atonement

..is Body attack. I gasped my way through a gruelling Body Attack tonight with my most favourite instructor. I think I might punish my body in this way every week. Surely it's got to be the thing for increasing my fitness. I could keep up high impact the whole time, EXCEPT for my stoopid feet. Even though I have the inserts from the Podiatrist, I still get the arch pain when I am making movements like 'jacks' or whatever they are called. I might need to call on my foot friend Cylie for further advice.

Not sure if it will equalise all the dirty cadbury eggs I have been scoffing all day.

But when you are reading about miscarriages, death, grief, loss, depression and the like what else can you do? The more I read though, the more I know this topic is incredibly important.
I got the most hilarious text message from my mum who is in Slovenia with James' sister;

'E (James' sister) and Mo (my step-father) are hungover and still
asleep. I'm off to the markets'. LOL

Must of been some wild night there in Bratislava. I'm slightly jealous. I want my mummy home, only a few days to go and she'll be back here safe in Melbourne, the boys miss her so.

Just so there is a bit of everything in this post; another gloat to go along with my academic prize... James was notified today that he got accepted for rent assistance from his uni for the rest of the year (35 bucks a week) added to that he also got given a $500 bursary amount (I have the cheque in my hot little hand) because we are struggling students raising children. James' university has really looked after us. I know the amounts are quite small to most people, but to us it really could make the difference, it just takes a bit of the stress off us.

ok, best to bed.

Wednesday morning admission

I'm quite quickly (noted with alarm) working my way through the cadbury easter chocolate fundraising eggs.

Highlight of this morning.

Reading this;

TIMELINESFor those of you who are full time students, you will be aware
that youneed to submit your Literature review and methodology to yoursupervisors
by the end of Semester (May 30). This work is graded at PGO.(Part-time students,
this needs to be submitted by October 17).The word limit for this piece of work
is 4,500 (roughly split between3,000 words of lit review and 1,500 of
methodology). Your lit reviewshould examine 10 -15 key pieces of relevant recent
(post 2000 ifpossible) research in your topic area, but will also include at
least30-40 citations.

Well that just sent me straight off to the cupboard to get my caramello chocoate eggs and scoff 5. F U C K I N G hell. I haven't even started. And that is not to miss out on the THREE other essays I have to do by that date as well.

Kill me now. (no, really).

Mother Darwin...

Ok apart from the things I have stated so far - this is what has gone wrong on mums trip.

• Arrived in France in the middle of the night and forced to stay in a postage stamp sized dump. Some 18 hours later than they were supposed to.
• Missed their train to Lille as nobody told them that Paris was an hour ahead of UK
• Baggage damaged (and who on earth would know WHO did it - considering all the different flights she got on just to get here).
• Moving between terminals in Kuala Lumpur to check in for their flight to Heathrow, they got onto the wrong train - the express into the CBD (roflolololol), mum said as it started to pull away she started howling and saying 'I don't want to stay here' and then under her breath 'this stinky place'. I'm sorry it sounds insentive of me, but I could just picture my parents - the door shutting and then going in the opposite direction and not stopping for 30 minutes. With no further Europe flights leaving until early the next morning, they would have been incredibly anxious waiting to get back to the airport.
• Upon arriving at Lille to pick their car up they were asked to pay approximately $1000 for assurity. Something that they were not told about.

They still have to fly to Slovenia, get to Slovakia and Vienna and then get back to Slovenia for the flight to Helsinki, to the flight to Hong Kong and back to Melbourne. Apparently Mum says she will have a book to write of all the things that have gone wrong, and they are at a point where they are just laughing about things as they happen.

Good news is that they are now situated approximately 2km from Bray - this is where my Great Grandfather won his Victorian Cross. Go here: http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbgordon.htm to read about him. Anyway this is the reason that she is there - and I imagine it will be amazing for her - as it is also the 90th anniversary of this battle so there are plenty of people over there. I expect plenty of photos and stories about this place when she gets back. I do hope they are having a great time and eating as much French food as possible on behalf of me.

Somebody asked about how I feel about Anzac day. It's hard because for most of my life I haven't taken it seriously, mostly I used it as an excuse to have a hangover and lay about in bed. Now, maybe because I'm older or because I have children - I do feel quite sombre about it. I never knew my Great Grandfather, so I'm not sure what his position about War or his involvement in it. I don't agree with it and I'm sad that we have to have ANZAC day really, but regardless I still respect what they have done for us and I don't believe anybody should ever forget either. That said, I have never been to a march - but I might consider going with my mother next year because I know how important it is to her.

