Monday. New Semester, new timetable, new venues. Just when I've managed to get my head around the old ones. So naturally, I end up in the wrong place at the wrong end of the campus and late for the first lecture.

Professional Skills for Research...sounds like a doddle, you say. Oh, that is so not the case. An hour of lectures, a short break for self-flagellation, then straight onto the workshop. 'Why are we teaching you this stuff?' screams Derek's opening slide. Why indeed?

Derek is one of our Evil Axis of lecturers. Smiling and avuncular but fooling no-one as he ploughs on through Formative, Evaluative and Quantitative Research, throws in SMART objectives, delves into Practitioner Attitudes and throws in a bit of R&E (who he?) for free. Coding, Stats, Content Analysis...are we having fun yet?

It's going to be a long day....

Tuesday starts off on a low. PR & Technology. My idea of hi-tech is a retractable mascara wand. DVDs are beyond my ken. The microwave just sits there, laughing at me.

'What's an iPod?' I have the good sense not to attempt an answer and instead sit there, wide-eyed while fellow students polish off iPods and move onto the finer points of blogging . Two hours of tagging, linking, post editing and comment moderating later, I stumble out into the light - processing the fact that we're to make individual presentations in the coming weeks.

We have cut cards for the subject matter; 9 of hearts lands me with 'Social Media Press Releases - discuss'. Could have been worse; might have gotten Search Engine Optimisation or Wikis and Other Collaboration Software. You're never too old to cry.

Today, Wednesday, is a good day. I answer a question. Not correctly, you understand. But that's hardly the point. How did I manage to execute this maneuvre in the teeth of such hot competition? Easy - I was the only one not nursing a huge hangover. Booze maketh the level playing field.

Thursday is Public Relations and Health. Bring it on! I've answered a bloody question and the game's not over yet....