An Awesome Time in Melb

After my tiring placement up in Newcastle, it was a good change to be in Melb for about 1.5 weeks. My Melb trip made me miss Melb a lot and I didn't really feel like leaving. Despite the monstrous number of assignments I had to do while in Melb, I still had quite a bit of opportunity to hang with TY, relax, go out, eat nice food and mingle.

While TY was at work, used that time to work on my assignments, and rewarded myself later in the evening for relaxation and outings, and catch up with a few friends. Really miss all that... It was pretty tough though having my parents around, especially my mum who doesn't work and constantly wanted to meet up during the afternoons. But I had assignments and sometimes parents just don't understand why you need so much time to do them. My parents keep saying "can't I do it at night?", or "it's been two days, haven't you finished it yet?" For those still studying or have studied before, you guys know that two days for a 3000 word assignment is never enough... although I did manage to pull the 3000 word assignment in two days while I was in Melb, with all my research pre-done. Not sure how I'd go though... Just crossed my fingers and prayed as I put it through electronic submission.

Now back in Syd and having to tackle assignments. I have one due Mon and then Tues-Fri, on my second clinical placement. I also have a 1000 word clinical essay due Fri but probably can't do that while am on placement... Hopefully I get these two essays out of the way and done by the weekend... but working Sat. So the plan at the moment is to try and work on my Mon essay tomorrow morning (Sat) before work, work on it a bit after work, work on it on Sun after church. Then try to get my Fri essay finished by Mon... It's due at 9am on the Mon! This way, I can concentrate on preparing for my placement on the Tues.

Quite nervous about my 2nd placement, cause that's at my uni clinic. I have this thought that because it's the uni clinic, they would be more strict on you, because they know what you should be capable of. But all the more that I have to impress them... It's kinda good that I have a laid-back clinical e-d-u-c-a-t-o-r (everyone says he's real easy to work with)... but I still feel that I shouldn't have high hopes. What if he ends up to be really cranky that week? Just hoping it all goes well... And the worse bit is that my exam dates are out! 10th and 13th June! And my last assignment is due 5th June! They don't give you that much time to study, do they? Anyway, please pray for me!! And that I remember all that I can - everything that I will be studying prior to the exams!

So Little Time, So Much to do!!

7 assignments, 2 clinical assessment port folios, 3 exams! This is all due by mid June believe it or not!

Real people, real clients, real cases - haha, that's my little slogan for next week when going up to Newcastle. You might remember a similar phrase from Judge Judy: "The people are real, the cases are real, the court is real" - something like that anyway... Not that I watch Judge Judy, but sometimes it comes on when I'm having lunch, and I seem to remember the slogan. Hee hee!

I have to admit I am a little nervous, but really excited as well to be going to Newcastle for my clinical placement. It would be a nice change from the real Sydney life to a bit of surfer/bogan life... And hopefully it'd be a good experience. There is one food thing I'll be looking forward to almost every day and that's Cold Rock! It's awesome! And after TY and I made a little mesh with the ice-cream flavours, the flavour we made was the best!! Sorry guys, it's a secret ingredient... hee hee!

Straight after Newcastle, I'm onward-bound to Melbourne! Hopefully I won't have to embrace the cold wintry blast... I'd be there for a week, but will have to do the assignments while TY works... Maybe I'll put up at Melb uni's library cause I need to use a printer and scanner somehow... I wonder if the State Library has a printer and scanner.. hmmm... I might also be able to stay longer than 16 May... I initially planned 16 May cause I had a manual submission of an assignment on 18 May, but I think now I can just email it. So might be able to stay a few more days extra... and then have to be back for another placement!

Need to finish this assignment and start packing maybe, and then start on another assignment!

I'm Back!!

Am back blogging! Reason: It's just been insanely, absurdly, crazy, intense since I started uni. At week 5 of my course, I already felt like I had an information overload - the study workload I was handling was crammed into a few weeks and there was just so much. I've done a Masters coursework in E-d-i-t-i-n-g and P-u-b-l-i-s-h-i-n-g but it wasn't like this. This Masters is really tedious and tiring. It's a great course and it's really fun when you end up doing the practs, but it really drains you too.

I had an a-n-a-t-o-m-y and p-h-y-s-i-o-l-o-g-y quiz not long ago and I flunked it! Imagine! But quite a few did as well. I just felt really stupid after that. Then again, I've never done any a-n-a-t-o-m-y and p-h-y-s-i-o-l-o-g-y at all... closest would be bio in high school.

