Student parents support thread

[Lenni]

I used to come on this topic a year or so ago and post on the general hand holding support thread but it seems to have gone so I'm hoping there might be enough of us to start a new one.

I'm in my final leg of a M.Ed in Education and am currently writing my thesis which is going very slowly okay but am struggling to find time, motivation or energy to study. It would be nice to know others are in the same boat and have a place to handhold, moan, swap tips and motivate each other.

"impression is more structured"?

Oh you get the gist!

Hi Lenni,
am in my final year of a BA in Media and Business. Started in 2005. Went to Uni three nights a week after full time work. The end is near though. Working on my dissertation right now. Have just posted a thread for help. Although very hard work, studying, family with three DC, I have never felt more alive and alert.
Keep going with your project, it'll be worth it in the end. If you make just one hour a day available for your studies, before you know it, your thesis will be flourishing.
What really helped me through all of this were my studying friends. When sitting alone in a quiet house, there is nothing better than knowing, I'm not alone. Neither are you. There are so many out there learning till deep into the night.
Good luck with it all.

that was my feeling moley but my msc is a research msc lol - it seems like i'd essentially be re-doing the whole blooming thing again, (not a bad idea re stats lol, there is the faintest possibility i might understand it if i'm taught it yet again...)

there is a small possibility that i would qualify for 'resident' funding, as we have just been offered resident status hence not really knowing where we'll be... current job is for two years, but who knows?! we didn't think it would work (dd2 is physically disabled and we thought would be barred on 'burden' grounds - canada has some fairly strict ideas re who they let in)

tinktong, have replied on your other thread

Blimey, exciting stuff in the offing then mad! So are you going to go for resident status then?

Hello tinktong

well, they want our passports within 45 days... so i guess so! it doesn't actually alter the fact that dh still only has two years work, but it does mean that he can then look for other jobs etc here rather than go back to the uk - it just depends what works out i think... (note - for him lol, clearly my work/ study prospects are somewhere way down the priorities list... bit of a pita for immediate phd prospects but fab opportunity, esp for the kids i think.)

am a bit gutted today - the association for research on mothering has folded. it was based in toronto and i am in awe of andrea o'reilly. it was doing some really interesting things (esp running a study on mothering in academia) - york wouldn't fund it. i'm sort of hoping that they will find a way to carry on, but it feels a bit like someone has said 'that is how important mothering is to the establishment. now b* off home and do the washing up'...

so i'm all at sea! (totally ridiculous - but it seemed to make sense that there was actually an academic establishment that saw parenting as worthy of note lol)

That is depressing news

An International Women?s Day and Mother?s Day Event
Assemble 2pm Trafalgar Sq
March to Parliament Sq
Westminster, London SW1 ALL WELCOME

Saturday 13 March 2010

Mothers March & Speak Out

For recognition and support for all the work
we contribute to society

Come with your children, relatives and friends.

Bring your banners, placards and demands.

mothering is hard work.

The survival of the human race depends on the caring work of mothers. But we get no recognition or support. Only blame when things go wrong. And we?re even expected to do more work to feed the family,
often on the lowest pay.

every mother is a working mother

MEN: Join the contingent of fathers & other male carers
who support mothers.

mothers, this march is for you who are raising children in cities, towns or villages l Who are separated from your children or have lost children l Who are surviving war and environmental disaster l Who are seeking asylum l For you who are grandmothers, non-biological mothers and other women doing caring work l For you who have disabilities or have a child with disabilities l Who are fighting for justice for loved ones l Who have been raped l Who are sex workers supporting families l Who have been criminalised by poverty l For you mothers of every race, age, passport, income, sexuality and occupation l For all of us who are overworked and underpaid.

