Results are out tomorrow.

Results are out tomorrow.
Results are out tomorrow.
Results are out tomorrow.

Ah crap.

I just really want my GPA to stay up around 5.5. That is all I want. A more realistic desire might be to just pass this semester.
I walked out on my last exam with a migraine. It was one of the most horrific things that has happened to me during an exam, I just keep seeing a lecturer in my mind that said that there is no point in trying to sit an exam if you feel like crap. So I put my hand up and signed all the papers, went and saw my GP and will be sitting the exam in mid July. I feel like such an idiot, like I should have been that good that I could do this exam while trying to see straight.

I felt weak more than anything else.

I still need to start the results section for our masters project. These holidays feel like they are flying by! I looked at a calender and went, ok I'll have this week off, study this week, sit the exam this week, then do the results... oh wait no, we'll be back by then for semester two.

I have a really bad feeling about semester 1 2008. I honestly cannot say confidently that I feel like I made it through... yuk.

Oh well, I'll let you know.

One more hour

My final exam for this semester begins in about 1 hour and I am freaking out and I honestly dont know why. I dont think I even need to pass it to pass, its only worth 30%!

But I am just feeling physically sick and nervous. I keep trying to read the notes (just revision) and the adrenaline starts pumping and I cant think straight.

Good news: at this point in time 16 people are coming to our engagement party. We havent even set out the really invitations yet!

God I hope I pass all my exams, I really want to spend July chilling and indulging myself with a little bit of wedding research. I dont want to have to sit any supps.

I might have to for ANY of the exams I have sat! I have come out of all of them thinking...

Okay... WTF... I think I have the right answer but...
was it clear?
was it enough?
should I have memorised more literature?

I am beating myself up so much about my performance this semester.

As long as I get through this semester and next semester, I will be a speechie and that is all that matters.

One more day

In 24 hours I will be sitting my last ever final exam for a semester one. Unless I need to resit *taps wood.* My mood has changed dramatically today. They were giving away free V's at the main refect. How could that not cheer someone up from a mean case of the reds? V!
Ok, I gotta study psycholinguistics.

One more exam!

Then a month of intense wedding planning :P so I end up with two years of just waiting. hahaha.

Penultimate exam season

So here it is. My second last lot of final exams. Not extremely afraid of failing, not expecting to do fantastically either. I got a bit sick of speech pathology this semester. Sick of all the fluff. "Evidence Based Practice" my left foot. My CE's attitude and example wasnt great. I went to some lectures and sat there thinking. So what? No der. Get me the hell out of here.
So... do I want to be a speechie?
Absolutely.
Then what is wrong?
I feel like I'm missing something. I feel like everyone else in my class is one step ahead all the time. I feel like I contribute nothing to any projects, even when I do. I feel like my RA is an issue at every clinical placement, most places have been great about it, some have made me feel like nothing short of a waste of space. My passion and drive was slowly drained out of me when every week I had the feeling I was getting told that I lack the core skills that make a good speech pathologist. I dont want to study anymore I just want to cry.
I'm exhausted.
I'm stressed.
I'm sad.
and honestly I dont know what to do with myself.
And Rhys wonders why I want to start planning the wedding. Its become my happy place.
I've decided its probably just this semester and next semester it will be a fresh start with new educators and the finish line will be in sight.
This time next year I will be helping people! and making money! It seems impossibly far away...

My "Study"

I’m sitting in my study, which I never use because its either to hot or to cold, and the desk is to small and can just hold a lap top and a printer. I’m looking around at my book collection and wondering what they say about me.

Text book of pediatric Rheumatology by Cassidy and Petty, kind of stands out from the other texts books, it doesn’t quite belong with visual perception and an introduction to social psychology. I remember trying to read that big text when I was in grade four. I was so determined to read the whole thing. I wanted to understand what was wrong with me, that way maybe I could fix it. I always was a weird one. I read about one chapter.

I have four text books with anatomy in the title, and there is another in the lounge room. My biggest is just titled BIOLOGY, it is the worst text book I have ever brought.

I can never bring myself to throw away these books, or to sell them. I mean who knows when Kandel, Schwartz and Jessell’s Principles of Neural Science will come in handy when I get some QLD Ed job next year dealing with kiddies with problems saying /s/.

Our fiction collection has a lot of Steven King, I went through a Steven King phase which stopped suddenly about 1/3rd of the way through CELL. I stole Nineteen Eighty-Four from my mother, I’ve made two attempts at reading it, I just like to have it around because I was born in 1984.

There is evidence that I went through a Japanese phase (just before going to Japan) with Memoirs of a Geisha and Princess Masako.

There is the book that I read in Japan, Rhys bought it for me in Sydney, it’s called Know it All, it’s about a man who reads the encyclopedia (all of it), I was believing everything he said until he reached S and talked about how Stuttering starts in the parents ears and not in the childs speech. Man that made me so mad, and damn did Rhys hear about it.

