Merry Christmas

Merry

Christmas

Just sharing this

This is us decorating the tree!

2 days of torture

I did my first aid course yesterday and today. I have to have a current senior first aid certificate when I enrol next year and I let mine lapse quite some time ago. It was a really little class. There were only 4 of us for the first 1/2 day and 3 for the rest (one guy was just there for the CPR training). The teacher was great. She was funny, interesting and best of all she knew what she was talking about. My two fellow students however were painful. There was a big beefy security guard bloke who was dumb as dogshit and had a conspiracy theory about everything. He had a major problem with authority. The police are all corrupt, the army locks you up if you join and you lose all of your freedom, doctors cannot get a single diagnosis correct and an ambulance won't help him because he didn't pay their bill once. This already had me going alrighty then.

Then he mentioned that he had lost his licence, I asked "for how long?"

Him "20 years"

Me "Wow what did you do to lose it for that long"

Him "Nothing, absolutely nothing"

Me "they don’t just take your licence away for nothing"

Him "I didn't do anything"

Then with a bit more prodding

Him "I didn't have my P plates on"

Me "Well that’s not nothing. So you lost your licence because you were driving without your P plates"

Him "But I had just brought a new car and my P plates were on my old one, I took my made for a ride and got pulled over it was just bad luck, I lost it because of the points"

Me "that wouldn't lose your licence for 20 years, what else did you do?"

Him "nothing"

...And so it continued until it was discovered that after losing his licence for 3 months because he ran out of demerits after being caught not using his P plates, he was caught no less than 4 times for driving whilst disqualified.

I had to spend 2 days in a room with this guy.

The other girl was not much better. She was nice enough and we had lunch together and stuff but 2 things really annoyed me about her. Firstly, she constantly asked personal questions, asked about brothers, sisters, age, husband, kids etc which didn't bother me so much but then 5 minutes latter she would ask the exact same questions again! It was like her brain was on a time lapse like in '50 first dates' and it reset itself every 5 minutes. The other thing that annoyed me was that she kept touching me. I cannot stand being touched, especially by people I don't know. Everything she said was accompanied by a hand on the arm or leaning in close, it was horrible; as if you do that to someone you don't know. Maybe I am the one that is bizarre in this respect, but this girl had definitely never heard of personal space.

Thank goodness it is over and I have my piece of paper for med school.

I really am going!!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did it!!!!!

I passed everything!!!!!!

I am so relieved. Now I can graduate and do med and best of all RELAX! I feel like a weight has been lifted (how clichéd)

Stress Head

WOW it sure has been a while.

If you have been waiting to find out, I got in! The letter still hadn't arrived by the following Thursday (It was the most horrible wait ever) so I rang the uni and they kindly let me know that I was offered a CSP (commonwealth supported place) which is exactly what I wanted as it has no strings attached. They posted me a new letter and the old one and new one arrived on the same day even though they were posted a week apart.

I went straight from there to trying to get all of my uni work finished on time. I had 6 pracs for phys chem to do along with marketing assignments and organic pracs and assignments so I became very very busy after the wait was lifted.

Then there were the exams. They were THE WORST set of exams ever. I HATE physical chemistry. I just don’t do maths and this subject was full of freaking maths.

My first exam was marketing strategy. I felt like I passed this one - I felt pretty good afterwards and any other subject and I would have come out feeling pretty confident but this subject and I just don't get along. In the midterm (which unfortunately was worth 30% of my final mark) I came out feeling that I had done OK, not brilliantly but at least a credit, and I flunked it. 13.5/30. I just didn't understand why the mark was so fucked. This subsequently screwed my entire confidence in the subject and I was very stressed going into the final exam. We'll have to wait and see on this one but I'm thinking I'll pass. I need to get 23/40 to get the required mark to keep my GPA high enough for my medical school offer to remain valid. Yes you read that right - if I don't get high enough marks then I lose my hard earned med school position. Talk about pressure. I SHOULD be OK in this subject though.

The next exam was organic chemistry. I actually like organic chemistry. However my liking of the subject does not translate into ease of the exam. There were 5 sections to the exam. I was confident with 2 OK with 2 and the other section was just screwed. The teacher for this other section is really frustrating. Although he is probably only in his 40/50s he has a total aversion to technology and wrote his lecture notes on the board or used overheads whilst we sat there copying them. How archaic is that! How the hell am I supposed to listen to you when I am trying to write at 100 miles an hour just to get a basic copy of the notes????? Anyway he had 3x as many reaction types as anyone else which was fine I learnt them all. But the questions he uses are NOTHING like the examples. He always puts in little tricks to throw us off the scent of draws the molecule in a way that he didn't use in the lectures and still expect us to recognise it. I mean fine draw I in all sorts of ways but you need to teach us that in the lectures if you expect it from us in the exams. Grrrrrrr. I think I passed this too but I'm not sure about getting the required mark for GPA maintenance. I was getting sick by this exam.

Lastly was the dreaded physical chemistry exam. I was sooooooo sick by the time this one rolled around. I was coughing constantly have a temperature that refused to go away with drugs, had the runs, was constantly dizzy and kept falling asleep, but I had to do the exam. I looked into doing a supplementary exam which is pretty easy, you just need a medical certificate. But if I did that the supplementary exam wasn't till mid December and my degree needs to be finalised be the 6th to graduate in the next round. If I put of my exam I wouldn't graduate in December, which would mean that although I had finished my degree and all that I wouldn't actually graduate till July which means I couldn’t start medicine. So I HAD to sit the exam in this state. It was sooooo hard to study when sick. I just couldn't get anything to stay in my head. In the actual exam I think I pissed off everyone around me with my coughing. The invigilators even came up and offered me a cough lolly. Anyway I don't know how I did. This exam will be very borderline. I will be so pissed off if I actually fail something now. Not only would I not graduate, I would not be able to start med next year and my GPA would be so screwed that my chances of getting in again next year would be virtually nil.

