Life Lately

I haven't felt like blogging since classes started earlier this month. It just hasn't even entered my head until today, actually, but I wanted to stop by and post something even though I'm still not hugely in the mood to.

Overall the last few weeks have been mixed. I had an awful week prior to March 5 due to a really terrible period. I was in a lot of pain, more than usual though it has been getting worse over the last 6 months, and I ended up going to the doctor about it. She wasn't able to pinpoint an exact reason because there are a few possibilities. For now, I am to take Voltaren (a pain medicine) from the first sign of period pain, for about 3 days (or longer if I am still in pain). That should help my body deal with a hormone that is released in the first few days of the period which can cause a lot of pain, I believe. Or something like that (sorry, I was slightly confused by the hormonal process and was also not feeling good at the time so I just wanted SOMETHING to try). So far, this time, it seems to be working and the pain in managable. If I am still getting more pain than usual or than I am comfortable with, I can go and have an ultra sound to check things out. That costs $300 though, so it's my last resort.

Once uni started I was feeling better. The first week is always an adjustment and full of organising. In the end I decided to drop one class and just take three this semester in order to have a more managable work load. The three classes I'm still taking are social psychology, technology and social theory (sociology), and ancient Greek history (as an elective), so plenty enough work! I have great lecturers and two of my all-time favourites, thankfully. It totally makes it more fun to learn and take notes when the lecturer is awesome. I also have some nice tutors as well.

Personally, I'm doing okay at the moment, but it has been rough. A couple of weeks ago I had a tough week with my practically life-long self-esteem issues coming to the forefront (again) and being super-annoying, so I ended up spending most of that week at my parents' house. I'm definitely finding it tough living alone and if I'm being totally honest, I absolutely hate it. I would probably move back in with my parents if they had a decent internet connection (I need it for school). I really miss having the company, even if it's not necessarily to talk all the time, but just having another human being in the house. It is a huge adjustment and I am averaging one night a week at my parents' because I hate it so much. I don't feel very grown up at all, but then it's not about that. I've spent my whole life in a house full of people and then a year with my boyfriend, so living alone now is fucking weird. Of course, a good thing is that if I don't feel like wearing pants, I don't have to. And there are no roosters here to wake me up at 6am. Aside from all that, J and I are good, couple-wise. It's hard living apart in many ways, but there are benefits too (less stinky socks to wash, for example). I need to remember to focus on the now and why now is good, otherwise I have a tendency to wonder about the future too much and then freak out about all the possibilities and get impatient for goals.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was Youthline. Today was the last day of Part 1 of our training. I can't believe it's been 8 weeks already! It's amazing to look back at how I felt on that first day, meeting 11 new people and wondering how everything was going to go, being afraid of having to share myself with them all, and then now, when they all feel a bit like a family. We have shared some really personal stuff with each other and the group, and have grown to see past our initital judgements of people to how, we are all just people and we all have our awesome points as well as our flaws, and that is okay. I'm really happy that we're all going to continue on to Part 2 and will probably be in the same session together so we can continue on this journey as a team.

Looks like I had quite a bit to say, after all! Once the tap is opened, it pours out, I suppose. xo

Currently

Taking the Half Moon Bay ferry into Auckland CBD/port last Thursday.

The last week has been super-busy! Lots of socialising with family and organising of life, particularly university stuff. Last week my mum's cousin/BFF was in Auckland from Christchurch, on her annual trip. She is more like an aunt to me and I love her to bits. It's always a blast to spend time with her and my mum - they are hilarious. On the Wednesday most of us girls in the family (my mum, her cousin, my grandma, one of my sisters and I) all went to the nail salon. My first professional pedicure in ages and my God, it was brilliant. I forget how wonderful it is to have that done for you. Which is probably a good thing since I rarely have the extra income for that and also because it's a total First World treat and I am truly lucky nail salons even exist to occasionally pamper myself by going to one.

