Second year begins

Really getting ready this time

In my last post about getting ready for second year English at uni, I thought I was ready, but then I saw the extent of the assessment tasks—and the terror that set in after I learned we would have to choose a tutorial topic to present during the semester—and I realised I wasn’t ready at all. But there was no real way to get ‘ready’ other than to just dive in.

Procrasti-planning

I suffer from wanting to over-plan everything instead of just doing something. It’s something Oliver Burkeman writes about in his book Four Thousand Weeks, a book I feel very strongly that I need to pay more attention to.

Somewhere in his book, or in one of his books, or in one of his emails—or maybe it wasn’t him at all—Oliver says there comes a point where all the planning and thinking and ‘getting ready to start’ becomes counterproductive and stops you actually doing the work. You actually have to start doing the work.

Some people call this procrasti-planning. I am very good at it. I could easily get a high distinction in it. But I don’t want a high distinction in procrastination. I want a high distinction in my course.

(Hush with that, inner critic. You know we aren’t doing this course to get high distinctions. We’re doing it to learn and to become a better reader and a better writer.

But can’t we . . .

No.

But in first year we . . .

Enough!)

Presentations

Over the weekend I thought about the tutorial presentation issue. Presentations would start in the second week and would relate to the text we were studying that week. There would be five questions each week, so a there would be a maximum of five presenters each week. With a large class there was always going to be the possibility that you might not get your first preference of the text, and even if you did, you might not get the specific question you wanted to present on.

The lecturer had said they were looking for “brave and noble volunteers” to present in week two on the first of our major texts, Lady Audley’s Secret, which I’d read over January. Perhaps some people might have already been thinking about it or might want to get their presentation out of the way early—the offer was that these brave volunteers would “be celebrated”.

I, of course, went into mega-planning mode and lined up all the weekly topics with other commitments I had and ruled out any weeks where I was likely to have too much on. Week 2 was still in the running.

I ruled a couple of weeks out because I didn’t want to answer the questions that were allocated for those weeks, and another week because the reading was too dense. Week 2 wasn’t one I’d ruled out, and one of the discussion questions was on a theme within the novel I’d actually identified for myself before I’d even seen the questions. So in as far as that counts as ‘already thinking about it’, I guess I had been. I could do week 2.

But, Barb. You’d only have a week to research and prepare a presentation, record it, upload it (with your dodgy internet), and write it up. A week!! You can’t do that. Wouldn’t it be better to do yours later so you could have more time to think about it. And for that matter, wouldn’t it be great idea to do it the week after the mid-semester break or after a long weekend ? A week isn’t very long.

Okay, are you telling me if you had two or three or four weeks you’d start preparing it that early, when you have all the other work you have to do for this course? Would you really . . . or would you start preparing it about a week before it was due?

Um . . .

How long did you put off starting your Twelfth Night assignment last year?

Ummmm . . . yeah . . . but you won’t have seen anyone else’s presentations. How will you know what yours should look like if you’re first-up?

There are very clear instructions on what is needed. I know how to research a question and write a response. It’s a different format but it’s the same thing. I just have to leave some issues unresolved and invite the class to discuss them.

But, no. It’s next week. You would have to do it NEXT WEEK.

Yes. Isn’t that great? I’ll get it done and I won’t have to spend the rest of semester thinking about doing a presentation and putting it off and leaving it until the last minute. I’ll have done it.

But . . . what if someone else wants to do the question you want to do and you sign up for this week and everyone wants that question and you have to draw straws to see who gets it and you end up with a question you don’t want to answer?

Absolutely no one else will want to do that question. I guarantee it.

But . . .

Look, I have a preference for a particular question, but I could work with any of the week 2 questions. There’s one other question I’m particularly interested in, and there’s a lot of material available to help answer the other three. I could switch to any one of them with only a hint of annoyance.

. . . . . . . . .

I decided to think more on this overnight, having identified two other weeks I wouldn’t mind presenting on.

Make a decision, please

I didn’t think much more about it on Monday morning and went to a dentist appointment first thing. I think deep down I’d already decided.

The poll was waiting for me when I logged on and three people had already nominated to do week 2. If they were game, I was game too. I didn’t want to continue to weigh up pros and cons of each of my options any more. I clicked week 2 and ‘submit’.

Done. It was out of my hands.

And so to Monday evening, an email from the lecturer to me and the other three who had nominated for week 2 with our instructions, and it was over to us to decide who did what question.

As I’d suspected, no one else wanted to do ‘my’ question. And now I have a little over a week to research, write, prepare and record this presentation. It’s due on Wednesday.

Also on the agenda for week 1:

• Attend the lecture on Tuesday afternoon

• Contribute to the week 1 tutorials (and presumably learn what leading the discussion on my question will look like in practice)

• Preparation for the week 2 tutorial questions that the others in my group will be leading.

I’d better get started.