Clothes, courses and the end of the world

This morning, I was so bored I sorted out my wardrobe (it was either that or do the ironing). I decided I would try something I'd read in a magazine - you put all your hangers facing the wrong way and only turn them round when you wear whatever's hanging on it. After a year, you get rid of anything still facing the wrong way. I have a hunch I'll be forced to send my size 10 dresses to Oxfam, plus all the things I'm hanging on to 'in case they come back into fashion,' (not that I particularly do 'fashion' anyway). I do regret some charity donations, though. I once owned loads of clothes bought from Karen Millen's first shop. Now a well-known clothes designer with a chain of stores everywhere, she started in a little place in Pudding Lane, in Maidstone. My friends and I used to buy things from there, and chat to her as she sat at her sewing machine in a room behind a curtain. When I was absolutely certain that gigantic shoulder-pads would not be coming back (and neither would my pre-baby figure), I got rid of it all. And then she became famous. How inconsiderate. (On a similar subject, my grandmother would never watch The Antiques Roadshow, in case that hideously ugly vase she'd just binned turned out to be worth millions.)

I must have a similar sort-out of the bookshelves. Every so often, I take a few bagfuls to a charity shop, which means I have room to stand all my remaining books up and put them in order (I'm starting to realise this blog is making me sound like I have no life. There could be a point there...). Then I buy more books and they have to be triple stacked again. Anyway, yesterday, wasting time while The Husband and Son Number Two had eye tests, I discovered that the cheap bookshop had a sale. (I must now apologise to The Husband. I'd asked if he had any change he wanted rid of, which he didn't, so gave me a £20 note. Bad move. Sorry, dear...). I love cheap bookshops - they stock all sorts of rubbish you don't see anywhere else. I came out with a bagful, including The Encyclopedia of New Religions, and Apocalypse: A History of the End of Time (a bargain at 99p, and probably for good reason). 

I really shouldn't be buying new books, as I had a load for Christmas that I need to read for my next OU course. But I started wading through Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, and the first chunk seems to be someone relaying the plot of a film they've seen. When people do this in real life, I want to smother them, so I really don't want to read about it. Or maybe the book's just too clever for me. There are probably people reading this thinking, 'Oh, how sad. She doesn't get it.' I may have to put 20th Century Lit on hold for a year, just to give me time to plough through that and Sunset Song, by Lewis Gibbon, who doesn't like speech marks and uses a lot of Scottish dialect. 

Actually, Advanced Creative Writing is looking more appealing. I loved my first Creative Writing course - it didn't feel like work at all (apart from poetry, which felt like slow torture). In fact, apart from one story, I was very lazy on that course. I did no editing at all (yes, I lied to my tutor: 'The editing process made me reassess the phrasing I'd used... blah... blah... blah... '), just bashing out words in the order they came into my head. I loved the whole thing - I could lie and exaggerate to my heart's (and my tutor's) delight. More, please! The OU sent me an email recently: they're thinking of offering a MA in Creative Writing, and would I be interested? Provided the bank account wouldn't miss the required several thousand pounds, certainly. Anyway, I have two courses left to do before that, and they'll be literature and creative writing, I just can't decide what order to do them in. I have until April to decide, as that's when I need to enroll. 

I've just finished reading a rather amazing book, about death and mental illness, bought for me by a friend who knows I like that sort of thing. It's called The Shock of the Fall, and had the rare effect of sucking me in and making me forget I was part of reality. Potentially depressing subject, but written so well. I've sent a copy to The Daughter, it was that good. 

Anyway, I must go. I have many, many books to read, and am going to start on my trashy cheap reads. When I find out when the world's ending, I'll let you know. 

Relief

Earlier this week, I sent an email to the OU, explaining how I really wanted to give up my course. 

A couple of years ago, the OU put up its prices, along with every other university in England. The price of a 60 credit module went up from about £700 to £2500. Those of us who had already started our studies were put on what they're calling 'transitional fees', meaning that we pay the old fees until we finish our degrees or until 2017, whichever is sooner. This is on the condition that we study at least one module a year. (My grand plan of studying until I die and piling up the degrees is sadly no longer feasible.)

My worry at ducking out of my course was that I'd have several months without studying and may lose my transitional funding, in which case my time with the OU would have to come to an end. My email got an automated reply, telling me that I'd hear back within two days 'unless it was a complicated issue'. Three days later and fed up with spending more time awake than asleep at night, I phoned student support. Thankfully, I had a very patient person on the other end of the phone ('I'm here till 5.30, so take your time,' she told me, which made me laugh). Anyway, I'm now off the course, haven't lost my transitional funding, and will hopefully get a bit of a refund. Mission accomplished. 

So I'm going to get the book list for 20th Century Literature and read through it at my leisure. I have to finish Anne of Green Gables first, though. I've been comfort reading. Other people comfort eat, I head for well-thumbed books rather than biscuits. Anne has just broken her slate over Gilbert Blythe's head, so I'll let her finish before I begin Chekhov. 

I can also give proper attention to this weekend, knowing I've no longer got an impossible assignment hanging over me. We're driving to Manchester tomorrow, as Son Number One would like to study military history there. History has interested him for years, thanks to an enthusiastic supply teacher he had when he was about eight. 'A' levels narrowed the interest down to military history, and he found that Manchester uni does a course that includes peacekeeping and terrorism (the study of terrorism, I should say). So, just when I feel like a lie-in, we have to be up at 6.30 tomorrow morning, ready to drive for four hours, attend a presentation, and drive home again. 

Happy days...