Today in the same subject, we had this a-c-o-u-s-t-i-c-s quiz and I feel I did a lot better - I definitely know I passed this one so hopefully it'd pull my mark up from the other one. I was more confident too which is good - hopefully... I did check my answers with others after and I already know I did a few careless calculations and using the wrong formulas, but both quizes are worth 10% each so I guess it's not too bad.

Tomorrow's the start of the long Easter weekend - it's not really gonna be a relaxing one, cause I have a clinic exam after Easter and a major essay due on the Tues. And on the Fri, I have a report and presentation due too. So it's church Fri morn and then essays. Then Sat working. And Sun, it'd be church and essays.

In fact, with the sem break, my course might be the few in uni who have classes next week and only have the long weekend off - everyone else in uni has next week off - their mid-sem break - and unfortunately we don't get the break. But I guess it makes up for it because when we are on placements, we don't actually have classes, only clinics. We each get 2.5 weeks worth of placements. I've got two placements - one in Newcastle (Aust) for a week and the other at the uni clinic... The placement in Newcastle is about 2 hrs drive from my home and I had to come up with quite a fair bit of $ for a decent accommodation because the cheap ones were all taken.

There's actually a whole month without classes before the exams, and only 2.5 weeks of placements, so I'll be heading down to Melb sometime in May to spend time with TY. I've still got assignments due during that period, so I'll definitely be working on them when TY is working during the day, then the night's free to do whatever. Might visit Melb Uni's library to do my assignments there... I dunno why, but I seem to be more productive in the lib nowadays... but looking forward to going to Melb again.

Pretty nervous about my placement because I need to write reports and be able to deal with clients and do the testings right so hopefully all goes well. And I definitely need work outfits before placements start... But my main worry now is to get through my clinical exam on the Tues. It'd be on a simulator, but please pray for me that I can do well in it and that I have His strength and focus. Thanks guys! Am going to have a relaxing and quiet night today especially after the a-c-o-u-s-t-i-c-s test, then tomorrow it's church and back to the study.

Finally a Day Off

I had a day off yesterday - finally - after a long week or rather, weeks of classes... but didn't end up doing anything productive. I was really wanting to finish this reflection report but didn't get my head around to it and started watching at least 2 episodes of Desperate Housewives. Then towards late afternoon, I managed to organise my folders and sorted out recent lecture notes. I thought that might get me started into the whole studying thing, but it didn't really - I saw that I had Smallville shows, and ended up watching at least 3 episodes. So yes, it was a very unproductive, unconstructive day. And then it was church time. I visited Hillsongs, it was the young adults service that I went to, and my verdict - overwhelming! Actually, it was too overwhelming, and in the beginning, it was a little scary because we were supposed to have a bbq in church and halfway during our trip to church, they said now it's at someone's house. And right after, we didn't know where our bus went, so everyone just said to get into any car that we could get into, to go to Hillsongs. So that was a bit strange. It was a Brazilian bbq, so it wasn't too bad though, and the people were nice. Everyone was just really noisy and you felt like you were back in high school. Haha! Well, we got to church and the service hadn't started yet, and there were all these young uni students in their early 20s who were bopping around and doing mosh pits. The music was ultra loud and it seemed like a clubbing scene. Plus some of the worship songs were just really club-like - lots of jumping and screaming... But I guess if that's the way they feel God and the way they will grow, then it's great. But for myself, I think the loud pumping hyper music might take a bit of the focus away. I don't mind some really happy "jumping" songs, but others are a bit much personally like the whole b-boy rap they were doing in the beginning on a Christian song. I think I still prefer my quiet reflective moments with God - just helps me focus on Him more. I wasn't expecting a few things, especially during worship and before and after the services, so it was a little of an eye-opener, but the message was really powerful and good. But if it were a non-Christian, I think they'd just say yes to God anyway, because of the fun and entertainment they had... and that can always be dangerous... So in my quest to look for a church, I think I need something in between Wesley and Hillsongs and I haven't quite found it yet... There was a shuttle from the church back to the shopping mall near my place, and I got back about 10.30pm. Good thing my morn class today was cancelled otherwise I'd have to get up really early and usually I sleep by 10:30.

Woke up today feeling really bad because I had such an unproductive day yesterday, but hopefully tonight will be better and I get to do a bit of my reflective assignment. I am attempting to finish it off tomorrow! Crossing fingers and toes!!

