Oh. My. God. Doing 2 assignments in one hit seemed like such a simple task before I actually started working for them!!!

March has been crazy as months go. First of all, we had the kindergarten graduation. This being my first graduation experience in Japan, I had no idea it was not going to be simply “a kindie graduation”, but rather “Kindergarten Graduation – The Movie!” We`ve had parties, performances, (my jellyfish magic went down a treat by the way!) ceremonies, photo opportunities, reviews, parades, and naturally all of this has interfered with my ability to get anything done. (Obviously there has been some serious coffee to be drunk, friends to be caught up with and nights out to be completed too, but we won`t go there….!). So basically, I am flying by the seat of my pants right now, hurtling ever closer to the deadlines of April 24th (Finance exam) and April 29th (Marketing assignment).

Extra challenges  

I have gone back to work part-time, (watch out for me in a commercial for an iphone application! I believe they will be posting it on the net!) and that is adding to the burden this month.

To cap it all off, baby Jay has decided that sleeping is just, well, a total waste of good playing time quite frankly. (It seems they wanted a model who looked like a zombie for the commercial!) I get that he gets it, in a funny way I am kind of proud of him, but could he not wait until he is 18 years to discover his inner party animal, rather than 18 weeks??!

By sheer luck and bloody-mindedness I seem to have been able to get through the course work over the last couple of months. Looking back I can't actually tell you how I managed it though! I think it was just a case of grabbing every opportunity when Jay was asleep and the other kids were otherwise engaged to catch a few pages of lessons, but somehow, the notes have materialized before me and I sit here typing to you with piles of paper littering the table in front of me! The question now of course is whether I can regurgitate it in less than 3500 words for the marketing assignment, and actually regurgitate it at all for the finance exam!

A light at the end of the tunnel...

There is however some good news. Mum arrived from the UK last week like an angel sent from heaven, arms full of UK goodies, swooping in to clean the bathroom, catch up on the ironing and keep the kids entertained while I spend the next month antisocially hooked up to the PC. Her arrival has coincided with the release of the marketing assignment, (perfect!) and Jay suddenly deciding to sleep a little better (big faker!) so there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

In addition, the deadline of the end of April for these two assignments coincides beautifully with the start of “Golden Week”. This is Japan`s big annual spring holiday. People tend to take about a week off work and go have some fun in the lovely warm late Spring weather (and unlike the UK, I can pretty much guarantee that it WILL be lovely and warm!) and THIS year I intend to have a VERY good time!!!! Modules 1-5 will be completed, and I am intending to submit the final one in July which will mean The End just in time for the summer holidays!!! Oh, it all sounds so perfect – what could possibly go wrong??! EEK!!! We all know what happened LAST time I said that!!!!

So - when I post April`s blog I will be able to tell you how the Marketing and Finance assignments went. That is of course, assuming I am not too traumatized by the 24 hour exam! I am quietly optimistic right now – but then again I have been on a sugar-high since mum`s arrival 5 days ago, so I`m not really in a good position to judge anything right now! See you next month!

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