257 units & TMA01. Argh.

Should’ve started M257 when the books arrived, I guess…

S194 resuts were released today:

Happy enough with that, of course – although a dig into the performance profile revealed a few “just achieved” marks that I’m not so happy with. Far be it for me to query the OU’s infallible marking, mind you.

This was the first course I’ve done where I’ve received the Learning Outcome comments instead of a percentage score – I’ve grumbled about these before, and getting this result has just borne out the comments I made then about percentages being a motivational thing – getting this result just didn’t feel the same or mean the same to me. I did use my rough-and-ready formula to calculate a mark for myself, but I still know that’s not a “real” mark. Suddenly my motivation to do more SSCs has taken a dip.

Heads up for anyone who was as interested in this one as I am – the details page for the Certificate in Introductory Astronomy is now up. As it’s a collaborative scheme, it’s not listed in the main Courses section of the OU site, but instead has its own site:
Certificate in Introductory Astronomy
Usual rules for collaborative schemes apparently apply, and you can find ‘em here:
Collaborative Schemes

Go for it – you know you want to..