Having raced around all morning getting things organised so we can go away for the weekend (yay!) I met some of my dear friends for lunch as two of them were birthday girls.
It reminded me as we were yakking 10 to the dozen, how much I enjoy and value the company of my girls- I feel so blessed to have some wonderful and amazing women who I count as my friends.
Anyhoo, after a very pleasant lunch with the gals it was a dash to uni for our very first forum. There was definitely an excited buzz going on as we were handed out our "equipment". A fununddascope (think that's spelt wrong), thermometer and blood pressure measuring equipment (long complex name that I can say but can't spell off hand). Very exciting, so my friends and family are on notice - no chatting to me until I have taken your blood pressure!
Then the ouch! We have to be tested for our immunity for a bunch of diseases like MRSA, measles, TB and so on. The TB test (mantoux) is done in a couple of weeks at school, but the other tests require a blood test! That's the ouch - I stopped by on the way home and had the blood taken, but it is quite sore now.
Never mind, nothing a glass of wine won't fix.
So I'm off for a shower, a glass of wine, to play with my "midwifery equipment" and then off to work.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
I'm Freaking Out
Okay, now I'm totally freaking out. We went through our paper booklet for Midwifery Practice today and we are doing alot more than I thought we would this semester. We are doing two weeks (80 hours) shifts at a hospital for the last two weeks of semester and will actually be doing stuff !!
Not only that but we will be going out with our midwives for our follow through women and preparing for exams and practical assessments - as in actually being tested on taking blood pressures, pulses, urine testing etc.
Bloody hell, as I said I'm freaking out (as was everyone else).
As always there was one person moaning "I'm a solo mum and what about childcare" - good lord they explained all that at the interview...if you don't have support for childcare then you shouldn't be doing the degree!! Having said that, I'm not sure how my darling other half is going to cope now that the reality of how much I'm not going to be here is upon us. Time will tell.
Speaking of time - tomorrow is our 15th wedding anniversary. 15 years, officially my longest ever relationship with a boy! In some ways it feels like a freakin eternity, but other times it feels like we only just got married. I really can't believe it is 15 years...so much has happened. You know boy meets girl, they break up, get back together, break up, get back together, do big OE, buy a house, get married, buy another house, have 3 kids, buy into a business, develop careers, riase the kids, do alot of home maintenance, stress about finances, decide to rennovate and wifey goes to university. It's certainly been a busy time. We shall be celebrating on the weekend as we go away with the best man and his lovely lady for a Kids free weekend up north.
The champagne is on ice and I can't wait!
Not only that but we will be going out with our midwives for our follow through women and preparing for exams and practical assessments - as in actually being tested on taking blood pressures, pulses, urine testing etc.
Bloody hell, as I said I'm freaking out (as was everyone else).
As always there was one person moaning "I'm a solo mum and what about childcare" - good lord they explained all that at the interview...if you don't have support for childcare then you shouldn't be doing the degree!! Having said that, I'm not sure how my darling other half is going to cope now that the reality of how much I'm not going to be here is upon us. Time will tell.
Speaking of time - tomorrow is our 15th wedding anniversary. 15 years, officially my longest ever relationship with a boy! In some ways it feels like a freakin eternity, but other times it feels like we only just got married. I really can't believe it is 15 years...so much has happened. You know boy meets girl, they break up, get back together, break up, get back together, do big OE, buy a house, get married, buy another house, have 3 kids, buy into a business, develop careers, riase the kids, do alot of home maintenance, stress about finances, decide to rennovate and wifey goes to university. It's certainly been a busy time. We shall be celebrating on the weekend as we go away with the best man and his lovely lady for a Kids free weekend up north.
The champagne is on ice and I can't wait!
Monday, February 18, 2008
I'm a Student Midwife
When people ask me what I do I can now officially say "I'm a student midwife"!
We started today and I was very nervous but felt happy knowing that I knew a few people in our intake already. In fact I arranged to meet one of them for coffee before the class started so we could go in.
I needn't have worried, it was all good fun and there are a very diverse and interesting bunch of women in our class. We had lots of laughs and spent most of today just going over what we would be doing over the next three years, what the expectations were and introductions.
Wasn't too thrilled to find out that we have to be tested for TB and have other immunisations (ouch) but I guess you gotta take the good with the bad.
Finally managed to get my AUT diary so I can now get organised - so before the kids come home from school I shall be sitting down with my computer diary, kitchen calendar and uni timetable and a bunch of highlighters to co-ordinate my life at last - well the next three months at any rate.
We started today and I was very nervous but felt happy knowing that I knew a few people in our intake already. In fact I arranged to meet one of them for coffee before the class started so we could go in.
I needn't have worried, it was all good fun and there are a very diverse and interesting bunch of women in our class. We had lots of laughs and spent most of today just going over what we would be doing over the next three years, what the expectations were and introductions.
Wasn't too thrilled to find out that we have to be tested for TB and have other immunisations (ouch) but I guess you gotta take the good with the bad.