There is my Harry Potter collection, a favourite in this house.


So that’s my study. And my printing is done.

My Surgeon

I’ve loved them since my hips were made of bone!


Current mood: contemplative



I, unlike any normal 23 year old, have a favourite surgeon, the best surgeon in the whole wide world. He is like a cuddley teddy bear, who seems tough, but I know he is a big softy and that he loves me.

The photo is my post-op after my bilateral knee replacements, Rhys, Katie, Locki and Mardy brought me in this mask, mum got bored after they had left and put it on me, knowing full well I was in a position where I would not be able to get it off... Naturally she took a photo.

I know she's nuts, but she didnt leave my side once. She slept in a chair next to my bed.

Anyway, I am one of his best pieces of work, a living piece of art that is evidence of just how great he is at his job. He has replaced both my hips, and both my knees and put me back together again after I managed a sprial fracture after my fall at my 21st. I respect him because he was the only one brave enough to take me on. I was not an easy case, being sixteen at the time of the first surgery and I had had arthritis for 14 years at that stage, there was a lot of damage.
It has been six years and eight months (exactly since its the second) since I had my first hip (the right one) replaced. Almost seven years. It makes me feel sick in the stomach just thinking about it, how time has flown by. The worse part of it, is that these hips of mine are only expected to be good for around 15 years.
That seemed like so much time when I was 14. Which is when I decided to have this done. But now? 15 years feels like nothing.
Do I really only have 8 more years of good functioning hips?
I feel this hanging over my head. What do I want to get done in this time? What will life be like when they finally give in? Will I be stuck in a wheelchair again?
Despite the draw backs, this by far is the best decision I have ever made in my life. I would never have lasted at UQ, it was hard enough when I could walk. So I would not have spent all that time at UQ with Rhys, we wouldn't have fallen in love and I wouldnt have found speech pathology... My entire life is a result of that one decision.
On the day of the second of Feb 2001 I was the most scared I have ever been in my entire life. I was 16 and a half, sitting in a hospital room, in the surgery get up (gown and cap). When the magnitude of the situation hit me, I only told one of my friends, because I was embarrassed about having a piece of surgery associated with older people (I just loooove the comments like 'oh my grandma had that done'- just kick me in the shins instead, I'd prefer that). Anyway I felt so alone and overwhelmed. They were about to open me up, remove the top of my femur, and HAMMER A MENTAL ROD into it.
I started to cry, tears of fear and tears brought on by the fact that this was my reality. While my friends were sitting in their first classes for grade 11, enjoying their decisions, to talk in class, to ignore the teacher, to ask x to the formal... here I was.... having a hip replacement.
I didnt tell anyone because I knew no one could related to what I was about to go through. I couldnt bear having them even try to relate to it (Grandma comments here I come!).
When I came out of surgery, I felt, I dunno, heavier at my right hip and oh the pain was evil, I had a 30 cm scar held together with 30+ staples. and I had two drains coming out of my thigh. I remember being determined to be back at school asap.
Maybe no one would notice?
Unfortunately my friend told the school's pastor... who prayed for me in front of the entire school... I was in a bit of trouble for not telling my other friends.
I named the soft bear my bought me Physics, a reminder that I had shit to do and couldnt waste time in bed 'recovering.'
So I pushed my self.
Get out of bed.
Walk down the hall.
Walk around the ward.
Do it now, you're 16, not 80.
You're female, we can handle pain.
After 6 days I decided that it was time to go home.
Now people usually spend 30 days in hospital for this surgery. I infact set a record for the shortest stay. A record that was beaten only by my next stay for my left hip.
A week after that I was back at school, sitting in the audience during parade, when the whole school got together on Wednesday mornings, our grade 11 coordinator said a prayer for me to get out of hospital soon... I laughed, it was great. He saw me in maths later that day, he just gave me this amazed look... that was great too.
Other teachers didnt understand the magnitude of the surgery...
One even asked if it was key hole surgery...
The problem there I think is that I made it look easy.
I used to be worried about my scars... I was embarrassed... but now I dont notice them...
If I had the choice, I'd do it again.