On Thursday we took a ferry trip into the city to take a walk around the Viaduct (an area by the port of Auckland that is full of restaurants and incredibly beautiful boats, etc). We also had dinner at my sister and her husband's restaurant, Char Grill on Customs St East. They do kebabs, burgers, woodfired pizzas, and a few other traditional Middle Eastern dishes, as well as a really good all day breakfast. No bragging, it's all well-deserved praise, I swear! I had the Marinara (seafood) pizza and I wanted to marry it. It was a long day and I was totally exhausted when I got home, but it was fun.

The other days will filled with loads of other bits, but those two were my favourite, I think. Saturday was  huge day at my Youthline course. We each shared a bit about our life stories and, as can be imagined, it was very emotional for many of us. It's amazing how energy-sucking it can be to share things with virtual strangers, but how amazing it is too. It's a very unique experience and quite special.

Anyway, currently I'm...

Listening to: Surprisingly, the radio. I think I have mentioned here before that I tend not to 'do' radio because of the ads, but my grandma gave me her alarm radio/CD player and I've been making use of it. It's been weird in a good way to listen to Top 40 radio because now I actually know all of those songs people mention/make fun of/go nuts over.

Reading: Still on The Bridge to Holy Cross. I haven't been reading as much, but still daily, due to a fuller schedule. I miss it! Not long to go until the end of the book though, and then I will get onto The Summer Garden and also the second in the Matched series.

Doing: A lot of organising for university. I have two late days this semester and I won't get home until after 7pm, so yesterday I made two big pots of soup to freeze for easy dinners and lunches. I've also been doing the usual scheduling of assignments, classes, reading course information, making lists of things I need and so on. I like the organising phase, now if only I could bring the same motivation to the readings I will have to do...

Thinking about: Driving more. I still don't have my restricted driver license but I am, gasp, booking it this week, for about a month or so from now. Which means I will have only about 4-odd weeks to get really comfortable driving in lots of situations. I still need to work on parallel parking, high-speed driving and busy traffic.

Loving: Meal planning. Thank God for it, really. I like that I usually don't have to think "Oh no, what am I going to eat tonight?" because it's already organised, I just have to gather the ingredients and make it. Granted, some nights I really don't feel like what is planned for dinner, so I will either switch it for another meal in the plan, or make something else. Flexibility is key, but the organisation is great and much less stressful.

Thankful for: Getting a bit better at communicating openly and honestly with people. I credit the Youthline Personal Development course for helping me practice this in a healthy way, but I also know it comes from necessity as communicating effectively with people can make or break any kind of relationship. I shall continue working on this and practice keeping it up over time and not reverting back to old ways.

Wishing: For a magical fix for lady problems, like cramps. I don't mind talking about menstruation. I'm a lady, it happens to me monthly and has been happening to me most months since I was 10.5 years old (yes, really). So, you know, it's a presence in my life. I am one of many who gets to experience approximately 5-7 days of often quite excruciating abdominal and back pain. Pain killer and anti-inflammatory medication can alleviate some of it, hot water bottles/wheat bags/heat pads are also very helpful at times. I just think modern medicine should be able to do more by now, you know? I am sometimes bed or couch ridden from the pain and that is not cool. Come on scientists, get on this!

Anticipating: My car being sold! I have put it up for auction and it finishes in just under two weeks. I am hoping to get between $1200 and $1500 for it, then I can buy a new car! My very first one that I will choose myself, actually. My current car was bought off my sister because it was a good deal and she needed it gone, so it was bought, but I've never loved it. I think that in choosing my own (with the help of people who know about cars, obviously), I will enjoy having a car more. Possibly, anyway. :p

xo

Thanks to Danielle for inspiring these posts.

Life Lately

I have come to the conclusion that my memory is awful. I've been sitting here trying to recall what I've been up to this past week and I'm sort of drawing a blank. Clearly most of it was not that interesting? There was definitely some anxiety about university stuff but I'm feeling a bit better about that, now. For now.

