Only 12 weeks... or not?

Do you ever want to do something and then when you're given the opportunity it doesn't quite turn out how you thought it would?

I've wanted to do a short course with the OU called Understanding the Weather for ages now. It seemed so interesting and also I'm slightly obsessed with cloud formations, so thought it would be great to learn a bit more. The only problem is that the very last presentation of this course is about to start and so I felt I'd better sign up and get on with it.

I'm now beginning to have huge regrets. Most of the people on this course seem to have either a) done lots of sciency type courses before and understand all the maths, the physics and the terminology; or b) are new to the OU and want to do lots of sciency type courses, already understand maths and physics, but need to learn the terminology.

Frankly, I'm struggling and I've only done Chapter 1. My knowledge of geography, which stopped pre O level when I changed schools and had to do history instead, is minimal, I'm maths phobic and never done a day's physics in my life and I have an innate dislike of graphs and bar charts. This does not bode well.

There are two things that are making me think I should keep going:

1. I'm going to learn a huge amount on this course. I've already learned where some places that I've never, ever heard of are and can even tell you about Verkhoyansk in Siberia - a pretty, bloody cold place near the Arctic Circle, which suffers under regular temperatures of -46C - which makes me pleased I live in the relative warmth of the Scottish Borders where our temperature hasn't risen much above 3C for months. So maybe doing this course will continually reinforce the pleasures of Scottish living and instead of the usual moaning at the weather, I'll instead be quoting all kinds of figures to prove just how lucky I am.

and

2. I don't like to quit. Yes, it's disappointing that in order to learn all I need to to pass this course I'm going to have to put in far more work in getting to grips with the basics than I'd like, but I really don't like to give up.

Of course, I may well retract this last statement and feel after a few weeks that I've had enough. But this course is only 12 weeks long. Even I can sustain something for that short length of time, even if I'm hating it, can't I?