The psychology of the OU is very clever. Like any successful cult it lures you in by being nice, you see the potential, if you only do one or two little things, to gain a big reward. So you follow the trail of crumbs more and more intently, quite enjoying the cycle of small effort and reward until suddenly the TMA hits you. The System is in your face demanding that you prove yourself worthy by completing a task. No more Mr Nice Guy! Nit-picking purists will pull your assignment to pieces. They will subtract marks ruthlessly at the slightest excuse, sometimes telling you nicely where you went wrong, and you can see the post mortem when your computer spits out the results sometime after the cut-off date.

If you do well it feels good and you carry on until the next one, and next time because you want to do well again, the pressure is greater. If you did poorly, the pressure is on to make up for it by doing well next time. Either way the pressure grows and you find yourself taking more and more time to study until eventually the Course dominates your life.

So that is the reason I haven’t posted here for a few weeks