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So many people seem to be struggling under Coronavirus Lock-down situations across the globe. And I’m one of them. My mental health is taking a battering. Not a start-to-tidy-up-my-affairs-and-post-a-youtube-goodbye kind of battering, more a I’m-going-to-throw-away-all-my-socks-because-wearing-socks-is-a-social-construct-and-besides-then-I-can-buy-and-wear-all-new-socks kind of battering. There may be only the slimmest of margins between the two, frankly.

But really, overall, I’m bossing it. My children are doing beautifully under their home schooling curriculum. My four-year-old has finally taken the strides from letter recognition to confident word reader. (His older brother learned to read at two, for which YouTube and he receive absolutely all of the credit. This one is all me his mother, though.) My older son has gone up several months in his maths. I don’t really know what else a nine-year-old who’s been reading since he was two needs to know, though, so he’s honestly probably falling behind in absolutely everything else. But whatever, he’ll smash those year 6 SATs next year. Which is what education is all about. (Don’t worry, I had to clean up the mess after I said that and was sick. I’ve paid for it.)

At work, we’re leading the charge. I’m not likely to go into much detail, but an IT department in a school is doing exactly the kind of rewarding work I envisioned when I chose to step out of the commercial sector.

And now, at the OU, I’m absolutely on top of things. (Note: By “on top of things” I mean I’m not drowning by having a cliff dropped on top of me. Right now, it feels like being on top of things.) Both of my modules with EMAs are continuing mostly as normal, and both of them have sub-projects to complete next week before the actual EMA.

For TM257, instead of the day school, we’re getting a packet tracer activity, instead. I’ve submitted it and got full marks except a single portion that … doesn’t make any sense as written. It’s been made clear to the module chair that marks are being dropped because the question is unintelligible, rather than assessing the learning outcomes, but that didn’t seem to reach. Still, 90% isn’t bad, and I’ve still got half the EMA to go.

For TT284, there’s a (very small) portion of a project plan that needs to be submitted several weeks early. Whoever thought of this, my hat’s off to them. Because there are marks for it, students will take planning their project seriously. Because there are so few marks for it, their success or failure won’t hinge on the quality of the plan. It just drives home the importance of actually having a plan to complete on time. It’ll be hard to argue that we weren’t prepared for how much effort we’d need to put in.

The one thing that’s really getting me, though, is how little time I have left over. Parent, employee, teacher … We’re all struggling with fulfilling all these roles right now. But there’s a deadline on self-improvement for some of us, and that deadline was determined when nothing like this seemed possible. It’s just … Much.

And while I was thinking about that, I realised that there are tens of thousands of others doing exactly what I’m doing at the same university. So I reached out to some of them. There’s a Discord server that acts as the home of the OUSA’s STEM club. I guess. Iunno. It’s not on the OUSA’s list of clubs. Maybe they’re rogue. Either way, I went to see if they understood what I’m going through, and realised that I understand what they’re going through. I found my peoples. I didn’t know I had peoples.

If I’m honest (which … probably not) I’m probably going to stick around just until I get the green light to leave my house again. Which I won’t do, I love being stuck in my house. But I can then send my family out of my house and have a few minutes to breathe and I can stop sharing my study desk with my work. But it’s really helped my stress levels this week to run into others who are going through it, too. Their invite link is at http://oucr.club/ if anybody else wants a very relaxed, friendly chat with people who get it.

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I got news over the weekend about the OU’s decision regarding what to do about module results for modules with cancelled exams. Results will be based solely on the OCAS (or coursework assignments) portion of the module’s assessments, and not the OES (or exams and end-of-module assignments) portion. Since I’m done with all of my TMAs for the module (all of my modules, really), that means I’m done with the M269 module, apparently, as that was my only module with an exam this year.

I had my last TMA marked and returned last week, too. It came back at 93%, and I think it was marked quite fairly. I disagree with the interpretation of refactoring code versus changing the inputs required for a hypothetical modification to a function in a question, but it’s not a big enough deal to challenge on. (My opinion is, if you’re asked to change something, you only refactor the code unless it’s made explicit that different inputs and/or outputs are required. It should be able to behave in the exact same manner under normal operation unless it’s specifically stated that it’s okay for it to behave differently. I thought that expressing this in my answer would be enough, but it wasn’t.) And I definitely got away with some minor definition inconsistencies.

As the TMAs all have equal weights applied to them, my OCAS, hence my M269 result, is 95.5, so a distinction.

