Fun. Part I.

You know all that fun I said I was going to have? Well, we just had the first instalment. We stayed in a beach house at Port Elliot and did the touristy things. Took the horse-drawn tram to Granite Island, rode the Cockle Train from Port Elliot to Victor Harbor (a 10 minute ride, but sooo beautiful along the beachfront), went for walks, shopped and drank coffee. It was relaxing and lovely. Here's a couple of quick pics before I go to bed...

"Look! Here comes the train, Mummy!"



Enjoying the view on Saturday morning...


One Clydesdale pulls this tram which carries 50 adults!



More later. Going to bed early tonight since I have my first proper day of placement tomorrow!

All done

I have officially completed five out of eight subjects of my Masters course, and had my first day of placement.

I'm online only briefly to tell you that I'm off to pack a suitcase and head to the beach for a lovely long weekend where I plan to read a novel, listen to my iPod, and not give one minute's thought to adjusted risk, attributable risk or any of the other DEAD EASY exam questions I completely stuffed up that are going to take my final grade from a High Distinction to a Credit (no really, I've let it go... breathe in, breathe out.. *tap tap tap tap tap*).

First day of placement was a brief orientation to the place. We sat in on group supervision with the outgoing group of interns (that was ermmm...interesting) and got the admin tour. Within the next few weeks I'll have my very own caseload of patients to practise on. Yippee. And holy crap. And yippee!

Right.. things to do, holidays to be had.

Later x

Things I'm looking forward to...

I feel like I'm jumping the gun by focusing on fun things when I haven't finished all my uni things but good grief, I need something to look forward to because I'm so over all the WORK!

SO...

1. My last exam is on Thursday 25th June, so on Friday 26th to Sunday 28th, we have booked a beach house at Horseshoe Bay (Port Elliot, about an hour's drive from Adelaide), right on the beach front. I cannot even tell you how much I am looking forward to that even though it is the middle of winter LOL! I love the idea of a wintery beach weekend. I love the beach when it's all overcast and grey and stormy. *sigh* We will have a whole town-house all to ourselves, with wine and chocolate on arrival, fluffy towels, fully equipped kitchen, views across the ocean to Granite Island. mmmm.... sounds heavenly to me.

And it was cheaper than cabin in the local caravan park!! So here is where we are staying:



2. We have finally booked our weekend in SYDNEY. YAY! The three of us are all going for four days from 2 - 5 July, which will be fab and I can't wait. My friend Beany is having her 30th birthday so I will get an actual night out with the girls. I'm busily emailing and texting everyone and have almost got our entire 4 days fully booked. It's going to be the usual whirlwind, which I love.

3. I booked into a 2-day photography course at the end of July. This is something I had on my list of things to do in 2009 so I'm really excited about it. It runs over 2 Sundays and is for Digital SLRs. We have one of those (read: Mel has one of those) (digital SLR, that is) and I have never used it even once. It cost a freakin' fortune and has extra lenses and all sorts of fancy things.. the whole works and jerks. So I finally said, well I know you think it's your camera but it's a marriage so it's 50/50 buddy, hand it over. He was more than happy to lend me his fancy camera to do a photography course.
note: I will lay money right now that after I've done the photography course and I start using the camera all the time, he will very generously offer to give me "his" camera so that he can buy himself a new one. No really, who wants to bet?

4. YOGA! Oh my god, I have wanted to find a good yoga centre for ages and I've been looking, looking, looking and even online I've looked but the other night for some reason I searched somewhere I hadn't searched before and VOILA, there is a yoga centre about 2 minutes from my house. AND they were advertising a beginner's course starting next Tuesday night for 10 weeks. So I booked! Yay!

5. I told you about the Gold Coast already, right? Or did I? Well we booked 10 days at Surfer's Paradise in December and I'm wetting my pants. Seriously, I'm like a puppy peeing with excitement. I'm going to a new-age hippy-crap waste-of-money seminar (because you know how I love that stuff) for one day, and we basically used that as an excuse to go there for a holiday. So I'm going to drag my friend Jen (who I haven't seen for about 2 years) along with me to the seminar and then me and Mav and Belle are going to soak up the sun for a week and take her (Belle that is, not Jen :-) to all the theme parks and eat and shop and have more fun than you can imagine.


6. There is no six. Well, there was talk of a trip to Bali in mid-July but it clashes with a few things now that I booked photography and yoga! Mel is probably going to his best mate's 50th birthday in China but I'll stay home. We are planning a Melbourne weekend soon too, but nothing definite.

