Reflections after two and a bit weeks.

here I am late at night sitting at my laptop. Into my third week of the course and what am i thinking? Well i am loving it. I haven't studied for some years and I must admit I love the stimulation, but are lacking in some of the study skills required to pull something like this off. Guess they have got to be learned as I go.Here are some things i have discovered so far, in no particular order:

• my eyes get tired looking at a computer screen too long! My best thinking work is done with a lead pencil and paper pad in front of me. then i put my work down in computer memory so i don't lose it. Even printing out the course notes and doodling all over them as I go has been helpful.
• Floundering a bit when it comes to using the blogging tools. source of great frustration that there is no one central repository of all our blogs! Not everyone has a Google or a delicious account. it is just taking too long to cut and paste them all into my blog roll. Sure i haven't got half of the blogs there to be read.
• I spend too much time reading the discussion boards when I should be working on the guts of the course work. I am afraid i will miss something important, but a lot of whats there isn't that crucial to know. have limited reading the discussion board reading to ten minutes every second day.
• Have started working on the concepts assignment. Using Zotero has been a godsend for managing my sources: allowing me to cite while i write and preparing annotated bibliographies.
• the last thing i want to mention is about the stress and anxiety that comes from wanting too much. I want to pass the unit and i want to do well but i notice that i have a tendency to get a bit anxious because i can't find the time, don't understand a concept, can't find a good source etc, blah blah blah.I have to remind myself not to get too caught up in that.Anxiety is too much future and not enough present. what i have found is that periods of unstructured time when i am not studying are just as important as the time spent studying. some of my best thinking about the course and it's content comes out of nowhere when i am relaxing drinking tea or walking down to pick up the kids from school but it only comes after some time trying to make sense of it all. it just doesn't come. anyway time to go to bed.