I think I have gone slightly mad

You know when you do something in life and you really wonder why you do it? I think my recent battle with the big C for the third time has done something to my brain. 


I have a "bucket list" - a list of things I would like to do/wish I had done in life; and now I have gone and actively registered for one of these things. I have decided to study towards a Masters degree in English through the Open University. I have actually registered for the thing - and after a couple of modules that I need to do first (seeing as my first degree has NOTHING to do with literary critical analysis and big important literary jargony type words) - I will be the Mary Beard of the Literary world. Well, almost. 

Because I already have a degree, I don't need to do another undergraduate one - thank goodness - but the staff at the OU have recommended I get up to senior arts student level by doing these two modules first....the first one involving scrutinising 14 (yes FOURTEEN) pieces of writing, six dissertations and an exam. Sounds a bit like a Christmas carol! I now have the reading list which includes weird and wonderful concoctions such as:


The Sign of Four - Conan-Doyle
The Duchess of Malfi - Webster
Othello - good old Willie Shakespeare
Wuthering Heights - Bronte (no not the Kate Bush song! - plus I've already read it)
Candide - Voltaire (read this one!)
Oroonoko - Behn
The Lonely Londoners - Selvon
The Emigrants - Sebald
Dancing at Lughnasa - Friel (yeah, I hadn't heard of this either!)
Dubliners - Joyce (have read this one - nah nah nee nah nah!)
The Beach at Falesa - RL Stevenson
The Confessions of an English Opium Eater - DeQuincey
Questions of Travel  - Bishop
Metropolis - Fritz Lang


I've read maybe three of the above, so that means I have eleven to wade through before the course starts in September. Right now I am thinking "waaahhhh" and now you will see why I think my cancer treatment has done something to my brain!


That's nothing to what I will have to do in the next module! And I am already fretting about what I will find 80 pages to write about in my Masters dissertation......


See that bucket list of mine - I think it needs revising........ As for now, I have to pick one of the above to start on tomorrow. Eeny meeny miney mo......