December 1, 2014
Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month
November has been a very busy month for me. My studies are in full swing and I took part in a writing event in November called NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a time where writers do their best to write a novel. You have to write every day for a month so that you can reach your word count goal or, better still, you have a novel by the end of the month.
With university in full swing, it was definitely not easy to try and juggle NaNoWriMo and studies at the same time. Of course, my studies were my priority. I could only write once I completed homework and the revision that I wanted to complete for the day.
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Posted by C.S Young
November 3, 2014
Most other university courses held in my country have assignments and examinations. However, they do not have a final examination that completely decides the grades for that year. Instead, they have many tiny exams that add up to make the final grades.
Since my course does not have assignments and other tiny examinations, people assume that I have a lot of free time or that my course is easier in that sense. To some people, this means that I don’t have to study until the examinations are nearby and thus, I have loads of free time.
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Posted by C.S Young
October 1, 2014
Well, year 2 has begun. Actually, classes have already started for the past three weeks. However, it is only now that I really feel that my year 2 has really started.
The reason for that is that I am beginning to realise how interesting and challenging year 2 is. It makes me wonder if year 3 would be much harder. Anyhow, that’s for me to worry about in year 3. Since I am in year 2, I should be worrying about year 2.
This week, I received my subject guides and it makes me very happy.
I suppose I really like receiving parcels. It feels some sort like Christmas.
The parcel feels like a present and unwrapping makes me really excited. Even though I know what is in it, it still makes me very happy.
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Posted by C.S Young
April 24, 2013
Like most people, I was shocked at the bombing during the Boston Marathon. Television footage showed the devastating injuries caused when a bomb explodes, however primitive or home-made. I vividly remember as a young child overhearing my parents talk about the dismembered bodies on the streets of my home city, Dublin, after a bombing in 1974 (that killed 26 people and an unborn child). But for most of my life, almost all terrorist activity took place within the border of Northern Ireland about 70 miles away, far enough away for me to be immune to daily realities, but near enough to be part of my consciousness.
Although Boston grabbed the headlines, terrorist acts are perpetrated regularly. On the day of the Boston attack 75 people were killed in Iraq, the day before 35 were killed in Somalia, and the day after 22 were killed in Pakistan and 16 injured in Bangalore, India.
My main reason for studying Politics and International Relations is to help me understand the world around me. For some, understanding terrorism is impossible. How can you understand a suicide bomber who is prepared to blow themselves up for a cause? Or someone who would kill innocent people indiscriminately?
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Posted by Michael
April 1, 2013
“Daddy, are you doing your homework?” My five-year old daughter gets it. Not that there’s much to get. If Daddy is surrounded by a splattering of books, journal print-outs and scribbled notes, with a pencil in his mouth and a quizzical-to-stressed look on his face, chances are he’s studying.
She started school in September and has homework every day (except Fridays). The letter tracing and phonetic spelling exercises that amount to her homework are accomplished within minutes of her whirl-winding home. It’s not exactly taxing, but she adores it. There’s an obvious sense of self-importance, but also a real sense of duty. This isn’t a task done in the classroom with the teacher breathing down her neck. This is her responsibility, something that she does on her own, away from the structured school day.
As a parent, I silently questioned the need for homework in the first year of school. Why would a five-year-old need to supplement school learning with extra tasks at home? I should have known better. I’m an external student, juggling one and a half jobs, parenting and lots of other demands, problems and commitments that life flings at me everyday. Why shouldn’t my daughter’s school life spill into our home life? Isn’t that what I’m doing right by taking this degree?
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Posted by Michael
March 18, 2013
I’m not exactly panicking… With just eight weeks to my first exam, I’m on a pretty tight deadline with revision and scanning past exam papers. But a priority right now is outlining exam questions and being sure that I can stitch together a coherent argument on exam day.
As I’ve said before on this blog, my course in Politics and International Relations isn’t exactly related to my full-time job playing clarinet in an orchestra, so it’s not like my day-to-day working life intersects with and enriches my studies. Study time is a separate part of my day, hours snatched in the evening or – if I’m performing – in afternoons before concerts. However, my parallel career as a part-time journalist and writer is helping me no end.
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Posted by Michael
July 22, 2011
Tourists have replaced students in Dublin’s Trinity College during these summer months. Drawn primarily to the Old Library and the Book of Kells – an intricate manuscript written by Christian monks around 1,200 years ago – they teeter around on the cobblestones, snapping photos of each other while soaking up the university’s four-hundred year history. Set right in the heart of the city, the calm surroundings are an oasis from the urban bustle outside its gates. Benches in leafy squares offer resting spots to peer over maps and guides and plan the rest of the day, while the more footsore can spread out on the grassy verges of the playing field and observe the soothing ritual of a cricket match without having a clue about the rules.
The students have long departed. Summer months might include some travel or the odd music festival, but most time will be spent in that dreaded place: the “real world”. Slaving away in summer jobs, they can forget about textbooks until autumn comes around, once again offering the sanctuary of lecture halls and libraries.
As a University of London student my schedule is exactly the opposite. As a full-time musician in one of Ireland’s state orchestras my holidays are comparatively generous, so I can get chunks of reading done. Time isn’t so plentiful for the rest of the year – I’m also a part-time writer with a national newspaper and a very full-time father of two pre-school children – so I’ve planned to read some key International Relations texts in their entirety, like Bull’s The Anarchical Society, Krasner’s Sovereignty – Organized Hypocrisy? and Anderson’s Imagined Communities. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Michael