I'm also incredibly excited for my step-father. He is about to see his sister and his home country (Slovenia) for the first time in 45 years.

In other news;

Gymming? - Yes - yesterday and today. Todays effort included weight training interspersed with skipping just to keep the heart rate sky high.

Uni ? - On track - application done and handed in. I will hear back around May 20 whether my application was acceptable and ethical enough to do lol. I have planned for them to reject it once, but it will be an absolute bonus if it goes through, because then I can start my research a whole month earlier. I will spend this next month on my other work, I still have 3 assignments for my other subjects to do. And to organise my final placement.

Children? - Currently sitting in loungeroom watching television. They are generally exhausted on a thursday after childcare and kinder for 3 days in a row - so we slop around a bit on a thursday. I offered to take them to the beach today but Jude declined (!!). They miss each other so they just want to hang out together. How lovely is that?

James? - He is beautiful. I am thinking, thinking, thinking about what to do for him given that he is working his bum off for us. He is barely ever home, but when he is - he encourages me to get out and exercise, go out etc. And he is off feeding mum's animals twice a day no matter what. He is such a beautiful man. I can't wait to have a little bit of spare money where I can show I appreciate him.

OK, best go - children might get square eyes, Motherguilt is kicking in.

and in other news...

First of all, I think my mum might be in Paris now? Bloody hell, I hope so. That would be almost 48 hours since they started travelling. They got stuck again in London so I answered another phone call at 3am, saying that Air France was demanding 500 pounds to fly them to Paris. Luckily the gorgeous CP manager here in Melbourne had given me her mobile number so I woke her up and she sorted it out. I haven't heard anything else, yet - so hopefully they arrived and they are asleep. I've just rung the travel agency now to double check that all the other arrangements as per their itenary are correct and confirmed. I'd love for them to have a relaxing holiday now with no more stuff ups.

Now onto gloating uni news;

'I am delighted to announce that you are an award recipient for the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences 2008.
Award name: Behavioural Science
Award criteria: For producing an outstanding assignment in Forensic Psychology'
Prize : $75..
Please attend blah blah blah...'

Very nice surprise, especially about the money. It could not have come at a better time.

I also have my first result in, Distinction. Excellent. Now I'm off to email my final copy of my ethics application, it is being submitted tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I'm off now, I want to get to the gym before I have to pick Jude up today. I've made a connection about my eating. Whenever I'm tired, I eat like a piglet.

Bleary eyed

I have had the biggest weekend, take a seat and let me tell you all about it.

Friday night

consisted of me, my mum and a good friend go here http://www.savers.com.au/main/ to look for a dress to wear for the girls dinner for the following night. I found one! $6.99 for a retro dress, which Rach unpicked and then sewed back up for me while we shared a bottle of wine, hic! Thanks Rach!

Saturday

No gym, I decided to spend my day with my family as lovely Isis rang and asked me to stay with her at the hotel she had booked herself into. What an adventure, staying in your own city but in a hotel! We checked in and cracked the bottle of wine immediately, and sat chatting freely without the interruption of children. Ahh the pleasure of that cannot be measured. Very soon after we had a knock on the door and we found Suse on the doorstep. We then meandered next door to Ames and found a few more lovely ladies - Eventually we made our way down to http://www.minirestaurant.com.au/ . Divine is about the only way I can describe it. The food, the company, the laughter, the wine. It was such a fabulous night.

Sunday

Alarm off at 7.30am - bleary eyed and hungover I showered and got myself ready for a birthday breakfast of a dear friend. Met up with a few of the girls from the previous evening and set off for the botanical gardens. Oh is there any better remedy for a hangover than a greasy bacon, mushroom, tomato extravaganza with baked bean and cheese jaffles, eggs, fruit salad, danishes and filtered coffee thrown in for good measure? Oh I ate until I just could not eat anymore. Celebrated the birthday with someone who looks nowhere near the age she says she is (40 pfft, I look older than her!). Then off to take mum to the airport - where it went something like this; Go to airport to find out Typhoon has hit Hong Kong so mum has been bumped off Cathay Pacific and is suddenly flying with Malaysian airlines so she can get to Paris still, so what started off being a 30 minute trip - ended up being 2 hours at airport. Feed children McDonalds and order gigantic coke for said hangover. Watch underbelly (thanks Deb!), fall into deep, deep sleep.

