Not With it

Motivation levels were at an all time low today.

All the excitement of my high mark for the exam took it out of me and I could barely move off the couch all day .. only to prepare meals.

So we watched a few episodes of Ally Mcbeal from our collectors edition boxed set.

I think I might try for a reasonably early night and try to hit the books again tomorrow.

Nite all.

Surprise!!

I can't believe it and I keep going back to my emails to check that I saw the results clearly, but my first Physiology/Anatomy exam netted me a result of 93.3%.

Really?

Are you sure?

Am I going to receive an email telling me that they made a mistake and they sent me somebody else's results?

I am overwhelmed and still feeling like there might have been an error.

Really?

Are you sure?

Freak me out!!

I'm going to sleep on it and when I wake up in the morning, I'm going to check my emails again .. just in case.

Nite all.

♪ Sadie ♫

♬ The cleaning lady♪

That was me today.

It's amazing how much you can get done when the 'man of the house' is absent.

Adoring Husband had to spend the day in The Bay while the car was having it's major service today, so I had 7 hours to myself.

Over an hour of that was just for vacuuming the house. There were a few loads of washing to do and a line full of washing to be folded and put away (one of my favourite things is to hang Adoring Husband's shirts facing the 'wrong' direction in his wardrobe ... it drives him crazy!!).

I cleared the kitchen bench of 'many weeks' worth of clutter and rearranged everything slightly, all the while planning how I am going to redesign the whole room. One day in my future, there will be a brand new, more functional kitchen!

I collected all of my jewellery that was strategically placed in a dozen different spots throughout the house. I calculate that it will take me about 5 hours to sort through the jewellery on my dressing table and make our bedroom look presentable again. That will be an interesting 'before' and 'after' photo opportunity!

That might have to wait til after I submit my essay, which I hope to finish this weekend.

I made myself some cauliflower fried rice for lunch, which was pretty stupid because it just meant more time cleaning up!!

I had a lovely phone call with Number One Son because he is celebrating his 33rd birthday today. He is in Melbourne for work and was planning on having a few drinks with work colleagues this evening.

It felt like I had no sooner sat down and opened my books for study, when Adoring Husband arrived home, so I don't feel like achieved much in the way of study, but it was a fairly productive day otherwise.

Another evening of tennis to watch tonight and so far, it's a tight match between Bernard Tomic and Thomas Muller, although it's not looking good for Tomic at the moment, even though he is playing outstanding tennis.

We had an amazingly heavy storm hit us last night, at about 12.40am which dumped 45mm of rain ☂ in the space of about an hour. Sent one of the psychotic dogs into a spin .. she has issues with storms since the tornado. So it was about 2am before I drifted back off to sleep and then the other two psychotic dogs decided at 3.45am that they wanted a toilet break! Very inconsiderate I thought!

Hopefully I will get a solid night of sleep tonight so that I can put in a solid day of study tomorrow.

Nite all.

 

Routine

Does two days in a row make a routine?

Sitting down to study at about 10am, stopping to prepare lunch at noon, more study from 1pm - 4pm, a glass of wine and time out for an hour before preparing dinner.

Today, for lunch, we had a giant stuffed mushroom (stuffed with capsicum, celery, onion, grated sweet potato, cauliflower rice, garlic, bacon and covered with sliced tomato and a touch of melted cheese) served with a side salad of baby spinach, rocket, onion, tomato, cucumber, avocado and mango, sprinkled with poppy seeds and lime dressing.

For dinner, we had venison with spinach, pumpkin and pine nut salad and now I am sitting watching the tennis with a bowl of mixed berry ice cream which was made with coconut milk and coconut cream, maple syrup and a whole bunch of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. It is truly delicious.

I planned on starting my essay today, but instead, I gathered some more information to put towards it. I attempted to watch a tutorial on the subject, from my study site, but the woman who teaches this subject, has never ending problems with microphones and feedback and wastes a ridiculous amount of time at the beginning of each tutorial attempting to fix it. I don't know why she can't delete that part of the tutorial before she puts it on the site for us to watch!

Very unprofessional. I partly scratched a letter of advice (complaint) to the college, but I might wait til I've finished the subject, just in case she holds it against me and grades me poorly because of it ... the last thing I need with such a difficult subject, is to have a begrudged teacher marking my exams and assignments!

The Aussie that I watched play tennis last night, lost his match. I didn't see it out to the end but had the TV on in the bedroom and listened to the commentary as I fell asleep. I vaguely recall hearing the end of the match.

Tonight I'm watching the Aussie, Bernard Tomic play the German, Philipp Kohlschreiber. He now has match point, so I could have an early night tonight! Yessss! He won!

So I guess that means that it's good night from me as I head off to bed with a tummy full of berry ice cream .. that wasn't very well thought out was it? Ah well.

Nite all.

New Religion

YouTube is my saviour.

My first essay is due in a few weeks. 800 words to describe the Blood Buffer System and how it relates to Metabolic Acidosis & Alkalosis and Respiratory Acidosis & Alkalosis. I have to provide examples of these conditions and discuss the complications ... among other things.

So I checked the lessons provided on the study smart system and all I could see was blah blah blah blah blah.

