oh ok, if i must

Initially my plan was to start studying a Masters of Counselling in semester 2. Then they told me I didn't have enough counselling experience to enroll in the Masters, but I could look at studying a Grad Dip in Counselling if I liked. And since the government is willing to pay half the cost of a Grad Dip (as opposed to none of the Masters) and it was all the same subjects as a Masters, meaning I would have to study less for a Masters later and I could even take a break before starting the Masters if I wanted, I did like and accepted a position in the Grad Dip.

Just one problem, I had to start in semester 1 with 18 credit points. Ha! No way.

If there's one thing I learned from last year it was not to overcommit.
Actually I've been learning that my whole life.
One day I might remember.

So I said 'no, I will not study this year, I will defer until next year'. Then a letter arrived in the post today: you have been granted advanced standing for 12 credit points. Which means I might only need to study one unit this semester. Instead of three. Woopee!

I'm still working out how to study half a subject, since they only granted me advanced standing for 6 credit points of a 12 credit point subject. I'm hoping they just made a typo and I really have advanced standing for the whole subject.

Which would mean I could start my Grad Dip in Counselling without opening a single book or doing any study for a whole semester!

And I didn't even ask for this, the course coordinator just figured it all out while I was blissfully unaware! How cool is that?

And, even more exciting, I met someone yesterday who knows of an opportunity to start counselling without jumping through 100,000 loops. I just need to find a supervisor so I don't do anything dangerous! Things are looking up for my counselling aspirations.

UPDATE: It's official. I have been granted advanced standing in both first semester subjects and don't need to study until second semester! I am one happy girl.

it is finished

I'm feeling rather virtuous - my last assignment is all sewn up and in the bag, ready to be posted tomorrow! Yay, study complete for the year.

I was going to reward myself with chocolate on completion of the masterpiece but, courtesy of our nice neighbour, we have a Cadbury show bag full of more than $20 worth of chocolate and I grazed on it all day.

And besides, I'm not sure I've really worked hard enough for a reward - this assignment was due last Monday. (don't stress about lost marks - two week grace period remember) I crammed the last three modules of readings into two days. I winged it (wanged it, wunged it, wung it?) through the whole semester really. Does such behaviour deserve reward? I mean, any counsellor worth their salt knows that you don't reward bad behaviour. You gradually encourage people to change by offering incremental rewards for good behaviour, shaping them into goodness. I suppose eating chocolate while studying is a form of shaping. One way or another. Whether it's shaping good study habits or the hips I'm not sure.

On the positive side, I might have scraped through the formal work on a wing and a chocolate, but I learned fabulous life lessons along the way. I discovered that I'm not very disciplined, I'm not as healthy as I like to think, I need to cut out a bunch of stressors in my life, I'm scared stupid at the thought of counselling people, my past will always influence the way I am in the counselling room. OK, so that was nearly all negative, but I feel like I want to go back over all the readings and drink them in slowly and apply them in my own life. I have so much to learn, so much to grow in.

I may never become a counsellor (as I said, scared stupid) but I will never regret studying this Grad. Cert. I am a richer, broader, wiser, wider person because of it.

And you can't complain about that. In fact, that deserves a reward I think!

Hmmm, if not chocolate then what? A new top? skirt? pair of shoes? lingerie? book? CD?

I gave Frank the option... a CD or all of the above. He suggested (dryly) that a CD might be sufficient. (The lack of discipline and all that... sigh)

I FINISHED. WAAHOO!

the meaning of stress

I have an assignment to write on stress. I'm struggling for words because I hardly know anything about stress. I mean, what does it feel like?

Not that the assignment I thought was due today was due last Monday, so my two week grace period is already whittled down to 1.25 weeks by sheer idiocy. Or that the readings for the online quiz are taking me forever so I can't just do the quiz and get into the assignment. Or that I spent the last three days madly reading and writing for the other assignment that I thought was due last Monday but was actually due today.

Right now I'm scratching my head and wondering what on earth it was that dragged me away so consistently from the books over the last two months. What could possibly have been so important that I left all the work until after the due dates? Oh... I know... it was the need to experience extreme stress in order to write more convincingly about it! Of course!

