Continuing the Studies

Beloved Reader,

Since my last post two years and four days ago a lot has happened. I worked as an English teacher in China until January 2013 and then moved to Egypt, where I spent February until May in Bahariya Oasis, located in the Western Desert, about 350 km southeast of Cairo. All this time I was studying the four foundation (level 4) courses:

• Explorations in Literature
• Renaissance Comedy
• Approaches to Text
• Introduction to Creative Writing

and in May of last year I sat three of the exams in London, the fourth course, Creative Writing, was assessed through a written assignment for which I handed in a 5500 word prose piece and a 1000 word critical commentary. Spending two weeks in England was a great idea and I had the chance to see a live performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe, a replica of the original outdoor playhouse from Elizabethan times, in London. Besides, I met several fellow students in person, quite a treat after having studied by myself for such a long time, and I was able to see many of the places mentioned or described in the British Literature that I study.

In July I received the exam results and my current grade average is very close to a 2:1 (Upper second-class honours); I hope to be able to raise it to the 2:1 with this year's exams. This year I sat the exams for two level 5 courses:

• Renaissance and Restoration
• Victorians.

I had enrolled for four level 5 courses, but with working full time as an English and German teacher at a private school in Cairo I just could not find enough time to study for all four courses and decided in January to sit only the two exams, thus unfortunately prolonging my studies for another year. My earliest date for graduation will be 2016, and I never thought it would take me so long when I enrolled in 2011. However, an advantage of extending my studies over several years is that I have more time to spend on the individual courses, and thus study each topic more in depth; in an ideal world that is - the last year was quite chaotic with a lot of stress at work so that I did not get to spend nearly as much time as I would have liked on my studies.

Which brings me to the following: I have kept on using the pomodoro technique ever since March 2012 when I first found out about it, and it has helped me to keep detailed track about my studies and the time I have spent on it since I started recording it.

• Level 4 studies:
• Part 1:
• Start date: 04 March 2012
• End date: 23 June 2012
• Number of days I studied: 105
• Number of days I did not study: 0
• Total number of pomodoros: 870
• Hours studied per week: 25.5 h
• Hours studied per day: 3.6 h
• Part 2:
• Start date: 01 September 2012
• End date: 30 April 2013
• Number of days I studied: 190
• Number of days I did not study: 52
• Total number of pomodoros: 1554
• Hours studied per week: 24.2 h
• Hours studied per day: 3.5 h

• Level 5 Part 1 studies:
• Start date: 28 July 2013
• End date: 9 May 2014
• Number of days I studied: 228
• Number of days I did not study: 58
• Total number of pomodoros: 1242
• Hours studied per week: 16 h
• Hours studied per day: 2.3 h

A Note on Level 4 Part 2 studies: I studied less per day/week in the time between September 2012 - January 2013, due to relocating and traveling. I studied more per day/week in the time between February - April 2013, as I did not work, but spent every free minute of my day on my studies. During these three months I did not study on only two days, and I studied for an average of 30.9 hours per week, or 4.4 hours per day.

A note on Level 5 studies: In the time between 29 March 2014 and 3 May 2014 I studied every day, except one, and completed 451 pomodoro units. This equals an average study time of 5.4 hours per day and 37.6 hours per week. Considering a time frame from 01 February 2014 until 3 May 2014, minus three study-free days, I have completed 727 pomodoro units, and studied 3.4 h/day and 23.8 h/week.

This should suffice as a first update about my studies. In my next post I will focus mainly on Level 5 courses and compile a list of primary texts that I have studied, as well as a mostly complete bibliography for the secondary texts that I have read.

Yours Sincerely,

Kris