The Bridge to Holy Corss by Paullina Simons

There has been a lot of reading in my life lately, that I do remember. I go through phases of always having a book on the go or not reading anything other than the odd magazine and blogs. Maybe my current book binge is a subconscious attempt at making the most non-fiction before I'm thrust into the world of textbooks. I've finished the Land Girls book which was an easy read and a nice story. I then read the first book in the Matched series, a young adult novel about a future dystopian society. I enjoyed it; the society is incredibly interesting and not that far in the future from now. It makes it a little easier to imagine what it might be like to live in such a world. Now, I'm reading The Bridge to Holy Cross by Paullina Simons, the second book in The Bronze Horseman trilogy, meaning I am also on the verge of tears a lot.

I put this owl together over the weekend.

Saturday was my Dad's birthday so I drove my grandma and I out to my parents' for the BBQ they were having. It was a good evening and I'm pretty sure I'm related to the most hilarious kids. It's very awesome. If I didn't feel weird about sharing videos of them publicly, I would post them all the time. Then you could see the 3-year-old who walks about mooing like a cow and dancing in his t-shirt, underwear and socks to The Black Keys. Never a dull moment.

Sunday was Josh and my Valentine's Day. We aren't hugely into Valentine's Day and I had actually never celebrated with a boyfriend before Josh. I don't expect a big show of things. I reserve that for birthdays, Christmas and The Anniversary (where we equally make a show, by the way). I hate how so many women expect their partners to organize everything and make a fuss over them. It's not called "Love Your Girlfriend By Making a Big Fuss Day and Expect Nothing Back Because This Is One Sided". That shit is fucking ridiculous. So, I obviously have strong feelings about VD (a-hur-hur). That being said, it is a bit fun to celebrate, in our offbeat way. I went with the best gift I could think of, in my price range: Star Wars Lego. Giving Lego has become a thing for us. Josh originally got me Lego for our first Valentine's Day because I freakin' love Lego. He loves Lego too, and he looooves Star Wars, so clearly my gift was genius. He seemed to like it anyway, which is all that matters. He gave me a lovely jewellery set which includes a bracelet, earrings and necklace. They're so pretty! We stayed in for dinner and had steak, chips, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Totally carby and protein-tastic but a treat to boot and very yummy. Yorkshire puds and gravy are one of my favourite things ever, since I was a little kid.

xo

The Perfect Farm

Out buildings and sheep.

My last post was wordy; this one, not as much. My parents not only run my grandparents' farm but they also do farm-related work for other people, like hay making and fencing. It's hay making season and they have been doing a lot of it and sometimes I help out if they also need to pick up the hay bails. Sometimes the farm owner will keep the bails and pick them up off the fields themselves or other people buy the hay and come and pick it up. Sunday was a hay bail pick-up day and I got to work on the most picture-perfect farm.

View of the pond.

It was like driving into a storybook or movie. Wooden out buildings in the same style as the house (which I sadly didn't really get to see), big flat fields with streams and trees winding through them, making way to rolling hills. There was a magnificent pond full of water lily pads, sheep everywhere and stunning views. There were adorable wooden bridges across the streams, too. The whole setting was truly magical and the owners have worked very hard over the last 30-odd years turning it into what it is today. I believe the garden used to be open for public tours. I'm sad I didn't get to see the house or garden but I hope that maybe, fingers crossed, I might get to one day.

View down onto some of their land and some neighbouring land in the background.

It's funny, sometimes once you've seen lots of farms you kind of get complacent about seeing other farms or countryside, but every now and then, you will come across a gem. This property has fairy tale magic and it is exactly the sort of farm I could see myself owning, if I were to own one. If I were to win lotto, I would invest in my family's farm and help turn it into something just as magical. Don't get me wrong, our farm is magical in its own right, but it could do with fairy tale-ifying.

