So I went into work this morning to sort out this debacle with the rosters and my four shifts next week are cut down to 2! YAY!!! Then I handed in new availability forms that let them know I'm going away for 3 weeks in December. I know they're not happy about it and I may have to quit, but I'm praying it won't come to that and they'll sign off on the forms.

I also emailed two of my tutors requesting extensions. One is still getting back to me, she wants to go to the unit coordinator first. I'm working on the assignment now and have almost finished part 1 of 4. The trouble is that I need to put a student through this lesson I'm creating, and I can get time next week, but this week is looking a bit tight! It's due Monday, 26th of October.
The other one IS the unit coordinator and was quite happy to give me an extra 4 days! So yay for that. Was due the 2nd, now it's on the 6th of November.

So yes. I feel like I'm getting more control over these things. The third assignment is almost done and is super easy anyway. I've done all the readings, I just need to write up the summaries of the last two. It's due in 2 weeks, but I'm hoping to get the summaries written ans handed in asap so I don't need to worry about it.

Everything's coming to a head. I'm glad I have time now to work on this assignment away from the distraction of housework and even other study buddies. Study buddy time will come during study break :) I also called my parents and they come down to Perth next week for a night. Mum is going to cook me some meals and bring them down with her, as well as a bag of rice! Isn't she lovely?

Matt 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Edit: about 6mins into the Shepherd's Song by Beethoven, the music swells and it's just so beautiful!

Issue from yesterday was sorted. Hurrah!

This morning was very funny! I set my alarm for 7am, expecting to press the snooze button till 7:30, then giving myself an hour to shower/breakfast/etc until leaving the house for work at Myer at 8:30 for a 9am start. At 8:27, Cuda barks at Atticus's bell (on his collar) and wakes me up! I jump out of bed, throw on some black and white clothes, make myself a thermos of tea, grab a muesli bar and run out the door! I get to work at 8:55 and check my roster to see which department I'm in. My name is written down, but there are no times for Saturday. I check next week's roster; there are times written there. No times for Saturday. I get someone else to double check for me. Turns out I'm not actually rostered on to work on Saturday! I'm ALWAYS rostered on to work every Saturday for 9-12! So before the manager can spot me and put me to work anyway, I sneaky on out of the store, buy some groceries and head on home where I casually take a shower, procrastinate for an hour and start whipping my brain around this assignment due on Monday.

I found the whole adventure rather amusing. I'm glad I didn't get annoyed at myself, thus putting me in a bad mood! This evening Josh came around for dinner and afterwards we played a game of scrabble. I was winning for most of the game, until he ended with an 8 letter word, getting the 50 point bonus and leaving me with a rack full of tiles to deduct from my score! Go him, but boo to me =D

My brain went a bit funny after a few hours of assignment work, but all up it was quite a nice day.

Tomorrow is 6 months for me and Boyfriend. A whole half year! It's hard to believe that a whole half year has gone by, that semester 1 is almost over and I'm almost 23. The nature of time is weird.

The last week has been very happy for me. I've been in this blissfully happy mood, things have been great. I knew it couldn't last forever. I'm feeling a bit down right now but have a plan to get the issue sorted. So yay for that.

I've been putting off this stupid not-really-a-programme-programming assignment. I did some work on it yesterday and today I'm typing up my hand written notes and looking at referencing and doing some research for resources. So that's not too bad. I haven't been too happy with this unit. The content is really great, my lecturers have been really supportive in their lectures, but! the unit is a year long, both lecturers (who are also the unit co-ordinators) are leaving during the break for other jobs, my tutor is a different one from the one I started with and the new one doesn't know what she's doing so isn't very supportive of our learning and she shies away from argument and debate, so I don't like her for that. I'm a bit nervous for how I'm going to do next semester.

I went rock climbing again last night and that was super fun. I managed to climb up this super hard wall of pain and death. In the next few weeks I intend on just going up one colour - which'll be even more super hardness and more pain and death. I am all stiff now.

So I handed in my essay today. Which now means I'll post the finished results HERE!! I won't include the Bibliography, because it's BORING! But it comes in at two thousand, seven hundred and forty seven words. 3 words short of the 10% I'm allowed to go over. Hurrah!!