Results will be out next Friday. I have never been nervous about results release before, yet here I am counting down the days till my future is revealed.

At least I have Christmas to distract me. I have been shopping 4 times this week already. We have brought Christmas lights and I am going to go climbing on the roof next week to put them all up. I am almost finished all my shopping (My kids are so spoilt LOL) Just 2 people to go. This week has been great in that I have nothing that I am supposed to be doing so I don't have that constant feeling of guilt. I am loving not having the guilt.

Oh yeah I brought a stethoscope!!!!!!!! (I better bloody graduate now LOL)
Here it is. I went for the 'seafoam green'. The purple was more blue so I didn't like it and the pink is a bit typecasting so decided to avoid it. I like this green. It is a bit sparkly. It is laser engraved with my name and phone number because I am hopeless and know that I am going to lose it. So I better bloody pass as I can't sell it now.

In other totally unrelated news my little sister (who is 16 now) was in a singing concert last week. I was so proud. She is an actor usually so I have seen her onstage hundreds of times but never singing. I video taped it and will post it when I install the firewire so that I can get it of my video recorder. P.S. don't hold your breath LOL.

Well that is all for now. I will keep you more updated now that I am not as stressed or busy.

The interview experience

I was expecting my letter today as I know they were posted yesterday but it didn't come (stupid freaking Australia post) so now I have to wait till Monday. I thought I would fill in my time by telling you all about my interview.......

Well my interview was at 9am. Whereis said that the drive there should take about 35 minutes. I had to be there at 8:45 so I thought I better time it so that I would get there at 8:30 to be sure, to be sure. I was going to park at the Broadway shopping centre which was a little walk away so I added 15 minutes for the walk, 15 minutes to get a drink at the shops and left an hour for the driving as it was going to be peak hour. I got up at 6 (very early for me as I like to get up at 8:30) and was I the car by 7am. I started to drive and finally calm down till I got on the M5 and the cars weren't moving!!!!!! I totally freaked, was almost in tears (I was very emotional), rang my husband saying "I'm not going to make it, I'll miss the interview" Thankfully he knows just what to say to bring me back down to earth. The cars moved slowly, then a bit faster and before I knew it I was there. It was 8:05. I was going to get a hot chocolate but couldn't stomach it right then (and I didn't trust myself not to spill all over my clothes). I got a bottle of water, some mints and started to walk to Buckland house (where the interviews were). I drastically overestimated this walk and it only took about 3 minutes. I arrived at 8:20. The doors were still locked. I just hung around the corner till 8:40 then went inside.

There were 2 people in there already. I was given a sheet explaining what was going to happen, when to expect offers etc. Everyone was silent, no-one was chatting. A few more people arrived, a boy sitting next to me tried to chat but in my current state I could barely hold the conversation (sorry if that was one of my fellow paging dr buffs but it just wasn't I needed to do right then). When all 7 of us were there a really friendly man came out and tried to put us all at ease. He told us that they should send the offers by the end of the next week (my interview was a Friday). I was pretty happy about this as it meant my suffering wouldn't be prolonged, however it didn't come to pass and I am still waiting......3 more days.

After this little chat the interviewers started to come out and take us in one by one. I was second last. When I walked through the door there were several offices with glass fronts. These were where the interviews were. I was up the back so I had to walk past all the others that had started their interviews already.

I had 3 people. One was a surgeon at Auburn hospital (male), one was part of ND (male) and one was not interviewing me but was a high school career advisor that was observing the proceedings (female). The ND guy was good, he had good eye contact and appeared to be friendly, the girl just watched and the surgeon looked at his paper the whole time, it was really disarming.

1. Why do you want to be a doctor? what kind of doctor do you want to be? What are the good and bad about being a doctor?
   
2. Tell us about your greatest achievement.
3. Imagine you're a GP and a patient comes to see you. Earlier in the week her daughter fatally overdosed on ecstasy tablets that she had accidentally left lying around the house. She says she is depressed and doesn't know what to do. She is worried about being prosecuted by the police. What do you do? They extended the question to say she has other children, what should happen to them
   
4. A tobacco company have offered ten million dollars to your uni to help fund a regional aboriginal health centre. You need to make a recommendation to the board about whether or not to accept the money. What would your recommendation be? Why? I said I wouldn't take it and they talked about how much good it could do, why wouldn't I take it.Then they said what if it was placed in a blind trust so noone would know where it came from.
   
5. Explain to us how you've solved a conflict in a team? tell us about the experience. And a time when you have been a leader?
6. Do you have any questions for us? Anything that you think we should know about you that you haven't already said.

It all seemed to over very quickly.

Every answer you gave you had to justify it.

I then went to the after interview waiting room. I was the second to finish. This freaked me a little as I had started 2nd last and finished 2nd so it must have been pretty short. The interviewees were much more relaxed in this room. We had a little chat then I got told I could go.

So that is what happened to me. Afterwards I was just glad it was over.

waiting

I HATE waiting.

This has been the worst wait so far. It is so hard knowing that any moment a letter could arrive and hold my future in it (that sounds so melodramatic LOL). I just want to know already.

I have no idea how the interview went. It is such a hard thing to judge as I don't know what it is they were looking for. I'll give more details about the proceedings once ND fremantle have finished thier interviews incase they get the same questions.

A list of questions

My interview is on Friday and I am totally starting to freak out. 61 hours away. I have 3 outfits ready to go but I dont know which one I am going to go with yet. I also have no idea about how to do my hair. I have compiled myself a list of questions that people have been asked at previous med school interviews and I really need to sit down and have a good hard think about all of the answers.

1) A man has been responsible for taking care of his wife who is in a vegetative state for 6 years after a car accident. She can breathe on her own but that is the extent of her abilities. He requests that her feeding tube be removed. What should you, as her physician do? Why?