approximately 3.30am - awaken from deep sleep by mobile phone and house phone ringing - it goes something like this;

Mum crying and anxious. Malaysian airlines would not allow them to board their flight from Kuala Lumpur to Paris - she got dumped from the flight - they wouldn't accept her to travel to Paris because she didn't have some document that Cathay Pacific would pay for the flight sector a FIN note apparently. The woman at the airport did so much as rifle through her bag (because she didn't believe that mum didn't have it!!!!!). We think the woman at Malaysian airlines check in back in Melbourne did not give it back to her. There were 8 other people that had been moved from Cathay Pacific flight with her and none of them had trouble, they all got on their flight and are happily on their way. They argued, cried and tantrumed for 3 hours- stressed out of their minds about what to do and whose fault it was - and in the end decided to ring me at 3am to ask me to help. Mum was crying, anxious and just wanted to come home. Finally after 4 hours I got through to a human being at Melbourne airport. Thank god for the internet. In the time it took to get onto her, I had already managed to look at KL's flight schedule to had sorted out an alternative way of getting to Paris by this evening. They had said to her last night that she would have to wait for a midnight flight tonight, effectively losing almost 2 days off her trip to Paris.

Upside is this; Cathay Pacific have the most loveliest lady at Melbourne ap who remembered me and my parents from the airport yesterday. She immediately got onto it and organised 2 tickets to London on the first flight out of KL, and upgraded her to business. She has also organised them 2 tickets to Paris on an Air France flight and given me her home mobile number to contact if there are any more issues! Now that is service. Now Mum always wanted to be upgraded, but unfortunately in not so crap circumstances.

Fingers are firmly crossed that this is all the issues they will have. They still have tonnes of flights ahead of them. Hope they enjoy the pointy end of the plane for the entire 13 hours. Love you mum and have a great time xx.

So I am bleary eyed, I missed the gym - I'm still in my PJ's and I have to put the finishing touches on my final draft of my application. Bleurk.

I'm a bit surprised that I have a few more visitors, hello Melissa :).

Off to write and then sleep. I'll try to add some photos in..

Wow, what a supervisor.

Just a quick note to tell you how amazing my supervisor is! I emailed my application at around 1pm to her. Last night at 6.15pm she sent me back her edits/suggestions. Bear in mind this is a 50 page document. I'm impressed, what an amazing supervisor :).

Oh and she also had this to say about my proposal;

"Hi, here are my thoughts/feedback. It looks very good, and demonstrates that you have thought through the issues - you have obviously worked hard. Well done. See you Friday. "

Looks like I'm going to get that application in on time, and maybe it isn't a pile of crap. One can always live in hope.

A productive day looks like this..

Drop the children at daycare before 9am. Come home have breakfast.

9.15am - get on computer - work hard on the finishing touches of the ethics application.

12.45pm - email finished application to supervisor. Head up to the village for a bread roll for lunch

1.45 - try to find a place to eat dinner this saturday night - log into uni work, have a read - down time because I have finished the application.

4.15 - reconnect with husband ;)

5.45 - head off to the gym

6.50 - come home, put children to bed, kiss husband as he heads off to work for the evening

7pm - sit down with the biggest loser and a bean enchilada with sour cream and copious amounts of avocado*.

Now that is what I call a productive day! Don't you?

And I've had NO CHOCOLATE! Could I get more productive? Yes two loads of washing ready to be hung up and washing to be done, but I've lost all sense of productivity.

**watching fat people exert themselves is all the more better when you are eating something with massive amount of calories. I am utterly compelled to eat whilst watching this show!

here is my title!

mark II of the title;

Miscarriage: women’s experiences of treatment in a hospital setting.

I am hoping that really says it all! Do you like?

second verse, same as the first...

Yes,

I still sit here - trying to finish off my ethics application - it is due to my supervisor tomorrow and I still have this to finish;

• think of a title - though atm I have 'Miscarriage: Women's experience of hospital treatment' or maybe 'Miscarriage: how do hospitals respond' -though I think the second one might cause us a bit of an issue.
• explanatory statment - this is a biggie
• finish 4.2 (c) of the consent form
• finish 4.8 and 4.9 of Form P
• and complete section six (6.1-6.6) of the actual form.

Considering I had 8 tasks to do yesterday - I am happy with the rate of work I am completing. And this is just the first draft, that goes to Cathi. The actual form isn't submitted to the committee until the 23rd of April, but that is 3-4 copies plus all the other crap associated with it.

