So I’m at Uni and how I allocate my time has changed substantially, there are some things I find I just haven’t time for any more but it’s okay to cut down on TV watching, maybe not so okay to cut down my reading or cut out my writing but I’ll pick them up again later. While I see the blog as a priority there are times when I struggle which is where the apology comes in. I like to publish an article four days a week at 10:15am, last Thursday I didn’t manage it until much later that night and yesterday I didn’t manage it at all. I’ve almost run out of books in my ‘scribble a few words about’ pile, there’s only one left and that’s one I’ve read for Uni. Let me ramble a bit about the workload.

Three subjects is only eight contact hours divided up between lectures and tutorials. The powers that be recommend between seven and nine hours total study per subject, assume the worst of nine hours multiply that by three and that’s 27 hours a week, it’s not too bad as Uni work loads go. I’m really glad I decided not to do four subjects!

One subject has no text book, another only has one text book, the third subject has five textbooks, all novels and while I’ve read the Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. le Guin it was such a long time ago there’s absolutely zero chance of me being able to use this in class without rereading it. There’s also a vast number of academic papers I need to read not to mention the four movies that are prescribed viewing. As of today I’ve read parts of the text book, viewed all four movies (one of them twice) and read one novel.

The end of semester (actually, it’s called a ‘trimester’) is the end of May and between then and now I have eight more assessments to hand in; two are already completed making ten in total. Five of them are due in over an eight day period ending the 30th May. Yes, I can hand them in late but unless I have an extremely good reason I lose 10% of my marks each day they’re late.

Of those eight assessments I’m currently in the middle of four. One is a workshopped piece of creative writing, I’m lucky as I was in the first week of workshops so now I have time to incorporate the comments to make my writing better and submit it early. Another is a presentation and I’m in the middle of creating that now, I hope to have the basis of it ready to show my family by Friday; it’s only a five minute presentation so my poor family won’t be bored too much but I want the best mark I can get. The third is something I haven’t started on yet, although I’ve put a little thought into it I’ve not come to any conclusions but it’s only 1,500 words. The fourth is a group chat and I’ve been waiting until after Easter for my group to join in the chat, I only found my way into our special chat room on Friday. The other four assessments I haven’t even looked at yet, there’s time.

One thing I’ve discovered is that I’m very wordy and have little trouble meeting the required word length for written assessments. The first assessment was a series of questions, some with a definite answer and others with a written answer, one question had me incredibly excited as they asked me why I was doing the course, it took me a good thirty seconds to calm down, stop waving my hands and actually start typing. The second assessment only needed 500 words, I submitted 509. Most of the other assessments need 1,500 words sometimes broken up into parts of 500 words and sometimes in one lot and I’m finding absolutely no trouble reaching those figures. My workshopped piece needs 1,500 words and I’ve currently got 1,475 I’ll be very close after I’ve finished checking it for timeline and tense.

So, in order to try and make this lot all fit in I dropped Facebook a couple of days ago. I’ll check in for PMs every few days to ensure I don’t miss anything important but that’s all. I will endeavour to put more time into the blog to ensure you actually have four things a week to look at but can’t guarantee anything more than the Alphabet, Friday Photos and the odd giveaway. It’s funny, but just as I get extremely busy I get approached with more books and asked to do giveaways; timing is everything. I’ve definitely got two giveaways happening over the next few weeks with the possibility of another two so I suggest you stay tuned, subscribe to my Facebook page or my Twitter feed as this blog will be automatically published to both of these, if you don’t like either of those then G+ also gets a guernsey.