Merry Christmas

One of my unofficial Christmas presents this year has been a re-activation, if you will, of M taking a more active role in keeping me on the straight and narrow. I've had some rules over the last few months (maintaining a bedtime routine, needing separate permissions for masturbating and orgasming, being naked when we're at home without guests) but calling me to account for them hasn't gone as we planned as it turns out that I will just let it slide, and slide, and slide. I also decided to give myself a star chart for December around some household chores, more to get some sense of how often they're done, but it's acted a bit as a motivator as well.

So since the 24th I've had to finish my bedtime routine and then bend over the end of the bed and wait for him. He's now the one who decides how many stars I deserve, and he also decides whether to get an implement out or not.

Given that we've only been doing this for three days so far, it's not very promising that I've already been spanked twice, although fortunately only mildly. The first time was on the first night, a few relatively light swats with his belt I think mostly to get my attention and to reinforce that he can spank me even if I haven't been naughty. But last night I got some swats from our heavier, scarier paddle for forgetting to do my physio exercises (um, forgetting for a week, actually). Nowhere near as devastating as it can be, just hard enough make my body jerk in response and my breath huff out and my hands to grip the bedclothes harder and my brain to ask why I was so stupid as to not do the exercises.

One thing's for sure, it's a definite incentive to make sure I do them today. I do not want to give him reason to use it any harder!

(I'm writing this whilst taking a break from writing out 100 lines for him, by the way. Not punishment lines, 'just' reinforcement lines. Unfortunately my hand's still as sore as though they were punishment lines :-( And the kicker is I already did them last week but I'd remembered what he'd dictated the line to be just slightly differently from what he'd actually said and now I have to re-do them!)

First week

Well, I made it through the first week. Technically it's the second week but the first-first week was orientation and this week was actual lectures and seminars, so it feels like I've just finished the first week.

I'm wiped.

On Thursday night I clung to M and bawled my eyes out - I don't handle change very well... except that I do, I very carefully examine what's changing or needing to change, and how and why and when and what all the implications of this will be, wher the potential pit-falls are, what I need to look out for. And then I go ahead and do it. So you could say that I'm very good at handling change, if it weren't for how incredibly stressful I find it.

M has been supportive, reassuring, stern and not-stern as I've needed, and I'm really very grateful to him. In fact I'd even forgotten that I don't handle change very well - but he didn't, and was very willing to talk things through with me.

One of the problems with higher education, we both agreed, is the level of self-discipline required, which most people don't have. When you're in school your teachers will notice if you don't do your work, or do unexpectedly badly in a test, and will talk to you about it. So will your parents. And when you're in the world of work, the work that you do ties in with the work other people do, so again if you don't do it, or do it badly, people will notice and talk to you about it. It' only in higher education that they don't care, where it's your responsibility to get your work in on time and to a good standard, no one will chase you if you don't and it doesn't affect anyone else if you wind up with a poor grade as a result.

M has repeatedly reiterated that this is not the case for me. I am immensely grateful for this, because I find it easier to do well if I know I'm going to be held to account - I suspect that most people are, we don't want to let people down or give people reason to have a bad opinion of us - whether this is your parents, teachers, colleagues or friends. I'm also immensely grateful because I'm finding it rather thrilling - I've something of a schoolgirl kink, and this is pushing all my buttons :-)

I've drawn up a timetable of my classes, and started a list of the work required for each. These are online so that M can check them.

During the working week, if I'm not in a class I'm expected to be doing private study, usually either in the library or a computer lab. And just to help me along with that, when I'm at the computer, the only non-work-related site I'm allowed to access is my personal email.

I'll be having a weekly review with M, and if I havent managed to finish that week's work by the weekend, I'll have to spend some of our precious weekend time studying. I do know that this is probably inevitable - it's a hard course and there's a lot of work, and I'm not allowed to skimp on it just so I can say it's done. But knowing that will give me extra incentive to work later during the week, so that I don't lose out on time with him.

At Christmas, we've been told, we'll be able to do some progress tests. This is because we won't be examined on the stuff we're learning this week, until June. The progress test let us know in advance if there are any problems. The lecturers kept telling us that they're not compulsory but that they're recommended for those reasons. I already knew what M would say and sure enough when I told him, he confirmed. These are not optional for me, I will be taking them, and I will be aiming for good grades.

And if I ever skip a class, or am late to class, or haven't prepared for a class, without discussing it with M first and/or having a very good (i.e. life or death) reason? I've been reassured ther will be Consequences.

It's such a relief to know that M's with me on this, that he's not only willing to monitor me and encourage me or make me work or punish me, etc - he wants to. For which I'm incredibly grateful.

Unexpected

I had a chat with M this morning about my course. I mentioned how Abel motivated Haron's studies and from my previous post how praise and acknowledging good work were going to be important to me. From this we moved to talking about how he was going to monitor my work - I'll get my timetable next week and we'll then sit down together and work out 'study' and 'play' hours.

We also talked about grades - when I did my BSc, every piece of work you did could be classified as a fail, 3rd, 2:2, 2:1 or 1st. This time, apparently, ther is only 'pass' and 'distinction'. And I've been warned by previous students that 'pass' is pretty easy to get, but 'dstinction nearly impossible.

M said that he expected me to work steadily and have any pieces of work completed a suitable amount of time before the deadline (e.g. a week before for 'big' essays, projects, etc.) - and that he'd read them to comment on sentence structure, grammer, etc.

It felt like having cold water poured over me. He wants to what? No one ever reads my work - apart from the people who mark it, of course, but that's different because they read loads and are used to them being rubbish. I'm immediately convinced that everything I write is going to be awful, and patently not good enough.

I know it's not true - I got decent grades the first time around and could have done better if I'd done better and, for example, written essays earlier than the night before they were due. But this is going mean he's monitoring my work a lot more closely than I'd expected. Help.

We also talked about what happens between being given an assignment and handing it in - I get very anxious at the thought of too much structure/rigidity about how I'm supposed to study, fortunately M agreed with my suggestion that I be expected to do "something" towards an assignment every week, and have it done a week (for example) before it's due, as enough structure to give us something to work with but without stifling me.

Maybe this will work after all. If I can get over the thought of him reading what I write.