Friday, March 16, 2007

Update

First of all which is untypical for me, I need to thank all of you who have given me practical support through my current crisis

I feel the need to keep you all informed as to where I am at.

I am still bearing an enormous amount of stress which is fighting against my mind to shut down my body. Still waiting to see the shrink and in the meantime have required a referral back to the neurologist as certain symptoms that were not apparent on the last tests have worsened in the meantime. The fight with my GP's the length of time I have had to wait for appointments and then the length of time I have to wait for the hospital does not help. I am due to see the shrink in April sometime (date unknown) and the neurologist in May, in the meantime I will be having an operation at some unspecified time in April complicating matters.

Through all of that I owe to everybody to complete my current terms work at Uni, which I am getting on with now, and complete next terms to graduate at the end of this year.

I have to accept now, financially there is no next year to complete an MeD it cannot be done and I have to gracefully accept that for the time being I will leave with a PGCertspED

I have great hopes of going on to a PhD and right now in the midst of all my stresses I am discussing this with all and sundry even having some of my ideas critically challenged before I start.

My worry is that I might still fall foul of the no first degree tick box formality, which is why I need to get the support first so that whoever looks at this points out that I can be trusted to have the capability.

I have also for my sins started an adult teaching course, which is about as NT as you can get, and is stressing me with group work and work in pairs. It is like jumping through a hoop of fire for me, that it seems I have to go through these kinds of gauntlets to get the formal qualifications that then allow me do and design things in an autistic friendly way or to teach others why what I have been taught is not universal.

I hope I do not collapse before I get to my objectives and that in September I have a clearer road ahead of me than the one I see now tangled with briars.

I need to be superhuman to overcome the anxiety with no damage to me, but I am not. My voice is hoarse from yelling at the phone this morning trying to get through to the hospital which requires you to do things in a most autistic unfriendly way.

You see I have a mission, I have always had a mission which drives me. I believe I can, given the right tools, the right accesses take on the things that researchers mostly refuse because they are not easy, and don't get your name in academic lights in the same way that the more orthodox but essentially empty cognitive or genetic research gets you because it is still "sexy"

I want my research to do something for Autism, to alter the way it is thought about in the professions who have to deal with it.

Above as an autistic it is my duty to do that, to show that we are central to this whole process. The processes of science and medicine which created us have turned us into the Frankenstein Monster who wants a piece of the action.

I just hope I can survive it all and don't end up fleeing from the peasants to end my life on a lonely iceberg.

3 comments:

notmercury said...

"I just hope I can survive it all and don't end up fleeing from the peasants to end my life on a lonely iceberg."

That would place you squarely in the tropics these days. [/global warming humor]

Seriously, I hope for the same.

Anonymous said...

If you haven't already looked into it, could you get a first degree from the Open University? You can transfer credits from work already done so wouldn't need to start from scratch, and if you're on state benefits you may be exempt from (or get a big reduction on) fees.

David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E. said...

Hi Larry...

"I have to accept now, financially there is no next year to complete an MEd it cannot be done and I have to gracefully accept that for the time being I will leave with a PgCertSpEd"

It's a worthy piece of paper to have. And it definitely demonstrates ability to work at post-graduate level.

"I have great hopes of going on to a PhD and right now in the midst of all my stresses I am discussing this with all and sundry even having some of my ideas critically challenged before I start."

A PgCertSpEd would be a reasonable foundation for that aim.

"My worry is that I might still fall foul of the no first degree tick box formality, which is why I need to get the support first so that whoever looks at this points out that I can be trusted to have the capability."

You may not have a formal BA, but - in the case of a PgCertSpEd - the BA is implied in the title of the award: Postgraduate Certificate in Special Education. In addition to this, you have (if I interpreted your photo-mix somewhere correctly) an HND. And at least the UnivCertASDs (although I have this idea that you'd wanted to do the CertHE). Either way, you have sufficient undergraduate learning and study achievement to not been to have a first degree. I have no formal first degree either, although I do have the study credit equal to a BA(Ord) in psychology. In your case, as in mine, it's not likely to matter whether or not you have a formal BA degree: what they'll look at is your previsous study achievements and how they relate to you current research interests.

If there is a difficulty still in getting onto a PhD place... well, tinted's idea of the Open University is a sound one. Your HND would be worth at least 50% of the degree, and you'd probably need to do only a foundation course and then complete the degree doing social science courses... e.g.,

DD100 - SocSci foundation course

and

DD201 - Sociology and Society

and 60 points from the following:

DD305 - Personal Lives and Social Policy (60)
DD307 - Social Psychology: Critical Perspectives on Self and Others (60)
D318 - Culture, Media and Identities (60)

In addition, there is also this option: http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?Q01BD
Do check that out... to get an Ordinary BA you may need only 100 CATS points... easily done, compared to a whole degree.

All the best to you Larry...