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Today was such a lovely day for flying! Fabulous timing, as I spent the day doing an Air Search Observer course for SES. Such fun!! Most of the training was inside at the Emergency Services complex, learning about air safety and how to search from a plane and so forth. But we finished up at Brisbane Airport, and boarded a little eight seater Navajo plane for an hour long flight this afternoon. Lovely flight, which could only have been better if we didn't have to prove our ability to search. Perfect weather, fabulous (if disturbingly young) pilot, smooth flying, lovely views ... the only down side was the monotony (and aching neck) that comes with searching. There were whales to make up for the monotony though!
Now I just need to catch up on some sleep. Interesting fact before I go ... Australia is responsible for searching 10.4% of the earth's surface! Impressive responsibility, for a single country.
There's nothing like the relief of handing in assignments. Assignments plural that is. Three to be exact. All due tomorrow 5pm. All handed in this evening ... I feel so organised, and so wonderfully thrilled to no longer have to think about them.
Tomorrow I'm working, so handing them in a day early was something of a necessity, more so than a conscientious decision to complete work ahead of schedule. I do rather like how relatively under control I've felt in getting these assignments done though. There was still stress ... Week 5 we've decided is consistently one of the evil weeks of semester. But all was manageable, and seemed to happen not just on schedule, but even slightly ahead of schedule! And all without any major panic ... quite an achievement for me.
This morning I got to sleep in, and watch ridiculous amounts of Gilmore Girls, and this afternoon I updated the books for Guides. Before class this evening I sat at Beadles (the cafe on campus) and, believe it or not, relaxed! I didn't read, I didn't go over notes, I didn't work on assignments ... I just sat and ate and drank and relaxed. It was lovely!
Of course, the break is short lived. Tomorrow I work, and Saturday I'm doing an Air Observer course for SES (learning to search from people from the window of a small plane), then Sunday is Guides. A movie is also possibility in there somewhere. And in amongst all that I have to get the majority of another assignment out of the way - an evil group assignment that I suspect I will come to hate. Lovely group, and no complaints in that respect, but group work in general is just such a hassle.
So the evil Week 5 hump is over, and we get a brief token reprieve, but the list of assessment due over the coming weeks is far from comforting. Nothing due Week 6, but multiple deadlines each week over the following four weeks leading up to mid-semester break. The only pleasant assessment related thought is the knowledge that I'm dealing with the workload increasingly better as time goes by.
I do wonder if the extra time commitment involved in working two days a week is rescuing my time management ability - I feel more in control of things, and more aware of what I can and cannot achieve, so I have less trouble saying no when I need to. It's quite a bizarre, and almost liberating feeling. The decision is not longer entirely open to debate ... sometimes there just is no other choice.
Anyway, work tomorrow, so I should probably think about sleeping. Random homesickness for London this evening ... I'm not entirely sure why. Funny how it comes and goes. Well, never entirely goes ... but it's certainly stronger at times. I picked up Richard Berry's book of Dear John letters earlier and randomly started reading. That probably contributed. Really must start making plans for my trip!!
I slept through the pager. How ridiculous. I'm on call this fortnight for SES, and the pager never goes off when I'm on call. A few days ago the batteries died, and it beeped to warn me, and I got such a shock. But it was just the batteries. Never has it gone off with a real page. Until this morning. 4:14 this morning to be exact. And I slept through it. It was right beside my bed, and I didn't hear a thing. I didn't even realise until 15 minutes later when I got a phone call from the other on call person. The phone call, at least, I woke up to. Yes, a lovely wake up call at 4:30am, after which of course I couldn't get back to sleep. Evil rat poison nastiness.
So background for the evil rat poison nastiness incident ... some evil criminally minded type decided to put rat poison pellets in a playground and a school yard on the other side of Brisbane, then cut some random person's power and left an anonymous scrawled note on their power box warning of what had happened, threatening to leave more in other schools and parks. Evilness.
Police requested SES assistance to search all schools, playgrounds and parks ... thus justifying the 4:15 page. Search began at 6am, but I was kindly let off as I had an early class this morning. Kind of glad, as I suspect it was probably a rather dull search. The pre-dawn wake up rather screwed up my pre-dawn sleep though, and I've spent the entire day struggling to stay awake. Evilness again.
