End of Course Asssessment looming!

Greetings Folks!
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So, the pressure mounts! The deadline for the S104, Exploring Science, end of course assessment is 28th of May! It's a HUGE piece of work and I have to say, I am not at all impressed with the Open University's choice of cut off date! They say we should post off our work at least 4 days before the deadline. Well, that just happens to be a Bank Holiday, so there is no postal service that day! The day before that is a Sunday, so there's no postal service then either! So I will have to look at getting it posted on Saturday 23rd at the latest. However, I'm going to be away for the weekend, so that means I'll need to have everything done and dusted by the end of next Thursday night! Arrrrrrgggghhh!!???!!!

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Anyway, that aside, it's going reasonably well so far and I think I'm on schedule to finish it in time. Just about!?! Progress was hampered by the OU's insistence on including an exercise that requires online discussions and contributions to the course forum. This involves online research and also needs the cooperation and efforts of all your fellow students to spark an online debate! Well, having to rely on ones online colleagues was never going to be that straight forward and the 'debate' has been virtually non-existant. Only 7 people have contributed anything at all, out of about 15 who started the couse in our group! That suggests either a major drop out rate or some students simply sacrificing a few marks in favour of getting on with the rest of the questions without this ill conceived hassle interrupting their flow! Maybe a wise choice, I'm beginning to think!?!
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AND, I've still not received my mark for my final tutor marked assignment, so I don't know at this stage what my final mark is for my course work. My tutor has been pretty excellent thorughout the whole course, taking over at short notice after our original Canadian tutor failed to get her work permit renewed and consequently got shown the door. I've already passed the course work anyway, so it's not that important I guess.
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Oh blimey, somebody stop me moaning! That's something my wife and I are doing way, WAY too much at the moment, but I guess that's just a sign of the stress we are under right now! There's got to be an outlet somehow!
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So tomorrow, Ruth and I are going to have a bit of stress relief by going to watch our beloved Bolton Wanderers play Hull City at the Reebok Stadium in what is the final home match of the Premier League season! It's a bit of an 'end of season' affair with nothing at stake for the Wanderers, but poor old Hull are hanging by a thread to their Premier League status! Should be fun!
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Before I go, take a look at this photo from the BBC Science web site which blew my mind this week!

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Taken by Hubble telescope, it shows a huge cluster of galaxies some 13 billion light years away! S104 has made me think a lot about the sheer scale of the universe and bearing in mind the vastness of our own galaxy, to then consider a whole cluster of galaxies as shown here, just goes to highlight the almost unfathomable immensity of the universe! When I finish my course, I'll have lots more time to talk about this stuff in more detail!
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Better get on - I've got an assessment to finish!
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Cheers for now!
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Alyn