Sounds of silence

TD No. 1 has gone to work, TD No. 2 has gone to Nanny's and No. 1 Son has gone to a friend's house, so I'm sitting here listing to.....silence!  The peace and quiet is deafening.  So what better opportunity to put the finishing touches on my last essay.  Although, to tell you the truth, I'd much rather be lying in the sun on the back deck.

I enrolled in next semester's classes on Wednesday - New Communication Technologies, World History and Creative Writing even though I'm seriously considering either going back to work or buying a book shop. I find myself continually questionning why I'm at Uni in the first place.  Anyway, I have a good 4 weeks to mull things over.

In the mean time, my essay on The Birds beckons.  The sooner it's done, the sooner I can hit the hammock!

Struggling

Like Sarah (see 'Rest day' comments), my rest day on Friday carried on through the weekend until this morning.  Also like Sarah, I've started a new blog to document the latest challenge I've given myself - to re-start my running regime and run in a 5km fun run.  This is just another sign of my flagging enthusiasm for essay writing of late.  The other sign is the change of template - always a sign of boredom!

This is my latest essay that I'm attempting to work on - a personal essay on 'Essay writing and its relationship to knowledge'.  My motivational factor at the moment is zero.  I feel as if I'm halfway through it and starting to go off on another tangent.  I thought the personal essay would suit my creative style of writing, however, once the thought processes start, it is quite easy to lose direction.  I take my hat off to all those people writing a thesis!

Rest day

After taking doggy for a walk on this beautiful winter's morning, my intention was to lock myself in my study and complete the last two assignments for the semester.  However, once I got home and assessed the state of the house and remembered that the out-laws (I really love them to bits but I just love the term!) were coming over for dinner, I decided to have a 'rest day' from the study and potter around the house.

I justified my thought process by agreeing that I have spent the last couple of days diligently writing one assignment or another and that my brain deserved a bit of a rest.  I had my last lecture yesterday and visions of five reading-movie watching-socialising-bludging, weeks holiday are dancing around in my head. These visions make it hard for me to even contemplate the subjects I will take next semester, which I have to enrol in next week.  I love the fact that I've made it through another semester, but the anxieties about assignments/exams doesn't seem to get any easier.  I also miss the social aspects of employment and am contemplating finding something part-time.  I just have to work out how I will also fit in the study, football training, band practice, drama lessons and soccer training at the same time (the kids' extra-curricular activities - not mine)!!!

As if that's not time consuming enough, TD No 2 has decided to extend her vegetarianism to veganism.  While I support her decision whole heartedly, it has been a bit challenging finding alternatives to milk, cheese and eggs.  Actually, I've rather enjoyed researching this choice of diet and have decided to join her.  Apart from the obvious reasons for boycotting animal products, it might actually be good for us.  It certainly makes for lively dinner table debate with the carnivores on the one side (No. 1 Son, SH. No. 1 and TD No.1) and the herbivores on the other (TD No. 2 and myself).

The down-side is, of course, making two different meals to please everyone! Maybe I deserve a rest day more often.

Go Sandra...go Sandra...go Sandra...

...This is me doing my happy dance after watching Sandra win Survivor last night!  I hardly watch any t.v. at all but the two shows I do watch religiously are Survivor and Seinfeld. Finally, we here in the land down under got to catch up (well almost) with the rest of world and find out who won!!!  Russell really got up my nose, so I was hoping that all his scheming and conniving would work against him in the end.  Yes, he played 'the game' but I agree with Boston Rob (ahh....Boston Rob!) when he said Russell plays to get to the end, not to win. Sandra, you rock!!!

I just had to get that off my chest.

Date night

Now that the kids are older and we don't need baby sitters, SH No 1 and I are fortunate enough to be able to have regular "date nights".  And no, we don't have nearly as many adventures as Tina Fey and Steve Carell in the movie of the same name!  Although bumping into Marky Mark wouldn't be so bad every now and again!! 

