Back at Uni

Well, I finished my exam last week – and then basically did nothing for a few days to recover. The exam wasn’t horrendous – some of the multi-choice questions were a bit ambiguous, and I didn’t get exactly the essay title I wanted – but it could have been worse. We get our results sometime in March.

This week I’ve been back at University doing
Pathophysiology of Childbearing (very interesting)
Healthcare Ethics and Law (very intersting – can see this getting quite heated)
Evidence Based Practice (not particularly exciting – but it could be worse)
All this means that along with the portfolio that I also have to complete – I’m going to be very, VERY busy from now until May.

I’ve also managed to get a few more wedding things done. Newt and I went to see the vicar last weekend to sort out the Special Licence. I’ve got the form to fill in and send off – doesn’t seem too onerous, so I’ll probably do that this weekend.

I also managed to sort out table centrepieces. I’ve got 26 gold chargers (big plates) from Matalan – although that wasn’t easy because it was the end of the range so my mum had to go charging round all the stores near her – but we got them in the end. I’m getting three different heights of ivory candle to go on each plate, and I’ve got some gold ‘gravel’ to go around them. I may or may not put ribbons around the candles – haven’t really decided yet, but I’ll post some pictures when I can find my digicam.

Had a mini disaster with the car last night. I went to pick Newt up from Tai Chi, I was five minutes early, so I was listening to the new CD player in the car (and yes, I had the lights on as well!). When he arrived – only about 5 minutes later – the car wouldn’t start.

I don’t have jump leads, and even if I did, I don’t know how to use them, but two of the people from Tai Chi offered to push start the car. I said that I didn’t think you could push start a diesel, but they were determined to try. I don’t know how to do that either, so I ended up pushing the car, with one of them sitting inside! We pushed it halfway down th hill, but to no avail – so I called the AA.

They were fantastic!!! A man in a tow truck was there within 30 minutes! He put jump leads on the battery and started it, but he said that listening to a CD player for 10 minutes shouldn’t have run the battery down like that, and as the batter is about 7 years old, he ran some test on it. Anyway, I ended up with a new battery (cost £60), and we were on our way home within an hour.

It was a bit of a pain, but I’m quite glad it happened then, because if it had happened at home, then I wouldn’t have been covered. Which reminds me, I really must get Home Start if I can’t do something as simple as jump start a car or change a tyre.

Kitchens

st petersburg cross stitch kit

Found this beautiful kit by Thea Gouverneur that I just have to have. Don’t have time to stitch it or anything – but it’s just stunning.

Kitchen planner from Kitchen’s Direct came round yesterday to look at the kitchen. She showed us some really beautiful kitchens, and had some great ideas about how to move things round in our kitchen to make it look a bit bigger (but consequently we’d lose storage space). But in the end they wanted £5,800 for it, which is just waaaay beyond my budget. So it looks like I’ll have to just paint my existing units, and add new handles and hope it lasts another few years.

TAME Progress

Progress on Through a Mother’s Eyes

Well, I’ve finally got down to starting to revise, and I can’t believe how much stuff I need to know by next week! Placentas, menstrual cycle, maternal adaptations, embryology…… The list is endless. The exam is 50% multi-choice, and 50% essay – 1 essay out of a choice of 3. There are a couple of topics that I’m not doing in detail, because I couldn’t write an essay on them if my life depended on it. Like embryology – it’s just so detailed, and I have so little background knowledge that it’s just, well, TOO HARD! I’ve done a lot of work on the placenta, and I’ve got a gut feeling there will be a ‘placenta’ question – at least that’s what I’m hoping for.

In the evenings when I’m not revising I’ve been working hard on ‘Through a Mother’s Eyes’ – I desparately need to get this finished (and framed) for my wedding on the 18th September – and it looks like I’m cutting it a bit fine.

Oh well, back to placentas and childbirth….

Big Cat Diary

Big Cat Diary

This week I’ve been increasingly hooked on watching Big Cat Week on BBC1. It follows lions, leopards and cheetahs in Kenya. All the animals being followed have cubs, and every day it seems they have to fight to survive. Tonight is the last episode, and I’m just really hoping that Bibi’s cubs will survive, and hopefully that she’ll be accepted back in to the Marsh Pride.