2) A student is working in a clinic where the office double books aboriginal patients. The student asks their reasoning and the receptionist replies that “Those people never show up for their appointments.” How would you deal with this situation?

3) You are working on a group project with 5 other students. One of the students doesn’t show up for meetings or if they do show up – they are late and leave early. They have put no effort into the group project but show up on the day of the presentation and try to take credit for the project. What do you do in this situation?

4) Mrs. Jones has signed a donor card indicating that she is willing to donate her body to science without notifying her husband and son. She gets into an accident and it is determined she is brain dead. The family doctor, who is on call that afternoon, reviews the chart and determines that she would be perfect for medical students to practice the removal of organs for transplantation purposes. The doctor then talks to the family to discuss the procedure and to confirm their consent. They both oppose the procedure and refuse to allow their doctor to move forward. The doctor points out that Mrs. Jones could be helping hundreds of people by educating the medical students and that technically consent has already been provided. The husband understands how beneficial the educational experience is but is too emotional to allow them to continue. The son, a medical student, refuses because he knows the bodies are not treated with dignity. If you were the doctor, how would you proceed? Why?

5) You are spending your evening as a JURSI in the hospital. It is late and you see a member of the staff duck into the supply closet with an empty bag and reappear in a few minutes with it appearing full. You have heard other staff members discussing that supplies are missing on a regular basis that can not be accounted for. After observing the actions of the other staff member, what do you do?

6) You are a second year student shadowing a doctor in the O.R. Once the patient, an obese female has been given general anesthetic and the procedure is underway the doctors start to make comments about her weight and call her names that you find inappropriate but most of all unprofessional. Do you talk to the doctor about his comments or do you keep your comments to yourself? Why?

7) Two patients need a liver transplant, but there is only one liver available at the time. Tell the interviewer how you would decide between:
a) a 64-year old retired politician who happens to be an alcoholic, or
b) a 26-year old mother of three who is on welfare.

8) You are part of a committee to decide where the money for health care in Geelong is spent. It is your turn to inform the committee of your opinion on what you think is the single most important area requiring funding.

9) Discuss the social, legal, medical implications of a needle-exchange program with the interviewer. Follow up question: What are some viable alternatives?

10) What is the most brilliant idea you've ever had?

11) Pretend that medical school interviews changed to the same format as speed dating: you've got five minutes to convince me you'd be a good doctor. What would you say?

12) Do you think it is ethical to require doctors to spend a pre-arranged amount of time, say three years, in a rural/remote community, not necessarily of their choice?

13) If you are a vegetarian and in serious debt with no money to buy vegetarian food, will you eat regular food?

14) I was asked whether I've seen a good movie lately and what I thought about it

15) What I thought was the greatest innovation in health care.

16) The second was a follow-up question from my answer for the public vs private health care question and I was asked why I thought lower-class people become sick more often than upper-class people. I'd always known it to be true but never really put thought into why it was.

17) What would you do if you were obliged to exert medicine in a rural context for your first 4 years of medical practice but if your wife wanted you and the kids to stay in the city?

18) You are the CEO of a large Australian company and 9 of your employees have been held hostage overseas. What would you do?

19) You are a medical student doing the hospital attachment during the Locomotion Unit. Your tutor introduces a young woman with rheumatoid arthritis to your group. She has tried all of the conventional treatments but is still having problems. Unless her symptoms improve she will have to give up work in the near future. The tutor tells you that there is a new, but very expensive treatment available. Treatment for a single patient costs as much as conventional treatment for 10 patients. The drug is not effective in all patients and in some cases gives rise to a worsening of the symptoms. The tutor asks the group what should be done.

20) One of your tutorial group has not attended any of the teaching sessions for a week. Members of the group have tried to make contact on the phone but have not been able to get through. There is no reply to text messages that you have sent. You decide to call round to your friend's flat where you find them staring at a blank television screen. What are you going to do?

21) Why medicine? One thing that I would recommend to everyone (if you haven't done this already) is to be very clear about your reasons for applying to do med. They asked me what steps I went through to determine that it was the career for me, and I'm glad that I mulled over this for some time beforehand as even a simple question like this can lead to a convoluted answer, despite one's best intentions.

22) Tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies? How will you handle not having time for any of them? Are you close to your family? How will you handle not seeing them? How will you support yourself through medicine? What will be your support networks and how you'll get through the course. How will your life change when you are studying medicine? How do you deal with criticism? Personal strengths/weaknesses. What would you change about yourself? Stress management

23) Biggest disappointment and how did you deal with it

24) Definitions: Laser, photosynthesis, insulin, minority group- can't remember the others. you'll have to explain a technical scientific term as you would to a patient - avoiding scientific jargon.

25) Debate/discussion: Stem cells

26) Where have you formed your opinions of the medical profession?

27) The scenario was that Sue owned a diner, and while she went away on holidays for a week, sales dropped. There were other things about the location of the diner, that they sold petrol too, who was left in charge. We had to hypothesise about reasons, and back them up. We were given more information, and asked to elaborate.

28) why you would like to go to ND

29) have a good long think about teamwork, how you fit into a team, the good and bad of being a doctor

30) The pros and cons of being a medical student/doctor and what you've done to find out about them

31) What makes good and bad doctors

32) Typical job interview style questions on leadership, team work, dealing with difficult people, difficult decisions and their consequences. Tell us about a difficult decision you made and how did you come about to making it. Describe a situation where you demonstrated teamwork. Good and bad group situations, when did you have to lead a group?

33) provided with an ethical situation. It will be along the lines of "you are a medical student and the doctor asks you to see Mrs So and So who has...." and you are asked to tell the panel what you would do/say to the patient. You may also be asked something about the behaviour/mood/feelings of the patient.

34) What you know about post graduate training

I think I may be starting to get obsessive but I figure if I have thought about all of these type of things then it should be pretty hard to throw me in the interview. Me throwing up is another matter entirely.

In other news, Mum is moving to Gerringong to be closer to her new restaurant. She did try for a house that is seeable from the reastaurant but it was not to be. The one she got is a townhouse in the middle of the town. I haven't seen inside yet but the location is good and it sounds really nice from what mum told me.

The travel is slowly killing us and we live each day with the November finish line in sight. I cannot wait for uni to be over. I will finally have a degree 9 years after I first started. And I can have a day where I don't feel guilty if I don't spend it studying.

Well I have to go and write a prac report (lucky me)

Procrastinating

I spent the day shopping today. I love to shop but it is not nearly as enjoyable as it ought to be when the kids are in tow. I had Emily in the first lot of shopping, she was OK till she got tired and the horns came out then we had to pick up James and continued to another center for more shopping. The kids kept fighting and drove me insane. Despite the insanity I did some good shopping, a few bargains and a nice new outfit for my interview. I am not 100% sold on it so I will take it to show mum, I might do some more shopping when childless to give myself more options and ability to 'go with the mood' on the day. 28 days till my interview.

Can you tell that it is on my mind??? LOL

So what I have worked out so far is that the cut off for interview was approx 5.5 GPA and 60 GAMSAT however to get an offer at these limits the other must be strong. This lets me feel as though I am in a relatively good position with a 6.2/67. Next is that the interview to places ratio is 1.3 so I have a 75% chance of getting an offer. The offer is made based on 1/3 GPA, 1/3 GAMSAT and 1/3 interview so I should be well into the safe zone with my GPA and GAMSAT so I just need to maintain this position at the interview to get an offer. An average interview should get me an offer. Let’s just hope I don't fuck up. I just can't wait till mid November, this nightmare semester (nightmare due to the travel and busyness) will be done and dusted and I will finally know my fate and what life will hold for me next year.

Well I better get back to my work, I am procrastinating.

I got a LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got an interview at the University of Notre Dame Sydney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The letter came today. I am so happy. I wasn't expecting the letter till Monday.

Now I have to hone my interview skills. I am totally freaking out. I can't even come up with an answer to the classic 'Why do you want to be a doctor/study medicine' question that doesn't sound dicky and contrived. I mean there is the 'helping people' response which is stupid and is always going to get the response of 'why not nursing' and helping people isn't really my reason. I mean I am an empathetic person and I won't deny that I like to help people but it is much more about how that makes me feel than the people themselves (oh my god that sound so self centered LOL) and if I am deciding to do something for the rest of my life then sure as hell that decision is going to be all about me and not about the nameless faceless masses that I meet along the way. It has nothing to do with money (obviously as doctoring is not the way to go if you want dosh and I am quite used to having none). I really like to study and learn and medicine really is a life long learning kind of job but everyone else will say that. So what the hell is a good answer??? My reasons are a compilation or many many small things that are really hard to explain succinctly. At least I have a month to think about it.

In other news, Mum no longer has the restaurant at Bulli. Last Sunday was her last day. She has taken over another bistro at Gerringong. David and I have decided to keep working for her on weekends until uni is finished at least. 9 more weeks. I can't wait till it's all done. It all seems so pointless since I am intending to study medicine anyway. The one at Bulli hasn't been doing too well since mum left LOL, serves the club right. The new people they got in are young and aren't giving the time of day to the oldies which is rather ridiculous given that the club is surrounded by no less than seven nursing homes. It is one of the staples of the restaurant. The oldies keep it floating and they have managed to piss most of them off already. They also hired Tammy (name changed of course) as the 'floor manager' which literally makes me burst out laughing. Tammy is the most stupid, idiotic, lazy incompetent worker that mum ever had. It was such a blessing when mum got rid of her and there she is trying to run things with her pea sized brain, it is hilarious. I know that it sounds awfully cruel and you must think I hate her or something but you are mistaken, I have nothing against her personally but you never want to have to work with her. My children have more common sense than I have seen her display.

James has been really touchy and upset lately. The new school thing is really getting to him. He is more defiant, angry and frustrated than ever before. He starts crying whenever he thinks of his old school, it is heartbreaking. I don't know what to do. My poor baby.

Life goes on.....and on and on and on

Sorry about the long time between posts but I have been moving.

Pretty much as soon as my last exam was over we went into hyper drive on the packing as we had pretty much done none of it and we only had a week and a half till the move. Then we decided to move on a weekday as it is cheaper so it dwindled down to 8 days to pack. It may sound like a lot of time but we have lots of shit. We then spent 2 nights at mums before coming to the new house. Our first week was spent up and down between Wollongong and Picnic Point which drove me insane. I felt like I wasn't achieving anything at either location. But that is done with now. The old house was cleaned and repaired and we managed to get our whole bond back.

Now to the task of getting this disaster of a house into a livable state. 3 months ago when we were thinking about moving we came and looked at the house and it was a bomb site. It was still full of David grandfathers (Jim) stuff and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. The roof upstairs was collapsing and it leaked in several places around the house. The locks had all been damaged (Jim went a bit nuts and broke them so people couldn't get in) and couldn't be opened so the only entry was through the garage. There was damage to the roof where Jim had put the broom handle through it because there were children living in his roof and he was trying to get them. Not very enticing but I was told that everything would be gone by the time we came, that professional cleaners were coming to clean the house thoroughly and the carpets would be steam cleaned. The locks were getting fixed and all the crap would be gone. It didn't happen. When moving day rolled around 3 MONTHS LATER it was still in the exact same state. I was so pissed off. Ranting and raving for days and even more annoying is that David wouldn't join in with me! How can you not be annoyed that we had to move in to a filthy damaged house because your mother was 'too busy' to make a few freaking phone calls!!!! So now my days are filled with packing up Jims stuff, cleaning the 3 inch dust away then trying to move our stuff in. It wasn't supposed to be this hard. We had to pile all of our stuff into the lounge room as there was nowhere else to put it as it was full of SHIT!

