Crap Days

There's two reasons I'm here right now typing this blog.  One:  My university website is down so I can't keep hitting refresh on my grades waiting for my Visual Comm. grade to come up.  Two:  I had a crap day, and that usually gets me pretty chatty.  Luckily for you I'm not here to talk about how crap my day was.  I've actually found that bad days make me evaluate my life.. not in terms of how awful I think it is (although I used to be very guilty of that) but more about what I'm doing, where I'm hoping to head etc.

But first let me show you my massive bowl of salad that is now my dinner:

It's seriously as big as my head!   But salad makes me feel human and alive, when I start to feel rundown a salad is always there to pick me up.  Of course if I had never decided to try being a vegetarian I probably would have never picked up on it - the way that certain foods have an almost healing/positive effect.  I'm much more in touch with my body and really that's what this blog post is going to be about - how changes I've made have made me more in touch with different parts of myself.

I start off every year saying 'This is going to be the year of change'.. I can tell you it rarely is.  I mean sure I've always done little things, changing things I don't like, but this is the first year that I've looked at things that I've wanted to do for a long time and just started doing them.  I cut my hair all off because I wanted to (although I am growing it back now it was quite the experience in liberation), I am studying something I like, I took up being a vegetarian and a few other secret projects that I can't reveal to protect the innocent (and save my own butt).

What I've learnt the most so far though, is how much I'm becoming this person that I always wanted to be but never really saw myself being.  People that are close to me and have known me for long enough could tell you that I've changed a lot in the past two years.  It's like I've always needed to chase different focuses because I couldn't focus on myself, finally I think I've learnt how to keep most of the focus on myself.  I have gained a lot of confidence about myself and what I can do.  

Two years ago my best friend was counting down for her wedding; she was also trying to conceive their first child.  We (including her husband) were all 20 at the time,  and while they were committing to each other I was getting over a messy breakup and fumbling through a new relationship.  I didn't get where her head was at 2 years ago, because I obviously didn't believe in relationships lasting or that making plans ever got someone anywhere.  2 years later I think I have some idea of where her head was at, it's like this change of heart/mind that just hits you - and little (HA!) things like commitment, children and womanhood hits you like a ton of bricks.  Being a mum, being a wife once seemed like foreign (but eventual) concepts and now they're what everything is going towards.  I'm not saying that I expect them to happen right now, but I accept them as things that will happen for me and that I welcome wholeheartedly. 

In the meantime I'll research homeschooling (which I'd love to do!), read about what other women do with their children, cuddle Cameron (Rachel's 8-month old son), read about growing vegetables/fruits/herbs, find out how to raise chickens and ducks, learn to sew toys/clothes/blankets, collect wooden toys and books in fear that they'll for some reason stop producing them over time.  And yes I'll do my degree, even though I can never see myself in an office.. because I figure any skill is a good skill and all this stuff I am doing at university will surely come in handy in ways that I can't expect or predict.  I may even be able to do something entirely unique that will require all the great multimedia stuff I'm learning, may require creativity or writing or German hahaha.  

I guess the point I'm trying to get to is that even crap days are to be expected on this path I'm strolling along in life. And that over time they make me stronger, no matter how much I whinge or vent - there's a bigger side of me that is happy than a side of me that is sad - so I finally know that I'm winning against the negative little rain cloud.  I know everything will be great - that it already is pretty great and that I'm lucky to have so much opportunity and love in my life. :)

PS:  See how much I love that salad? :P

I am such a student..

...when I get uber-excited about buying a backpack.  I decided it was time to bid my messenger bag farewell for going to uni, because sweet mercy it was killing my shoulders and spine.  So sensible backpack it is.  I'd been eyeing off one on ebay for about a week, it was purrrfect (lined fleece section for my laptop and everything!) however it was a love affair that was never to be... since I lost hard in the auction yesterday :(

Perhaps in a bid to make up for my feelings of rejection and depressing in the wake of losing my one true love, I headed out today with the sole mission of finding 'The Next Best Thing'.  Finally I found this little cutie - half price!

Final Assignment!

So I handed in my last assignment for the semester today!  I'm okay with the fact that it was probably the biggest piece of fail I've written so far - BUT I will pass which.. is sometimes all you can ask for ><.

Good timing for the assignment actually since tomorrow morning I'll be bothering a plane to Hamilton Island - ahhhh assignment stress free on holiday - WOOT!

Last Class at Uni and Results

Yay! Today I had my last class at university for the semester and boy am I happy for the break.  It's not technically a break yet - I still have one massive (50%!!!) assignment and my german speaking exam - But after 10:30am on the 21st of July I am free - free I tell you!

So I got my german results back from our last writing exam - 22/30 booyah!  I also got back my second assignment results from Introduction to Journalism:

So basically I got like a high 6 - but YAY!  So for an update - I'm sitting on a 6 in my two Journalism subjects pending one assignment each, a 6 in German pending my speaking exam and hopefully a 5 in Spanish pending an abysmal final writing exam which was worth 15% I think?  ^_^

Media Conference at UQ

So today was the big day - the media conference held for our final assignment in my Reporting subject.  I'd spent the past three days doing mega research into the topic, a really light reading experience of - Human Trafficking in Australia.

If I wasn't typing notes to save my life I probably would have really got into what Andrea Schloenhardt head of the UQ Human Trafficking Group had to say about the issue.  Basically he talked about the way legislation was formed leading up to the policies we have now.  He also interestingly pointed out the way media has focused on only the sex trafficking and that the whole picture isn't being painted clearly.

From here I have to write three stories about human trafficking, it's a really really complex issue and I've been trying to wrap my head around all the things that have happened and are happening at the moment in Australia.  No doubt I am going to be talking to some really interesting people over the next two weeks as I'm hoping to do one story on each issue (kind of, I'm going to mostly talk about what's being done to prevent trafficking instead of a particular story about sex trafficking).

In the meantime if you're at all interested in this issue here are some handy links I've dug up:
The UQ Human Trafficking Group
NY Times Blog Debate on Overseas Adoption 
Julia Rollings Blog - This is an Australian lady that adopted 5 children and it turned out that two of her children had been illegally taken from their mother.
Project Respect - support for women in the sex industry, they're also an NGO on sex trafficking
The Scarlet Alliance - a pro-prostitution website bringing up valid points about making the sex industry a  safer environment and the effects of legislation on migrant workers/the trafficking situation.  Also reveal a lot of the misconceptions of 'sex slaves' and sex trafficking.
Human Trafficking Org

And some books on the issue:
Love Our Way by Julia Rollings
The Johns by Victor Malarek - an interesting viewpoint of looking into the men that create the demand for prostitution.

Breakfast at UQ

Today I had my second last spanish exam for the semester. I think it went well for the record.. I just spun a whole lot of BS and tried to spell it as well as I could with my broken spanish vocabulary. I also somehow managed to get 10% out of 15% on my previous grammar test - in my eyes I couldn't ask for more bahaha.

Anyway I got to UQ an hour earlier than I would normally and my sole mission at 8:15am was to get me some Merlo action! I freaking love Merlo coffee, I'm going to have to address this addiction some other day though because something else distracted me from my goal - Ye awesome Ham/Cheese Croissant!

So damn good! And I had a decent view from the Pizza Cafe:

Anyway, while I was sitting down murdering my HCC and mulling over recent developments, I saw this bird just swoop like a ninja into the slightly ajar door of the Pizza Cafe restaurant. He then proceeded to jump from table to table picking up crumbs.. I seriously loved his arrogance, so much so that when he swooped near me for a croissant crumb I took a quick snap of him: