Uni went back last monday. Already, i'm over a week behind. You see, i did five exams during exam week, and got results for five of my topics (P, P, P, C. D in case anyone was interested). Then there was my evil intensives topic. The whole class (of 200) failed the first one, then most of us failed the resubmission, and then we had to have an interview with her to discuss everything that we did wrong and prove that we weren't idiots. My interview was this week. I didn't find out about it until monday, and spent most of the week preparing for it. So any chance to spend the week studying and getting on top of study was lost. 

I passed the intensive. 

But now i'm behind. And this weekend is a writeoff because of a million reasons. So, im going to spend the whole term playing catch up. Such fun...

I am currently sneaking surreptitious bites from the muffin that i have hidden in my lap as i sit in the computer room at uni. Apparently, they have a 'big brother' thing going here, where there are cameras monitoring us to make sure we don't eat or drink in the rooms. If they catch us, we get banned from the computers for the rest of the semester. Clearly, that would be bad, as i need things to do in my frees (when study obviously isn't going to be enough to hold my attention for an hour). Seeing as my break is also my lunch break (yes, 9 - 5 straight classes with only an hour break, tuesday is an evil day), it makes sense that i'm currently eating illegally. And drinking coffee illegally, but i'm not hiding that in my lap. Yep, that's right, i'm a real rebel, drinking my coffee out in the open!! Unless i happen to spit it out, it wont end up on the keyboard, so i think they're being a little over dramatic. Who would want to sit like a loner outside when they can sit on a computer and be connected with the entire world?!

Ok, i'm three and a half hours through my stupidly long day (and about a third of the way through my delicious muffin). Which means that i have four and a half hours to go, so i'm not even half way. How depressing. I may need to spend another $3.50 to get another coffee before i spend two hours boring the pants off myself in a civil litigation workshop for which i have prepared nothing... Maybe the sensible thing to do would be to prepare now? But that's far too difficult, so i'm just going to do some blog-visiting instead. Two long classes to go until freedom! And today, freedom will mean coffee/dinner with Loz, perhaps a visit to the North Tce lights (ohhh, shiny!) and seeing Boyfriend. So freedom will rock. Bring on 5pm!!

Just My Luck

I'd just like to prove to the world exactly how bad my luck is.

For my international criminal justice class every week, we have to read a bunch of articles. We've been put into groups of nine, and have to discuss the articles in 15 minutes, and come to a conclusion. Randomly, one of the group will be selected and have to give a five minute presentation on the subject in front of the group. This five minute, unprepared oral is worth 20% of our grade.

This week, being week 3, i read the week 3 readings (quickly). However, today i discovered that today's class would be covering the week 2 readings, because last week was a public holiday week. Sensible.

Therefore, i was unprepared. But i had a 9 to 1 chance of getting chosen, and i figured they weren't bad odds. Also, i can usually think quickly on my feet, so fingers crossed...

...later that evening, we found out who was the speaker for each group. I wasn't called out. But before i even had time to breathe a sigh of relief, the teacher figured out that the original speaker hadn't turned up. And she announced that i was the back-up. Shit.

Despite a reasonable grasp of the topic, and some notes on what i was going to say, i did an awful job. My words stumbled over one another, my voice was unsure. My points would have been good if only i had been able to make them. It sucked.

I came home feeling like crap. This was something i should've been able to do, and do well. I wanted a good mark for once, for something i was legitimately good at. But no, i had to screw it up. And if it had been any other week, i would've been fine.

I have NO good luck. I suck.

I think it's important for me to tell you about the tutor that i had today.

He was an older man. White beard, twinkly eyes, friendly smile. I'll be honest. He looked like Santa. He was really nice and grandfatherly... i wonder if he'll disappear on Christmas eve?

This definitely made for the best tute in awhile. It helped that i understood what was being talked about this time!!

Day two of uni. My spirit is already in the process of being crushed.