So much for uni holidays.

Speaking of uni, I got 2 credits, not a great result but given how distracted I was I can't complain. Let’s see if I can pull straight HD's in my last semester. The booklist isn't up yet for next semester (which starts in a week and a half) which is annoying because I need to know how much I am going to be up for.

Mum is only going to be at the bistro for about another month. The club wanted to change the way the bistro is run, i.e. who pays the bills etc but with mums contract they couldn't so they called for expressions of interest expecting mum to reapply but she decided to move on. On to where is unknown. Several possibles have been floating around. From market stalls to crepe shops and now a bistro in Gerringong has opened up and she is going to apply. Not sure if it is such a good idea considering how much she has been feeling trapped with her current bistro. Oh well only time will tell. Jenny (works for mum) was one of the applicants but she doesn't seem to have been successful. I pretty happy about it because she did the dirty on Kelly (another worker, Jenny's apparent best friend, my friend) They were going to apply together along with Jenny's sister (Abby) but without telling her till after the applications closed, they cut her out. There was a huge fight and haven't talked since. They have been friends for 22 years and it is all fucked up over a bistro that isn't going to go to any of them. Kelly's cousin works with Abby and Kelly got her to tell Abby's boss about the application and now Abby's hours have been cut and she isn't getting enough money. All pretty funny and good gossip from the outside but I wouldn't want to be any of them.
*names have been changed as I am not going to directly gossip about them LOL

Anyway the whole bistro thing means that David and I have about a month to find another job. I hate job hunting. We have no availability. On the days that I am not at uni David is and I have Emily and on the days that David is not at uni I am and he has Emily. So it pretty much dwindles it down to weekends or night fill. I HATE night fill. I did it for Coles before and it was horrid. It makes you soooo tired, you never finish when you are supposed to and you get treated like shit because they see you as 'replaceable'. Mind you I was heavily pregnant/had newborn when I was doing it so that might account for a lot of it but I don't want to find out. David keeps saying that he will take the semester off and work while I finish my degree off but he seems to forget that I am hoping to be doing medicine next year which is more full on so I don't know how that is supposed to be easier.

I have my MIL coming over at 7:30am tommorrow. Should be fun NOT!

Emma has left the building.

Hello all,

Well one exam down one to go. The one that I did was really hard. They expected you to know so much. Will have to wait and see how I went but I am not holding my breath. I just don't want to think about it.

Emma is gone. She left last night without so much as a goodbye. She really pisses me off like that. She just has no respect for family. We are so far down her list it is not funny. In my 2 and a half years of living relatively close to her she has only ever made contact if she wanted something. I was so excited when we decided to move to Wollongong because of how close she would be. I thought that she and I may get to know each other better. Don't get me wrong we are not estranged or anything but I am not in her inner circle as such. I had grand ideas of getting together for dinners at each others houses and talking into the evening and REALLY getting to know each other. It didn't happen. I tried, she was always too busy. And now she has packed up and moved to the other side of the state. No goodbye. That really gets to me. Does she have that little respect for me that I don't even land on her list of people to say goodbye to?

The roof of the fuction room at work caved in tonight. More details later. I am done for now.

Someone needed to live the next 3 weeks of my life for me.

Help! I want to cry. Exams are just a week away and I am sooooo not ready. There have been too many distractions this semester. GAMSAT wiped out the first half of the semester which unfortunately made me completely fuck my mid semester exams. I have spent the last 2 weeks non stop in front of my computer trying to finish a 40 page prac report that is worth 40% of my chem mark. It took forever. Even though I didn't leave it until the last minute I had to pull an all nighter on Thursday night to get it finished. Now I finally got it out of the way but I still can't concentrate on exams yet as my med school applications are due in on friday and I haven't touched them yet because of the stupid prac report. I have to write a 300 page personal statement for ND which I have decided to put as my 1st preference. I also have to get my CV together and fill out a form for them. UOW, which I have put in as a third preference I have to fill in a whole portfolio form thing. It is bloody scary that expect you to have done so much. I probably could write down enough stuff but you have to have contact phone numbers for each I don't even have contact phone numbers for my last jobs yet alone for the fact that I played netball a few years ago or participated in certain groups at uni. I have certificates to that effect but no they want bloody phone numbers! USYD which is my second preference thankfully does not want any extra stuff, just my scores. I also have to send them all of my stuff, transcripts, wedding certificate as my first uni experience was in a different name etc. UND expect the stuff for them to be hand delivered!! Yeah I'll just pop into sydney on my way home from work NOT! Now I am just ranting.

In other news, mum is going to somewhere this week. It starts with c and is in the middle of nowhere and I can't for the life of me remember the name. It is where Michaels parents live.

Did I tell you my sister is moving?
She is moving to Federal NSW up near Byron Bay. 2 weeks before me. Poor mum is being abandoned by everyone.

Got to go kids are trying to get my attention.

The Best Day Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have had an absolute screamer of a day. I have been bouncing off the walls.

It all started pretty ordinarily, the alarm went off 4 times before I managed to kick my husband out of bed to deal with the kids. I went back to sleep blissfully unaware that he also had fallen back to sleep in the lounge room and school time was rapidly approaching. "OH SHIT!!!!" I hear bellowed from afar, waking me with a start. It was 8:45am and we had but 15 minutes to get ready, out the door and to school. By some miracle, the time when we got in the car was 8:51am (I think there is a difference between the car clock and the bedroom clock because 5 year olds just do NOT get dressed that fast). We race off to school, me in my daggies and Emily still in PJs, drop off the boy - thankfully we beat the bell so I didn't have to get out of the car Phew. Drop David at uni and Emmy and I went home for what was supposed to be a relatively uneventful day.

