This year is a year of many new beginnings for me. New location, new living arrangements, new course, new friends to make and many new experiences to have. This year I will be completing a Graduate Diploma of Primary Education at RMIT. This will be the 3rd university I’ve been to, so I’m getting used to the way things work! The course is a very full on kind of course and to give an example of this, I’ll be starting placement in a school next week (2nd week of the semester)! We have been warned that this is a very demanding course, and to expect it to be hard. This is not surprising as we’re completing an education degree (normally takes 4 years) into a very packed 4 months. But this is how I wanted to do it - and I think I’ll be needing to remind myself of that throughout the year!

After starting today, I’m rather excited about the course. Which is a good change from last week when I left the orientation day feeling a tad overwhelmed and a little terrified of what was all expected and how soon we need to get a grasp of everything. But I trust the people who are in charge of the course, and I intend to put in the effort to ensure I do the best that I can do. And I KNOW that I can do better than the marks I received throughout my BA. I just need to apply myself more and get started on work early.

I’ve been wanting to be a primary school teacher since year 10, so it’s been a long road to get to where I am now, but everything that I have experienced has made me who I am now - ready to take on the challenge of this year. I’m not sure how often I’ll write anything here, but I’m hoping it will be a bit more than the past few months! Hopefully this will be an outlet for my thinking about what I’ve learnt at uni and also a place to record my growth as I progress through the course.

•  What do you think of stuffed animals as gifts?
  I think they can be nice….assuming they are given for an appropraite occasion and aren’t too outrageous!

• What do you do with a stuffed animal you don’t want?
  I give it away to a hospital or charity so it can be passed on to someone who would appreciate it more than what I currently do! I have recently given away a few bears that I received in my later years of high school that were special to me then, but now are just numbers in the collection! Which is why I’ve given them away.

• What are your thoughts on the whole Beanie Babies craze of the nineties?
  A money-making exercise. They were cute to start with but then there was just too many of them!

• How many stuffed animals do you own?
  Hmmmm….Lex, Humphrey, Justin, and a few more in the cupboard that I want to keep for when I have kids. So basically 3, cos the others don’t count!!!

Had a movie and dinner with Richard and his family last night as his parents have just arrived back from a 3 week trip overseas. That was nice, although all 3 kids are getting rather irritated by their mother at the moment. They can’t work out if it is because she’s more irritating that normal, or if it’s just because they haven’t had to put up with it for 3 weeks! Catherine really isn’t surviving living back at home…and wants to get out of there as soon as she can! So she suggested that the 3 kids plus me, move out and rent a place together! Richard went along with the idea and it seems like it could work. Catherine got all excited about it, I’ve got a few doubts but it is still in the early planning stages yet. Either way, I’m sure i’ll be moving soon due to the rent increase. So Catherine was still quite excited when she got home and started looking on the net at different houses to rent etc and printed off a whole heap. She reminds me a lot of myself actually, gets and idea and goes all gung ho to try and get it to work! Whether this idea will work or not remains to be seen, but hopefully it does, even if it is only 3 of us and not 4.

Health wise I’m surprised at how well I’m doing at the moment. Both Richard and Catherine are sick, and I’m not really! I’ve been around them a bit too, but am still only sneezy. So I’m impressed! I’ll be doing a lot better when all the stress of study is finished!

anyway, back to the study once more! Before Richard picks me up for a roast dinner at his place!

It’s a bunch of random questions from the site http://www.friday5.org/  that are updated each Friday! How about that eh?

So here goes…..

1. What’s your favorite goody at your favorite bakery?
At the moment I think it would have to be the chocolate mini muffins from the bakery across the road from the bus stop! It’s so hard to resist stopping there!

2. Someone’s visiting from out of town and craves something sweet: Where do you take him or her for an experience he or she can’t get at home?
I think the place would HAVE TO BE Krispy Kreme! (given that KK is only in Melbourne and Sydney at the moment) And I’d try and time it right to get an original doughnut hot “off the press”. I had one like that for the first time at Easter and it was just amazing!

3. What’s your favorite order at your favorite ice creamery?
Hmmmm…..I guess I have 3 favourites….Chocolate, Choc Mint and Triple Swirl/Rainbow.

4. Oh no! You forgot to save room for dessert! What dessert item on the menu will you order anyway, because you can’t resist?
Chocolate Pudding!!!! Or Caramel mud cake.

5. You’ve got a craving for sweets, but it’s so late at night that only the corner convenience store is open. What do you get?
Depends what I’m in the mood. It could be chocolate, chips, icecream or an over-priced pack of tim tams!

anyway….that’s all!

Wanna know something that is NOT fun? Getting hit in the face by a frisbee during PE class. It damn well hurt and knocked me around a bit. But i must say that i am disappointed it doesn’t look like it will end up with a great big bruise. It felt like it was heading that way, but there is barely a mark any more. Definately not the best way to start the first day of the week!

back to the essay once more!

It’s a beautiful sunny day here, and i’m inside writing my essay - what fun! I was sitting in the sun earlier today and doing some work….i really do enjoy my sunshine - it’s just bad luck that my little courtyard is now covered in shade otherwise I might still be out there!

