Intelligent husband

Happy husband has passed his Open University photography course. Maybe he'll give me some good photos of his trains to show on Facebook, now

Old friends, new places

I met an old friend today, at work, a friend I haven't seen for perhaps ten years, someone whose son is around the same age as mine. We used to live near each other, but lost face to face contact when I moved here. But she's now a full-time post grad student at the OU studying for a doctorate too. So we met over lunch and chatted for an hour, and could have talked longer, but I had to get on and do stuff. (See Frustrating Day).

A colleague commented that it was weird that we'd both ended up here, but it's not really weird. We've got similar children, we have a similar approach to learning, a similar view of life and what's important - that's why we got on ten years ago. And that's why we're doing similar things now.

OU on BBC

Did you see this programme last night? You've got a week to watch it. Remember how in the sixties people didn't go to university. The Open University was controversially new.

In the sixties lots of people didn't expect to get a degree. People didn't expect and weren't expected to get a degree. Lenny Henry, who presents the programme, is an OU graduate and he tells you what it was like when you saw all these people around you with degrees and you hadn't.

The Open University was controversially new, an opportunity helped by the advent of television, and Michael Young realising that in the USSR they were using radio to educate people and telling Harold Wilson. Fancy that! The OU came out of soviet Russia.

There was hostility. But Jennie Lee argued for it. Thank goodness for these people. I suspect in today's climate we'd never get the OU going because there aren't politicians who would take it as seriously.

OU fortieth

The Open Unlimited photos are on their flickr page here. If you look very carefully, you will see me in some of them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40682471@N05/

OU's 40th birthday

The OU celebrates its fortieth birthday this year. There's to be an open day on campus this Saturday. See http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/campus/events/open-unlimited-anniversary-open-day. And here.

Last time I came to an open day here was 15 years ago with my two small children and husband in tow, my first visit to my university although I'd finished my degree by then and started tutoring. Daughter got photographed in an OU magazine, playing maths with the maths clown. This time it looks full of interesting activities again, and what's unusual is that some of them seemed aimed at teenagers rather than small children. I'll be there. I might have husband with me, but I don't know about large son. Pity daughter won't be around.

Problems working at home

I'm getting little research work written today, because I don't have a word processor to write with, nor a VPN to access the file from my folder at work. Why?

Because I've got a new motherboard, but also everything from my old hard disk has been wiped, which shouldn't be a problem because I have backups - just a chore. And I need to reinstall software.

1. First find the disks. I scratch head but a walk to the coffee shop & a brownie help me remember where they all are
   
2. Then I have to remember registration code. This could be tricky if, like for Office 2007, they sent the code in an email, which is on the wiped disk so somewhere in back up. Fortunately, I'd copied the code legibly onto the cover.

I need to reinstall:

• XP so that gives me a browser, IE :(
  
• First Class client, to get the key for Kaspersky that the OU provides
  
• Kaspersky - do my virus checker and firewalls fast
  
• Firefox - get a decent browser
  
• Thunderbird - accounts aren't all working yet though
• Office 2007
  
• OU eTMA handler
• Olympus camera software
• Olympus digital recorder software
• Inspiration
  -great for diagrams and structuring writing
  
• Dragon - one of the drivers for this reorganisation because I wasn't running fast enough and didn't have enough space for its files so couldn't speak my writing onto files
  
• Macromedia, like Dreamweaver
• FTP - perhaps
  
• Java and Netbeans for tutoring OU M256
• Notepad++ for tutoring OU M150 & the M150 data disks
• Skype - for chats and phone calls
  
• VPN for work
• Family Tree Maker
• Winzip perhaps
• Tablet software
• Creative Livecam video perhaps
  

and turn on automatic updates for things like Microsoft service packs.

Then I have to find or recreate

• my email stuff, like address book
  
• templates that I created, like one for my tutorial plans
  
• the data: photos, emails, tax records, family tree files, Dragon voice files (I'll just start again)
  

So if I don't email you, it's because I've mislaid your email address. Please do email me so I can have your address again.

In the meantime, it's taking hours to install Microsoft service packs, so I can't use my computer for research. I'm stuck on this tiny eeePC, with its tiddily keyboard, but at least I'm still electronically in touch, if not yet productive.

Degree ceremony

Husband and I took today off to attend the OU degree ceremony at Milton Keynes for my MRes. We were going to nip out of the office at lunch time for a few hours, but thought step daughter #3 was going to come with us, so we would leave home later, get an official group photo and have a nice lunch before the ceremony. However, SD#3 must have missed out a syllable (she's been practising her glottal stops) when she told us that she wasn't coming so we didn't realise until 11 o'clock this morning.

Nevertheless, we got an official photo and had a nice lunch beforehand. We found our seats, watched the great and the goods process on to the stage, listened to eulogies on those who were receiving honorary doctorates and applauded the graduates. The graduates were presented to Will Swann, director of students, the doctorates came first then the masters then those who'd received degrees. There were two differences from when I received my first degree:

1. Then there were postgraduate degrees, and BAs, but now there are doctorates, masters, and all sorts of types of named degrees: BAs, BSc, diplomas, certificates and even foundation degrees. That reflects a change and huge expansion in what the OU offers, from around 40 courses in the seventies to over 400 now.
   
2. Then I knew only the people I'd come with - my neighbour and all his family - and we'd all come in his green single decker bus. Now I recognised some of the people on the stage because now I've been an associate lecturer for nearly twenty years, and because as a full time student I get to know faces on the campus. And it was nice after to raise champagne together with someone who works in our building.
   

I think I was prouder of my first degree because it took so much effort and a change in self-belief to get it. Here are some photos of husband who believed in me and supported me through it, and my proud parents when I went to get my BA.