Yesterday, i had five hours of mind numbingly dull classes. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. My first class wasn't that dull, but the elderly teacher had the kind of voice that lulls you to sleep. Which was a problem, seeing as i'd have enough trouble just staying awake while driving the car up to flinders. The second class started off interesting enough, but when we headed into the second hour things got a little stupid. You see, the woman teaching seemed to think we were idiots. Therefore, it took her two hours to explain to us that we would be getting into groups, discussing articles, preparing a short presentation and then one of us would have to present. Two hours of a 'mock conversation'. At 6pm at night. It was incredibly boring.

Today, i followed it up by getting lost on my way to class and tripping up the same set of stairs twice. Big trips, in full view of many people. Embarassing. And i got to class late. I'm now on a five hour break, before i head back for another two hours. I'm already sick of uni and i haven't even got on top of my workload yet.

Uni sucks. Fingers crossed things get more enjoyable soon!

Not A Good Day

Today has royally sucked.

This morning was my psychology exam. I had looked through all the notes we had, and had a general knowledge of everything we had been taught. I was hoping that i'd be able to scrape through the essays and that the multiple choice questions wouldn't be too hard. When i got in there i found that i could write two pages of semi-reasonable answers for each of the essays (whether or not that will be enough i don't know...) but the multiple choice questions killed me. When i got home there was a note on the uni discussion board that said the answers to the multiple choice questions had been posted... i got 17 our of 40. The multiple choice questions were worth 30% of my final grade, so that means i got less than 15%... If the luck of the world is with me then maybe i'll scrape a pass in the overall topic. But when is the luck ever with me?

I don't want to fail and i don't want to repeat the topic. Failiure really doesn't sit well with me.

To add to that, i've still got another exam tomorrow, which we all have no idea what it contains. Sure, it's open book, but i'm probably just going to fail that too, because i suck.

Tonight i saw boyfriend for a few minutes before he packed off to Victor for Schoolies. He won't be back for a week and (pathetically) i already miss him. He makes me smile and everything pretty much sucks at the moment, so smiling is a major bonus.

Later...

I just got home from dance. Tonight we did these major dips, where the girls were dipped pretty much in half and scooped backwards. It looked a little something like this. But much less suave, of course...

It was no easy task! Unlike what it may look like, the men don't hold us up - we women have to swing ourselves and hold all of our weight, while completely off-balance. I'm fairly flexible, but i don't trust the guys in our class to keep us steady, so i was super tense... which made me look ridiculous. And it was really sweaty, which was super gross. BUT it was pretty intense, which kept my mind off missing boyfriend and failing at uni. Which was a nice bonus. El and i sang ridiculous songs at the top of our lungs all the way home, causing people in other cars to look at us very strangely, but that was fun too.

I'm so tired now, but i'm meant to keep studying for my exam tomorrow... so sleepy... but i'll do my best. And i have all day tomorrow to keep studying. Gee, life just isn't much fun at the moment! And i know i'm full of doom and gloom... but i'm sure things will brighten up sooner or later!

So. Much. Work. To. Do.

It's not happening. I'm getting nowhere. Exams are in about a month, so that's worthy of panic. For the first time in a week, i've actually opened a book independently. Congratulate me. The rest of my time is spent sleeping. Seriously.

Currently, i'm kind of waiting for a text that i expected... obviously, i haven't got it yet. I hate that 'constantly checking your phone to see if you got the message' thing. Argh, so frustrating.

Poor blog is suffering from a lack of attention... but i'll be back soon, so long as exam prep doesn't kill me!

40 Hr Famine Weekend

I survived my 40hrs without food and facebook. Woo! I'm yet to raise all the money i need, but i've got another month or so to worry about that, so it's all good. This year the money goes to ending the world food shortage in third world countries, which is a more than worthy cause. It was a busy weekend, which is good in that it often kept my mind of food - but on the other hand, it meant burning more energy and making my tummy rumble!!

On friday night i had a cocktail party. I took a bunch of the girls, and was very happy to find that they all got along really well. There wren't many people at the party and we were freezing in our cocktail gear, but it was a good night and was fun chatting with a few people.