Our demand is:

invest in caring not killing

Called by All African Women?s Group Mothers? Campaign (MoCa), Global Women?s Strike (GWS), and Single Mothers? Self-Defence

Endorsed by: Kay Adshead (playwright & poet), Black Women?s Rape Action Project, English Collective of Prostitutes, Oliver James (child psychologist, author of Affluenza & Guardian columnist), Sheila Kitzinger, (breastfeeding and natural childbirth campaigner & author), Payday men?s network, The Peace Strike at Parliament Square, Wages Due Lesbians, WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities, Women Against Rape, Women of Colour in the GWS.

Sign MoCa?s petition for family reunion:

www.PetitionOnline.com/MumsKids/petition.html

For info on disability access and facilities for children, to sponsor or

to make a donation: (020) 7482 2496 voice/minicom

www.globalwomenstrike.net
[email protected] [email protected]

An International Women?s Day and Mother?s Day Event
Assemble 2pm Trafalgar Sq
March to Parliament Sq
Westminster, London SW1 ALL WELCOME

Saturday 13 March 2010

Mothers March & Speak Out

For recognition and support for all the work
we contribute to society

Come with your children, relatives and friends.

Bring your banners, placards and demands.

mothering is hard work.

The survival of the human race depends on the caring work of mothers. But we get no recognition or support. Only blame when things go wrong. And we?re even expected to do more work to feed the family,
often on the lowest pay.

every mother is a working mother

MEN: Join the contingent of fathers & other male carers
who support mothers.

mothers, this march is for you who are raising children in cities, towns or villages l Who are separated from your children or have lost children l Who are surviving war and environmental disaster l Who are seeking asylum l For you who are grandmothers, non-biological mothers and other women doing caring work l For you who have disabilities or have a child with disabilities l Who are fighting for justice for loved ones l Who have been raped l Who are sex workers supporting families l Who have been criminalised by poverty l For you mothers of every race, age, passport, income, sexuality and occupation l For all of us who are overworked and underpaid.

Our demand is:

invest in caring not killing

Called by All African Women?s Group Mothers? Campaign (MoCa), Global Women?s Strike (GWS), and Single Mothers? Self-Defence

Endorsed by: Kay Adshead (playwright & poet), Black Women?s Rape Action Project, English Collective of Prostitutes, Oliver James (child psychologist, author of Affluenza & Guardian columnist), Sheila Kitzinger, (breastfeeding and natural childbirth campaigner & author), Payday men?s network, The Peace Strike at Parliament Square, Wages Due Lesbians, WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities, Women Against Rape, Women of Colour in the GWS.

Sign MoCa?s petition for family reunion:

www.PetitionOnline.com/MumsKids/petition.html

For info on disability access and facilities for children, to sponsor or

to make a donation: (020) 7482 2496 voice/minicom

www.globalwomenstrike.net
[email protected] [email protected]

Madwoman - the MRes/MSc research methods thing is doing me in too. When I started my taught Masters it was the only prerequisite for PhD entry and now the goalposts have changed and I have to do a 4 year PhD with the first year being an MRes course. It kind of suits me as would get another year of funding and a relatively easy 1st year which would see me through to DD starting school which would massively help the childcare burden. But even so it will be marking time for a year rather than progressing.

Still haven't looked at that course but will over weekend. Just finished research proposal and funding applications and am now wiped out from the efforts. Done the lot in a week though nothing like a mad rush is there!!

Hello ladies,

Have been reading everyday, just havent had time to post.

That does seem a little counter productive to have to do the Mres as well, bt equally just more time to gain even more knowledge.

Well my kitchen etc are all finished so no more workmen, but an Ikea and cleaning up properly weekend so not much time for work.

I have a final draft of my first essay just needs some referencing and a few tweaks and then must move on to my second essay (loosley dmocracy and dictatorship in interwar period in eastern europe)but just realised I have only 3 lessons left PANIC and so much to read before I can even begin to write. Am now thinking I may have to revert to one of the Nazi Germany based essays as I have a working knowledge of this anyway so will be quicker to research and get on with.

Have also signed myself up for a one day course on Jane austen in June, just for fun and need to read 4 novels, 2 I have read anyway but would like to read again before class... sometimes I think I must be mad

Hello all.... I hope you are all busy working away.