I have been a busy about the research. I rang SANDS last week and spoke to a lovely lady there who has happily accepted me to place them as a support network for my participants if necessary. She also offered herself as a potential participant if I was interested. Heck I really could have interviewed many women over - so many people are interested in this research. Scary, I hope I can do it justice. I have also been gratned permission by the administrator of EB to place a recruitment advertisement to seek participants, but i have to wait for ethics approval first. Which Cathi tells me, might take UNTIL JUNE!

Another important note to make, is that this is only Honours, I need to stop stressing so much about getting it all perfect. This is a big subject area, and not a lot is known at present, I need to be mindful of this as the first step in scratching the surface. If I so chose, I could go on to critically analyse the hospital procedures in place for this event. But we'll see what comes out of the research first.

In other news; I am back at the gym with vengance! I have a new form of attack - heavy weight lifting with a boxing circuit on either side on my resistance training days. Because lets face facts, I hate the treadmill and find the cardio room quite boring, but I know I have to keep up the cardio for weight loss, so I am hoping that boxing ticks all the boxes for me in that regard. I am also mindful of my food intake again (though I will just add here that on sunday I made a banoffee cheesecake and dear lord it was delicious!).

My mum flew up to Darwin last night because my brother is in ICU with a collapsed lung, hope everything is alright up there A? My mum flies back on thursday morning and then she is out again on sunday afternoon going to Paris and Slovenia/Slovakia. Lucky woman! We do get to borrow her car for the time she is away though, woot! No bogan mobiles for us.

We are incredibly busy here for the next couple of weeks. As I mentioned mum is leaving, as well as that - I have a couple of friends arriving in Melbourne this weekend - and a group of us are getting together to wine and dine and I cannot wait, I am so very excited. Especially considering these people were the unfortunate witnesses to the dirtiness played out the other week at the V, and we've managed to reconnect anyway :). Then next weekend, James' sisters are coming to visit our children for the weekend, so that will be good for the boys and them as Jude hasn't seen his aunty H for almost 3 years and Noah has never met her. Yet Jude asks about her all the time and wants to send stuff to her. It will be a lovely weekend for them all.

Anyway, enough procrastinating. Must get back to this blasted work. Gee I hope it is all worth it.

Updated question

`How do (Melbourne) hospitals respond to women who experience a miscarriage in the first 2o weeks of pregnancy? '


Updated. at at 2.30pm. I think this could be the one?

Hello from the bogs of the ethics submission...

Ok,

So it seems right about now it is time to get serious about my thesis. So here we go.

The question is as follows;

How do (Melbourne) hospitals respond to women who experience early miscarriage?


Now that the wheels are beginning to turn I now have less than 2 weeks to submit a 30 something page ethics application for approval! So now, I am sitting here trying to work out explanatory statements, questions and topics I will discuss with my participants - how to make sure they aren't harmed in anyway! Dear god. Yes I'm floundering a tad, can you tell?

Exercise is going well again. Back at the gym yesterday and I did a full 30 mins of boxing followed by another 30 minutes of weights. My body is feeling it today! I'll get there again today when my headache subsides a bit.

My weekend

I went to a divorce (or freedom) party last night. I think I might have celebrated the divorce a little too much.

I'm still struggling to write this damn essay being critical about myself with regard to confrontation and challenging. But I take heart that it is only 1000 words and there is no need for academic references.

I'm still thinking about my thesis topic and hoping my supervisor sees the same glimmer that I do. Hopefully she replies tomorrow with her opinion. Putting two very emotive, taboo, women centred subjects together for research, am I insane?

James has pulled into the driveway with the kids, I have to sign off so it looks like I am working.

Hope everyone else has had a nice weekend (hey I can live in hope someone may come across this, right?)

Confessions from a lazy fat arse who eats her son's chocolate

Gymming - 7am for program re-write (and I told them to make it harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd, what the fuck was I thinking?).



Chocolate - Yes today stealing little bits of Jude's. Sorry Jude.

What I think about on the treadmill...