Before we go any further I must remind you that this is not a normal week, this is the week that my GAMSAT results are due. I have been on a knife's edge and have developed an insane OCD tendency of checking my email every 2 minutes. Today was no different; the moment I got home I tore into the computer room to check the email and Paging Dr for any news. Nothing. I was once again disappointed. I start on the housework. Put on a load of washing, checked the computer, brought the washing in, checked the computer, hung more washing out checked the computer. Still no email. Hop on Paging Dr, what's this???? Some one has posted their results!!! Heart starts pumping, check email again....Nothing, check Paging Dr again, more people with results, but where is mine? About to burst into tears and fearing the worst (that I hadn’t even qualified to get a score as I had done so badly) I begin to read......emails not sent yet.......results are available.......someone has found the link!!!........follow it, log in and get your results. I froze. Do I really want to see? This could be the end on the dream; maybe I am better off being blissfully unaware. That last all of 2 seconds and I scream OH MY GOD OH MY GOD (Emily was probably very confused at this point wondering what was wrong with mummy) I log in. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got 67!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All sections passed and I got 67!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(This is top 10% for all those not fluent in GAMSAT scores, great score; I can get an interview practically anywhere)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

These screams aren't me trying to dramatise it, I was actually screaming.

The next hour passed in a flurry of phone calls, text messages and forum posts. I was so high.
I baked cookies to celebrate.

The next good thing was a phone call. David rang to say that he had just spoken to his mother and they were only going to charge us $150 a week rent for David's grandfather house as that is all he needs to cover his expenses. Cool! We had just been freaking out last night about how we are going to survive financially with the move then this falls out of the sky (it is times like this I love being a belrite)

After this I had to go to uni to tutor a girl in physics. I know it sounds boring but I haven't tutored physics before so I was a little unsure of myself but everything went really well. And I got $50 bucks for my troubles. Perfect considering that we needed some groceries and petrol.

Then I had to go to work. Such is life.

Here is the results curve so you can see for yourself how brilliant I am.

Move

It is a ticker but you can't see the number because of the background LOL

Not good

So I have officially won the right to complain about uni again. We went on an excursion for Environmental Chemistry, guess where we got to go...... the sewerage treatment plant. It freaking stunk as expected. and it was sooo boring. Sure I know what happens in each tank and can grasp all of the mechanisms used and why but that doesnt make looking at tank after tank of oozzing stinky liquid any more interesting. The only bit I thought was interesting was that the environmental guidelines that are imposed on them don't have to be met! Some only have to be met 50% of the time and others only 90% of the time. So 1 day out of 10 that can be washing god knows what into the ocean and no-one gives a hoot. That just does not seem right.


I have horribly sad news.
Gilmore Girls is no more. It has 1 show left. I am so upset by this.

Birthday Day

Today is Birthday Day. Not my birthday but the Birthday of Erin, Adeline and my sister Aimee (who is 16!!! OMG she can get her L's no-onw is safe anymore) so rather than having the mouthful of saying 'Erin, Adeline and Aimees's Birthday' I simply call it Birthday day.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!

Mmmmm..................

I have been doing an assignment for marketing communications, and we had to come up with an ad. To demonstrate our ad we had to create storyboards, which fell to me. As I am completely and unequivocally hopeless at drawing I have been trolling the net for useful images. These are just a few that I have been forced to look at.

Remind me not to complain about doing uni work again.

this is so addictive!

Free Online Flash Games

Rejected

Well as GAMSAT results approach I am getting even more uncertain. To the point where I have actually applied for a graduate position at P&G. Me and my back up plans LOL. I always have back up plans it becomes second nature once life has knocked you on your arse a few times. Well I filled out all the forms and sent off my application and they wanted me to come in for a 'problem solving test'. It was all the way at Macquarie (next to the uni) so it took me like ALL day to sit this piddly 1 hour test. I got there at 10am for a 10:30 test but thought that that may look a bit over eager so waited till 10:20 to go inside to find out that the 10:30 test had gone in at 10:15 and I would have to wait for the 12pm test. I was sooo cranky considering that I left home at 8am!!!!! and I was just sitting in the car waiting. So I went shopping across the road for an hour and made sure I turned up for the 12 test at 11:30 (which of course didn't go in till 12 Grrrr). The test was really easy although everyone seemed to be complaining about it as we left. I got through that stage and had to fill out some behavioral questions, you know the ones, explain a time when you have had to work in a group etc etc etc. I sent that in and I am waiting to hear if I got an interview. I am starting to think no :( . The interview are Wed-Fri this week and I haven’t heard yet (we had to have the questions back by Thursday morning). I am upset that I haven't gotten an interview which is stupid because really I don't even want the job I want to study medicine, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to get the job. How am I meant to get into something with entry as competitive as medicine if I can't even get a stupid graduate position? I am trying to convince myself that it is because I applied for a marketing position and I have a bachelor of science. I mean I almost will have the B Com (marketing) too but if I decide to graduate this year then I wont have finished that (by all of 2 subjects) so I can't say that I have it on an application. I just want my Gamsat results so that I know if I have a chance of getting in or not.

On the move to Picnic Point, Yes it is happening. We are going to move in the next school holidays. I have moved 20+ times in my life and I can honestly say that this is the most uncertain that I have ever been about a move. The house is good, the area is nice I have no apprehensions about that, even the fact that we will have to travel to uni and find new jobs doesn't bother me that much but I feel like I am just getting to know the school mums. James has settled into school really really well and I can se myself becoming good friend with the other mums. I am not the type of person that is comfortable socially. It is going to be so hard for me to have to start this whole relationship building exercise from square one again. Let’s just hope that they are as friendly and welcoming as they have proven to be at James' current school.

Tick toc

Gee I am getting slack. 3 weeks since my last post. I am full of excuses though. Firstly there was the whole getting over the gammy thing, then the week after James' school fete was on and being the person that has to be involved in everything I was on the fete committee and was very busy. Then I had an exam and then I went away for a week. So they are my excuses (not to mention that I am a slack ass)

Well life is womping along as usual. time ticks away way too fast. I still have a whole month to wait till gammy results come out so everything is up in the air and nothing is certain. It is made even more uncertain by the fact that in the last 2 days the idea popped into our heads to take over David's grandfathers house as he has gone to a nursing home. Now it looks like we are moving to picnic point at the end of this school term. My poor baby is going to have to start at a new school.