The good news is that by next Friday all will be complete. I will have fulfilled the requirements of a Grad Cert in Counselling. Yay!

And I'll be free to blog every day for NaBloPoMo without guilt or shame.

Oh OK, I might be a bit ashamed. It's embarrassing and all to be so nerd like in my blogging devotion. But I love it. I love the challenge of thinking up something interesting every day!

But I digress. It's back to the grind for me for one more week.

confession of a would be adult

It's Thursday, and I have the day off work. I have an assignment due on Monday, and I'm supposed to be studying hard, but I'm not. I'm doing a Super Sudoku and slobbing around.

I did have a shower earlier, but on my way to dressing, I became distracted by the Sudoku, so at 11am there I stood, puzzling over boxed numbers, wearing nothing but a dressing gown, when there was a knock at the door.

I froze, immobilised by guilt and embarrassment. Instead of studying I was standing half naked wasting time. Oh the shame of being caught.

So I sneaked over to a place I knew I couldn't be seen and waited for the mystery door knocker to go away... I figured it was just the neighbour's son anyway. Or a delivery man. And I could always go out and pick up the delivery later.

Only the person didn't go away, they came down the drive way and I was horrified to see they were a friend I would be quite happy to talk to. I flew to the bedroom, hurriedly threw on some clothes and ran to the front door... only to catch a glimpse of their car driving off down the road.

Bother.

Ever since then I've been wracked by guilt. Not studying, ignoring a friend, motivated by fear. Oh the shame of it all.

Of course I could no more study wracked by guilt than I could study with an unfinished Sudoku in the house. So I eventually phoned my friend and confessed I had been home and apologised profusely... and managed to catch her slobbing around sipping coffee and reading a novel, something she never usually does during the day!

What a relief! She wasn't expecting me to be home anyway! She was having a lazy moment too! We'd caught each other out.

Ahhhh, now I can study!

green tea toothpaste

I've been to Armidale and back, but it feels like I've been to hell and back.

Oh, OK. Maybe that's too dramatic... but there's no escaping the intensity.

This was my second trip to Armidale for residential school. Both journeys have been quite surreal.

I jump on the plane, land in Sydney, hire a car, hold myself tensely as I drive through a busy, unfamiliar city to Newcastle where I reconnect with a family I hardly know now. After late night conversations spent attempting to recapture our commonality, I slide behind the wheel and drive six hours into country New South Wales. There the magpies woo me as I tumble backwards to a time when my family was together. Mother, father, sister, brothers. It wasn't always happy, but we were together.

In class I slide further into the depths of what once was. Trauma, violence, grief, loss - the topics of a counselling course. The subjects of a lifetime. And so I sink still more into the past, trawling through the detritus of what was. Of what might have been. Of what never will be.

On the final day of school I start ascending to the surface. The deconstructed pieces of my soul slide slowly back into place before I slip behind the wheel once more and drive back the way I came. Back to the family I know a little better now. Back to the busy city. Back to the plane that takes me homeward. Back to Frank.

As I step out into the wintery sunshine that glints and glistens on the snow capped mountains I break through the surface of the past and gulp in the air of the present as Frank pulls me back from where I've been.

Drained, but in one piece. Bruised, but not destroyed. Glancing over my shoulder at the hazy skid marks of a road trip that wrung me dry.

Nothing much is clear about the last few days. It's all a murky memory. Except for the green tea toothpaste. A relic from last year's trip to China. ("Try this green tea toothpaste Cecily, it's interesting!" So interesting I left it untouched in the vanity cabinet drawer until the tube of Macleans Extreme Clean was discovered split in it's box as I scrambled with last minute packing) It's acridic taste curled my tongue and etched itself onto my brain. Perhaps forever.

So Armidale? Res school? Oh yes, I remember. That's when I journeyed back in time and into myself. When I sampled that awful green tea toothpaste. Yes, I remember Armidale.

What a trip!

update

Life has been just a little busy!

