good thing I had a snorkel, that was a long one

I finished my first term of study with the OU!

Very abstract to just press a 'submit' button on the last of the online assessments, and you're done, and that's it.  I'm sitting here like...um...now what?

Not that I don't have anything to do.  Got a huge list.  But it's sorta weird how there's no real demarcation between frantically working and...done.  This doesn't feel like a novel deadline, but I can't qualify how it's different.  Just...unfamiliar.  A touch surreal.

I have to admit, the last few weeks of abandoning Twitter and FB and LJ have done me a certain amount of good.  I've missed my friends, but there's a lot I haven't missed.  Definitely I've been more focused and centered and all that West Coast crap.  But I'm a bit like a dog that buried the bone and can't remember where.  I must have disabled something on Twitter because I now can't log out and can't post, which is weird.  And I can't actually get on to FB anymore because apparently someone in outer London  tried to log in as me and now no matter how many times I change my password it won't let me in, and then it asked me to do some other stuff to prove who I am and you know what?  Fuck it.  Maybe later.  At this point it all just smells like cheese.

I need to turn the page now and move on with writing and other things, although I'm taking a level 2 math course starting in 2 weeks so I guess effectively I'm still studying.  Fibonacci numbers in the first lesson!  Sorry, I'm a little punch-drunk with this stuff.   In the eleventh hour I discovered there was a possibility of getting a 'pass with distinction' in my general science course.  I'd thought it was just a pass/fail introductory course and so I'd been putting more of an effort into the math course because I know I'll need that to do physics.  But when I found out about the chance of a higher grade I went into overdrive.  Poor brain.  It smoked a bit at times. 

All of this will be the height of irony to anyone who knows me, given that I'm philosophically opposed to the whole concept of grades.  But I'm a parent now, so I get to be a hypocrite on a daily basis.  This is all of a piece.

You just have to laugh at yourself, really.