Our First "date"

October 10th, five years ago (almost six years ago), I was getting ready for my very first date with Rhys Jones.
Our highschool formal.
We were friends, who had known each other for about a year and to this day I still only have theories as to why he decided to take me. I have never been silly, I knew there were a couple of other girls wishing to accompany Mr Jones to the biggest event of our final year at school.
From what I recall two asked through friends, and he said no because he didnt know them. One asked him, while telling me that I should ask him, so we ended up suggesting it to him on the same day. I think she was thinking if she had two people ask him, he would be in a situation where he needed to make a decision and she could easily take me. I will always remember the way one girl spoke as though she was already going with him, and her friend was going with someone too... they both looked at me and one said 'who could Vicky go with?' (said in all seriousness) and they proceded to list out some names and laughed... haha very funny... no one wants to go with the girl in the wheelchair. (I know it is a tragic cliche to harbour sore feelings from highschool... and I don't... I just enjoy writing what happened next. Its like a real life fairytale).
This drama with the other girls was mostly forgotten on the night, except when the girl who spoke as though she was already going with him asked to borrow him for some photos. I smiled and said yes and thought 'delicious.'
Anyway back to this time tomorrow five years ago, I had just arrived home from having my hair and makeup done, and had put on my dress that made me feel like a princess, with a tiara and all. I put on the perfume that mum and I had bought in Paris. I loved my nails, I loved my makeup and hovered in and out of the bathroom checking my makeup. I almost freaked when some mascarra brushed from my lashes to my cheek. I was waiting for Stef to show up with her camara (I really only wanted her there because she was repeating grade 11, but I could never go to my formal without seeing her) absolutely praying she would show up before Rhys so I'd have someone to talk to. Someone normal. Someone who's persence on this day was expected and I knew exactly why they were showing up... Why did he pick me? Stef did show up first, which calmed me right down. I didnt think then, but I know it was hard for her to show up that day...
He showed up with his mum and sister Clare, lucky Clare was organised or else he wouldnt have had one of those flowers that men put in there pockets. I remember him bending down on his knees and putting on the Wrist Corsage, it felt like it took forever... with everyone watching... it was like we were a display at the zoo or something...I was so embarrassed! We had photos done and left in mums van to Sarah's place where we would catch a limo.
Mum has a big old white van, that she leant us for the night. So with Rhys driving, in his top hat, and me in the front passenger seat wearing my princess dress and tiara, feeling really out of place... off we went. I would have liked to have passed us on the road... it would have looked rediculous.
We headed towards Sarah's place. Being a lady I waited until we had definately passed a certain point at least twice, before accusing my date of being an idiot, lost and asking him where were the directions he said he had... in his school bag... ok.
So I had to call a hysterical Sarah and ask for directions to Skips and tried to keep her calm, all the while cursing Rhys for not admitting he was lost and for driving so he didnt have to call Sarah ("you cant drive and talk on the phone").
We showed up late, there was
Skip and Carl,
Sarah and Mardy
and Rhys and I.
And Rhys, myself and Skip were late to Sarah's place. Now Sarah, being crazy, had booked the limo to come so early that, even though three of us were over a half hour late, we were still way early to the formal itself.
The limo driver was a bit cranky, despite Mardy's pragmatic efforts to keep him in a conversation. So the six of us stood infront of the limo, skulled some pink wine, had some photos taken and hopped in.
17/18 year olds in a limo is a great thing. Mission: where is the TV? was a failure, but all in all it was a fun trip.
When we arrived, we walked around the area where the drinks and snacks with the families would take place, while Rhys was trying to master linking arms with me with one arm and swirling his cane with the other, as we walked an old friend of mine (male) came up and said to me: "you look so much better than I ever thought you could". Ouch. A teacher who'd known me well since grade 8 came up and said "I barely recognised you, you look amazing." That's better.
I remember sitting at the side of the room and, as I was getting up, a man whom I had never seen before offered me a hand up, I was so scared, he looked like the monopoly man... I got away from him as fast as possible and hid near my daddy. The top hat that monopoly man was wearing really should have been the clue to what I later found out... he was Rhys' father.
His family didn't even know me but they still insisted that I be in the family photo... years later it was weird to see, when I went to his nan's house to have dinner, there I was on display... she's had a photo of me since 2002, next to all the other photos of her grandchildren.
When it came to seating at dinner: We still blame a certain couple (who will remain nameless) for taking our spot at a table with all the couples we would hang out with at lunch. I was asked if I wanted to sit with some girlfriends I knew who were dateless or leaving their dates for dinner to sit at all girl table, but I decided to sit with Rhys, resulting in me being the only girl at a table of 10. It was fun, I've always enjoyed the company of boys, I think they're funny and less work than girls.
Rhys and I picked on each others edicate, 'no conducting at a dinner table' and he did all the gentlemanly things, like pulling out my chair and making sure I had water (or did I have to kick him under the table to get him to fill my glass?...I cant recall).
My eyes weren't really on Rhys all that much, but I can tell you Matt ate Shanes entree.
We only danced together for one song, Vitamin C's graduation song. I remember he whispered to me something like 'So this is it?' I ignored him, because I couldnt think of anything to say back.
I remember hoping that we would be friends after highschool, I knew we were applying for the same university, I hoped we'd still be friends because I had had a great time with him, I felt comfortable around him and he made me feel safe. But most of all, he made me feel normal. We would be friends after this, we'd have to be...
after all he chose me