one down, one to go

I’m almost finished.  Er…for the year anyway.  I still have 5 more to go.  Today’s final exam was pretty much my nemesis: math.  After what felt like millions of hours of studying, staring at the formulas I taped to the walls in the bathroom and kitchen and watching videos from Khan academy though, I think I did ok.  What a relief.  And I don’t have to do any more math classes ever again.

On Tuesday, I have my last exam for the year, and then a big summer break until the end of February/beginning of March.  Crazy as it is, I think I’ll get a higher grade in my math class then my food science class.

As soon as I finish my exam on Tuesday, I’m going straight to see a litter of beaglier (beagle x cavalier king charles spaniel) x mini foxy (which is apparently an Australian breed, so you probably have no idea what I’m talking about) puppies.

See how adorable beagliers are? How can you look at this and not smile? (random photo from the internet)

If I like them (I’m sure I will), I’m going to buy one, and then pick it up on Christmas eve to surprise the kids on Christmas morning. They still have absolutely no idea.  I’ve been playing the “what would you name it” game with them to stealthily see what they’d like to name a puppy if we had one.

This is a puppy from the litter I’m going to see on Tuesday. They are a few weeks older now though, and have their eyes open

“What would you name an elephant if you had one?”

“Rosie.” Hannah said.

“What would I name a goose?” Daniel asked me. “Dog.”

“That would be funny, a goose named Dog.” I told him.

“What would you name a dog if you had one?” I asked them, after naming heaps of other animals first, so they’d have no thoughts of actually getting a dog.

“Otis.” Hannah said, with Daniel echoing her a second later.

Did I mention I want to get a girl dog?  I don’t want  pee all over the kids’ swing set, sand pit, bikes, and all their other outside toys.  I’m not sure if neutered male dogs are supposed to stop marking their territory, but I’ve seen some that still do, and I don’t want to take that chance.

Looks like we’ll be stuck calling a female dog Otis.  I hope she doesn’t mind that much.

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson

Exams

I’ve almost made it through my first year of university.  Classes are finished for the year and all that remains are the dreaded tests.  Needless to say, I’ve been busy trying to cram math formulas (formulae?) and all things food science into my brain for easy recovery at test time. There hasn’t really been extra time for blog posts.

After the 19th though, I’m free for the summer.  No more studying.  No more tests. No more papers or presentations.  I’m definitely excited for the break.  I like uni, but I also like having time for my blog, reading the book series I’ve been trying to finish for the last two years, gardening, and finally unpacking the suitcase from my trip to the U.S. in September.  It’s still sitting next to my bed, waiting.  I tried to unpack it one day, but the kids started wreaking havoc in my bedroom, so I aborted the mission.  All of my kid free time is spent doing uni work, spending time with Aaron, or ironing, so there it sits.

Consequently, I won’t be blogging much for the next couple weeks.

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson

Tips for going back to university

Those of you who are regular readers know that I started a university course (Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.  I can imagine the intrigued/bewildered look on your face.  It’s the same look I get every single time I tell someone what I’m studying) part time this year.  I didn’t crash and burn in the first semester, and am part way through the second semester.

Going from stay at home mom to part time uni student wasn’t a leisurely stroll through the park though, so here are my tips for going back to uni, or as in my case, going to uni for the first time, as a mature aged student.

1. If you’re planning to do a course part time, make sure the course you want to do allows for part time study.  Even if the course handbook doesn’t specify, email the advisor to find out.  My course wasn’t listed as both part time and full time, but I made the effort to ask and was pleasantly surprised.

2. If studying externally is conducive to your learning style, see if you can do some, or all classes this way.  I did one class externally the first semester and one internally, as I am this semester, and it really helped with time management.  Not having to travel to the campus more than once per week meant I had more time for actual learning and studying.  Instead of sitting in a lecture for two hours, I watched the lecture on my iPad at home whilst doing the dishes.  I watched  (mostly listened) the weeks lecture every time I did the dishes, which helped all the info sink in and made the mundane task of doing dishes more bearable. As a mom, multi tasking like this is critical or there just isn’t enough time in the week to do all of the uni work, house work, and spending time with the kids and husband.  Some campuses have many online university courses available.

