Module 2 assignment DONE!!!

Yessss! I think I will just type that again.....

Module 2 assignment DONE!!!!

Yep! Feels just as good the second time around!

We were issued with the assignment around the end of September for completion at the end of October. At least....I think we were! After I applied to say I would be submitting in this assessment period, I sat around happily waiting for the assignment to be sent to me....not realising it had already been posted on the website! Doh! Never mind, thankfully I only lost a couple of days and I`ll know for next time. Good job it wasn`t the 24 hour assignment!!!

Modus Operandis

Like all assignments so far (and so far when you also count the HND I think I have done about 16!) I went through my usual modus operandis to complete it, which goes something like this:

1)    Open assignment
2)    Panic because have no idea what the assignment is asking me to do
3)    Go make strong coffee and special trip to international deli for Cadburys
4)    Come home and re-read again
5)    Panic again because was not imagination or bad dream previously, still have no idea how to approach it.
6)    Drink coffee and scoff down chocolate (thankfully bought two rounds for such eventuality)
7)    Call Mum in UK who says “I told you not to take on so much work with the kids blah blah blah blah”
8)    Re-read assignment and tell self that “every journey starts with a single step”
9)    Consult notes (after searching for them for about 2 hours – we have twin sock and note monsters in our place!)
10)  Realise actually have some ideas on how to start
11)  Begin to set up skeleton document and start to write.

Further on in the assignment production phase, I start to realise that, not only do I actually have some ideas I can put into words, but those words are about 60% over the assignment limit already. And I`m only on section 2! Then I spend the best part of the final week trying to cut the thing down again!

Thrifty Stores

This particular assignment was all about a thrift store in Buenos Aires, which explains a lot of the panic. You see, I know very little about thrift stores, and even less about Buenos Aires. In addition, unlike the HND assignments which came in little packages of about 2-3 pages including the instructions, this one involved reading a 10 page case study before getting into the nitty gritty bits of producing theoretical knowledge and applying it in practice to this real situation.

However, despite my terminal lack of confidence, as I started to read the case study, I found myself...dare I say it?....interested in the whole situation?! At the end of the day, even thrift retail is retail, right? And retail is my “thing” both as an IT professional in a previous life, and as a dedicated, passionate consumer in my current one (now I have my husbands` salary and credit cards to play with!) And so it was that with mounting excitement and not just a little bit of dreaming of starting my own thrift store business here in Japan (I do this every time I start a new assignment, dream of doing whatever it is I am studying here in Tokyo!) that I got stuck into it.

We needed to define the current strategy, apply some well-known strategic planning theories to strategy selection, perform some situational analyses of the case study, and finally come up with a brilliant, original plan to take the business forward. All in 3000 words or less. Within a month. (Even the main character in the case study was given 6 weeks and he has years of experience of this kind of thing!)

So yeah, not asking much at all really!!!

Study Plans

I always amaze myself at my ability to never stick to a study plan! It is pretty much the only thing that is guaranteed whenever I write an assignment, that I will never stick to the plan! In fact, I plan not to stick to the plan! But I always have to make a plan anyway, just so I have something to start from. This was no exception. I planned to write, check and correct a section at a time over the 4-5 weeks I had available, and then wound up writing the whole thing in two weeks and then going back in many iterations correcting the whole thing. But I know for certain that if I had started with a plan to write it with many iterations, I would have finally done it some other way! It seems to be pretty much the Way I Do Things. It seems to have worked for me so far, I have never missed a deadline yet.

Which was my other big concern – that Baby Jay here would put in an appearance right before Deadline Day and mess up my study plans for the next 10 months. Well, thankfully he cooperated on that one, and he`s even waited until his nana arrived from the UK which was yesterday, bless him. I have rewarded myself for completing the assignment (so far) with jelly babies, liquorice allsorts, dairy milk, percy pigs, beans on toast, and a (weak, I swear it!) duty free G&T last night! No wonder he doesn`t want out right now! He`s been feasting on proper British fat and sugar for the last 24 hours!!!

So, the assignment has been sent (very easily too, quite impressed with the website!) Baby Jay should be out before the results (hopefully!) and now I am making a start on module 4, Financial Decision Making, to try and get ahead in the study schedule before he arrives to screw up all my carefully laid (although highly changeable) plans!

Between now and December I will be reviewing and making order of my notes on module 3 (Emerging Business Themes) in preparation for the January release of the assignment, and studying module 4 in anticipation of getting absolutely no sleep whatsoever between the end of November and....well....who knows!

My next blog will arrive sometime around Christmas and will include (but not be limited to) The Module 4 Study Notes, The Preparations for Module 3 Assignment, and How on Earth to Produce a Credible Assignment Whilst Caring for a Newborn (short answer: wheel in both grannies!) – see you all soon!

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