aaaaahhhhh

both assignments done, i can now breathe a sigh of relief...well until the next one is due that is...

of course the good thing about the next one (actually there are a coupla good things) is that it will be my penultimate assignment before i finish....and it's not due until 27th april as i asked for a one week extension

next weekend is all mine - no books, no study, no sore back from sitting at a computer for hours on end, no referencing....

bring it on!

one assignment done, another to go....

and did i mention, i HATE doing the referencing section...it seems like a real insult after writing a good paper to then have to backtrack through it to pick up every bloody little reference to someone elses work and write them in a totally non-intuitive way! and don't get me wrong, I have no problem with actually crediting others for their work - it is merely the act of collating the list that i hate...

when will it be over? why do i leave things to the last minute? wonder when i will learn to be a bit more organised, ahead of time???

sure i've been sick, i've been a little pre-occupied with what's going on at work, and sure i've been busy (trying to fit in full time work, placement and class) but seriously, when am I going to learn?

guess it's probably too late really as the subject that i am doing now is my last one, unless i continue and do a Masters...

seems even my learning is done last minute!

guess there is no hope for me after all...

da da da da da...

blues by 83 (yes, 83!) in the 2009 season opener against the tigers....

i can feel a september in melbourne!

go blues

it's not easy being back in blue and white...

oh my god, how stressful was tonight's game? the bullies got away with a 2 point win over the panthers, but man it was touch and go...i reckon my heart rate climbed well above where it normally gets to, even when i'm exercising!

don't get me wrong, i'm not unhappy about being back, it's just hard to watch them play so differently from how they started their season last week!

let's hope next week is a wee bit easier!

go bullies...

and on another note: turns out benny and i will get two weeks of holidays together - his mid semester break (2 weeks) co-incides with my first two weeks of retrenchment leave...........yippee

not that i'm one to wish time away...

but this time in three weeks i will have left work...

for those of you that don't know, coz i've been reasonably cryptic, i am taking a redundancy and my last day will be thursday 9th april!

you know, it's been an interesting ride - the role i took in august last year has not exactly panned out as i'd expected, and in a nutshell, i have been largely unoccupied, and worse unchallenged...so i told my boss about a month ago, after a week or so we agreed that declaring the role redundant was the way to go and then the rollercoaster started. waking up at 3am wondering if i would ever get another job, wondering if the money they are going to pay me would be enough to keep me going for a while, sometimes waking up in a cold sweat with no apparent reason for being afraid...and sometimes just waking up with the most amazingly creative ideas for the next phase...weird!

then once i'd eased into the idea, i actually couldn't wait for the day to come, and that is the phase i am in right now! i see it as a fantastic opportunity for me to pursue a slightly different, and more fulfilling and enjoyable, career, with a handsome amount of dosh sitting in the mortgage to tide me over...i'm going to have a substantial break - something i have never really done! i mean sure, i've had holidays, but i've usually filled them up with doing things and visiting places - this break will be one where i simply relax and rejuvenate! i envision many sleep ins, many lunches with friends, lots of reading, watching dvd's, doing courses i wouldn't otherwise be able to do and just getting my groove back! bring it on...

sooooo 21 sleeps to go!

blue and white all the way....

ok this is gonna be one of those posts i've kinda been dreading! see late last year i decided i was changing my allegiance (even as i type that i'm cringing) from the bulldogs to manly - to cut a long story short, manly were my first team, at 17 i changed to the bullies and then some 22 years later decided the off field antics of the bullies were too much for me to deal with...so i went back (back to my first team, back to my dad's team and back to a team i have never had a problem supporting...call them my 2nd team if you will)...

as you can imagine i suffered some ribbing over this decision - mainly from ben! and i get that - my nephew obviously didn't believe that i'd changed as he bought me a bulldogs fridge magnet for xmas and when confronted with 'throwing out' my bulldogs regalia, i couldn't...so even when i made the decision, a big part of it just didn't feel right (not to mention i consider myself to be loyal and this was very much a 'disloyal' sort of move!)

so imagine my horror when i see the 2009 fixture and note that in the very first round manly are up against the bulldogs - is this the universe's way of making me squirm??? mission accomplished...

then imagine my horror when brett stewart has some awful (and yet unproved) allegations laid against him and my reasons (my sole reason) for leaving the dogs was their off-field antics...i got to wondering if i am a jinx..