Apart from the dangling caterpillar that I walked hideously close to, I have not had time to savour the beauty this week. It's all been a mad rush to finish an assignment before the end of the due date that wasn't really the due date. (If you study off campus, my university allows a two week grace period for assignments. So it was really due two weeks ago...)

So if you'd like to know anything about the three main theories of counselling, I can now most happily oblige!

I've given myself the luxury of a weekend free of study as recompense for two weeks of frantic work, and then it's back to the books on Monday. Sigh.

back by popular demand (or 'too slack to study')

Due to an overwhelming number of requests, I have decided to come out of my mini-hiatus in order to continue regaling you with stories of life on a small island. Your positive feedback and support has been encouraging and inspiring to say the least.

Besides, with a little bit of organisation I'm sure I can work, cook, clean, wash, meditate, make cards, organise church music, sew, sleep, exercise, spend time with Frank, cultivate friendships, study and blog! Shouldn't be too hard surely!?!

I didn't do much study today anyway... it was hot (32C degrees) and sunny, I couldn't concentrate and the beach was beckoning us.

We made the spontaneous decision to take advantage of one of Tasmania's few hot days by heading to Green's Beach for the nicest swim I've had in ages.

Usually, no matter how warm it is at home, at Green's Beach it's cold and windy, but today it was beautiful and warm with a light breeze. Our only issue was with the tide - we had to walk half a kilometre to even dip our toes in the water!

The flat sand banks extend quite a way out to sea, so the waste-deep shallow water warms to provide a refreshing dip without the usual freeze of the southern waters. Being on Bass Strait rather than the ocean, there was hardly a wave and we just puddled around in the water enjoying ourselves. Fish and chips and ice cream from the harried owners of the corner shop (experiencing their busiest day of the year) topped off a lovely afternoon.

I promise to study tomorrow. Really. I will! (If I don't go to the beach again that is, since it's supposed to be another scorcher)

And for the record, I did do an hour or two of study this morning!

no more excuses

A parcel arrived by registered post this morning, spelling the end of blogging freedom for me.

My counselling text, "Basic Personal Counselling. A training manual for counsellors." by Geldard and Geldard was delivered into my hot little hands.

I'm delighted - I haven't been able to start my study properly without this basic text (ask the university bookshop why it took me so long to get it in the first place!), so I'm relieved to have the book in the house and be able to get into things.

Sadly this spells the end of blogging at will. I have no more excuses for not studying... the text has arrived, and I simply cannot waste any more time on the internet.

So it's goodbye then, until next time, when my assignments are complete and uploaded to the lecturer - so long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, goodnight.

(Oh. Well. At least until I need a study break anyway. That'll be tomorrow!)

creating time, creating busyness, creating clothes

Life wasn't busy enough for me. You know January - lazy summer days, nothing to do in the evening, public holidays galore. I was getting bored... (yeah right!)... so I created some busyness for myself.

I decided to sew a top and a dress in one weekend. Busy, busy. Cutting, sewing, ironing, unpicking, sewing, trimming, ironing, trying on, more sewing. It was a marathon, let me tell you! But I did it, almost within the weekend... just finished off a couple of bits last night after work.

And so dahdah... I now have a new top, and a new dress and they both turned out OK if you ignore the slight puckering around the sleeves of the dress... I think I forgot to trim and clip. Oh well. Photos to come when life is less crazy.

The other reason for the big rush on sewing is that life is about to change here in Frank and Cecily's household. Lazy days of summer have been the order of the day, and I've loved it. In fact I've loved it so much I've elevated January to favourite month status. But not only is January about to end and with it the endless free evenings - I am about to start studying.

This morning I fly out to Armidale (in New South Wales) for a three day residential school to kick off a Graduate Certificate in Counseling. Goodbye free time, hello bookwork! I wanted to use my last weekend of freedom to do something I really enjoy.

I'm also tired of moaning about never having time to do things - a problem that has more to do with my time management than with life's busyness. So my weekend was one big creation - creating time, creating busyness, creating clothes. It was great!

So that explains the blogging silence. Boy I missed writing though - every night I had a long list of things to post about. Let's see if I can remember any of them now!