Easter Day, the three degrees and the cost of following a dream

20 April

Easter Day and Jan is off to church for the usual He is Risen service. I'm sure she will enjoy it. As for me, well, I'm sat here typing away as normal, wondering about what I will waffle on about today.

I spent a lot of time studying with the Open University, from 1996 up to around 2010. My target was a honours degree in history, which I finally achieved in 2006. But even before that I was interested in history and it was my favourite subject at school. Life goes on as we all know and it wasn't until late 1994 that began to take history serious again. That came about because of a course in church history studied as part of theological diploma I did through the Baptist Union. That course set me off on all sorts of different tangents and byways. One of those was to produce a history of Manor Court Baptist Church with the title Hats and Coats. it was published in house at the church in 1996 as part of the 150 year anniversary of the founding of the church. 1996 was also my start date with the OU.

My second course with them was right up my street. Culture and Belief in Europe 1450 - 1600 fitted right in with my favourite historic period. Part of the course was to look deeper at art history, which is another area I developed a love for. I followed it up with two more history courses and one art history course, which gave me my 2.2 degree.

In 1996 I was asked by a friend what I was going to do once I had graduated. 'Good grief Mike,' I replied, 'give me chance to start matey.' His reply back was along the lines of, 'It will soon come round and you need to start planning now.' It set me off thinking and wondering what I would do. Remember, at that time (as now actually) I was Jan's carer so I had no plans at all career-wise moves. But I did start to think about what to do next.

With the an OU degree the next step is a MA; so I began looking at them. The one I really fancied was the history of art MA, but at a start price of £1300 plus set books at £120 for year one alone, I just couldn't afford it. There are possible sources of funding but you needed to register for the programme before applying. I really couldn't afford to commit myself like that.

After a possible MA, I really off in to dreamland ... a PHD would you believe, but in what area. Well, I had several ideas, the first one being the role of Kink Phillip II of Spain in the Northern Ireland Troubles. That's not so fanciful if you think deeply on it.

By that time I had gathered a number of books and pamphlets and so on the Baptist Church here in the Midlands; so a second idea was Nonconformity in mid-Victorian Midlands. My last idea was funeral monuments in 19th century Warwickshire.

Whatever, it didn't come about. If I really wanted to go further along those lines I would need to spend time doing a few more undergrad courses, or modules as the OU now insists on calling them. Last time I looked, last year sometime, the price of a 60 point course was around £1800! That is way outside our means so the whole idea is on the 'permanently out' shelf. Anyway, I've had enough of being surrounded by books for months on end.

So for today's photo then ... 

... is from Wednesday's market.

And from the Sage ...

 Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table.
Husband gets up in a rage and says, 'And you are no good in bed either,' and storms out of the house.
After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up.
She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, 'What took you so long to answer to the phone?'
 She says, 'I was in bed.'
He says "In bed this early, doing what"
She says " getting a second opinion"