Finally managed to get my AUT diary so I can now get organised - so before the kids come home from school I shall be sitting down with my computer diary, kitchen calendar and uni timetable and a bunch of highlighters to co-ordinate my life at last - well the next three months at any rate.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Mayhem and madness
Another successful kids birthday done and dusted.
The young master 8 has now celebrated with 14 of his nearest and dearest! We had 15 kids here for party games, food and cake. I thought I was so organised with prizes, loot bag goodies and having got the food sorted that come party day I realised I didn't have a cake nor time to make one.
I ended up buying some goody gum drops ice cream, turning it out on a plate, icing it with loads of chocolate icing and sprinkling it with good old M&M's before refreezing until candle time. It was a real hit but a bit embarassing when one mum asked for the recipe based on her kids report of the cake!
The weather was dodgy but we managed to get out for a swim. i drew the short straw and ended up in the (icy) pool swimming with the kids with Steve on lifeguard duty. Very stressful 30 minutes of kids sinking and me rescuing them and then trying to convince them all to get out before we turned into popsicles.
All children were safe and accounted for by pick up time, Matt was happy and we were exhausted - but nothing that a stiff drink couldn't cure!
Uni starts to tomorrow so I am trying to get everything organised for that. Currently grappling with forms for the student loan. Now, I believe I am an intelligent woman but you just about need a degree for filling in government forms! Hopefully by tonight it will be in one of the three envelopes they sent me with the three different mail outs of different forms and then they can do with it what they will.
With the start of uni and work, my "holiday" comes to an end. I can't understand where the last three months have gone. The rest was good but I have got horribly lazy and wonder how I am going to cope with being a full time student, working one or two nights a week (and one Saturday per month) as well as being chief cook and bottle washer to the family! Well we shall see.
I started a movie club in my last week of holidays. Currently I am the only member, but so far it is an extremely fun club. The purpose of the club is to attend movies while they are still in the cinema and then discuss over a wine afterwards. The discussion part will be much more lively when there is another member or two involved. Currently it just looks like a sad, half-cut woman talking to herself! I went to see "Death at a Funeral" and thoroughly enjoyed it - I laughed like a hyena most of the way through. The only thing about attending a 10.30am session of the movies is that most of the other 10 people in the theatre are senior cits whose hearing has seen better days - and they insist on telling each other what the character in the movie is thinking, or what is about to happen, and of course the only person who can hear all the comments is me. However despite these little setbacks I believe my movie club has good potential and is much less time consuming than book clubs.
Enough procrastinating though, I must away and continue my uni prep and form filling and mourn the carefree days of my holiday. I'm not too depressed though becaause the husband and I are going away sans children next weekend to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
The young master 8 has now celebrated with 14 of his nearest and dearest! We had 15 kids here for party games, food and cake. I thought I was so organised with prizes, loot bag goodies and having got the food sorted that come party day I realised I didn't have a cake nor time to make one.
I ended up buying some goody gum drops ice cream, turning it out on a plate, icing it with loads of chocolate icing and sprinkling it with good old M&M's before refreezing until candle time. It was a real hit but a bit embarassing when one mum asked for the recipe based on her kids report of the cake!
The weather was dodgy but we managed to get out for a swim. i drew the short straw and ended up in the (icy) pool swimming with the kids with Steve on lifeguard duty. Very stressful 30 minutes of kids sinking and me rescuing them and then trying to convince them all to get out before we turned into popsicles.
All children were safe and accounted for by pick up time, Matt was happy and we were exhausted - but nothing that a stiff drink couldn't cure!
Uni starts to tomorrow so I am trying to get everything organised for that. Currently grappling with forms for the student loan. Now, I believe I am an intelligent woman but you just about need a degree for filling in government forms! Hopefully by tonight it will be in one of the three envelopes they sent me with the three different mail outs of different forms and then they can do with it what they will.
With the start of uni and work, my "holiday" comes to an end. I can't understand where the last three months have gone. The rest was good but I have got horribly lazy and wonder how I am going to cope with being a full time student, working one or two nights a week (and one Saturday per month) as well as being chief cook and bottle washer to the family! Well we shall see.
I started a movie club in my last week of holidays. Currently I am the only member, but so far it is an extremely fun club. The purpose of the club is to attend movies while they are still in the cinema and then discuss over a wine afterwards. The discussion part will be much more lively when there is another member or two involved. Currently it just looks like a sad, half-cut woman talking to herself! I went to see "Death at a Funeral" and thoroughly enjoyed it - I laughed like a hyena most of the way through. The only thing about attending a 10.30am session of the movies is that most of the other 10 people in the theatre are senior cits whose hearing has seen better days - and they insist on telling each other what the character in the movie is thinking, or what is about to happen, and of course the only person who can hear all the comments is me. However despite these little setbacks I believe my movie club has good potential and is much less time consuming than book clubs.
Enough procrastinating though, I must away and continue my uni prep and form filling and mourn the carefree days of my holiday. I'm not too depressed though becaause the husband and I are going away sans children next weekend to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
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