Oh crap I just saw the time and I have to get ready for work. We have a function and I am starting at 4.
Hopefully I will get back soon and finish.

It's Over!

GAMSAT is finally done and dusted.

It feels so good to have it finished but now I just want my results and I have to wait eight long weeks. Sooo annoying.

I don't know how I went. I walked out feeling good. I finished all 3 sections which is not something I expected to do. That made me optimistic but now I am thinking that I may have ansewered them all but I may have answered them all wrong!!!

Section 1 was pretty tough and I guessed a few. The readings were long and heavy and I started to skim them and read the questions so I knew which bits to read in more detail. There was this insane flow chart on inuit kin groups and thier energy expediture, it was all over the place, it took up a whole page and was nuts. It was mainly long passages and poetry. The Medprep notes had questions about the structure but in the Gammy it was all content.

Section 2 had a essay about humour and an essay about human nature. From what I have read so far on paging dr I haven't seemed to have done the most popular ones.
For Humour - I did the "most humour is cruel and malicious......." one (the 2nd bit was something about making someone a victim and I wrote about teasing, blonde jokes and funniest home video show.
Human Nature - I did 'whether your optimistic or pessimistic about human nature it changes your view of the world' or something along those lines. I wrote about acts of super human strength and adultery (it doesn't seem to make as much sense now)

Section 3 was so much easier than I was expecting. You really didn't need that much science knowlede as it was all in the question. There was one bio question that really had me stumped and I had to guess but I cant even remember it now. Just because it wasn't that hard doesn't mean I got it right though it could just mean I missed the point of it all and totally flunked!

Overall, I have no idea and I am just going to wait and see but I have my fingers crossed.

OK I'm off to bed as I am completely and utterly shattered (8am-5pm in a gruelling exam tends to do that)

faith

I just thought this was funny

I need more time

OMG, I have been so busy.

• Uni has gone back and as much as I promised myself that I would keep on top of it this year I haven't managed to do a single reading yet
• GAMSAT is only 2 1/2 weeks away and I am starting to freak.
• The GK cocktail party was last week which was stressful
• Emily's birthday party is this weekend
  
• The school fete is the week after GAMSAT

The cocktail party went well but it was all very stressy. We didn't sell as many tickets as we would have liked so the last week was spent furiously promoting it. The bands had all these dramas and were whining and demanding on the night so that caused a lot of running around. It was mums birthday so I invited her along and I had to be extra nice because her shit of a partner didn't do anything. She threw a tantrum in the afternoon so he went out and got her a present but too little too late in my books. I also cooked her a cake and had everyone over in the afternoon. So it was a mad rush of a day between cooking and picking up nana and aimee and doing the last minute organising for the party so by the time I could finally relax I was ready to get very drunk and get very drunk I did. On the Friday I was supposed to have a fete meeting and tuckshop duty but I had to pull out because I was so sick. I had full on alcohol poisoning, you know the one where you can't move and you vomit continuously for hours even though there is nothing left to vomit. Not very nice, you can't half tell I don't drink much.

Emily's Party preparations are underway. I am pretty organised for it if you exclude the cleaning. I am leaving the cleaning till Thursday and Friday otherwise we will just make a mess again.

GAMSAT wise I have done nothing. I haven't studied or thought about it so now I am kicking myself. I think I switched to PT uni so that if I f*ck the gammy I can say it was just a practice but if I ace it I will drop one of the degrees and finish this year leaving me free for med school next year.

Well I have a to do list as long as my arm so that s all I have time for.

Stuff

Mum didn't get the kiosk that she was hoping for. She is pretty upset and so am I. It was going to make life so much easier. We would get our weekends back and it wouldn't be too difficult but it is not to be. Now we are looking at setting up a market stall and going around to all of the markets, which of course takes alot more effort and time and has risk. Not ideal but what are we to do?

Emily is still on her tantrum trail but David and I have been taking zero tolerance approach so hopefully we can stamp it out pretty quickly. We have been organising her birthday party. She is very excited, it is going to be fairy party and Aimee and her freind Alex are going to dress up as fairies.

The cocktail party that I have organised for Golden key is not selling. It is one week away and we have sold all of 15 tickets so now I am freaking out. We sent out an email to gauge interest and we got a good response but noone who responded has actually brought thier tickets. Sarah, the member who is helping me with it is driving me insane too. She has been great in that she has organised the venue and band because she has the appropriate contacts but she has also taken over everything to the point that she is doing things without even consulting me and she even sent out an email with herself listed as the events manager. Hello that is my title. It is so annoying. I mean I would understand if I had been a total slackass and not done anything but I have been to every meeting I have visited the venue and made up tickets and I was liasing with the promo manager about the promos but no she did them - that is not your job! And then she walks around with this chip on her shoulder like she is so hard done by because noone is helping her. Grrrrrrrr. Total control freak. She should have put her hand up for president is she wanted to have a hand in everything.

David got a letter yesterday stating that he got the EdStart allowance which is $500 that goes towards uni cost but I didn't get one. It is really annoying because you can nominate to use it for Childcare fees or for text books and I put Davids down as childcare and mine as textbooks assuming that if one got it both would so now we have no money for text books. How am I meant to get straight HD's with no text books????????

GPA for med school is looking OK. It is sitting at about 6.3 I freaked out a bit before because I pulled out of two subjects when I decided that I was going to study part time rather than full time and I thought that they counted in my GPA calculation, but it turned out that I had read it wrong and it didn't so I am happy about that. I am aimming for straight 7's this year so hopefully I can make it happen.

