9...

Today it is officially 9 days until The America Trip! We're getting to single digits!


It is getting so much more "real" now!

We have our tickets, our itineraries, even those little name tags you put on your baggage!

I've been starting to think about my wardrobe for the trip... since we're going to LA & NY, I need to pack for 2 different seasons! Lately it's been about 23 degrees in LA (similar to the weather right now in Sydney) but about 10 degrees in NY!

The advice I've gotten is to "layer" clothes. I've been stocking up on scarves to take with me to America (which not only ward off the cold, but also serve my other purpose - dressing Sex & the City style!)


I've also been shoe shopping since I'll need some sturdy walking shoes for LA. The problem is, most of those sturdy looking shoes are often really ugly or really expensive!

The countdown is on!

Less than 3 weeks until The America Trip (I thought it deserved capitalisation!)

According to my countdown, there's 19 days to go... today at dancing one of the girls was so excited, "We've hit the teens!"


Anyway, as exciting as it is, the planning and preparation is certainly not my favourite part. I have to hand in a lot of my uni assignments early, as a few of them are due when I'm away. I have a Developmental Psych report on the gross motor development of 4-8 year olds, an Abnormal Behaviour testing & diagnosis report on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and part of an Advanced Stats report to hand in before I leave.


And, because I'm not busy enough, I also have had 2 presentations to do (one this past Friday, one this coming Wednesday) that I volunteered to do early on in the semester. Why do I do this to myself?!

I guess the upside is that I can come back from The America Trip relaxed and have an easy rest-of-semester (except for the rest of that one Stats assessment that's due the week I get back).

Ryan & Tegan

Some photos of Ryan & Tegan... at a McDonalds playland, where all good memories happen!

I have discovered Paint.Net (a free version of Photoshop) so I've been playing around with this a bit and seeing what happens.








What do you think?

America update

5 weeks exactly until we leave for America!


I've set up a blog http://coasttocoastgirls.blogspot.com/ with Claryse & Haylee that details our adventures!

We will all take turns updating it so you can hear individually from us before, during and after our trip.

Make sure you check it out, as it will be our main source of communication with you all while we are away.

Back at uni...

So, I'm back at uni... 3rd (and final!) year of my B.A.

On one hand, it feels like I've been at uni forever. On the other, I can't believe this will be my third consecutive year at uni (and let's not forget, my sixteenth consecutive year of education! Wow, that's a long time! With no breaks!)

This semester, I'm doing 3 Psych subjects and 1 elective.
My core Psych units are:

Abnormal Behaviour & Psychological Testing (love this unit- we get to diagnose people!)

and

Advanced Survey Design & Analysis (basically, a fancy name for Advanced Statistics)


As a 3rd year Psych student, you also have to choose a Psych elective from the "prescribed pool" (and there wasn't a heck of a lot of choice, let me tell you).
I chose Developmental Psych. The lecturer is one I had last year in the unit Social & Developmental Psych, so I knew she was really good and that made me want to choose this unit.


Finally, I had one 'free choice' elective to choose; this can be anything. As teachers-in-training (with the aim of doing a Masters in Teaching next year), we are required to do 2 units about teaching maths to kids during our degree (however, the Board of Studies only brought this into effect last semester, so we have had to suddenly find the time to take on this extra unit in our last few semesters!)

So, my dilemma was: do one of the maths units to knock it out of the way, or do the unit Children's Literature (which I have wanted to do since 1st year but have never been able to fit into my timetable) and hope that the Maths units were available in Summer School. After mulling it over and asking everyone's opinion on what they thought I should do, I decided to do what I want instead of what I have to do (for once!) and do Children's Literature.

I love the unit, and the lecturer is awesome (seriously knows her stuff!)

But my tutor? Ugh. I don't know what it is, but I don't like him. There's nothing in particular that I can say that would describe why I don't like him, I just... don't.

(FYI, he is also the "old, stretched white t-shirt" tutor I Twittered about today. Also, I think he is wearing a really old pair of JeansWest jeans, but I can't be sure. Or maybe I'm just in denial that our jeans look like that. The hems are all ripped and scuffed and they are seriously stretched out of shape. It's not that he's fat; he's quite average sized, they are just old. Old, wear-around-the-house-not-in-public-and-certainly-not-when-you're-teaching-a-class-and-trying-to-make-first-impressions jeans. It almost makes me want to offer him my services as fashion consultant or sales assistant or something. Maybe if I liked him, I would.)



Anyway, my point. So far, I like all my classes, the subjects are interesting, and I have one weird tutor dude.


And I'm definitely in the right job. Although I can't be sure if in fact, JeansWest fits best.