School

There hasn't been much talk here recently about school, so I suppose I should say something. It's going okay - I'm enjoying the subjects a lot more this term as they're all my choices with no more compulsory ones. I've got some of my grades back for the mini tests I took before Christmas. None of them count towards our degrees, they're just to help us check how much we have understood the compulsory material. In statistics I got 6/11 - rather annoyed about this as you may recall that I got 8/10 in the mini test five weeks before. Interestingly at the start of this term they put the results online with explanations next to each one you got wrong, and I saw I'd got the first six right and the last five wrong. I think my brain gave out...

I also got my mark back for another course (I can't tell you what without worrying that I'd compromise my anonymity, it's a relatively unusual degree and a relatively unusual course and there weren't that many of us taking it), but all I know is that I got a B - I don't know how many of the 25 questions I got right or which ones I got wrong - I'm a bit annoyed about this, actually, although the grade itself is okay.

I've another test waiting for me to remember to collect it from the office, and have yet to hear about another test or the essay I wrote.

For those of you who might be interested, M and I agreed that anything under 50% or a C grade would necessitate a discussion - not necessarily a punishment because it would depend on the circumstances, but I would need to explain what had happened and what steps I would be taking to improve.

To be honest I haven't really been spanked all that much recently. I got a strapping last Tuesday for losing my temper and acting on it - I felt completely horrible, I do have a temper and it does get the better of me, but not usually to the point where I do something foolish. I felt so ashamed already, and then M said, in his 'disappointed' tone of voice that it wasn't really the kind of behaviour he wanted people to see from his girl, and I just wanted to curl up and die.

But apart from that, and a token spanking on Saturday night (one minute late to bed last week plus forgot to wash my face before going to bed one night), I can't actually remember the last time I was spanked. But I hasten to add that this is because my mind is so taken up with my new classes and so forth that everything else is slipping, and not because it was actually that long ago!

Progress tests

I've mentioned before that my course makes progress tests available so that students can check whether they've understood the material or not. These tests are optional and do not count towards the final grade. In fact, the course organisers will not even see the individual results, only aggregated ones.

Of course, for me, these tests are not optional, M expects me to take all of them and let him know how I've done.

During the last week of term I had five progress tests to do and an essay to hand in. Of course I was obsessing about the essay, what with it being the first one I'd written in four years, and also one of the progress tests had to be taken during a seminar session so I had to revise for that one first. The other ones were available online and you just took them when you liked before they wer taken down agin.

Most of the test were due in by mid-day on the last day of term, Friday, but one of them was going to be kept up until the following Tuesday. Then I was talking to some fellow students about another one, that was worrying me because I was aware I didn't understand the material as well as I might, and one girl said that it was going to be up until Monday so I'd have extra time to study.

Foolish me, I didn't check for myself.

With relief I focused on the other tests and left the two mentioned above until after all the earlier deadlines had been met.

You can see where this is going, can't you.

On Sunday I took the progress test that was going to be up until Tuesday. On Monday morning M double-checked with me how much work I had to do and I said I just had one more test to do before lunchtime and then I was done.

Then I went online and found that it wasn't there.

Then I checked my email and discovered it had actually been taken down on Friday.

Then M paddled me.



It's taken me a while to blog about it because I still feel ashamed about how I behaved during the punishment. Yes, he was wielding the paddle with some force, and no warm-up, and the paddle is evil, thick wood with holes drilled through. But I think really my inability to stay in place was tied up with the guilt and shame I was feeling for dropping the ball so badly. I wriggled and squirmed and howled and generally carried on like he was killing me. And then I managed to wriggle out of position and just could not talk myself back into it. Which of course just made me feel worse, like I was compounding my crime by being deliberately disobedient - except that I didn't want to be.

M's forgiven me for missing the test, and didn't really seem to mind me trying my darnedest to get away from the resulting punishment (I suppose on one level it means he was spanking me "hard enough"!), but I can't shake the guilt. I'm also still exploring some thoughts brought up by these events, as it's the first time, I think, that I've taken absolutely no pleasure at all from any aspect of a punishment. Normally even if I'm hating a punishment part of me is grateful to be receiving it because I know I deserve it and then the slate will be wiped clean. This time the only thought I had was to get away, get away (I'm beginning to sound like he beat the living daylights out of me, he really didn't I don't think I received more than ten or twelve strokes).

I don't know how to resolve how I'm feeling about this.

Statistics

Statistics was the one thing about this course that I was nervous about before I started. I'm not good at maths and I'm even less good at the theory behind the maths, but I knew I would have to thoroughly understand statistics in order to do a good job on this course. It was almost enough to make me decide not to apply.

To help the students assess their progress, we were provided with an online multiple choice test. It doesn't count for anything and the staff won't know our marks, it's purely to help us see how well we've understood the material.

I just took it and got 8/10.