At least some time last week, I managed to catch Confessions of a Shopaholic with my coursemates. It was good, although it doesn't prevent you from shopping, it actually makes you want to shop. I do wish I had a lot of cash to shop though... And my coursemates and I, because we are Macq Uni students, we got upgraded to the Silverscreen for free! And we were the only ones in the cinema. It was pretty awesome. Also when TY was down, we managed to catch Watchmen. It was alright actually... a bit draggy I felt... and I was wanting something more light-hearted, but it was actually quite dramatic, so a little bit of a disappointment... I still wanna catch more movies, but there's just no time for anything with this course!!

An "insane" course

At the moment, am having uni 9-5 Mon-Fri except for Tues which is only a 2-hour pract at the moment, but from the week after next, it'd be uni 9-5 Mon-Fri (same as working hours)... The only difference - when you are done with uni classes, you still have to go to the library after class and also continue working at home through the night. And this is me at the moment - on a typical day, after class, library till about 6pm (class ends at 5pm but there's no point leaving uni then cause of the peak hour jam - so 6pm is a better leaving time...), get home and cook dinner, rest for a bit, shower, look through lecture notes for about an hour, and then it's time for bed. There's seriously no time!! Weekends - work on Sat, church on Sun, and practically having study time on Sun from 2.30 onwards (remember though that I have to sleep at 10.30 latest on Sun for next morn)... And already I'm getting throbbing frontal lobe headaches from too much info gathered per day... I think my brain is tired and can't cope very well... =( But am sure the 2 years would go by real quick. It's only the third week, but I feel like it's been a year already! I've definitely learnt a lot and have made a few more Syd friends since the start of this year.

Having a test on Mon! Please pray for me!! It's on anatomy and physiology, and don't think I'm that good in the physiology section and applying logic and concepts together... at the moment, my thoughts are quite segregated and I only have one day left!! I need the memory and focus and just being able to analyse it all logically. If only I can fit all the concepts and terminology like a jigsaw, that'd be great - and am good in jigsaws - but if only that skill can come across for this test. You can probably tell I'm really worried, but really wanna do well in this course at least. The test is 15%, and I hope for excellent grades, cause that would contribute towards my final mark anyways.

My Brain Goes ARGHHHH!

This is my blogging moment about classes so far. It's only the second official week of uni and my brain is screaming. Too much info, too much thoughts - just a big overload. I can't even speak properly at times... I just feel so behind with lects at the moment and not really getting lots of stuff. I get some bits but they're only bits and am really worried... Then there are all these smarties in the class who seem to know it all and ask so many intelligent questions all the time, and half the time, I'm thinking "Why didn't I think of that?" My attention span is just deteriorating. It's full concentration with a large hot choc for the early morning class and then it just deteriorates by about 2pm at the start of the next class.

Practs are really fun though. We get to probe our classmates' ears... haha! Not really... but yeah, we do testings on each other. And we have computer simulations too. I enjoy the practs! I think I get a lot out of them even when am tired.

Hopefully it gets better as the weeks progress and I'll be up to date with the lects...

Getting Used to the Unusual

The unusuals -
It's been hailing in Sydney the past two days and today was brilliant weather - nice and sunny. Then tomorrow, it'd be storming again. It's strange weather... Like Melbourne's just come over here. Haha! But at least when it hails or storms, it doesn't get that cold and I can actually still wear my skirts during that type of weather - but yeah, still a little strange.

Been having to wake at 6:45am to leave at about 7:30am for classes. The first official week of classes just started and isn't actually too bad, because I only have classes Mon, Thu and Fri this week. But today (Tues), I had to still wake early to go and get my TB results and do plenty of errands. A Melb friend also came down with his cousin and we met for dinner in the city, but the traffic was sooo bad with a few accidents along the way that he and his cousin actually had to wait really long. I also dragged one of my Syd friends out. She's like my best friend in Syd - we do almost everything together... most things. And she might end up to be my housemate next year, so I'll looking forward to that happening.

It's going to get busier. The good thing is that my work has been cut down to 1/2 days per week which is so much better than the 3/4 days I used to be rostered on. Perhaps I'll just push it a little further and cut my work hours to just 1 day. See, because I'm still earning a fair bit, C-e-n-t-r-e-l-i-n-k isn't paying me yet (they say if I work 1 day per week, it should be within their earnings bracket and then they'd be able to pay me). Oh well... Tomorrow need to do run more errands - groceries as usual, and uni stuff. Then will probably write up a report tomorrow about the hearing test I had by the 2nd year student.