If you end up reading all of it (which I'm expecting no one too, but maybe, someday, someone somewhere will want to read it and cite it in their essay), I would really appreciate feedback. Please don't point out grammatical and spelling errors though, that would just make me feel bad because I've already handed this baby in. :)

( Behold, my essay! )

I'm being very unhealthy recently. I'm so wrapped up in this essay writing. I'm really enjoying the topic I picked and will probably post it up here behind a cut once I'm done.

However, I've been so wrapped up in it, that I don't really like stopping for meals. Nor do I like stopping in order to shop and cook for said meals.But tonight I did it. I bought food, I cooked food, I ate food. Then I washed the dishes.

I'm thoroughly exhausted.

This week has gone quite alright. Sunday morning last week I had an almost-anxious spell. But being aware of what was going on helped me to not get there. Hurrah!

Friday night Boyfriend and I went to the ballet, Saturday night we played cards with Tom and Anna. Both for very enjoyable evenings!

I wrote up a plan of attack on Monday for my research assignment due in a week from now and have been following it quite well. I'm rather happy with my progress thus far. However, the maximum word limit is 2500. I am currently 3/7 of the way through and am up to 1,215 words! I think I'll need to squish everything down once I've finished my draft. I've NEVER had this problem!! Too many ideas and words? wtf? Usually I need to pad out my essays with rubbish!

On one hand, hurrah! On the other hand... culling words = eep!

I think there is something wrong with my head. Right now I would consider myself to be in a happy, stable mood. But for a day this week and a couple of days last week, and a couple of days the week before, I've been depressed and/or anxious. It's then that I pick faults in pretty much everything. This morning I was all "argh, things between Boyfriend and I are terrible and I should break up with him before they get any worse and we're any deeper into this relationship!!!"

But right, I'm rather cheerful and happy and I'm so very thankful for Josh's patience to weather these bad moods. And he's away for the next few days and he sent me a txt letting me know he'd travelled safely, so he was thinking of me to let me know, and that was just lovely. Things are going very well between us - when my anxious head moods aren't obscuring my vision. :P

So why then am I anxious? I intend on talking to Clare about it tomorrow and maybe to a couple of other people. I guess depending on the results of these talks, I might need to go see a psych or something. I don't like being anxious. It's rather crippling and I haven't really noticed a pattern until recently. But given the hormonal changes my body went through a couple of weeks ago, maybe this is related.

I think I'll start recording my diet and making some notes about how I'm feeling day-to-day to see if I can detect a link.

I have only really been seriously anxious this morning. I've also endeavoured to get more exercise in each week. I've been swimming laps at Melville Recreation Centre yesterday and Monday, and this evening I'm going to a pilates class with Alys. So yay for that.

Also, assignment handed in today! YAY!

I've also been listening to more classical music recently. Apparently Boyfriend has been listening to more jazz. Jazz is good, I like it, but I think I like classical more. Especially this particular one I'm listening to right now.

So the remainder of Sunday was alright. I yoyo'd between ok and a bit sad, but was mostly ok. Then yesterday I was just fine! Today I'm doing well too and that problem from the other day is mostly gone, so I think you ladies were right on what caused it. Hurrah! And thank you for all the advice too, it was muchly appreciated! :D

As for uni stuff, I have an assignment due Friday that is just about done. All it needs is a couple of references from my unit reader in the library. I have an assignment due in two weeks Thursday that is about half done. Another assignment due in three weeks, for which I have a plan of attack and have read 2/3rds of my readings for. But the next assignment after that is a big one, so I'm going to have to start on that one quite soon too! But for now I'm doing well! :D This is different for me. I'm amazed by how quickly the semester is going though, I'm almost half way till the end of semester 1.

Today, Boyfriend and I have been going out for 4 months. *happy sigh* That time went quickly too.

My weekend was very nice and relaxing, yet also rather homogeneous. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I would bring some uni books to Josh's house, we'd study for a couple of hours, eat dinner, then do something not-study. We finished off season 5 of Buffy and there are only 50 pages from the end of Good Omens - meaning we've read a fair bit more recently. Friday morning/afternoon I had uni and Lise visiting, while Saturday morning I had work at Myer (I spent 2.5 hours hanging up bras. BORING!).

