My new University semester starts tomorrow and I must admit I need a bit of a holiday to get over my holiday - I wouldn’t have wanted to get back from Samoa and go straight back to Uni. Due to the flight delay and not having sleep for 24 hours the day we came home threw me for a couple of days. And then as I was coming right it was time for my herceptin and the next day I went to my great-aunts funeral, she’d made it to her 100th Birthday in May so she had had a great innings and indeed was more than twice as old as I am which gives you pause for thought. The weekend was taken up with having YD home and seeing MD back off home to Christchurch -she had been housesitting some of the time we were away and working at her old holiday job up here. My health has not been 100% since I got back – sinuses played up coming back to the winter temperatures- then OD had been away for a few days until last weekend and came back with some bug which I promptly caught off her – achy, fever, nausea for a couple of days – lots of fun. I spent quite a bit of time sorting out the best photos from our holiday and writing up my travelogue blogs (from the diary I had kept while we were away). I cleaned my charm bead bracelet from all the tarnish it had accumulated due to humidity, sweat and salt air on our trip and bought myself a bead to commemorate my Samoa trip (cancer bracelet now stand at 10 beads other bracelet at 7 ) and all of a sudden its the last day of my break and I don’t know where the last 12 days have gone.
OH and I went out and bought a slow cooker today because although my health and energy levels are much better than they were, a full day at Uni still takes it out of me. We figure with the slow cooker it will be easier to organise meals when we have the energy in the mornings and come home to a nice warm meal that we don’t need to worry too much about. OH has been very good and done most of the cooking but he gets tired from his work too.
I also have bought myself a backpack on wheels with laptop compartment for Uni – OH actually used it as his cabin luggage for our trip. Although I’m very fond of my large purple business bag – although it can fit my laptop and a folder, it’s not suitable when I have more than just that and if I am carrying it for long periods of time it places undue stress on my left side – the only side I can carry more than 5kgs on. This new bag will be especially good on Wednesdays when I have two lectures and two tutorials (day goes from 8.30am -5.30pm plus travelling time) as it means I can fit in my laptop plus folders plus any textbooks/library books etc that I might need.
In other news I have also got my results back from my last semester papers – I can’t be 100% sure of my actual marks for my exams as they have only given out our final grades - that is our exam and assignment marks added together as a grade I am pleased to announce that I got 3 “A-” for ‘Sociology’, ‘Psychology’ and ‘Social Work Environment’ and even my Friday class, ‘Culture and Diversity’ that you will recall I was most worried about as it was the class the day after chemo that I felt I hadn’t retained as much as the others I got an overall mark of a “B+” so I’m pretty pleased with those results. My friend ‘the MRD’ (who called himself ‘the mysteriously reappearing D’ after reading this post) who lectures in social work in Melbourne joked that maybe he should write to my lecturers and tell them to check whether any of my medications were performance-enhancing before my next exams.
As well as Uni starting again this week this time has other significance for me as well. It was 2 years ago this week that ‘Gertrude’ first blew up and 1 year ago when I first got the ‘niggles’ which eventuated in being diagnosed with a recurrence. It does make me wonder what the next few months will bring. I got told 6th October last year that I had a recurrence so I think if I make it past that date this with no such news it will be cause for celebration.
Anyway I had better go and do some more organisational stuff – I start Tongan tomorrow as my general education requirement paper and although I know the tutors and systems at Epsom campus, I have to go into the city campus for this one and not knowing the tutors, rooms or the expectations for this paper will make it interesting
I have set myself a goal to be more organised and make better use of my time this semester – I will let you know how that works (or doesn’t – LOL)
BRO
/ July 17, 2010You need to gt ‘SLOW’ by Alison Gofton, to go with your crockpot !! great recipes. Good marks – well done !!