Back..

Wow, I've been a bit neglectful of my blog, apologies for that, but things have been super busy here - oh and HOT.

My thesis is done and will be submitted tomorrow. My supervisor says that I write beautifully (not that you ever see it here - I'm always blogging on the run ;) ) . If anyone is interested in hearing more about my research, let me know and I'll devote a whole post to it. Anyway I'm off to uni tomorrow to drop back my uni books that were due back last month, have a coffee with my supervisor and submit 2 bound copies of my thesis and then pick up a letter saying I've completed my degree and eligible to join association - just in time for...

Starting work on thursday! I start 4 days a week for the next few weeks and my job hunting will take on a more serious position. Through networking there is a possibility of a job coming my way, but I don't want to jinx it so will not say too much yet. Suffice to say that it would suit me down to the ground. Anyway, I'm looking forward to returning to work. It will be so bizarre going there though, as the last time I was there I was a student and now I'm there as a paid employee. Another great part is the other student has secured a maternity leave position there so at least we'll be in the same boat lol. Two beginners treading water together lol.

My oldest son starts school tomorrow and I am so excited because HE is so excited about it. This morning he woke up and said 'oh I can hardly believe it, I am so EXCITED to be a prep Mummy!'. Our plan for tomorrow is to drop our youngest son off at childcare and then J and I taking little j for a babycino before going to school. Tonight I will be preparing school bags, laying out uniforms and getting lunches together , what a proud moment for me. All the other kinder mothers think I'll be the sook tomorrow, but I don't think so. I'm proud and excited for him. He is so ready for school. To celebrate this momentous occasion, his body decided to mark this by losing his 3rd tooth (top front one) so now he looks like a big boy.

Well unless you live out of Australia, you will most likely know that we have just endured a horrendous spate of 40+ degree days here (with one reaching 45) - urgh. For those days we camped out in the loungeroom on air mattresses in front of the aircon. Very cute to sleep all together, the boys loved it. I have to admit though, after those few days we were very happy to get back into our own beds - air mattresses are not the most comfortable - especially when they appear to have a slow leak! To escape the heat during the day, we sought refuge at our local pool and this is where an amazing thing occurred. Everyday we went, we ran into at least one of little j's friends - and by the end of day 3 - little j was swimming like a fish. Why is this exciting you ask? Because last year, most of little j's swimming lessons were devoted to getting him to putting his face in the water. He was terrified! By the end of the year he had progressed to putting his head in the water but refused to take his feet off the ground. Well! On friday his face was barely above water and he was swimming from one side to another. Such a confidence booster for him - I only wish I had the camera to capture the absolute joy on his face. And n! He was also swimming - and he was throwing himself in the water and diving to me for the whole time. I'd forgotten how fun the swimming pool is, so today we're off to another local pool for a few hours.

Unfortunately J has not managed to secure a position for this year. He has had a number of interviews, applied for stacks of jobs but keeps getting pipped at the post (being ranked no 2) - he is pretty devastated, and truth be told so am I. I had hoped that at this time we wouldn't be struggling financially so much... but we are actually worse off at the moment because our childcare has stopped being subsidised and instead of paying $6 a week, we are now paying $165. Eek. So hopefully he will get some emergency teaching and will manage to pick up a job soon. He is so fantastic, he is clever, he did so well at uni and his portfolio is amazing but apparently it isn't easy for graduates to get jobs - and there were 5000 graduates who finished teaching last year. So that coupled with experienced teachers is really a lot of pressure. Those that know him are gobsmacked that he hasn't been successful yet. He has such a way with teenagers and is just like one of thos cool teachers that we all used to have (mine was in grade 5, he played in a band and drove a retired ambulance to school - man he was so cool). Anyway, I have every faith that his time will come.

Exercise has only just started up again. I stood on the scales the other day and I've put on 2kg . That 2kg is devoted entirely to the editing and writing of my thesis. Back onto it next week.

I have so much more to talk about. Sydney, family, life - but I think I will leave it there - and make it a resolution to post more often.

Saturday...and it is 25 degrees!

Gosh I love spring. It takes that first sunny and warm day for me to realise just how much I actually like it. And I love what it does to my surroundings. Melbourne just comes alive!

Anyway - 5 days down on the placement - still loving it. We are in discussions about taking on my own case load but until then (possibly in a week) I will be starting to settle in to going into see patients by myself etc. But truly? I seriously love it. And the best bit, I am not snacking because the job has me running around all day. The hospital resembles a rabbit warren and my desk is nowhere near the ward that I work on. So all day, I run up and down the stairs - barely ever sitting down. Thats got to be good for the fat shifting, right? Also, because I am barely ever around - I am not snacking at all. Which means I am have limited my caffeine intake and have zilch chocolate as well!

All this is good and well, because the downside is, I haven't been managing to get to the gym at all during the week, due to my start time (8.30), and I only managed to get there monday and then today this week. Today I did pump and then cycle and while it hurt a little, it was nowhere NEAR as bad as the other week that I blogged about. I feel good, very good - and even better that the weather heated up and I put some summery clothes on and looked decent!