I woke up yesterday nearly ready to end my whole degree. I just couldn’t see any path forward to study five chapters of my networking module (TM257), a block of my web design module (TT284), get an online final exam done for TM257, a plan for my EMA done for TT284, all in two weeks, and then finish up an EMA for each TM256 and TT284, and revise for an exam for M269. You’ll note that only the very last item is removed from this list, now, but it’s enough. It will give me the breathing room I need to get the whole thing over the line.

I still haven’t enrolled for next year, though. I don’t know if I can take it, yet. I’ll have to see where I am after results for my other two modules come through.

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Or: Taking working in isolation to a whole new level

Since some updated governmental guidance on the COVID-19 response, and a new (but completely normal) cough from our nursery-aged child, my family has been in self isolation, about a week and a half. Then last Friday most of my coworkers joined me as the schools were closed, then finally on Monday basically everybody did.

When the schools closed, there were major upheavals for all the universities in the nation … Except the OU. It had some small changes to make, such as the cancellation of face-to-face tutorials and day schools, email-only support from student services, and paper TMAs sent in the post rather than electronically won’t be marked until after schools are opened again.

But for the most part, it’s business as usual for the Open University. It is always. Open. Which is good and bad. Good that my studies won’t be directly impacted, but bad because they are now being severely indirectly impacted. I’ve gone from being a full time parent, full time employee, and part time student to being a full time parent, full time employee, full time home schooler/substitute live-in teacher, and 3/4-time student. And it’s brutal. I have no time for anything. Work is especially difficult, as I’m keeping remote-working resources running which were never intended to support absolutely everybody working from home.

And, of course, if something has to give, it’s university. It’s important for many people, but for me it’s literally just a hobby. (I’ve had more expensive ones which weren’t as fulfilling.) I gave myself a week to get through the TMA for M269, which would normally take a day and a half. I was up until 2 AM last night finishing it up for a due date of noon today. And I never went back to polish it up. It might just garner me a mark of 80, which would be an all-time low. For a subject I’m really good at. That’s how difficult it is to find a spare moment to focus on anything right now.

Other new hobbies include worrying where our next meal is coming from (in a literal sense, as I’ve struggled to find food delivery slots while isolating, and even family members helping have been unable to find basic provisions for us) and playing Which Civil Liberty Is Being Revoked every evening.

On the reals, though, people are running headlong into protecting everybody’s physical health due to a very real danger of death. Nobody seems to be mentioning that mental health is being completely ignored, and it can be just as deadly to some people. Take asking for help as seriously as you take washing your hands if you’re one of those people. And treat emotional security blankets as valuably as actual toilet roll.

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The biggest reason I keep this blog is so that people taking future versions of these modules have some clue as to what to expect from them. I’d planned on having a pretty detailed description of the day school experience, excluding the content of the activities and questions.

Due to measures aimed at slowing contraction of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, the OU has cancelled all face-to-face tutorials for the time being, including day schools.

The alternative learning experience (ALE) in place for people who couldn’t attend the day school for exceptional circumstances, such as disability, can’t be scaled to the necessary size required to accept all students for practical considerations. What we’ll be getting instead is just another Packet Tracer activity to run through. It also appears that we’ll be working on the activity individually, rather than in a group in real-time.

It’s a real shame that some people will be getting through this experience without ever having touched a non-consumer router or switch, but it’s certainly the right thing to do at this time. It’s also rather sad that students won’t experience group dynamics in network troubleshooting, as this is an excellent way to learn for both inexperienced and experienced network technicians. Teaching somebody is a great way to cement knowledge, and for me it makes sure I know it 100% as I don’t want to give out potentially bad information. Having incomplete information is fine if the worst case scenario is that I have to redo some work, it’s terrible if I’ve caused someone else to fail.

If anybody is taking this module and has a bit of cash lying around, you might want to look on eBay for Cisco test equipment kits, use it, then sell it on afterwards. It still won’t be the same, as you won’t be troubleshooting, for example, somebody using the wrong cable between two devices, but it will be better.

(Also, I can’t help but mention that I was going to be in Disney World the week after the day school for the first vacation I’ve been able to plan without extended family since before I got married 14 years ago. Disney World is now closed a couple of weeks before Easter, and will probably be closed over Easter when we were planning to go, too. My kids are disappointed, we’ve lost a few hundred pounds already, but hopefully it won’t be a few thousand, and we’re going to try again for Halloween. And we’ll definitely find a way to make it up to the kids.)

Anyway, if I don’t take a break next year, hopefully I’ll get a run-down of the day school then. Good luck all, stay safe, and wash your hands you filthy animals.