Most of saturday afternoon was spent organising our trip to serve food at the Saint Mary Magdelene's Centre for the Homeless. We carted all the food we needed for the three courses into the city and spent the afternoon preparing. The night went very smoothly; we served our pumpkin soup, meatballs, pasta salad, fruit salad and custard. The people we served were very happy with what we served and the team worked well together in the kitchen. We all left with that warm, fuzzy feeling that you get from helping other people.

I returned to church for the 40hr famine sleepover with the kids and spent most of the night watching some of the boys play Call of Duty and shoot zombies and stuff, before curfew at midnight. In the morning, we had church (i had to lead the congregation in a song, and then take the sunday school craft) and, finally, after the service we cooked pancakes to break our fast. Delicious. I'd made it through the fast relatively well (i missed facebook though!), but by the end of it, in the last ten or so minutes, i was starved.

Once the church emptied out, a few girls from uni turned up to work on a group project of ours. We got most of it done in the few hours i had spare before band practice, which was a great relief. Afterwards, i had band practice, which went for the next two hours, then it was time for church.

I didn't get home until about 10.30pm, having turned up at church before 3pm on the previous day. A long time. So it was nice to get home. I was exhausted though, and didn't manage to get much work done over the weekend, so i'm now feeling fairly unsettled at the thought of all that i have to do to get on top of things this week. A few hundred pages to note, at least. Not something to look forward to!! So i'd better get back to it...

I am worthy of your praise - i stayed awake through all four straight hours of lectures that i had this morning. Despite boring content and the early hour. A major achievement!! I'm rather proud of myself. Granted, i survived with the help of a skinny cap and an RSPCA cupcake (yummy).

Now that i'm home, i'm attempting to study. I promise, i'll be productive tonight...

One hour of lectures today was presented by a guest lecturer from an important SA law firm. He was kind enough to grant us an hour of his time (free! - a saving of $575) and teach us about the important aspects of drafting for clients. While the content he discussed was mainly common sense, his manner and attitude were relaxed, cheerful and clear, making him far less boring than many of the people who stand infront of a few hundred students and preach the importance of conveying a message effectively. At the close of the lecture, i was happy to find that i'm somewhat looking forward to drafting letters; manipulating language to create the most appropriate way of communicating appeals to me. Perhaps i'll end up in a legal career that allows me to do this. Or perhaps i will graduate and go on to complete a masters in Creative Writing, where i'd get to learn about writing full time! Sounds pretty fun to me...

Finally, a lecture that left me almost inspired, rather than bored and half asleep. Yes!

So we're headed into week two and i already have hundreds of pages to read. This week i've been under the weather and have slept most of the time, which has been fairly detrimental to my readings... at least i can feel slightly better due to the fact that i've been out of it and it's not just me being a slacker. Still, i do feel unsettled being only a week in and not being on top of things. Usually i like to leave it until at least week four or so before i'm behind in my readings. Blargh.

It feels like it's been a really long week. There are some things that have really got my hackles up this week and i've been pretty annoyed about that. Then again, there are some things that have been really good, so i suppose everything has balanced out ok. Even so, i'm fairly flat this weekend, and am already looking forward to the next weekend! Or at least wednesday, because that's my day off uni, woo!

I had lots of birthday celebrations with Loz this week for her 20th. We had lots of coffee and spent friday night at a Mongolian restaurant with some of her uni mates, whicch was pretty good un. I don't know them all that well, but they're always nice to me so that was good, even though i was a tad on the outer. Still, no huge disasters. And i got to wear my awesome pink shiny shoes for the first time - i love them!! I had to bail on her drinks night last night though, because by the time i'd finished taking the kids working i was shattered and had to come home and study/sleep.

This week i have a few lunch dates and catch ups to look forward to, and i plan to at least be on top of my psychology readings if nothing else (seeing as that was the subject in which i did worst by far last semester - though my law subjects aren't looking all that easy either!). Of course, i have plenty to do at work, too! The next kids club is coming up in less than two months! I have no idea how the terms go so quickly these days, it's nuts.