P.S., that farm is so pretty that a commercial was filmed there recently. If I ever spot it, I will try to share a link on the blog so you can see.

School

Today I found out I miss-calculated how many courses I needed to do to complete my degree and that I need to take three more than what I thought. It has been a bit of a blow to my plans for the year and things are going to be much busier than I wanted. I wanted to end my degree with less stress, not more, especially because I am going to apply for the Clinical Psychology program and that requires a B+ average over my last four psychology courses. You know I'm gonna be fa-reaking out about that, so why the hell would I want to be stressing over not failing a bunch of courses I don't even like??

To backtrack a bit, the reason I found out about my miss-calculation was because, for my loan and allowance qualification, I need to be studying full time. That means 4-5 courses per semester. But I was only going to be taking 3 courses in my first semester and two in my second, meaning I was considered part-time. In order for me to still receive my loan and allowance, I needed to get my faculty to sign off on a Limited Full-Time application (there are a bunch of reasons you can qualify as Limited Full-Time, mine was that I was finishing a recognised programme that was less than full-time). So, I filled out my form and took it into my faculty today and the girl I spoke with checked out my programme and course history on the computer. And then informed me that I was 45 credits (three courses) short of what I need to finish my degree. I was all, "What the hell?", thinking I had worked everything out correctly. But no.

I came home with a sometime-in-the-near-future-but-no-date-yet appointment for a degree planning session at my faculty so I can ensure the extra three courses will fulfill my programme requirements. In the meantime, I have enrolled in two extra courses which will hopefully be fine (I very carefully read and re-read the requirements) and am waiting on the third to be enrollable (that is a word, honest) because there is a glitch with the online enrollment system for that course. I also had to totally change one of my courses, a general education, because of scheduling issues. Basically, it appears that every course wants to have a class on a bloody Monday or in the evening or on Tuesdays when I have my Youthline stuff. One almost needs a degree in degree planing/scheduling/enrollment in order to get any of this done without screwing up.

Now that I am almost enrolled in 8 courses for this year, I no longer need the Limited Full-Time application, but I am going to need a box of stress balls, a mindfulness reminder, a very precise schedule and extreme determination in the face of difficulty (something I find very hard). For the next 3 weeks I am going to be psyching myself up for the workload. My main goals are to do very well in my 3 psychology courses and pass everything else, even if only by a hair. I've also told myself that I can drop one course per semester (before the deadline) if I judge the workload to be too insane, and then do two courses in summer school. However, I do want to try to see if I can do it. I guess I'm just concerned about doing my very best in psychology without failing everything else. I want so badly to get into Clinical. To the point where I don't have a solid Plan B in case I don't get in, because, for me, there is no other option. I am NOT getting a friggin' degree in psychotherapy from AUT, thank you very much. I'm not overly fond of that theory of psychology and I think that in order to be a really effective, versatile therapist you need to know how to apply a broader range of theory. And I don't particularly want to work in research, either. I want to be working with people to help them with whatever their problems may be, thank you very much. That is what I want.

Plan B is probably Josh getting a degree in law and my becoming a staying at home mother. :p

Fingers crossed everything works with the enrollment and I can get this degree done and dusted.

Life lately: Derp

I think this post is going to be one of those ones that is a mish-mash of different things. Sort of like a general life update, I guess. Sometimes they just work best of all. I apologise in advance for any rambling trains of thought.

On Monday I found that I probably have a tonsil growing back. I had no idea they could grow back, but they can, if any of the tissue is missed during the initial tonsillectomy. I had mine out when I was 7 (I had a McDonald's Happy Meal that same day, so I think I did alright) and, 17 years later (holy shit, has it been that long?!? Why am I so old now, oh god), the left one is reemerging like a soft golf ball in the back of my mouth. It feels kind of weird, like maybe there is a hunk of bread stuck back there so I swallow a lot and think "What the hell is going on in there?" and then I remember: MY TONSIL IS GROWING BACK. Yay. Hopefully it is not going to get infected any time soon. It may have been 17 years since my last tonsillitis experience, but I do remember. By the way, don't Google tonsil stones if you ever want to eat again. Mouths are almost as repulsive a feet. The upside of Monday was the purchasing of fabric for the quilt I'm going to make and a small food processor (yay for fast chopping and grinding of things).