Thats about all

My baby has been kidnapped

Someone has kidnapped my sweet, kind, gentle, helpful little girl and replaced her with a monster in little girl clothes. She is driving me insane. Tantrum after tantrum and I don't understand why she keeps doing them because they don't work, I don't give in to her so why does she keep doing them? Last night she was soembarassing. We had a welcome BBQ at James school and she screamed for most of it we were about to throw her in the car and go home and she just stopped and suddenly want dinner and to play and do all the things that we had just spent the better part of an hour trying to get her to do. She threw one this morning because she didn't want to put a shirt on but still wanted to go to dancing??? You can't do both. Now she is whinging because she had to walk for 5 minutes when we went to register James for soccer. I just need to scream.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before

After

Full Plate

I slept 12 hours last night. The night before I got 3 hours sleep and had a busy day so I ended up in bed at the same time as the kids (7:30ish) I woke up resdy for the day at 4am LOL but I made myself go back to bed till it wa at least light.

I have been so stressed out lately. So much so that I got a coldsore in my eye. I have overcommitted myself. Full time uni, GAMSAT, work, golden key, P&C, fete committee, uni crew, commerce liason committee, and all while trying to look after 2 kids. So I totally stressed out and had a few freak out days (triggered by the stress and horemones as I was PMSing) and have decided to pull back on the reins and do this last year of uni part time, I'll still sit GAMSAT but it will just be a practise as I won't graduate this year. So that relieved alot of the pressure.

I have joined the P&C at James' School. The school fete is on March 31st so we are busy organising that at the moment. I had to make up a flyer for the next meeting on friday but being me I made up 5 LOL. The golden Key cocktail party is fast approaching (March 1st) it has morphed into a welcome event rather than an honourary members event. Some people are throwing tantrums about that so now we aren't inviting the honourary members and I have to organise another event for them to attend. Also oraganising Emily's birthday party at the moment so it is event city. Things happening everywhere.

Mum is sick and tired of the restaurant and is looking for something new to do, which is good for her but not so good for us (there go the jobs). She has 2 new prospects on the cards. The first is a kiosk in a national park and the second is to start a business selling stationary at markets (I thing this one has much more potential) The kiosk doesn't hold much interest for me but I offered to go partners in the stationary one. If her tender for the kiosk is accepted then that is what she will do.

Well I have to get the boy ready for school so I have to go.

eggplant

Big School and Strange Texts

My baby has gone to big school :(

His first day was Wednesday. He loves it! I didn't cry (very proud of myself) but Emily got all upset and didn't want him to go, which I thought was really cute.

We have been away if you were wondering why it has been so long. We went to mum's caravan again. 5 nights this time. The week before we went mum was down there and she had the most glorious weather all week and work was soooo busy while she was away; then we swap over and the next day it is raining and when she got back to work they had a really quiet week. Very frustarating. Apart from the weather (we only got 1 1/2 nice days) it was good. Not long enough but we got back on Sunday so James could get into his routine before big school on Wednesday.

I am in the middle of a very strange SMS conversation ATM

Unknown: Who is this?
Me: No reply as I don't know who they are
Unknown: I guess you won't answer me... What was that pic msg all about?
Me: Who are you?
Unknown: U should know, u sent me that pic today... Who are you?
Me: I haven't sent anything today
Unknown: Was that sent 2day? Who am I talking 2 by the way?
Me: I don't know what you are talking about and no I won't tell a stranger who I am
Unknown: Im sorry about the way you feel, but i recieved that pic from your number 2day...
Me:
Unknown: Besides, i cnt be a stranger if u know my number... Can u please tell me your name at least?
Me: I have checked my sent box and I never sent you any pictures. You are also not in my address book so I couldn't have done it accidently. Who are you?
Unknown: It was sent to me at 1:38pm... Anyway, my name is michael... What is yours?
Me: Peta.... I know lots of Michaels...... Michael who?
Unknown: M or f?
Me: Does it matter? And WTF do you think from the spelling
Unknown: Why so angry?? Sorry, just wanted 2 know
..:-(
Me: You obviously don't know me. What was this picture I was suppossed to have sent you?
Unknown: Dnt know... I thought some1 tried 2 play some game with me... Is it ok 2 ask if you're m or f?
Me: You still haven't worked it out? Not very bright are we LOL think about it......Peta......google it if it is that hard.
Unknown: F i guess...:-) what made you txt me back after being so angry with me?
Me: Who said anything about being angry? Yes yes I am f einstien. Was the pic of an eggplant?
Unknown: Yes... What was all that about? I hope im not breaking your sleep...:-(
Me: How did you end up with that??? I sent it to a michael but not you. I sent it to a Michael ******. It was a funnt looking eggplant wasn't it LOL
Unknown: Smiling at last..hehe.. Noy bad 4 a stranger...
Me: This is such a perculiar conversation. I still don't understand how it got sent to u considering you are not even in my address book.
Unknown: I guess it just happened.. Suprised?
Me: Maybe it is fate (LOL that sounds sooo corny) so where are you from?
Unknown: Melb, you? Dnt tell me you're 13 years old...lol
Me: Wollongong NSW and im 26 so we definetly don't know each other I don't know any melbournites
Unknown: Now u do...:-)
Unknown: Ever go 2 melb?
Me: never I am pretty settled here
Unknown: Married i guess..
Me: Yes 2 kids one just threw up which is what took me so long to reply.
Unknown: Does your other half know your texting me?
Me: Yes he thinks it is funny too. Are you married?
Unknown: Yes, 2 kids as well, not throwing up though...lol
Me: Why are you up so late? does your wife know your texting me?
Unknown: Yes... Showed her the pic aswell..
Me: You never told me how old you are. What is your wifes name?
Unknown: Im 39.. Her name is Mary

and that is where it is up to at the moment. What do you think of my strange conversation?
The eggplant photo is on my phone it is funny. I will try and get it into the blog soon.

Well it really late now I better get to bed.