More good news - it looks like i'm going to europe in the summer, woo! Just for a few weeks, to see Spain, Scotland, Ireland and London... i'm pretty excited! I love to travel and i love europe and it's going to be great, woo!!!

Ok, i'm off to work to study. Hopefully the peace and quiet will be condusive to my studying habits!

And So It Begins (Again)...

Semester two has officially begun. I thought i didn't start until eleven, but checked my timetable last night and was distressed to learn that i actually had my first lecture at 9am. Disgustingly foul way to start a monday... but hey.

I managed to actually get to class on time! A huge feat considering how zonked out i am in the mornings and the fact that my contacts weren't right and i couldn't see properly until i'd changed them (i'll admit to a freak out over the fact that my vision was blurry, i can't stand not being able to see properly! it's so frustrating...). I had a two hour Law and Medicine lecture in which i absorbed very little, and i suspect that to always be the case at such a ridiculous hour of the morning. Lots of friends in that class though, so not all is lost.

After that was two hours of Corporate Law and Drafting. More joy. Especially considering that the woman spent over an hour reading aloud from our topic guide. Completely unnecessary. However, it seems that the first part of the topic won't kill me, as it's stuff that i learnt in accounting in year 12, regarding legal entities. Woo! So i felt smart. Basically El and i just sat around chatting up the back. Very productive, very mature...

The day wasn't all that bad. I mean, i like learning... i just don't like putting in a huge effort, haha. But, i drank a large coffee today, AND bought my Law School hoodie!! I'm loving it to pieces. It's gray and awesome and makes me feel smart (yes, i'm a bit of a law school snob, i like it because not just everyone has one) and it's super comfy! And i hung out with a mate this arvo, which always makes me cheery.

I even got a little bit of study done tonight, and plan to do a little more, so i'm happy enough with how the term has started. If only i could keep it up for a little longer. The plan is to not get too behind until about week five. That's the plan at least... always important to have a plan!!

I spent a bajillion dollars on useless uni books today. Depressing way to spend money... Ouch. Having seen the enormous books, i'm not looking forward to next semester!

One Down, Two To Go

Tonight's exam wasn't a total failure. I had an idea of what i was talking about, didn't completely panic when i saw the question, just managed to get it all done in time and, when we were rehashing the questions afterwards, as we inevitably, do, i didn't have that 'oh my goodness, i totally got that wrong' moment that is so feared among my uni-frequenting kind. Overall, not a disaster.

Unfortunately, i have two more to get through. Also unfortunately, i'm thinking that i'm not going to have time to properly prepare for them. I'm totally clueless so far, so have a huge amount to get done... fingers crossed it happens. It's not ideal, but i always pull through *touch wood*. All of your blogosphere luck that you're sending me is still much appreciated.

I had big plans to come home and study tonight, but i am currently watching Buffy - and i want to be in bed at a reasonable hour, because i have to get up and go to the stupid gym in the morning. I hate the gym. I hate being a chubbster even more. Oh, and i hate early mornings. All in all, tuesday and thursday mornings are not great times for me.

On the plus side, i'm very full because i ate lots for dinner, and i'm very warm because i had the heater on too high (oops). This has also made me sleepy... but i'm going to try to push through it!!

oh so much to do for exams. one on wednesday, two the following week. noting not finished for any of them. i have to work my little tushie off for the next few days to get on top of things. cross your fingers for me, wish me luck, rub your lucky rabbits feet, whatever. i'll take all the luck i can get.

It's That Time Of Year Again

It's exam time.

I handed up my last assignment today, so from here on out it's exam study all the way... and i really have to get cracking, because i have huge amounts to do and i'm starting to panic. I'm supposed to be working hard tonight, but it isn't happening...

...and i miss someone so much that it's hurting my tummy. Not exactly condusive to good study.

First exam is on wednesday, then the next monday, and tuesday (i think... should check that). Ugh, so much to do. And a revision session tomorrow that i'm totally not prepared for.

Wish me luck!