Today I went to the gym. Woohoo! And yes, I ate chocolate too. But most importantly, whilst on the treadmill I had a moment of clarity;

See I've been at a dead end, so to speak, for the last couple of weeks with regard to my Honours topic. I know I want to know about Women's experiences of miscarriage, but how to define it. Something which I keep coming back to (and am having difficulty with processing given that I am very much pro-choice) is the differences between what occurs for a women when undergoing a miscarriage and when having an abortion. See if you have an abortion, it is mandatory that you receive counselling before making the decision. So you have to have counselling to help you decide if you want to terminate a pregnancy, yet when you miscarry a baby that you actually want - to my knowledge there is no mandatory counselling. Why is that? I'm sure given the numbers of miscarrying that economically the answer is not to provide counselling sessions for all. But from a feminist perspective, does forcing people to submit to counselling before their decision to abort is accepted show that women are not to be trusted with their decision making. Likewise, why is the possiblity of women experiencing grief after suffering a miscarriage seemingly ignored.

So yes, I thought considering this is on my mind so much - the intersection btw miscarriage and abortion, why not change my topic somewhat to examine and contrast women's treatment experiences of miscarriage and abortion? So I might shoot off an email to my supervisor and see what she says? She'll probably say... 'Alexis, great idea... for a PhD!'.

I don't know.. I just think it is an angle worthy for discussion, you know. Because there are a lot of similarities. D&C for mc and D&C for abortion are given the same medicare number, and the medical terminology uses abortion for both of these things...so it might be an interesting concept?

The other thing I have noticed is that this topic is quite taboo. Not many people talk about it. Almost every single person I have told about this topic has come forward and had a story, either their own or someone they know. Women in particular have felt this affinity with this topic, which has reinforced the importance of it.

Anyway. Lets hope I get that bloody question sorted, hey?

Todays study effort...

• 400 words of a critical reflective essay. My excuse is that I have already been criticised enough in the past few days to have to do it to myself as well! Incredibly tough.

• 2 emails where I have had to explain why I have been so silent to my Honour's supervisor. EEK! Must pick that up and run with it.

• 1 chocolate easter egg (yes, yes failed miserably in that department!)

• No gym. Hmph.

But upside, am playing with flash new computer. That has got to be something, right? Yes! OK with this procrastination dealt with, I'm back on to look cluelessly at my essay and wonder whether I will ever complete it?

and now for something a little lighter

Well that wouldn't be me. I'm still not there with the weight loss. I try, but I try - but chocolate is the devil.. taunting me and teasing me. And I can't help but give in to temptation. Oh well, today I will try again from scratch.

So what else is happening (apart from bad re-runs of bold and the beautiful as evidenced below)?

I am now in final year. I have been offered to do Honours for Social Work which I have accepted with great fear and trepidation (but also a swelling chest of pride - hmm perhaps it is always swollen he he). So busy doing that.

James is so freaking busy with his Masters degree that it is not funny! Always busy, the poor bugger - but we just keep saying - one more year, one more year. December this year - it will all be over!

So yes, we are happy. Desperately broke, but happy!

when realities come crashing down...

You know I'm trying to write about something very hurtful that has occurred recently to me. I just don't have the right words at the moment. I'm feeling maudlin and I thought this would be a perfect moment to do some navel gazing. But, I am having great difficulty in finding the right words. I am tired, I have been sleeping terribly every night - tossing and turning - wondering what has been said, why I am being targeted and yes I will admit, crying myself to sleep on some occasions.

I hold loyalty and honesty right up there in my most important traits in friends. To find out that I have been exisiting with some alternate universe out there mocking, judging and whispering about me is devestating to say the least. I try to be a good person, I know that I have a strong personality and I have opinions, but was all of this necessary for this?

For the last year and a half I have been contributing on a closed board administrated by what I thought was a friend. People were chosen to join the board on the strengths that they showed on another larger and public board. I'm not sure why I was chosen, but I can only assume that my attributes also pleased at one point. These attributes that got me noticed, apparently are the same ones that were the undoing. Over the past few days I have been accused of bullying, intimidation, scaring people, eating babies and taunting cats with sticks (ok the last two might be stretching the truth a tad :) ). Now I like to fight my battles to the end, but yesterday I lost the fight. I had too many sleepless nights, too many tears and to me they have pretty much been who? The people who have been whispering and pointing at me, but not to me.

So? Lessons I've learned:

1. Try not to join a private site where there is one person as 'boss hog', it is far too easy for them to become a little power hungry.

2. Be beige in approach. It is much safer and the only person you will be in danger of offending is yourself.

3. Don't trust people on face value. If they say they like you and love reading you, they probably think you are a fucking nasty bitch who pokes cats in her spare time for fun.

4. Opinions rattle and intimidate.

Me bitter and twisted? No, never.

I think I might need to get some more exercise and work this all off.