3. Figure out your learning style so you can study more efficiently.  Several websites have tests like this to help you, and most give suggestions on how to study based on your style.

4. Find out if you need a parking permit to park on campus.  At my uni, a parking ticket costs the same amount as an entire semesters parking pass.  And security checks the parking lot all the time.  A parking fine is not what you need in your first couple days of uni.

5. Find out which groups your university has and join any that you are interested in.  It’s a great way to meet peers, and get you involved in university life whilst making you feel like less of an outsider.

6. Realise that you are not an outsider.  There are so many mature aged students.  There may only be 11 people doing my particular course, but I’m fairly certain that we are all mature aged.  External classes are particularly high in mature aged students.

Me ready for a debate for my scientific literacy class

7. If you have kids, talk to Centrelink about your eligibility for childcare rebates.  As a student in NSW, you are entitled to get 50% of childcare fees back if you meet certain conditions and study hours.

8. Most campuses have on site childcare with reduced fees for students, which could obviously be quite helpful.

9. Talk to your partner or friends about what you learn to help it sink in.  I’m not sure that Aaron was very interested in hearing all about the biodiversity of life on Earth, but he humoured me anyway, and it helped me retain the info better.

10. Find out where your lecture theaters, and other classrooms are before your first session so you don’t wander around lost and end up finding it late, opening the door, and having everyone look at you as you enter when the teacher is in the middle of speaking. Plus you’ll feel less nervous if you know where you’re going.

*This post was brought to you by Swinburne University

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson

Food science

University just got more interesting.  This semester, one of my two classes is Food Science 1.  I like food, and I like science, so goodness me, this is going to be good.

I had my first lecture for food science yesterday and found my entire course of 11 people sitting together in the second row of the lecture theatre, with all the kids from the nutrition and dietician courses scattered everywhere else.  I was sitting there too but didn’t realise they were all in my course until the one person I did know introduced me to everyone.  I just like to sit up front because I’m a nerd like that. I’m rather pleased that they are all nerds like that too.

I’m going to learn a lot about food this semester, supplementing my newfound knowledge, I will be attending workshops every other week in a lab/kitchen.  In the first lab, we will be making fresh orange juice, and then testing it to find out some of it’s nutritional profile.  Things will get interesting when we do the same tests on long life orange juice that you find on the non-refrigerated shelves of supermarkets, as well as bottled juice you find in the cold section.  Now those results will be interesting!!

We get to do the same thing with yogurt (and yes, we get to make our own, which is good because I have made my own before, but it never turns out very well), bread, and sausages.  I’m really looking forward to the bread workshop.  Every single bread available for purchase seems to contain soy, but 93% of the world’s soy is genetically modified (and by genetically modified, I don’t mean a long history of selective breeding, I mean desired genes from a different organism, such as bacteria, are inserted into the DNA of a seed/crop).  Since I don’t particularly want to be a guinea pig for the long term health complications of GM food (Feeding studies of GM crops are generally undertaken by the very company that modified the seeds, and only last a maximum of 90 days.  There has been one independent lifetime feeding study in rats, lasting 2 years, with very scary results.  Although controversial, no one else has attempted a lifetime feeding study, so although GM foods claim to be safe, are they really? Do we really know in the long term?), I would like to avoid eating such things.  I’ve tried making my own bread, sans all the preservatives and soy, but it always comes out almost hard as a rock, and not very tasty.  Needless to say, I’d love to learn how to make it properly, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the nutritional test results.

Tumours on rats who ate GM corn in a lifetime feeding study (image courtesy of The Daily Mail)

This semester is certainly going to be interesting.  I’ll be sure to let you know the results of my orange juice, yogurt, and bread tests.  Hopefully you’re interested, but if not, sorry in advance, I’m going to write about it anyway.  It makes me feel better.

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The mid-semester test

The mid-semester test was worth 20% of my entire grade for Biodiversity.  TWENTY percent!  I fed the kids as soon as they woke up so I’d have plenty of time to get to uni an hour early for some pre-test study sans all of the “mommy, play with me! Mommy, when will you be finished?!” whinging from the kids.

“Alright kids, lets go pick out some clothes.” I told them after breakfast.

And then I felt the rumbling.  It came on suddenly, vicious and without warning.