Long Weekends

Friday night wasn't excellent. I was beyond cranky, which was weird because i'd had a lovely day... even if in the middle of it i'd practically passed out while in the car because i felt so sick - but the parts of the day around that were good! But by friday night i was little miss cranky, so i bailed on work (after a few incredibly annoying interactions with various work people) after dropping the kids off.

Long weekends are better than usual weekends simply because of their length. So, already my weekend was off to a good start. Add that to the fact that a bunch of the parents at stateswim commented on how fantastic a teacher i am, and it was shaping up to be a fairly good saturday (despite the evil children, and bruises i now have from their violence). Afterwards, Loz and i hit up Maccas - because, why not. That took us an hour and half, and then we went into town.

We were hunting for SA: Heaps Good hoodies, which we found in Urban Cow (awesome shop, by the way. I wanted practically everything in the store... and couldn't afford anything) for $70, which shot our plan to hell, seeing as neither of us have any money. We also looked at computers, seeing as mine is dying (i now have no internet, in addition to countless viruses and an unknown amount of time before it shuts down again and i'm forced to using dad's stupid computer, which is annoying and icky and has no applications...), but i can't afford them either. Money sucks.

I was super cool on saturday night - i stayed home and studied, while my parents went out to party. I'm a loser. Ahh, the patheticness. I got a little work done, but, seeing as i am me and generally incompetent in the study area, it wasn't a lot.

Sunday morning we had Yum Cha for family lunch, which was pretty awesome. I like my food. Then i raced home and met Loz. We headed off to the movies to see Star Trek - It. Was. Awesome. Dramatic and awesome and super cool. I totally loved it. And will totally see it again... despite my no-money situation... hmm... money sucks. Then it was off to church to study for awhile and set up for the service. Which was very bizzare. And then i had a friend over for the night, which was good fun.

Overall, the weekend when you set it all out like that, didn't totally suck. However, once my friend had gone on monday, i crashed and burned and was beyond dismal. I'm thinkin June is going to be an unhappy month. So i'm awaiting July (end of exams and holidays will be a major july-related bonus).

I handed in my evil psych assignment today, and now have a week to get my act together on the next one - which i also have no idea about, a fact which isn't helped by the fact that i don't have a working computer. It's times like these that i hate technology. Now off for another night of studying. 50 bucks for people who can make me smile for an extended period of time.

Mental Block

I like to learn new things. Which is why i find learning about social ostracism in the workplace and the laws of evidence for aboriginals quite interesting. So i wasn't completely dreading writing my next two essays, seeing as those are the topics i'm supposed to be writing on.

However, nothing ever goes as smoothly as planned. My historical essay on evidence law is killing me; have you ever tried finding the reasoning of the government to preclude aboriginals from giving sworn evidene in 1844?! Not easy. Hardly any records going back that far are easily accessible. It's looking like i'll have to trek all around adelaide to find anything - not that i know where to look - unless i want to change my essay topic (which is looking like a possibility/probability).

As for my psychology essay, i'm supposed to find two theories (i think?) about social ostracism in the workplace. I have no idea if i'm on the right track. I found some articles, but it's going to take forever to look through them all. It's due on tuesday, so somehow before then i have to figure out what the hell i'm doing.

Unfortunately, usually the way i work is to get all the info, figure out what i'm talking about and then write write write... but seeing as i can't figure out what i'm supposed to write, it's making things very complicated!! It's driving me nuts not to just be able to sit down and write - i actually would be doing that if i could! But i just can't get started...

I'm driving myself insane here, in case you couldn't tell.

Please, whoever in the blogosphere has this power, make it sunday already - then i'll have something good to take my mind off stupid uni for awhile.

4 Hrs

I dragged my butt up to uni at 9am yesterday, battled the unstable and, quite frankly, terrifying rises in the EDUC building (the building is appalling, nothing works). It was a chore. But the lecture was quite interesting - we learnt about what happens when prisoners are released on remand. I'm not sure quite how representative the examples that were given are, but it was still interesting.