Then I checked the recommended textbook readings and all I could see was blah blah blah blah blah.

In a fit of desperation, I checked YouTube and lo and behold, thanks to a couple of very helpful professors who explained it all very succinctly using language that I could clearly understand, I am now feeling very confident about my essay!

The only problem that I can foresee, is remembering different formulae and equations, which I will definitely need to master before the exams in early March.

For example, this is an equation that it is recommended we know how to write and understand, in an exam ...

H₂O +  CO₂  <- ->  H₂CO₃  <- ->  H⁺ + HCO³ˉ

They are chemical symbols for Water, Carbon Dioxide, Carbonic Acid and Bicarbonate.

EEP!! Right?!

So, as I said, YouTube is my saviour and I look forward to starting my essay tomorrow, knowing what I now know.

It's been another HOT day here in paradise. Thank goodness we have air conditioning otherwise paradise would have lost it's sparkle by now and I might have posted a 'for sale' sign on our front lawn! The worst part is that February is our hottest month and we are not even half way through January yet!!

I received a very special package in the mail yesterday from BGWLBH with a selection of beautifully hand crafted gifts that she made herself, especially for me. I want to take photos and share them here and I hope to do so this week during one of my breaks from study. They are amazing!

Right now, I am waiting patiently for a tennis match to start, between the Australian Nick Kyrgios and Jerzy Janowicz from Poland. The match has been delayed due to rain, but it should start soon. I am hopeful.

I may need something to nibble on to keep me awake for the duration!

Nite all.



 

Wiped Out

No study for me today.

Adoring Husband and I headed into The Bay early today. While he had some SES chores to attend to, I had a shopping list a mile long.

Our first stop was one of my favourites. Office Works. It's back-to-school time, so the shop is chockers full of interesting folders and notepads and pencil cases and highlighter pens and novelty pins and paperclips and sticky notes and washi tape and oh the list goes on!

I needed some big study notebooks, mini post-it notes and some printer paper, but I couldn't resist a new pencil case, some highlighter pens and a USB stick. My self control astounded me!

Next was the Go Natural store for some organic fruit and veg, because the FROG people close down for the school holidays and even though I bought extras with my last order, obviously they're not going to last for 6 weeks. There is not a lot available at this time of year either. The Queensland Summer is not conducive to the normal Summer crops.

We even found some organic chook food which wasn't too much more expensive than our usual buy.

Nanna's Pantry for some coconut oil and to replenish our nut supply.

Thirty minutes in the supermarket for the rest of the groceries.

The new kitchenware store 'Robin's Kitchen' was my next stop to find some bottles for my newly brewed kombucha.

Here, I learned a very valuable lesson and came to the realisation that my eyesight is not as trustworthy as it once was! I bought, what I thought was a metal vegetable spiralizer, but after I arrived home, I discovered that it was an apple peeler and corer! Note to self: Put your glasses on and read the box .. don't just look at the picture on the box and make up your own story to go with it!

On the upside, Adoring Husband was very excited because he has always wanted a mechanical apple peeler and corer! He had fun attempting to peel and core a sweet potato this evening (yes, I know that sweet potatoes don't have cores).

Doctor Dan's was next for a six-pack of Oyster Bay Sav Blanc.

Finally, a fresh seafood stop and a coffee before heading home.

With more SES duties to attend to, Adoring Husband left me to unpack the groceries, clean out the fridge so that there was enough room for the fresh food, cook the pumpkin for the fresh dog food which eventually took me an hour to make and package up.

By the time I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down with yet another large vessel of wine, it was almost 5pm and I reclined in my lounge as my feet felt like they had just completed a marathon.

But wait!! Oh that's right. Dinner still needs to be prepared! Ugh.

Savoury chilli turkey mince with cabbage, bok choy and sweet potato rings.  Forty minutes later .. let's try that sitting back and relaxing thing again.

Ahhhh

Back to the studies tomorrow.

Nite all.

Sunday Matters

Chemistry .. lesson one .. Matter and Measurement.

I read 21 comments on the student forum page today, from 21 people who are all stressing over how difficult Chemistry is and the fact that they require more than the allocated 10 hours per lesson and that they are certain that they'll fail the exam!

How comforting to know that I am not alone in the world of 'oh God I think I'm going to fail'!

Today, I began to study Matter and Measurement.

Firstly, I made a big mistake by going into the tutorials and choosing the first one on the list .. it was about atoms and after 30 minutes of a 150 minute tutorial, my brain exploded all over my computer monitor and the walls of my office.

It was messy.

Then I discovered that the tutorials are listed in a very odd order and did not match the lesson plan.

Whew!

So I went back to my lesson list and discovered that Matter and Measurement is where it all starts.

THAT, I can handle.

Learning the difference between Organic and Inorganic Chemistry.

Learning the basics of elements, compounds, mixtures, matter and energy.

Learning metric measurements and symbols.

Learning simple nutritional calculations using mass and energy data.

THAT is a little more than I can handle.

They said, on the forum page, that Lesson One is the easiest and that every lesson gets more and more difficult.

This is going to be an interesting month and procrastination is NOT an option.

Intense.

Nite all.