Tuesday was the first day of the Youthline Personal Development course. This course is stand-alone (so anyone can do it), but is also the first step in becoming a phone or in-person counselor at Youthline, an organisation which provides support for young people. Given that I want to be a psychologist, I figured it might be a very good idea to get involved. I now wish I had done it sooner! Haha. That's always the way, isn't it? The class was great and mostly introductions/getting to know what we'll be doing and the other students. Getting there is a bit of a chore for me, but that should change soon when I get a new car and can actually drive there myself. One of the other people on the course, who lives near my area, gave me a ride closer to home so the journey wasn't quite as long. She was very nice and I cannot even tell you how grateful I was. I seriously dislike buses. I am not even frenemies with buses, just enemies.

Wednesday was a public holiday and I spent it with Josh, then I felt very sad for the rest of the day after he left. I am a big baby. Probably reading what I had been reading didn't really help. The Bronze Horseman is my favourite book of all time but it turns me into an emotional crazy. It gets me every single time and even though I know what happens, I still want to cry for days over it. Paullina Simons is a very good writer! The upside of Wednesday was that one of my cousins became a dad for the first time! Welcome little Pippa Joy, who apparently has dark curls! So exciting. #omgbabiesmyovariesjustexlodedwhoa

Yesterday I helped my mama do a few things on the farm, including folding about 400 newsletters (my dad is the editor of the village newsletter; yes, there is a village newsletter) and I have only one papercut so I consider that to be the best victory of my week. Normally I'm so clutzy that it wouldn't be shocking to have ended up with a severed finger or something (this is why electric saws scare the absolute shit out of me). I also finished The Bronze Horseman and did not cry outwardly in front of people. Maybe that was my biggest victory?

Today I went to work, then I ran errands, and now I'm home. Home to devour more books, quite frankly. One day I shall have a magnificent library, which Josh wants to put a whole stuffed bear in. That reminds me, here is a Tumblr for questionable taxidermy: Taxiderpy. It is hilarious. You're welcome.

Have a perfect afternoon and TGIF for I have WINE. Is 2pm to early to get started on the wines? xo

Currently

A favourite corner of my flat.

Watching: Just my usual shows, but I have been excited about the current series of The Big Bang Theory. It's not actually playing on NZ TV yet, but Josh and I have been watching via 1channel.ch (I stream pretty much all my shows from there, except for Girls, which I use tv-links.eu for.

Listening to: The pop radio station on Spotify and Swedish House Mafia. Both of these are odd for me because I get sick of pop music quickly and electronica isn't my usual style. I have been enjoying, nontheless!

Reading: Oh man, I have a bunch of books on the go at the moment. I'm re-reading The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons because I got the electronic copy with extras from my library. I have two others from the library to begin (Land Girls and book one of the Matched series). Then I've got to finish Chilren of Liberty by Paullina Simons, at my leisure since I own it. I'm also perusing The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook which I borrowed from my sister. So, yes. Quite a bit to get through. :p

Thinking about: In the past week, I've had two platonic dreams about Russel Brand. In dreamland, we're friends. If only real life reflected this because he is made of good things.

Thankful for: The concentrated time I get to spend with Josh. While I'm still a bit sad about the whole situation, we do get to spend time together every week and so far we are both being really careful about making that time count. When you live with someone, it can be really easy to take the time you have together for granted and not having super-quality time together, engaging with each other. Quality of quantity is the theme and it's been great so far.

What have you been doing lately? Anything new or that you really love? Do share!

Thanks to Danielle for inspiring these posts.