Afterwards, i was supposed to meet Loz for coffee, but she didn't show... which left me with a four hour break to fill. Damn. An hour on facebook... and then three hours sitting in the freezing cold in the law courtyard. I got quite a lot of study done, but it was fairly boring. The SouthAfrican wantered past and stopped for a coffee which was a nice distraction, and at one point another girl from my class sat with me and we hung out for a bit. I made it through a coffee and an apple juice. Four hours can go very slowly...

By the time we got to our trust lecture, my extremities were numbed. However, my day was about to get an awful lot better. During our break, El, Pi and i headed to the vending machines for sustenance. An attemp to get toblerone resulted in the machine eating our money (we were pooling our shrapnel to see how much we could get) and we were fairly despondent... until we hit C5 to get a hot chocolate - and it came out for free!! Naturally, we tried it again - and got another free one! We got six free hot choc's before the machine decided that it'd had enough. Awesome! We gave some away, but that left plenty for ourselves. More than enough to get us through the second half of the trusts lecture! WOO!! Free stuff is enough to make any day better.

That evening, El and i went to see Wolverine with some of the girls. It was completely awesome. Not only did it have a gorgeous Hugh Jackman and a smoking Ryan Reynolds, but it had fight scenes, suspense, mystery, sadness (ohh, the sadness), intrigue, and links to the other movies. And a cliffhanger ending. Our row seemed to make more noise than anyone else, yelping with suspense in the fight scenes... everyone knows how involved i get in movies! Anyway, if you haven't seen it, you must. Must! It's a can't miss.

All in all, a pretty good day. Amazing, seeing as it was a monday!

Today, I Felt Like A Sim

I was driving down Ayliffs Road this morning on the way to uni and i saw a girl standing at the bus stop. She looked just like one of those Sims characters, standing at the bus stop, as if someone had clicked the 'wait at the bus stop' action in the game. As i drove off down the road, i felt like a little tiny Sim in a world full of a bajillion other electronic little people, being played with like puppets by some kind of giant man in the sky... it's a weird feeling.

This afternoon, i psyched myself up to go to my australian legal history class (i haven't been in the past few weeks...) and fronted up to class - only to find the entire population of the building in the ourtyard. Apparently, the entire building had been evacuated due to an electrical fault and all afternoon classes were cancelled. That's an awful lot of disguntled students who'd hauled themselves to the far away building. The new building has so far caused nothing but trouble, costing thousands of dollars in repairs already! Our lecturer says it's because the 'education bastards' are the dumbest people at the uni and could never be expected to have done anything better. It's amusing to hear him rant! Anyway, seeing as class was cancelled, Amz and i went to ask the lecturer some questions about an 1844 Act that we couldn't find. He was such a legend! He took us to the office, found the Act on the internet, printed it and its amendments off and stapled them for us. He's such a champ!!

After an early two hours and a silly lunch with Mr.Music and the SouthAfrican, and a huuuuge cup of coffee, i was quite chirpy. I was even looking forward to ploughing through all of the study that i have to do, because of the sense of achievement i get after finishing the bajillion pages of psychology readings that are assigned to me bi-weekly. Naturally, that hasn't actually happened... but it's still early, so hopefully i'll start making progress soon!

I've had six bad days and one good day. But the good day counts for more, which evens the tally slightly. Let's see how tomorrow goes now.

Ahem. It's now 1am. I just spent an hour and a half talking to English on msn, starved for human company on this saturday night. I've also watched three disks of friends. But, on the upside, i did (skim)read about 20 pages and note them for uni. Yay me!

I know i've said i'm ready to go back to uni... but now that the day is nearly upon me, it's slightly less appealing. I can already see how much work i'm going to have; and am still thinking of picking up another topic, because i'm a moron. I'm very soon going to be overworked, underpaid, undersexed and all that jazz.

Because i'm a 'good' student and need to raise my GPA to closer to 6.2, i'm going to keep studying now... two more articles to read before i've done a decent amount tonight. I'm going to aim to get at least one done!! Because that's the kind of great student that i am.