Meanwhile, I had to laugh. My mum works at a school. The wife of our Deputy Local Controller at SES also works at the same school. This morning, at school, during a morning meeting, the staff discussed the rat poison incident. The principal, who is far from respected or popular, whinged about having been woken up at 4:30 in the morning to deal with the rat poison incident. He was quite vocal about the inconvenience of being woken up so early. My mum and the above mentioned wife both laughed, no doubt rolled eyes, then pointed out that both our families had also been woken up at 4:30am. That shut him up rather quickly I'm told. Too funny!
Nearly two weeks since I posted ... such a poor effort. It's funny how busy is such a relative term. For the last three semesters, I've felt incredibly busy. Now, looking back ... I wonder what I did with all the time I had. Adding two days of work in the equation has made such a huge difference ... every hour of my life seems to be accounted for. Even worse ... I can account for every hour of the coming four or five weeks too. Insane.
All is going well though. Every semester I feel more settled at uni ... things do seem to get easier, even if the course work itself get's harder. I rather enjoy being at uni too, in a physical sense I mean. I've got such a ridiculous timetable this semester, with so many massive breaks, so I'm here pretty much all day three days a week. I thought it would be a real hassle, but it's actually kind of nice being able to spend more time here. I feel more productive when I'm here too, which is surprising.
I'm also getting to know far more people, so I can't walk too far without running into someone I know. People are starting to tease me for knowing too many people! So there are always opportunities to stop for a coffee break or to grab lunch. Such a social life it is being a student. Oh yeah, and I've started drinking coffee too. ;) I've avoided it until now ... didn't really want to start an unnecessary addiction. I decided at the start of semester though, that coffee may be my way of surviving the semester! I was also a little jealous of how much people seem to appreciate a good coffee ... don't really get that if you don't drink it. So now, I drink it. I've taken to it quite quickly ... Beadles (the on campus cafe here) make great Mochas ... I'm definitely a fan. :)
Meanwhile, back on the subject of knowing people ... I'm doing a first year subject this semester - the one I had to drop last year when I got sick. I was a bit wary of it, because I wouldn't know anyone ... for all my subjects now I walk in knowing or at least recognising at least half the class. This subject I was thrilled to recognise one person (a girl doing a French pathway - languages screw up the course structure a bit). On the flip side though, I've now met a bunch of new people I wouldn't have otherwise met ... big group work subject, so they're people I'll be working with quite a bit. Definitely increasing the social network. ;)
Work is going well. I've done three days now, and it's scary how quickly everything has come back to me. There are obviously loads of changes, so new stuff that has to be learnt ... but a lot of it is the same as it always was. I'm rather frightened by how much of the knowledge is still there in my head ... random stuff that I haven't even thought about in over four years, saved up and never forgotten. Useful though, so I won't complain. There's another girl who's just started, doing the three days I'm not there (so I'm not sure I'll ever get to meet her) ... and she's starting from scratch. Never worked there before, and I've got such a huge advantage over her.
The rest of the staff in the office all seem lovely. It's a small office ... much smaller than the one I used to work at ... so there's not a lot of people to meet. Friendly enough bunch though, and certainly no complaints yet. I'm doing 15 hours a week, and I'm on the higher pay scale that I was hoping for. All seems to be working out beautifully. I'll be putting aside a decent amount each fortnight towards London, and still have enough to live on through the semester ... so I could justify splurging on lunch at Beadles today. ;) Provided I can keep up with the frantic schedule of three days at uni and two at work ... all shall be great. :)
Oooh, I probably haven't mentioned ... to help with the keeping on top of the schedule goal, I relunctantly decided to resign my state role in Guides. Something definitely had to give, and it was the most logical one to choose. Would have loved to see it through and keep going with it, as I kind of feel like I was only just starting to get the hang of it ... it was definitely getting easier each month. It was a much larger time commitment than I could keep up though, so I'm sure I made the right decision. I'm still doing SES, and staying on as Leader in Guides. I'll help out with CanTeen and Starlight when I can. That's about all I can really cope with this semester though. I think if I can keep on top of all that I'll be doing well. :)
Anyway, this being one of my huge breaks at uni, and considering I've already enjoyed a rather lovely long lunch with friends, I should really start doing some work. My schedule will definitely fall apart if I can't make the most of these breaks. Assessment starts in Week 5, and we're already well into Week 3. Definitely plenty of things I should be working on. Will try to post more frequently, now that my schedule is starting to fall into place a bit better.