Sunday, Boyfriend came to my church, we had lunch with Ben and Cathy, then we went to the AFES commissioning service for the new staffworkers and trainees. It was very encouraging! All the senior staff workers came the front to lay their hands on the new guys, then they were prayed over. They were asked some questions to affirm their faith and establish their mission on their campuses. Then the delegates from the various committees were asked to come forward too (so, I'm secretary on the Murdoch Christian Union so I came forward) and we were prayed over. We heard an encouraging talk and there were some short presentations on what some of the campuses are doing this semester. I'm really glad I went!!

I've managed to get a fair bit of reading done for my units. I bought my textbooks only a week ago, but I've mostly caught up. I also worked out an essay plan for an assignment due in 3 weeks. I'm hoping to get my research done and a draft written up by the end of this week. Then I'll start on my next assignment. I'll come back to writing up the finished product of this assignment in the week that it's due.

I've never been very good at writing essays. It's only been recently that I've gotten the hang of it. Typically I just get this thought flow written down and I'll hand that in. Not the best method, but I haven't known how to write introductions and so forth.

Studying on my own sucks. Today is clean-the-house day, as is every Monday. I'm hoping that I can get the housework done quickly, then head to either UWA for this talk thing, or to Murdoch library and do some research for the assignment. :)

So I'm just about to print and hand in this assignment that's been stressing me out for the past couple of days. There is a high likelihood that I may fail this unit and as I told Dad at the beginning of the semster, if I fail another one, I don't want to continue Education. That does NOT mean I am trying to set myself up for failure, and I may actually continue regardless of what I said, but I'm nervous and about to hand it in anyway.

*sigh* Maybe I'll never be a teacher. Just so long as I don't fail that damn science unit. If I fail that one, then there is no option of continue. I wont be able to continue education. Blah, I can't type very well right now. Tired and pumped on coffee. Nervous. Glad to almost be free. Feel like I'm going to be sick. Anxious. Almost free. Reaching. Stretching towards the goal. Towards bus trip. No more exams. Almost
I should pray

( prayers )

This morning was depressing. I didn't want to do anything because everything reminded me of the terrible group assignment. My class this afternoon had Katy in it, and I was dreading facing one of the group.

But it didn't go too badly. In fact, I talked to her afterwards and I left with the impression that there was still work to be done. They'd only written dot-points in my part of the script and the powerpoint still needed work and it wasn't so bad that I hadn't been there. She confirmed my suspicions that, because they'd spent the previous hours bitching about stuff, when they finally talked to me about it, I was on the sharp end of their stick.

So, it wasn't as bad as all that.

But it makes me a bit angry that they treated me like they did. That wasn't right.

In unrelated news, a cd I ordered from amazon.com arrived today. That was prompt! I am slowly rebuilding my music collection from the "purge of '07" of illegal music I owned. Now I'm trying to get it back legally. I also bought 3 Muse cds on Tuesday to add to the collection. ^.^

gracious, I haven't updated since Monday! Well, Monday I spent much time bumming around the place because I was at a loss for things to do. If I did do anything, I've forgotten about it.

Tuesday I had uni. I went in for lecture, I bought a file to store all my prac stuff in and I attended class. Wednesday I helped Heather in her class at school. We drove in early in the morning and left late in the afternoon, but I helped put stuff on the walls and edit the student's work and I even taught them some stuff about grammar. In doing this, I actually did some work on my assignment too! like wow! I really enjoy teaching. I even asked if I can do some relief work in the last week of uni holidays, which'll be the 2nd week of 3rd term. I think it may be up to the discretion of the school. In any event, It'd be a darn sight better than Myer work. Although I do moderately enjoy retail, I much prefer teaching ^.^

Wednesday night I went to a dinner at Bin 305 in the city for the WSCBC kid's church leaders. We had a lot of fun and the food was, as always, terrific. In fact, the manager recognised me from before, talked to the chefs and said that I could buy the cherry tomato relish! 2L for $30! Well, I didn't have that amount of money on me, but omg w00tzor! Maybe next time, ~.^

Now today I have danced around the house but now I need to do the dishes, work on my assignment and go to this interview thing I have in Shenton Park for my CMS application process. *sigh*

( random thoughts )

Progress is happening:
Firstly, I have finally caught up with all my uni work since the great computer crash of '08 (three-four weeks ago) so yay!