My children also survived the week without me, pfft they don't need me at all. Except Noah suddenly wouldn't poo on the toilet because of big scary spiders (has been toilet trained for months) and my poor mother had to clean 2 pairs of his undies. My mum at 66 ran around town yesterday signing leases, get cheques done, going to Highpoint etc - as her house has been put up for sale and she wanted to get out of there asap, and ended up getting the first house she applied for. It is SO much nicer than the one she is in now, and it is for the same price. A lovely californian bungalow, partially renovated too. Anyway, she did all of that running around with her two granchildren on board. She is an expert, I would have surely crumbled.

Anyway, best get back to transcribing. I have 1 and 1/4 interviews to go. I can hear my children playing joyfully in the sunshine with their wonderful father.. I am very tempted to join them...

xx

7 days

Since I have been to the gym. Not too bad you might say... EXCEPT that today I am going to all you can eat YUM CHA!!

My pants are getting tighter just thinking about it. I promise I'll go back to the gym monday morning for cycle.

btw - my position on placement is ABI rehab, very excited.

Have a nice weekend...!

Could this be the answer I am looking for?

70 per cent dark chocolate! I swear one teeny tiny square is all it is taking for me to get my hit. I literally cannot eat anymore than one piece. I think I may have found my saviour!

Is there anything..[and a quick update]

..more cringe worthy than being forced to record a 10 minute interview which you must review over and over again in order to write a 1000 word critical analysis? And then the final kick in the bum? Sending said DVD with your analysis to your Lecturer so they can watch it too! Horrors of horrors!

Awwwwwful, I can't bear to watch myself. I hate being watched. I find it almost vomit worthy actually. I'm actually wondering whether this is a serious defect within myself. I think it is linked to my confidence or lack thereof, but also the contrived falseness of the situation. What I record and what the lecturers see is NOT what I am like when I am with a client. I know this is a very important thing to do in my profession; observation and critical reflection, but really I'm not sure I will ever be able to be comfortable.

Oh anyway, it was only worth 20 per cent! Anyway onto brighter news. I've finished work for this semester! I still have to continue working however, but this time it is all on my honours from now on. Next week I have to present an hour long lecture to interested parties about what I have done up to now... picture this...'blah blah blah,... nothing nothing nothing' repeat for ONE whole hour, which includes opening up the floor to questioning! Um should I mention my lack of confidence in the paragraph above here. I can talk underwater, and up there I will, but with great big sweat rings appearing in the underarm area and a lot of rabbiting along about nothing - anxious chatter if you will. Then as soon as I've finished I'll sit down and the negative self talk will begin 'that was crap. People are going to know that you are a faker.' and then later on that night in bed I will still be concentrating on something that I said (or didn't whichever the case may be). Can you tell I'm looking forward to this? I'm guessing from reading this back I might need to work on the confidence thing.

Family news - James got an incredibly favourable teaching review back, saying that his calm and soothing style had engaged the children well. Above all he was a kick-arse teacher* Jude is a social butterfly, he had us dragged around to 2 parties over the weekend, there is one this friday and today there were another two invites in his pigeon hole at Kinder. Sheesh kid, not so popular alright, we can't afford all of these presents! Noah-Boah is recovering from some hideous cold which turned secondary and for his illustrous efforts in being unwell, was rewarded with his first prescription of antibiotics. Poor little Boah.

House news - we had the inspection, was told to expect up to a $20 per week rental increase (going up to market rate would have seen this place going up by about $100 a week, and $20 is stretching it a bit for us). We nervously awaited to hear from the real estate about whether we would be offered a new lease...and today we DID! WOOHOOO! One less stress to worry about, we are so chuffed because we adore this area and would be devestated if we had to move. And we only have 4 months of paying higher rent before we graduate and earn income!!

Bogan mobil news - yesterday the brakes failed, yes they bloody well failed! Luckily James was only reversing the car from our house, so there were no children in the car and he was able to safely bring it to a stop. C'mon bogin mobil, get us over the line! Remind me to upload some photos of the state that our bogin mobil is in and see why Jude complains about the stinky old car that he is forced to be a passenger in! Well Jude back in the good old days when you were a baby, we didn't even HAVE a car. In fact we brought you home from hospital by catching a TRAM! HA!

Gymming news - not getting there as much as I would like, but still managing to reduce. I have no idea why. I am still eating chocolate but my new tactic is to eat only dark chocolate as I eat less. Tonight I had some 70 per cent stuff and I only managed to consume a tiny square! This might be the new trick.

Wow, big update and lots of news there. Best be off, I'm doing *stuff* with photos.


* may not have said this in so many words, but the intent was there I'm sure ;) .

The evil internet

A tip;

While waiting for your husband to bring home Hungry Jacks* it is probably not the best idea to look up the nutrional information on the internet. Is now the right time to admit I haven't been to the gym for 3 days?

*hey, we were up all night reading/writing essays and watching Lost! We are allowed some junk food

This morning 'goodbye Judey, I'm off to Uni today - have a lovely day'.
'oh mummy you smell like a star!'

Why yes son, I do!

I'm off to collapse into bed.

Drowning...

Right now I feel like I am anxiously trying to crawl up out of a deep, dark, muddy hole. I've already had a meltdown today - blaming something RIDICULOUS on James and yelling and causing a hullaballoo about it. He did what any kind hearted man would do, took the boys out and came back with Pink Lady Chocolate covered raspberries.

And still, there is approximately 1000 words to write by tomorrow.

Why did I ever think I would be able to cope with final year uni AND my honours year. This is going to be a disaster.

My poor babies, having to witness the crumbling of their mother about stupid UNI work.

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).