Courses and Classes

Before embarking on this adventure into education, I spent about four to six months trying to figure out what I meant when I said I wanted a career change. I did countless online tests to get an overview of my personality (INFP), my transferrable skills, aptitudes, values, interests, dreams, visions and goals. At the end, it became clear to me that the things I have always loved best  have remained the same over the years: words, writing, reading, thinking, investigating, learning, teaching, counselling, organizing. So I figured that doing a basic BA degree, majoring in English studies and possibly something else, would be a very good starting place. Not only would I get a qualification, but I'd get to spend three or four years doing the things I loved most.

So for my first semester, I registered for two papers (as courses are known here). The first is an English paper called Past Masters, which is an introduction to some literary masterpieces from the past, from Chaucer (14th century) and the age of Shakespeare to the satirists of the eighteenth century. Hour-long lectures three times a week with a tutorial hour once a week. The lecture hall holds about 300 students, at a guess, but the tutorials are smaller - about 12 to 16 or so. We plunged straight into Malory's Morte D'Arthur, followed by Chaucer's The Miller's Tale. Both were read in the English of the period, which is vastly different to today's English, and it was incredibly interesting to see how some words had changed or evolved over time. We then went on to some poetry and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which I absolutely loved. The convolutions of the English language are endlessly fascinating! First assignment came due and I got a 'high B' which is probably about 75% or so. The other students are, on the whole, in their late teens but I have met two other mature students and I'm slowly getting to know them.

My second paper is both more and less demanding! Religious Studies 106: Prayer, Meditation, Trance and Ecstasy is an exploration into the ways in which spiritual practices alter consciousness. We study contemporary world cultures and see the influence of rituals, bodily postures, drugs and music and the focus is on the spiritual understandings that come not through doctrines, but rather through ways of living.  The structure is less demanding than English in that there's only one lecture a week, for two hours, and one tutorial every second week. But the preparatory readings require a lot of concentration and understanding, and we have to produce five short essays of about 900 to 1200 words every two to three weeks, followed by a final research essay of 2500 words at the end of term. The readings are mostly interesting but I found it hard sometimes to understand at first what exactly they were on about, or how they fitted into Religious Studies. Gradually I've come to realize that each offers a way of looking at religion (ie a theory of religion) as well as providing an overview of some kind of spiritual practice. Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I'm loving it more and more. Two essays done so far, graded at 8 and 9/10 respectively, so I think I must be doing something right.

The thing I'm finding trickiest to negotiate right now are the tutorials, especially the Reli one. I had fondly imagined that there would be lot of chatter and sharing of thoughts and ideas, but instead, most of the students sit there with their mouths shut and say nothing. Out of the other nineteen students, there's a girl who contributes a fair bit, and a guy who says the occasional very interesting thing, but mostly, when the tutor asks a question, it's me who ends up answering him. I cannot sit there and say nothing, especially if I know the answer or have a thought on the matter! It's making me feel very uncomfortable - and I feel bad for the tutuor too, when his remarks or questions are met with a deadly silence. But it also leaves me feeling like I'm showing everyone else up or sucking up or something. Very unpleasant and frustrating! Maybe he's a poor tutor in that he's not getting the class to engage much? I have no way of telling, as the only other tutor I've worked with is my English tutor, who is very young and very new to tutoring. He's warming up and improving no end, but the reli tuts are agonizing... which is a huge pity as the subject matter is fascinating.

Overall, though, I am absolutely loving being a student again, and especially being a student of subjects that I can embrace with gusto and enthusiasm!

Practicalities of returning to study

We live in Wellington, recently dubbed The Coolest Little Capital in the World by Lonely Planet. One of the great joys of Welly is that almost everything is within walking distance, depending, of course, on where you live and where you want to be. As we have been renting since we arrived here two years ago, it was relatively easy to decide to move to a suburb closer to the university. So towards the end of 2010, with our current lease coming to an end in early March, I started househunting for the fourth time....

And as luck would have it, I found the perfect place almost immediately, which was both good and bad news. The good news was that it was affordable, perfectly positioned for a brisk ten-minute walk to university, had three huge bedrooms, a bathroom with an actual bath (something of a rarity in rentals, it seems) and the owner was not only happy to accept cats, he was also happy to offer it to us. Win all round! The bad news was that it was available immediately, and with three months still to run on my old lease, that meant if I couldn't find a suitable replacement tenant, I'd either have to give up the new opportunity or pay three months of double rent. But I guess the rental gods were smiling that day. I threw an email out; a friend forwarded it to a friend who works for Weta and my little ad got posted on the Weta internal ad board. Within a day, I had interest and within three days, I had a new tenant, willing to move in soon. The old rental agent, however, was highly uncooperative and put all kinds of delays and obstacles in the way, so I paid double rent for a month - but in the end, it was totally worth it.

So now we live in a beautiful old villa with high ceilings, creaky floorboards and beautiful views down a long, green valley. Outside my back door birds sing, trees rustle and hedgehogs nose through the rubbish bags if you leave them outside over night. But it's also close to civilization, being only three minutes walk to the local shops and bus stop, and ten minutes walk to campus. Practically speaking, this is a huge benefit as it means less money spent on bus rides, less time wasted getting to and from class, less hassle if there is a long break between classes and you want to pop home for lunch or a nap or to finish some work.

And that all means saving money and now that I've cut my hours down, saving money is a major priority. I talked to my boss at work and arranged to drop from fulltime (10 shifts per fortnight) to 0.7 (seven shifts in a fortnight). These shifts are mainly over weekends and evenings, so that leaves my days free for classes. Both kids have part time jobs and are thus able to take care of most of their own needs, while I pay rent and food and other basics. The plan is that, like any other students sharing an apartment, we'll share cooking, cleaning and laundry tasks and so far, the plan is working well!

 Next post: classes and courses. :-)