Is it Wednesday already? All the days kind of blur into one for me at the moment, mainly because I’m always up late.

Like last night, for example. I was awake until 2am. I can never sleep properly, so I stay up and work or study, as I’d feel like I’m wasting valuable time when I don’t.

But last night, tossing and turning, I finally had an idea for my A-Z Challenge theme (well, 2 ideas, really). BUT: To find out what it is, you’ll have to wait for the Theme Reveal Blogfest on March 23! I found the Linky on The Multicoloured Diary and love the idea. Over 220 bloggers have now signed up!

Have you planned your themes yet? Are you participating in the Theme Reveal?

On Monday, I posted a To Do List for this week, and so far it’s going well. I’m handing in my assignment tonight, I’m attending the TTIP seminar later on, this is my Wednesday ROW80 Update and I’ve completed the International Development module. And who knows? If I get the assignment submitted before the seminar, I still have time for one more module tonight (they only take around 2-3 hours each).

My university studies are going well, and the supplement courses are mostly fun. I’ll be leaving one short course (which was mainly about integrating creativity) as I find it a bit more ridiculous than I expected it to be and at least for now, I can think of ways to spend my time more wisely. No offence, State University of New York.

The other courses are really interesting and the study material easy to understand and access, for the most part. Only one course so far does not provide video transcripts, which is a bit of a hassle for everyone with slow connections who can’t watch or download the videos without them buffering for ages.

The next few weeks will be busy, as a lot of the courses are starting around now, so there will be times when I have 6 supplement courses per week but once the short, 3-week courses are over, it’ll thin out again.

I have to say that I find FutureLearn and Coursera excellent MOOC providers, and I’ve already added several more courses to my watchlist, which means that I’m waiting for the next dates to be announced. Some of the courses are available for free at any time, so I’ll probably do one or two of them over the summer before new, scheduled courses start in the autumn.

I know what you think. You think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. That I went a bit overboard with the free courses, especially in light of having to put in that many hours for university. And I know, I tend to obsess, but I can’t see the flaw in obsessing about gaining knowledge.

The courses are free. If I manage to complete them satisfactorily, I’ll get a certificate at the end. If not, no harm done. I’ll simply sign up again for the next round when I’ve got more time on my hands. Having said that, my uni assignments obviously come first. The deadlines for those are Wednesdays and Sundays, though I try to have them ready on Saturdays.

Once I’ve got the research, note-taking and writing for my assignments out of the way, I switch to the supplement courses. It actually helps me to switch topics back and forth. It keeps me more alert. And with these online courses, it doesn’t matter whether I take a day longer to complete them, as long as I get them done in a somewhat timely manner (FutureLearn has a grace period of about 3-4 weeks).

So that’s what I’m up to. It’s a lot, I know, but I’m hoping it’s worth it in the end.

Check out what the other ROWers are doing.