soooo tonight was the night - i decided i would go with my gut and you know what, right from the kickoff my gut said blue and white! i just can't support manly over the dogs - it's not me - it didn't feel right...so i guess i'm coming back - if you'll have me that is?

it's been an up and down week....

i think i might start with the down, coz then i can end on a good note! ben and i went to canberra on friday last week so we could celebrate a good friends 40th on saturday - we did that, it was nice, and she loved the pressie i picked out for her (this is not part of the 'down' but an intro as to how the down started)...then knowing it would be a huge weekend, we drove back from canberra on sunday am so we would be able to go to another good friends son's bar mitzvah...we got back @ 2pm, i had a bad headache so went to bed for a few hours rest, and when i woke up had a migraine, so we weren't even able to go :-( turned out it probably wasn't a migraine but a virus of some sort, and i ended up sick for almost the entirety of the week...

i managed to drag myself to work monday, mainly coz i had a meeting with my boss about my role! now things are not official yet (altho i am assured by monday they will be) but my role is about to be declared redundant - which to any of you that know me well, know that i have not had the busiest or most interesting of six months in this role...i went into this role with high expectations about the sort of work i would get to do and the things i would learn, but sadly, they just haven't materialised...i have offered my services at work to almost anyone who needed things done in order to remain gainfully employed...but as of a couple of weeks ago i came clean (refer previous post) as i realised that the pressure of having to look busy was taking far too much of a toll, and sadly, only on me...

in addition to having a meeting with my boss, i had requested 30 minutes with the head of our job family, a person i have the highest personal regard for and have enjoyed meeting with over the last 2 - 3 years on an informal and irregular basis...she was great! very supportive of what i wanted to do and essentially offered 'what can i do to help?'...suffice it to say i left work that day feeling clear on the timelines, and very very supported in what i want to do next (which i'm not going to post just yet!)...but let me just say that the plan is very much underway...

when i called my mum on thursday to wish her happy birthday she updated me on the situation with my grandfather - turns out he has now secured a room in a nursing home which is only minutes away from where my grandmother (and him until he went into hospital five weeks ago) lives...and even though this is good in that he will now get round the clock support, it saddens me more than i can say to think of them as living apart...my grandmother's heart must be breaking and i wish i could do something to make it different...sad cold reality is i can't, despite me wishing i could...they have been married for 68 years later this month and in that time, other than during the war, they wouldn't have spent a lot of time apart...now my grandmother (and indeed my grandfather - altho he is less mentally aware than she is) has to adjust to a life that perhaps she hadn't counted on...it just makes me really sad :-(

so then the final thing i want to post about is a chat with one of my mentees (arguably my favourite mentee, and someone who herself has had a very tough time of late, someone i admire and like enormously)...we always have loads to catch up on whenever we meet (function of both being busy and not being able to catch up pershaps as often as we'd like)...so she updated me on what was going on for her, i told her about what was happening at work for me and what 'plan' i had...was great! so we landed on a slight change in execution of my plan, and one that i am much happier with! i guess even though the head of our job family had offered her help, what she suggested and i agreed to, didn't sit quite right with me (and don't get me wrong, it was nothing other than an innocent and genuine offer) and so i have landed now on a way to have her involved that is a much better outcome for me...i know i know, sorry, it's still quite cryptic but it will all become clearer in the fullness of time!

so, despite the ups and downs of the week, and despite me feeling sick most of the week, there were some good things, and at least i can start the coming week with a sense of knowing, rather than a sense of 'not'...

last day (subject to a comparable and interesting opportunity presenting itself) will be somewhere between april 17th and may 17th so not very long at all!

and in a late breaking news item, australia seemed to have regained some good form in cricket and currently have south africa on the ropes in the 2nd test! bring it on...

nite
xx

cryptic crosswords...

hadn't done one for a while and helped my parents do one whilst home on the weekend - had forgotten how much i enjoyed doing them...even had a go at explaining to ben how it worked - must be a good explainer, coz he got a few clues (mind, he is pretty cluey so i'm not surprised!)..

anyway, i only really wanted to put 'cryptic' in the title of this email as a follow on from two previous emails...

turns out i now have the green light! yippee...it's amazing how good it feels to think something through, plan it, and then work on it's execution, only to end up with the result you wanted...

mmmm so it's not official yet but the paperwork is being drawn up this week...

turns out that in a maximum of 10 weeks from now i could well be following my dream...

more to follow!