3 days until my birthday and I still haven’t really decided what I will be doing to celebrate it. I really should work that out tonight (after I’ve handed in my essay!) and email people to let them know! I think this has been the most indecisive I have been….I really need to make more of an effort to catch up with people. There’s so many that I haven’t seen for age, but at times it feels like it’s just me doing the reaching out all the time, and I get tired of that pretty quickly….

anyway…………back to this darn essay! But at least I have some good music to keep my company. I’ve got the soundtracks to “Rent” and “The Last 5 years” playing on my computer. Suprisingly, I am getting a fair bit of work done while singing along!

Uni starts in 2 weeks and according to the unit guides for the subjects, I should have a reader and study guide for each subject. So yesterday I emailed the unit chairs asking to confirm if the unit guide was correct in stating we needed those materials, and if so, I would follow it up with the course materials people.

Subject 1 - I have received the reader and study guide.

Subject 2 - I have only received the reader for.

On the booklist website there is no mention of the reader, so I sent an email to the unit chair asking about it. He nicely replied saying that it was almost finished and he would post it on dso for us to download this afternoon or early next week. Nice and simple answer.

Subject 3 – I have received no materials.

On the booklist website, for the 3^rd year subject (the level I’m doing it at) it only mentions a textbook that we need to buy. For the 2^nd year subject, it also mentions the reading pack. Now, I emailed the unit chair (like I did with subject 1) asking if the reader and study guide were needed for the 3^rd year subject even though it wasn’t listed on the booklist. In the past there have been differences between the 2^nd and 3^rd year subjects and materials required so I thought I’d seek a clarification before harassing the course materials people.

Here’s the response I received today…..

“ I have spent a whole year writing and preparing the Study Guide and Reader for this unit. Read the Unit Guide again! Have I wasted my (il)literacy on this kind of wild goose chase? Bookstore doe snot send them out, DSO and some postal operation within Deakin does. I am not a postman, sorry (professors don’t need to burden themselves with shop deliveries matters, they need time and space to sit and think and write!). I am sure the Unit Guide tells yuo who to contact in such matters - surely not the ‘Unit Chair’, there must be a ‘Unit Table’ too.

Few students who live outside the Melb-Geelong metropolis have complained to me about this. A class complaint may be in order, but to the appropriate division.”

WHAT A BITCH!!!!!!!!!!! (I assume it is a she…..it’s some weird Indian name which is only adding to my dislike of Indian people)

All I was after was a clarification that yes, I did need those materials (as they aren’t listed on the booklist) and I’d follow it up with the course materials people.

So, I replied saying I didn’t realise I was asking such a trivial question and that I’ll know not bother her in the future with any problems.

*sigh*

anyway, we’re in the middle of a nice summer thunderstorm at the moment….nice thunder, a bit of lightning and HUGE raindrops. So I went outside to take a photo or two of just HOW HUGE they are, when my computer finished downloading an update for Picasa and then restarted my computer. DAMN THING! Luckily wordpress saved this as a draft so I didn’t lose it all! I had written it in Word but that only saved most of it, not all. So that’s all good and I’ll be posting some pics on flickr soon showing just how HUGE the raindrops are!

seeya!

AT the moment I’m at my place by myself, just chillin’ and listening to DC Talk. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to them and I had forgotten how much I like their songs! When I was at Ev and Jo’s on Monday night, Ev had Jars of Clay playing (their self-titled album) and when I heard the songs it just took me back to another time and place completely! I could picture myself in my room in DeCarle St, curled up in front of my heater (as it was winter!) listening to the songs and trying to get over yet another crush that was to remain just that! I so have to get a copy of that album as it is also another one of my favourite cds, and at the moment I only have it on tape and my tape player in my stereo doesn’t work! Don’t worry, I’ll live!

So what’s been happening? Well since the start of Jan, I’ve been working 2 days a week and just taking it easy and getting some things sorted out on the other days! Rich, my parents and I went to the tennis on day 4 as part of “The Heard”. That was a lot of fun, although we’ll have to make sure next time that we’re sitting in the middle (or thereabouts) and not next to people who have an interest only in being a part of the Heard, and not watching the tennis. I was very close to telling off the girls who were next to us! But other than that it was heaps of fun! Rich and I were able to score corporate tickets to Rod Laver, so we were able to get in and watch the last bit of Hewitt’s match. By the time we got in we only got to see the last game but it was still cool to say I’ve been in Rod Laver for the tennis!

Work hasn’t been too bad. My days are mostly filled with filing – we still have a backlog from when we acquired another firm and when we moved! Since Monday I’ve been working full time with the other 2 casuals as we have been destroying about half of the archiving that we have in storage! On Tuesday we chucked out 5 tonne of stuff, into the back of a truck in around 45 minutes! That was around 400 boxes weighing an average of 16kg EACH! Man, were we all tired that night or what!?! While it’s been fun to get out of the office, the novelty is really starting to wear off and we’re really starting to get sick of the tin shed! It gets quite warm after lunch and so our productivity drops greatly while the level of silliness goes up!

There’s also something else happening in the job world for me at the moment but as I don’t really know much at this stage, I’ll keep my mouth shut! But I’ll let you know what it is when I know more.

This weekend I’m off to join Richard at the beach! One of his friend’s have a holiday house there and Rich is already there! So I’ll be joining him tomorrow afternoon. Will be nice to have a break in somewhere that isn’t Horsham! And we haven’t really had a break/get-away these holidays so it’ll be nice. The weather will be perfect for it too which is good. Anyway, I’m outta here to wash the dishes and clean up before getting an early night as I have to be at work by 7:30am tomorrow!!

And as I have no idea who reads this, can you please leave a comment? Would be nice to know if anyone does actually read this!