Secondly, I have caught a cold. I had to go home early yesterday from work because everything was a little dizzy and I felt so ill.

Thirdly, I have caught an email (just to continue to "I have caught" trend) from Mike letting me know that I'll either be working in Kobe or Takmatsu. I also caught up with Clare who let me in on a bunch of good ideas and guidelines for fundraising. So I went and visited Alys Hedley who is now my "support coordinator." That means she sends out a letter on my behalf letting people know about my financial situation and she is a signatory on the bank account we set up to receive funds. So she is the one holding me accountable to the money I receive. :)

Oh, Fourthly, I went out to Leederville on Friday night. I went to a couple of clubs with some people I know through various Christian groups, and although I went with Christians, clubs really aren't my scene. They're too noisy to talk, I don't like free dancing so much (unless it's with Jacinta or just not in a club, lol) and it costs too much money. Also, there are sleazy guys. boo.
However, there were a couple of girls there whom I get on with really well and I had fun hanging with them. :D

Finally, if you are feeling led to donate to the Get-Kat-To-Japan fund, then the details can be found here. If you're not an lj user/friended by me, then email me for the details, or comment and I'll friend you.

I received my assignment back today. The one that I did the comic strip for! I received 80% for it and probably would have been able to get more had I been able to hand in a soft copy. But whoo hoo!!

This new computer is sick wicked nuts! I installed some standard stuff on it, vlc, msn and skype! That's right, I have skype now! My user name is etimodnar (big surprise) so if you have it, add me!!

In other news, there's a fairly odd collection of music I'm listening to about this time. Right now I'm listening to Kate Miller Heidke because she's a pretty neat singer! I think maybe I ought to buy her album.

Other noteworthy songs of late have been:
Gyan - Wait
Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure
Pendulum - Propane Nightmares
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
I think that's it for this past two weeks or so.

This week has been phenomenally busy! Most days I've had work and uni. I think I might get burnt out if I keep this out.

For all those people out there at uni, I have study break next week and I've only been rostered on for Wednesday. My education units are still running, but if anyone's interested in coming over for a study session, drop me a line and we'll organise a time. :D

Yay! I finished my assignment that was due 2 weeks ago and have an extension for!! Hurrah!

Today after church, Gene came round again to install Microsoft Office, but then he stuck around for my cleaning frenzy and lunch. So the house got cleaned today! w00t! Then after much more procrastinating, I finally sat down and drew this damn thing! It ended up not being terribly hard. I drew it all in pencil first very lightly, then once I'd finished that, I went over it in a black fineliner, then erased all the pencil underneath. Because I'm so proud of my work, I'm including lots of photos under the cut.

It's not that great, I'm just rapt with it though!
( My Comic Strip! )

Here I am, at uni, updating my LJ. ...that is all really.

Oh wait, that test that I had on Tuesday last week went well. I got 74% for it, and I'm rather pleased with that. When I was studing with my classmates on Monday I wrote up a short thing that Sensei had warned us of in the test, then I got the Japanese students to check it for me, so that I was well prepared for it in the test. So yay!

Things are going much better for me this week. I talked to my lecturer and he says that I can hand in what I have of my assignment.

God and me are going well. I am feeling content at the moment, and I'm praying again. Last week the motivation to pray was way down, which I think isn't surprising given the status of my compter. But all is well now. Hurrah!

Bloody hell!!

So I completed my assignment easily and had outlined the plan for my "knowledge product" (some kind of THING to advocate the arts in education). The lecturer had given us some ideas of this KP in the weeks before, and they can be anything from a pamphlett to a picture book. I decided to do a small comic strip because I can draw and have adobe photoshop on my computer and know how to use it well.

I've used adobe plently of times before with no problem but this time I couldn't use it for 5 minutes without my computer freezing on me. After the 10th freeze (or something about that number) my computer decided it didn't want to work anymore and stopped starting up.

The written assignment had been printed off earlier, so that's all ok, but there's no chance of handing inthe 2nd half short of hell freezing over.

So I called and emailed my lecturer, but after the email I received an auto reply informing me that he's gone away on a research trip thing until April 7th.