“Uh…I’ll just go to the bathroom first, then we’ll pick out some clothes.” I told them as I nearly pooped myself getting the 8 or so feet from the table to the bathroom.

I sat there for a while, freeing the contents of my stomach whilst feeling like I had 1o hungry pirañas all competing to eat me from the inside, making me sweat and sit on the toilet in a nearly fetal position.

“Ok, let’s go pick out your clothes.” I told them again when I was done.

And then it hit again.

And then again.

And then again.

I sent Aaron a freaking out text. “Boo, I’ve got the trots! I’ve gone 4 times in the last 20 minutes! How am I going to take a test when I can’t even get away from the toilet?!”

Luckily, it subsided after that.  I managed to drop the kids off, later than planned, but still with a bit of time to study (or run to the toilet if needed) before the test.

Driving away from Daniel’s daycare, the petrol light came on. That’s ok, I have enough time to get petrol and still get to uni on time for the test, I thought to myself, annoyed that I’d forgotten to get petrol the day before.  Seriously, I still have baby brain.  I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached.

It was right then that I realised I forgot to transfer my wallet from my backpack (which I use as a nappy bag) to my school bag. Crap. Not to mention I’d need my ID to take the test anyway.

It’s ok, if I’m quick, I can get home, get the wallet, get petrol, and still get to uni on time.

And I did.

By 1 minute.

I finished the test in 10 minutes and got 90%.  The average was 50%.  I’m not trying to brag, I’m just super happy that I didn’t poop my pants, and studied enough to get a good grade.

As a reward, I went to the hairdresser to do something about the dirty dishwater coloured roots that extend halfway down my head followed by the blonde foils I got way back in the beginning of October.  I was also in desperate need of a proper haircut.  I’ve been attempting to cut my own side swept fringe but keep ending up looking like my hair got caught in a pencil sharpener.  I asked for half a head of blonde foils, after internally debating myself as to whether I should go light or dark this winter.

This is what I got:

Don’t get me wrong, it looks ok, but so not what I asked for. I asked for blonde. Specifically, I asked for a warm blonde tone, but not brassy, and definitely not ashy. Somehow that translated to dying my entire head brown and then putting just one shade of blonde foils through the top.  Usually when I get blonde foils they use three different shades so it looks more natural. Sigh.

But that’s nothing, hair grows, colour fades. Whatever.

The worst part is the ticket.  Not so much the ticket itself, I deserve the ticket, but the fact that I got it speeding through a school zone.  Yes, a school zone.  I am horrified that I sped through a school zone.  In my haste to get to uni before test time, I didn’t even think about the school zone on the four lane road I was driving on.  The normal speed limit is 70k’s an hour.  The 8-9:30 school time speed limit is 40k’s an hour.  You get my drift here.  That is a very big difference, which comes with a very big fine that I got in the mail the other day and nearly fell over when I saw it.

But as I said, I deserve the over $500 fine, and the 5 demerit points it carries, but I’m disgusted that I failed to even remotely think about anyone other than myself at that moment of time, and the school zone didn’t even reach my radar.

I definitely won’t make that mistake again.

Also, I think I might be a nervous pooper. I sure hope not. We’ll see when exam time comes again….

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Busy mommy

Hannah is recovering from pneumonia.  The third and fourth kinds of antibiotics and a trip to the children’s hospital seemed to do the trick.  She is her cheeky happy self again without the fever and the doc. can no longer hear congestion in her lungs (or whatever it is they hear in there).

I have been busy doing a scientific report for my biodiversity class at uni (who knew just the reference list would take so long to write up in the proper Harvard style format?), and preparing a debate for my scientific literacy class.  I will be debating  the topic abortions should be legal to 24 weeks.  On the against side.  Obviously.

We move at 7:30am tomorrow morning and the house is still full of stuff that needs to be packed.  We are very behind since Hannah was sick over the long weekend.  The long weekend that we had planned to spend packing and moving all of our non-furnitures items into the new house.  Now it’s a race against time.

