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.

Current essay quandry

Just thought I would waste a bit of time so I could share with you the current essay Iam writing;

due friday -worth 50%
2250 words

• choose one aspect of Australian's immigration policies and describe the
  pertinent aspects of policy briefly
• Analyse the impact of these policies; that is, analyse where you think these
  policies have a humane and ethical impact and where they might fall short of
  these goals
• Refer to the AASW Code of ethics and analyse the dilemmas and contradictions
  that arise for Social Workers
• Speculate what impact these developments might have on case work practice
  and how these might be dealt with
• Conclude with recommendations you would like to see to the policy area you
  have selected.

~

I have decided to write on the humanitarian policy program. That is the refugee - incorporating the "lawful" way of applying for a visa (applying from overseas OR in Australia on another visa) and the "unlawful" way (ie -attempting to come here illegally). This is SO tough, the legislation is changing rapidly probably due to the political sensitiveness of the situation. The rules are very confusing and I can barely undertand all the rules and regulations put forward by the Immigration department, how would someone who doesn't speak English and possibly traumatised possibly cope with this? There are all these crazy rules and it seems that if you come here illegally, you are NOT eligible for permanent residency? And you get mandatory detention for your effort, that is if you are lucky to make it onto mainland - given the Governments creating Offshore excise - eg Nauru and PNG to take would be asylum seekers to another country where they are held whilst applications are processed. The Gov says this will act as a deterrant for this illegal behaviour, but all I see is imprisonment and punishment for displaced people who could possibly have experienced great trauma prior to arriving.

They say it isn't correctional imprisonment, but well, when you detain someone in a facility what are the differences? At least prisoners get detained with a sentence. From what I can tell asylum seekers get put in them until their applications have been processed, for which there is no time limit. And then, they get charged for the accomodation on deportation. 'Hey Mr. B - you are more than welcome to come back here, as long as you pay your $150,000 bill we might offer you a visa'. $150k to be locked up in a detention facility.

Innocent till proven guilty? Or naughty person trying to take away our wealth till proven as a refugee.

I can't quite formulate why this makes me feel ill, but this:

This practice reflects Australia's sovereign right to determine which
non-citizens are admitted or permitted to remain in Australia and the conditions
under which they may be removed.

is like flexing our muscles and saying ... oh yes, you want this - but only WE can determine whether you are worthy..and first you must pass health AND character tests mawhaahahahahahahahahahha!

And obviously this goes against most of what Social Work stands for ie

'The social Work profession is commited to pursuit and maintenance of human
well-being. Social Work aims to maximise the development of human
potential and the fufillment of human needs, through an equal committment
to:

• Working with and enabling people to achieve the best possible levels of
  personal and social well-being
• working to achieve social justice through social development and social
  change

So yes, I have much thought on this essay - now if only I could make myself write the bugger. On that note, I best be off to magically write 1000 words.

Home again, home again..

Yes Mum and Mario made it home in one piece! But boy-o-boy do they have some stories to tell of their adventures. The whole way home from the airport they regailed their funky luck - with everything from the airport misadventure (which by the by almost threatened to happen to them again last night in Hong Kong, at the boarding gate they made them wait until the very end to board as they didn't have some right type of confirmation - mum was ready to bare her teeth!).

So very nice to see them home. I scored a bottle of 'Allure', thanks mum. They are coming back to bring the children their stuff - the boys wanted postcards of everywhere that they have been.

I haven't updated this blog for a few days as I've been absolutely snowed under with my uni work.

Quote of the day

Upon setting up 'rules' for the house - ie inside voice, cleaning bedroom every night - Jude piped up with 'Oh Mum, can you write no rude words like stupid bum-bum and FUCKING HELL on the rules please?' I just about dropped the plate I was washing up. Now reader don't get me wrong, I swear like a banshee around my friends, on here etc. But I do not curse anywhere near my precious child. Where on earth did he get that from?
Worst part about a 2 year old having a big brother..? Now Jude isn't allowed to say 'stupid bum-bum', but he makes Noah do it. And Noah does it with gay abandon.

Just yesterday at a park in Torquay, a boy twice his age was trying to climb up the slide when Noah was trying to slide down it. He growled at him and said.. 'MOVE YOU STUPID BUM-BUM! '. Egad! How do you stop this? No fear Noah! My friend laughed at me yesterday saying 'oh a teacher and a social worker, what marvellously behaved children you will have'. I laughed hysterically at her, because sometimes I feel like I am just being swept along for the ride with my two children. Don't get me wrong, their bond has to be seen to be believed, they talk their own language and can't sleep without each other, but the trouble they get up to!

Anyway, off to pick the little rascals up now.

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!