So I prayed, yelled, screamed, swore, cried and called Dad (no reply). I have a Japanese test tomorrow and have been watching 5 episodes of Buffy straight (well, inbetween the calling and emailing) in order to distract me from the overwhelming depression cloud. After my Japanese class this morning I asked some classmates to come over this evening and study with me, so I hope that will still happen and go well. And be distracting.

Damned computer. And this time not in jest, damn that computer. I hate it!

Gah. I figure, essay to write, daylight savings has ended and it feels super late even though it's only 8, so I should make myself a pot of super strong tea. Little did I remember, super strong tea is bitter! bleh!

It's now time to get this bitch of an essay written damn it!

Edit 9:35pm: 438/750-1000 words down. Only half way through my second paragraph. Hurrah! Furthermore, this whole citation things is going well. :D

Edit 8:34am: I went to bed at 11pm, having completed 705/750-1000 words. I did this because I was on my second pot/seventh cup of tea and couldn't type properly any more. It took me three turns to "correctly" type in a quote, and even then when I checked it this morning, it was still wrong. Also, I was feeling very ill, like I wanted to throw up. All better this morning though! :D Moral of story: too much tea is definitely a bad thing. Stick with super-coffee to stay awake.

I went away for a few days to Moore River with some MCU people. There were a few I hadn't met before, but mostly people I'd already met and it went pretty well. I think there was waaay too much sugar though because on Thursday as we were packing up, I became a little depressed and annoyed with everyone for no good reason, so I think that was me coming down off my sugar high. I didn't snap at anyone though, so that was good. I just mulled a bit and was sullen.

Anyway, the entire time away was quite nice. There was a bit of swimming, a bit of studying, some movie watching and game playing. We had a bit of Bible study too. But it was rather informal. There was loads of food!

While I was there, I didn't have access to a computer so so I needed to start on an assignment and did lots of dot points. Then the dot points turned into a skeleton essay. It was then I figured out that I'd just done a draft! It has taken me THIS LONG to work out how to do a draft. I am such a dolt sometimes. But yay for me doing it!

Alrighty, on Saturday, Cint is having her 21st and my gift to her was a book that I made with photos and pretty paper and ribbon that can be unbound and the pages separated so that people can sign it. I finished it on Wednesday night, so yesterday I went and dropped it round to her place. I'd covered the front and back with red satin and a black frilly lace over the top. She really liked it! Anyway, she hadn't yet bought her dress/shoes/jewelery for her 21st and she was planning on going out to buy them later that afternoon. She had set aside an hour and a half for that task! But off we went in her car and bought her entire outfit!! It was pretty fun "speed shopping."

Anyway, we went back to her place and I had a couple of glasses of water before going home and she invited me to go to ceroc dancing. So I went that night! SO MUCH FUN!!! And really easy to pick up. When you are partnered with a good male lead, you can do all these spins and twirls and there's plenty of guys there willing to dance and to lead, even though I wasn't so good. Very informal and social! My feet were killing me afterwards. I limped through the front door and sat through my shower. :D

This morning I went into uni and didn't do so badly with Japanese like I feared because I've missed a few classes recently. Then I met with Clare, and had my last hour of prac and went home. Bummed around a bit this afternoon, but then I decided to go for a jog (which I did) and when I came home, I'd only been jogging for 10minutes!! So I put on a pilates dvd and did some of that. w00t!

I feel really good right now. I think it's the endorphines.

Also, for the longest time I've put off doing dancing or anything because I didn't have a partner and my main motivation to go was because of the potential partnering or whatever, but last night, I went for the sole reason of having fun and doing something to get my life into gear.

It's very much related to the "when I'm in a couple, then my life will start" mentality. I've shaken it off my conscience, but not so much my subconscience. I've held myself back for too long. But last night was a blast, and it was a fun thing I was doing for me, not for a partner. I'm probably rambling, but maybe some of you can understand and go "WOO HOO KAT!" for me. :D

Anyway, I've been having loads of fun being active. And I think it helps me to focus more when I'm studying, because it gets all my heeby-geebies out before hand.

Speaking of study, wish me luck, I have 3 essays to write, due on the 5th, 6th and 7th.