Needless to say, you probably won’t hear from me for a bit.  I was all smart and organised the internet (ok, got Aaron to organise it) to be installed in the new house before we moved in so that it would be ready when we got there, but Aaron got an email from them this morning saying that there may be a problem with the line and they will find out within 24-48 “business hours.” Sigh.  I’m going to be pretty annoyed if we have no internet for a while.  I kind of need it since my Scientific Literacy class is external.  Meaning everything is online.  Except the debate, that will be in person.  In two weeks.  Goodness, I’d better get cracking.

Don’t forget to vote.

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Officially a student

I’d always planned to be a stay at home mum. I didn’t see any point of doing 3-4 years of university just to have a couple of kids a few years later and then stay at home with them and not use the degree I paid thousands of dollars for.  Instead, I did a one year photography course at TAFE (a technical college), but that was mostly so I could stay in this country.

I always imagined playing with the kids all day, nurturing them, teaching them, providing them with healthy meals, etc. etc. I didn’t think a lot about what would happen when they go to school. I suppose I figured I’d make their lunches, get them to school or the bus stop, clean the house and do some cooking and stuff while they were away, and then help them with their homework, and play with them until bed time. It made a lovely picture in my head.

But Oh. My. Gosh. I never imagined the boredom.  The mundane-ness of all the housework, nappy changing, feeding, why questions, telling them the same stuff over and over and over again, and doing the same things day after day. The lack of adult conversation.  The feeling that I’m not accomplishing anything, even though I know that raising my kids is the most important job I could ever and will ever do.  It’s also the hardest, the most frustrating, and the most rewarding.

There is absolutely no way that I can stay at home and do housework and cooking all day after the kids go to school. No. Fracking. Way. Even now, I’m itching to do something.  Something that doesn’t involve kids, writing about kids, or being at home with kids or by myself (Aaron works all day).

In about 6 years, both kids will be at school, and I will be able to get a good job, the job of an educated person.  The job of someone with a degree. Not only that, but in about a month and a half, I will have something to work for, concentrate on, apply my mind to, and to call all my own. I am officially a student. I have enrolled in my classes, and I even have my student card with the tiny photo of me grinning like child on it (luckily the photo is tiny because after getting all dressed up for the photo, I somehow managed to take half of my eyelashes off with the eyelash curler, in one fell (foul?) swoop).  And next week, I can get my free iPad (oh yes, my university gives new students brand new iPads, how cool is that?).  I even have a scholarship. Everyone else in my course does too, but that is not the point.

Me with my shiny new student card. Also shiny is my face because it is so darn hot over here right now, plus I’m not wearing a lick of makeup. Also, that magazine in the background is a fitness magazine, not a dirty one. In case you were confused.

My whole plan changed with just one email. Basically, it said that if I changed my first preference to this other course, not only would I get an early offer (which is the university saying that I’m in should I choose to accept), but I’d also get a scholarship.  The cheap side of me jumped up and down in celebration.  A scholarship.  An early offer.

But still, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I would truly want to be in that course, or if I thought I’d always wonder “what if” with forensics.  I looked up the course in the university handbook online. I read about the field on Wikipedia.  Coincidentally (or not) there was a show on TV that very night that was all about it.  I was so interested, glued to my TV.  I stayed up way past my bedtime, engrossed in all the information I found, convinced that I’m not supposed to be in Forensics at all, but this other field instead.

My course is a brand new course.  I will be one of the first students to ever take it.  By the time I’m finished though, the impact I could have locally, statewide, nationally, and even internationally, could be enormous. With the world population booming the way it is, degrees like the one I’m going to get will be invaluable.

I will be slowly studying my way to a Bachelor of Natural Science – Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.  I am so excited. It’s right up my alley with the science-y bit, and the growing stuff and figuring out stuff bits.  Plus, someone has to come up with food solutions that don’t involve Monsanto (their website says “A sustainable agriculture company.” HAHAHA, they’re having a laugh! Feeding the population questionable GMO produce hardly qualifies as sustainable in my book! They also used to manufacture Agent Orange) and/or genetic engineering.

In other news, I just wrote my first negative review on my review blog. It’s hardcore, you should check it out:

http://www.amomsreviews.com/2013/01/11/wonder-winnie/

If you enjoyed reading this, please vote for my blog. All you have to do is click the link below. That’s it… Clicking the link brings you to the Top Mommy Blogs home page. You don’t have to do anything else. Any clicks from my site to theirs is a vote.  THANKS!

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson