In the beginning...

I can be impulsive. I’m not much of a planner. Act – then think, is usually my approach. So sending off (on a whim) for the OU course guide was an impulse. By the time it arrived, and I’d idly flipped through a few pages, it was out of my system, and it went in the bin. Then I made the mistake (or not…?) of telling my boss, thinking she’d laugh, and say, “How foolish of you. What on earth gave YOU the impression you’d be able to do something like that!” Instead she virtually demanded I retrieved it and brought it into work.

Within a couple of months I was doing an ‘Openings’ course, and so the OU addiction began. Six years later and I am just about allowing myself to think that a degree isn’t out of the question. Although I’ve been working towards a BA (Hons), I haven’t really thought much about it. I’ve been taking it a course at a time. "Just get through them, don’t think too much about the future, or what if…", I've said to myself. Of course I can do this because I’m not doing it for career purposes. I’m 50 now and I can’t imagine me doing anything life changing – it’s been more a voyage of discovery. What I could have achieved had I not given up on education when I failed the eleven plus. Pretty much all my time at school after that was spent plotting and scheming disruptive behaviour – the one thing I really was good at, and I left with 2 ‘O’ levels. I suppose because a degree isn’t the main goal, I can’t really imagine an ‘end’ at the moment. I’ve already found a course to keep me occupied during the wait for results of what should be my last exam. Then what? Am I going to be able to ‘let go’? Or will I keep finding something else? What happens when I run out of 10 pointers? Will I try a 30? How long before I find a 60-pointer to do ‘just for fun’?