Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Uni's back... what more can I say...

Today is Tuesday. Uni went back yesterday. I am thrilled. So thrilled. By what? By the 9am starts and the 3hr seminars. By the set texts and the 3 to 6 seminar readings for each seminar each week.

It's not really that bad. But boy, I have SO MUCH reading to do this year! I wrote out a timetable yesterday, and according to that I should be reading right now. Oh well! And I don't really have that many hours where I am actually at uni. This week and next week I have about 15 contact hours. But in weeks 3-8 I only have 6 contact hours (with an extra 3 hours in three of the weeks, but most of them are for watching films). In week 9 I have 9 contact hours, and in week 10 I have 3 contact hours, and then - apart from essay writing - I am finished for first semester. But even though I don't have many contact hours, the amount of reading and researching does turn it into a full time job - one you can't forget about when you get home :( I am determined, however, to keep my evenings as free as possible. I will need to have that break time! (It will also make great panic time for when I am feeling overwhelmed!)

My camera is still uncharged because the silly charger won't work (grrr). I'll have to do something about that soon so I can stick some more photos up. For the moment though, we will all have to make do with cartoons. This one illustrates a typical morning for a typical uni student:

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Of nieces, reading and clean toilets...

Hey everybody! How are you?????

I just want to say thank you to the people who prayed for Julian and his job interview this afternoon. He seemed quite happy and peaceful afterwards, so lets just keep praying and trusting that he'll get this job! He should be hearing back in about 3 weeks.

And take look at my gorgeous new neice,
Isla. She has the most amazing long thin fingers! Everybody is like, 'Oooo, a pianist.' I have only seen her once, while she was still at the hospital, and she is my sort of baby: cute, quiet and accomplished at sleeping :) She was born a week ago, and I am sure that by the time I see her next she'll look completely different. *sigh*... they grow up so fast...

I don't really have anything exciting to share (besides, of course, Isla's birth), though I was rather silly today! Uni starts on Monday, and what did I do??? I bought 7 books in the Anne of Green Gables series!!! I am so pleased! All up they were only $31.50 (I found 6 of them in a second hand shop for $5 each, and asked for a deal, so essentially paid for 5 and got 1 free. The other one I got from another second hand book store for $6.50). I have read all of them except one: Rilla of Ingleside, so I am looking forward to reading that :)

While we are on the subject of reading, I have now read two of my texts for uni (No Road (bitumen all the way) and Voices of Marrakesh) and am powering through In Patagonia. So I am pretty happy with myself.

I also bought some toilet cleaner today, which is great as before I had to ue Handy Andy and that is not really meant for toilets. So at the moment the toilet smells beautiful - like lavender! Feel free to pop in and have a smell!

Catch ya lata xx

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Easy Peasy Veggie and Kidney Bean Salad

I made this last night to have with some fish fillets, and it was so yummy and so easy to make. All the veggies are raw, so you are getting the maximum amount of nutrients possible. Sorry there is no photo - the silly camera charger is broken! Just try to imagine the thin sticks of orange, green and red, with the deep purple-brown of the kidney beans...

Easy Peasy Veggie and Kidney Bean Salad

About 170g fresh round green beans, top and tailed and cut in half
1 or 2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks (I used 1 but 2 would have been nice)
1 red capsicum, seeded and thinly sliced
1 tin kidney beans (about 400g), drained (chick peas - or any other type of legume - would work just as well)

Dressing (these are the approx. amounts- I hardly ever measure for things like this)
3 tspns seeded mustard
1 Tbspn lemon juice
1 or 2 Tbspns oil (extra virgin olive oil would be best, but I just used veggie oil)

Stick all the veggies and the kidney beans in a bowl. Mix the salad dressing and pour over the salad. Toss with salad servers. Enjoy and feel healthy!

This would serve 3-4 people as a side dish, though Julian and I ate the whole thing last night (with a bit of a fight over who would get the last bit).

Bushwalking on Mt Wellington

Hello my dear bloggees,

It's been a week or so since my last blog, but don't think I've been ignoring you because I am lazy. On the contrary, I have been so busy I haven't had time to think, let alone get on write. I was so tired on Sunday that I actually slept for 3 hours in the afternoon - and I have to be REALLY tired to do that! All weekend I had been looking forward to Monday, thinking Finally I have a day where I'm not doing anything and can even sleep in.

Lo and behold, Sunday afternoon one of my friends rang (waking me up, thank you very much!) asking if Julian and I want to go for an easy bushwalk up Mt Wellington. I say yes, and she says she'll ring me back with the details. Well, it turns out that the person organising it all decided that we'll meet at the Springs at 9:00am. Bang! There goes my sleep-in. We get to the Springs the next day, and it is decided that we'll walk to the top. BANG! There goes my easy walk! In the end (thankfully) we didn't walk to the top as one of the group members (not me) was having too much trouble. Instead, we walked a reasonable way up the Pinnacle Track, before turning onto the Organ Pipe Track (we were so close to the Organ Pipes - those cliffs are absolutley magnificent! We saw some climbers, and were totally impressed: those Pipes go straight up!). After finishing the Organ Pipe Track the walked down the road for awhile before going on the trail that leads to Sphinx Rock, where we had lunch. After that if was an easy (flat) walk back to the Springs and our cars!!

All up it was a 3 hour walk, and very enjoyable. We didn't take our camera, but one of my friends did, and if I can figure out her email address, I will see if I can get a copy of the photos so you can have a squiz at them, because the view was amazing!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Julian's Getting Old!

Well, it was Julian's birthday today. We didn't do anything particularly special, just hired out some dvds and I made lasagne and a desert ('preserved' apricots with a jelly layer over the top. It was really yummy). Sorry I don't have any photos, the camera charger has decided to stop working (rather selfish of it really...). We do have a scanner, but somehow I don't think scanners and jelly should ever meet.
Tomorrow I am buying the rest of the books I need for uni (which starts in less than 3 weeks! I'm beginning to think Ahh! Honours! What have I gotten myself into?!?!?), so I won't have any more excuses! It's gonna be an interesting year. One of the good things about having a blog is that I have been writing, which will make it just that little bit easier when I start studying. So often students don't do any writing of even reading over the summer break (which is like 4 months long - gotta love it!) and it takes them about 1/2 a semester to get back into the 'rhythm'.
By the way, I bought Julian The Bourne Ultimatum for his b'day, with some money I got by selling some of his fantasy books. Oh, yeah, I kept the extra $10 :)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Been researchin' - and I'm still on holidays... (can't help myself!)

Don't worry - I wasn't doing stuff for uni! (I can hear your sigh of relief...) No, I have been visiting the Dietitians Association of Australia. I have been looking at food info - such as how many serves of what food groups we are meant to have, and at what actually constitutes a serve. Interesting stuff. They have a link to a pdf all about healthy eating, and it is totally worth downloading (it's only about 20 pages): Australian Guide to Healthy Eating. The challenge now is to figure out how to achieve a balanced diet with the recommended serves of each food group on our tiny weeny budget!! I have some ideas... and al-natural easter eggs is not one of them(I think that's classic!)