Hello MMMB, glad to hear the workmen have finished and they haven't been too much of a study hindrance

Re: your course topics, I listened to an excellent lecture by Michael Mann on fascism the other night (have taken to listening to lectures on my ipod while walking the dog). It's a recording of a lecture he gave at Birkbeck, available here. That site is well worth a rummage: there are some other excellent recordings of Birkbeck lectures relating to the Holocaust including one given by Christopher Browning. Great stuff!

Thanks Molesworth that is geat, will definitely give that a go.

Moleworth said I should come & talk to you guys

I am doing an OU course Understanding Systems:making sense of complexity

& I have done 30% so far on my first TMA

& I am stuck on a response to: "I keep seeing articles in the media about the internet as a source of disruptive innovation. I can't see why it's such a big deal. What's so special about the internet?"

What have you got to do, comment on the quote to talk about what is special about the internet? What's meant by 'disruptive innovation'?

PS going by the title it sounds like an interesting course

so you have to define 'system' in the context of the internet, and spiel about why it is a 'good' or 'special' (bleurgh) example of a system?

and define 'disruptive innovation' natch - i'd be trying to find all these articles that the quote refers to... can't say as i'm reading the same media lol...

lots of examples of why this particular system (presumably a disruptive innovation) works for the 'good' of society should wrap it nicely?

(who on earth wrote that title? it is awful... is it a quote from somewhere else?)

i did look briefly at that course - was mostly interested to discover what it was about really!

oh, and when i say 'examples of why this particular system... works for the good of society', that's to cover the 'big deal' aspect - so you need 'big' examples of how the internet has massively changed society - so you need to talk briefly about globalisation generally i would think, i'd get a few stats in there about internet use (loads of articles avail on google scholar about increase in internet use/ cross class/ gender/ global etc), and then get your specific examples in re change.

that said, i have no idea if i'm barking up the wrong tree entirely - have no idea what you are reading, or course content, but as a total outsider reading that title, that's where i'd go....

disruptive innovation is from here don't even try & read it's very dry

I think it's about stuff like market leaders being displaced by unanticipated competitors - like when IBM lost out when Apple snuck in (maybe?)

So wild leaps of technology creating new environments/social/ways of living? - eBay/Skype/mobile phones (I mean mobile phones took off in a completely unanticipated way)

But how the internet is a source of it - I am not sure

I am supposed to be networking on the OU site but tbh they are all a bit deep for me

Oh & it's 200 words

200 words - argh, I'd have barely finished my first sentence! Not sure how helpful I could be on that, although if you are looking for examples if subversion how about the ratm no 1?!

So I thought I had finished funding application -appears otherwise gah.

Glad kitchen sorted mmmb and sounds like you are really making progress on those assignments. You've motivated me to work tonight.

Audio lectures - now why haven't I done that earlier. What a stroke of inspiration that is, could listen in car too when can't make train.

Am horribly behind on thesis, now only s month left but schedule had two weeks knocked out by this phd application and now looking frighteningly impossible, eek.

Sorry about typos - am on phone.

I'm getting there - I have 3 types of innovation

Direct = eBay/facebook/twitter
Indirect = apps for phones/MP3 players (using applications you can do on the computer on another bit of kit
Abstract - this is the most difficult - people talking together on-line creating ideas for non technological (or not primarily technological) innovation

& I can't think of examples of the third type

Getting quite demotivated atm

It's a tall order to cover all of that in 200 words, I must say!

Oh I am nearly finished that bit - I just need an idea for the abstract bit

I am now struggling with a non-essay about Napster - 250 words but I have to answer

? What resources were required to launch the service?
? What challenges did it pose to the existing order?
? What were the benefits of the system to its users?
? In what way was the arrival of Napster an important moment in the evolution of the internet ? and why

I am getting tied up in knots over it [grr]

oh lenni - hope you manange to re-wrap the funding application today...