My Beautiful Barry

This is what my Barry the Barina looked liked when I first bought him almost 3 years ago.


Then this is what he looked liked after I had a little accident and crashed him : (


And this is what he looks like now that he has been to see the specialist and had cosmetic surgery to reconstruct his nose.




Isn't he beautiful.
And even better- his headlights both point in the same direction again : )

Hi Everyone,

I have run away and escaperized to my brother's house for a few days of uninterrupted relaxation time reading, and watching heaps of movies and tv shows. My cousin is also here for a few days with the same basic aims so we are keeping each other company.

Also I am charged with the mission of preparing to help my brother adopt a cat.

Hope all you unistudents are having a nice break.

I finally made it...

Note: to anyone that has not yet read the previous post please do so now.

I did it...
I finished the semester...
I survived my exams!

I almost gave up near the end of semester when I had been so sick for so long, but I'm proud of myself that I stuck it out to the end.

Now I just have to relax for a few weeks, get some more information on my trip to Europe, organize my passport, decide who I'm going to take with me, and wait for the exam results to come out.

Also this holidays, my Barry the Red Barina is having a little cosmetic surgery to fix a few dents from when I crashed him a little over a year ago. I'm very excited about Barry being made really beautiful again (not that I think you're ulgly now, Barry)...

And I get to stay at Rob's for a while to sleep in, watch movies and tv shows, and help him find a cat to adopt...

And I get to spend sometime at home with my Mum and Dad and my beautiful pussycat...

And I have to go to the hospital 3 times. Once to get a cat scan of my lungs, once to get a lung function test done, and once to see the specialist to find out what the test results mean. Yuk!

First things first, though. Tonight I'm spending some time with a friend and then tomorrow I am sleeping- quite a lot.

I cant believe it!!

Do you all remember the 'Trusty Little Laptop' poem that I blogged about to enter a competition to win a trip to Europe.

Guess what. Thanks to everyone leaving all those comments on my blog I won the Peoples Choice Award. I have a trip for two to Europe worth over $8,000 per person for two weeks.

How awesome is that? I am still quite in shock. Pity I can't really celebrate until tomorrow when I finish my last exam.

3 out of 4 ain't bad...

Well, actually they were bad, but the fact that I have now finished 3 quarters of my exams isn't bad.

This morning was Marine Ecology (which actually bares no resemblance to the photo above- it is actually more about water currents and weather patterns and trophic cascades and how these all affect each other not about turtles and dolphins and whales), but lets not talk about that. All you need to know is that the worst feeling in the world is walking into an exam room knowing that there is a very real chance that you could fail an exam depending what questions the lecturers decide to ask. Walking out knowing that you haven't failed is a much better feeling (thanks to my lecturers for asking the questions I actually knew the answers to).


Then, I escaped as quickly as possible (avoiding a certain fellow student who always manages to be extremely depressing after an exam- after the botany prac test she swore for about 3 minutes straight) and went out to dinner with a bunch of the gals (not my gals- Aunt Lib's gals). Good fun.

As much as I know how Ayden feels about Mures Top Deck (the upmarket, fancy part of Mures that I have never been to before)- and I do see his point and agree with him- it was really fun. And having a nice fancy dinner and a bottle of champagne after an exam is a great idea (don't worry I didn't have the bottle to myself- but guess what I'm allowed to drink and drive now).

Anyways, I have a big night of doing nothing planned (starting with some episodes of LOST that I have been patiently waiting for 2 weeks to watch- well, maybe not so patiently) so I'd better get to it.

Half way there...

I have now finished two out of my four exams.

Today was Quantitative Methods in Biology- known to everyone in the school of zoology simply as QM and it has quite a reputation as it is the hardest zoology unit and has the highest failure rate. I ran into one of my 2nd year lecturers this morning and she asked me if I had an exam today. When I replied that I had my QM exam she simply said, "Oh, I'm sorry. My condolences."

I was very worried that I would turn up at the exam, open the question paper, and not know anything about any of the questions. When I got there, however, the first question (30 mins long) boosted my confidence huge amounts because I knew everything about that. It was downhill from there, but I still did much, much better than I expected.

Although I'm afraid I haven't really learnt as much about statistics as I should have in this course, I have learned two important things about statisticians:

1). They all have a very warped sense of humour.
2). They are exceptionally fond of acronyms. For example ANOVA, ANCOVA, ANOSIM, MANOVA, PERMANOVA, PCA, MDS, SIMPER...


Anyway, after my exam Megan and I went out for Hot Chocolate to condole with each other for a while and recover from the brain mush (for anyone who has never experienced brain mush after an exam imagine your brain melting and dripping out your ears and then being replaced with porridge and you will begin to understand the feeling of brain mush). Then I made my way home and Ayden came over and cooked me tea (isn't he useful ) and gave me FAR too much sugar : ) so I'm rather wide awake.

Well, my next exam is on Saturday so I have three days to study for Marine Ecology (far harder than it sounds- its not just about how cute dolphins and whales are despite what some people assume it must be like- it is the second hardest course in Zoology). I have a tutorial tomorrow afternoon and I am meant to have figured out some questions to ask my lecturers so I guess I'm going to have a busy morning tomorrow.

I suppose I'd better try to unwind and go to bed soon.
Congratulations, Mum, on now being on holidays- I hope to join you in just over a week : )

1 down- 3 to go

I did survive my first exam, and I would definately give me a pass for my answers in the exam so I'm pretty relaxed about that subject.

Unfortunately, the exam that I am VERY unrelaxed about is on Tuesday, and the one after that on Saturday isn't going to much fun either so none of you will hear or see me much at all this week as I will be chained to my desk for most of it.

Why I hate swotvac- by Emma

I really don't enjoy swatvac- I never have. It is a very necessary evil, though. Without the week of swotvac I don't think I would ever do very well in my exams, but I really do hate it, none-the-less.

Swotvac is an awkward time- its a time when you really need a break from uni and with the freedom of not having to devote your entire day to lectures and practicals there is a huge temptation to emphasise the second syllable of swotvac and have a vacation.

Swotvac is worse than the few days of study between exams because in swotvac all you have is the stress and worry of upcoming exams. You begin to doubt your ability to not turn into a martian in the middle of your exam. After your first exam you begin to remember that, yes exams are physically possible, and nothing is ever as bad as it seemed like it was going to be in swotvac.

Thankfully, tomorrow is the last day of swotvac and then on Saturday, I face my first exam- almost a relief after the drudgery that swotvac always accompanies- then everything is downhill until finally, in under 2 weeks time I have HOLIDAYS!!!

Aquatic Botany Prac Exam- revisited

Hey, guess what!
Tori and I both actually passed the prac exam- amazing!
There were people in the class that failed, but I don't know how many.

My beautiful Fidget and I are taking a little break from studying for a while (well I'm having a break from studying and she is having a break from sleeping while I have lunch.) Studying is much more fun when you have a beautiful cat to keep you company.