I’m actually supposed to be revising now, as my exam is in less than 2 weeks – but instead I’m still Neopet-ing and blogging. I’ve added a list of other blogs to my page, and hopefully sometime soon I’ll have time to mess about with templates, and find something that suits me a bit better.

Finished Essay

I finally finished my essay!!!! Woohoo!!

I thought I was pretty much finished yesterday, but I always forget how long those last minute tweaks take! Took me the best part of today to pull it together – but now it’s finished. I’ll take a trip to Uni over the weekend to hand it in.

Now all I have to do is learn everything there is to know about biological adaptions in pregnancy, and then I’m done!

I also went to have my hair cut today. I found out that the college across the road has a hairdressing training salon, so I made an appointment there. I got a really good haircut for a fiver, but it took 2 hours!! Still, as I’m on a money saving kick at the moment, it was worth it.

Wedding stuff

The Wedding

I picked up the stamps to make my invitations today!!! I’m really excited, and I think they’re going to look pretty good – even if I do say so myself! If you click on the link above to my ‘Wedding’ page, and then follow the ‘Stationery’ link, you can see some prototypes. The real things will be embossed like the Save the Date cards, but I just wanted to check the size of the stamps and things like that.

Now all I have to do is make them. All several hundred of them!

Essay progress and BBC

Doing much better with the essay today. Miraculously it all seems to be coming together. Hopefully I’ll have finished it by tomorrow, and be ready to start revising – oh joy!

BBC is absolutely fine today – back to clawing the furniture as usual. He’d still rather eat the chicken than the regular cat food, but I suppose that’s perfectly normal. It absolutely amazes me when I’m at home all day, just how little the cats do. They pretty much slept ALL DAY!

Poor BBC

Poor old BBC (Big Black Cat) has been in the wars again. He started throwing up on Friday, and just seemed really lethargic and not himself. By Sunday he still wasn’t eating, so I decided I’d better call the vet, and to cut a long story short, I ended up going to the Emergency vet’s with him (again!) at 2am. He doesn’t have a bladder or bowel obstruction, and he doesn’t have a temperature (although he didn’t much like what had to be done to find that out!). The vet thinks it’s most likely he’s got gastroenteritis, and that’s why he’s off his food. They gave him a shot of antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory, and he seems much brighter today. He did nearly take the vets hand off three times though, because no one believes me when I tell them that he’s not a nice cat!

It’s now Monday evening though, and I still haven’t done anywhere near enough work. I’m really starting to panic now. It’s not the essay – I can probably get that done pretty quickly, but I’ve now only got 2 weeks to revise for an exam – and that’s just not funny. So why am I still hanging round Bulletin Boards, updating my blog and playing Neopets? Now there’s a question………..

Wedding Shopping

Newt and I went wedding shopping in the sales last Tuesday. It was horrendously busy, but I think we got some pretty good bargains in the end. We managed to get the Bridesmaid’s dresses from Debenhams – they had 50% off, so we spent £110 on two dresses, which I was really pleased about. The colour is a pretty good match (not perfect, but pretty good), and I asked a lady on the cosmetics counter to check as well, because I’m useless at these things. I started off buying the wrong size for Hema, and had to take it back – but overall it was a lot less painful than I thought shopping for Bridesmaid dresses was going to be. I’m now going to send the dresses to Sharon and Hema, and they can sort out any alterations, and buy shoes to match.

We then went to look in Beaverbrooks for wedding rings, and again we hit the mark! We tried on quite a good selection, and Newt decided on a two-tone plain band – white gold in the centre with yellow gold on the outside. That was in the sale for 50% off as well. I nearly got one to match, but it felt really bulky on my finger. Then I was going to go for a plain gold band, but I decided to have one last look in the window, and I saw a gold band, slightly wishbone shaped, with teeny diamonds inset randomly, and as soon as I tried it on, Newt said “Oh, that is SO you!”. SO I had to get that one! Not in the sale, but not too expensive either. They’re ordering the correct sizes for us, so I’ll post a picture as soon as I can.

Still done no revision, and not an awful lot of work on my essay – but tomorrow’s another day as they say