Wow. How did I go from having no fun at all to having all this fun? It's almost too much fun for one person.

Anyway - before I get carried away, I have an assignment to do and an exam to study for and two friends who I promised card readings for and they are waiting very patiently!

Onwards...

PMT?

My friend Shed made me laugh out loud today when someone asked about symptoms of PMT and her reply was this:

I don't suffer from PMT myself but my husband seems to have some kind of hormonal problem. Once a month he turns into a fucking useless arsehole.

Shed, you're fabulous. I really needed the giggle :)

If you thought the dying bird dream was bad..

Toilets.

I am dreaming of toilets. I'm not going to say any more than that, except these toilets are in various states of cleanliness (or uncleanliness as the case may be), some are overflowing, some are in small closed rooms, some are in open spaces, some are in large rooms with lots of space.

Toilets. I wonder what Carl Jung would have had to say about that.

And nothing at all to do with my dreams, but does anyone else find it slightly disturbing that they felt it necessary to include that last instruction (bottom right)?! LOL!

I think I've decided...

Well, I had kind of already decided so I should more accurately say I think I am happy with the decision...

.. to not have another baby until I finish uni.

I KNOW, I KNOW I've already said that but what you don't realise is that I have had a lot of angst about this and haven't been reeeally sure it was the right thing. And I don't like angst. Nuh-uh. I do not like angst one little bit. But today I came to a point of feeling quite happy that this is a good decision.

If you don't give a rat's arse about how I have come to this sense of resolve and inner peace then you can stop reading now. Because I feel the need to share so I'm going to.

The thing that was worrying me about waiting any longer to have the baby is that Annabelle is already THREE and even if I time the pregnancy (as much as you can time these things!!) to have the baby as soon as I finish my course, which is the end of next year.. then there will be close to five years between them. I thought that was too long. She seems like she's ready for a sibling NOW and in fact she often asks me when she is having a baby sister.

Also, I thought that part of the idea of having more than one child is so that they can grow up together and be friends, and leaving it too much longer means there probably isn't too much chance that they're going to be spending a lot of time playing together. Well, not like they would if they were closer in age, y'know? She will be off at school when the next one is still a tiny baby.

And also, the early years are bloody hard work and I would really like to get them over and done with so that I can get on with enjoying all the things you can do with older kids. And that's not to say I'm wishing these years away but really.. there are a lot of restrictions on your lifestyle and choices when you have tiny babies and I think it's only since Annabelle is getting bigger and more independent that I'm realising it actually does get easier (thank christ) and I want more of the easier and less of the harder. :)

BUT...(here's the bit where I contradict everything I just said)

I really have to finish this uni course because it's been twenty goddamn years since I wanted to be a psychologist and I'm afraid if I pull out now, it might never happen!! I just want to get the damn thing over with.

And secondly - and more importantly - today as we spent our time with Annabelle, instead of me feeling bad that she's stuck with two adults and no kid company, I realised that actually she gets ALL of our attention and that's really lovely for her, and for us. To be able to really enjoy these early years with her and for her not to have to compete for attention is kind of nice. Not that having a sibling would be bad, but I just could see for the first time that there are advantages to her being the only one... for now.

And then if I have another baby after she's started school, she'll be off onto her next stage of life and the new baby will also be able to enjoy that quality one-on-one time with me and he also won't have to compete too much for attention. So in a way, I think spreading them out is nice for them both.

That's what I've decided anyway so don't anyone argue with me now that I'm happy! :)

Last class

I just attended the last class for the semester. The LAST ONE! W00TZ! :D This semester has felt like it dragged on forever mainly because we had a month of Summer School before first semester even started. Ugh!

And actually it's not over yet because I still have two major assignments to hand in and a 60% exam to study for - all in the next 3 weeks! But at least there is no more getting up and driving to 9am lectures. Hallelujah and amen to that. Having said that, I really like my classmates and I've enjoyed spending 4 days a week with those people, all stressing over the same stuff. I think we've become quite a tight-knit little group. *sigh* I'm sure we will still see each other.

So anyway, after my last exam on Thursday 25th June, I will have a luxurious 3-days worth of having NOTHING TO DO and then it's highly likely that MY FIRST PLACEMENT WILL START ON THE MONDAY. ARGH!!! There is no rest!!!!!!!!

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Check out this literal version of Bonnie Tyler's classic. As daggy as it is, it will have you giggling. :)