Since returning from our holiday of a lifetime at the beginning of the year, we vowed to have these date nights at least once a fortnight.  Over the last couple of months, they've become a monthly event and on Saturday night, we enjoyed such a night.  We went and saw a brilliant threatre performance called 'Stockholm'.  I say 'theatre performance' because 'play' doesn't give it the oomph it deserves.  I've never seen such a powerful performance on the stage.  Everything about it was riveting - the acting, the stage settings, the dialogue, the choreography, the story.  I can't rave about it enough.  The title comes from the Swedish city the characters are about to visit as well as Stockholm Syndrome, that psychological state where hostage captives develop a loyalty to their captors.  Combining dialogue with music and dance, the story is about a couple so intoxicatingly in love, they're just about destroyed by feelings of obsession, jealousy and paranoia.

I couldn't help but remember having many of the same feelings of obsession and jealousy when SH no 1 and I were first dating (though without the destruction!).  Now, after 20 years together, our relationship has become more about friendship and companionship and the only thing I get jealous about now is the weekly horse racing and the football season on t.v.!!  It's so nice to have grown up together and now we're back to the dating stage again albeit without the obsession!

Still, I'm looking forward to our next date night with relish (and I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for Marky Mark)!

Under pressure

Well, the house looks like a bomb's hit it.  I don't mean that metaphorically - I mean, it literally looks like a bomb's hit it.  There are clothes everywhere, dirty dishes fill the sink, last night's frying pan is still sitting on the stove top and the beds are unmade.  As I'm writing this, it's even making me feel sick!  But hey, at least my latest assignment's done and dusted.

After receiving a lower than usual result on my film assignment last week, I was ready to toss it all in.  Yes, I passed but my marks weren't up there like they usually are (at least they were last year!).  But alas, after a couple of hours and a few wines, I apologised to myself and realised that no, I am not perfect and no, I don't have to be.  I have three children who, apart from taking up a lot of my mental energies (at least, lately), also love me for my imperfections.

So, I put thoughts of being a quitter aside to concentrate on my writing assignment.  I did the research, planned the essay, did the draft, went to the lecture yesterday and realised...it was all wrong, didn't make sense and didn't fit the criteria.  So I  left the lecture, ditched the tute, raced home and just about had a full on anxiety attack.  Thoughts of failure filled my head; I couldn't breathe, but worst of all...I couldn't think!!!  I couldn't think of a single thing to write.  I picked the kids up and tried not to think about the fact that it was due tomorrow (today).  I put a smile on my face as I asked them all about their day and then didn't hear a single word they said as I dwelled on the bloody essay!!  We came home and I told them all to just pretend I wasn't here as I shut my study door and sat in front of the computer.  One at a time they all came in with various important issues to which I had to attend - 'What's for dinner?'; 'Did you wash my uniform for tomorrow?', 'How much is 100g?'.  Finally, I told them that unless there was a fire or someone was being murdered - JUST PRETEND I'M NOT HERE!!!!!!

I sat in front of the computer and my mind was literally ablank.  My brain was giving me nothing - nada, zilch.  My husband came home and tried to give me some advice (an engineer, giving me writing advice on an academic analysis).  Then after about an hour, I don't know what happened - maybe I just calmed down - all of a sudden my fingers were frantically typing away.  Thoughts of failure, quitting and curling up under the doona vanished.  Everything became clearer and I don't know how, but I did it!!!!!  And I didn't have to stay up all night.  I got it all done by 11.00pm.

After a few minor edits this morning, I've just come back from handing it in.  And you know what?  I feel so proud of myself.  I'm glad I kept going.  Maybe I won't get the mark I want but I gave it all I have, I worked really hard and I did it.  Having said that, I have two more before the end of semester but for now I'm just going to chill - inside this bomb disposal of a house of mine!!!

Every mother has her day

This weekend I took Mum to Allan Bennett's new play, "The Habit of Art" televised at the local cinema from The National Theatre, London.  I thought it was funny that the presenter acknowledged about 10 places around the world at which it was being televised, other than Australia.  We tend to get forgotten down under!  Nevertheless, the play was brilliant and was enjoyed all the more with a glass of red and a choc top for good measure. 

We're only 18 years apart, my Mum and I and though we don't get to spend a lot of time together lately because of her work and my family/uni committments, whenever we do get together we always end up having good fun. The older we get, the closer in age we seem to be and just as we grew up together, so too I imagine us growing old together.  Two little old ladies sharing that special bond of mother and daughter. 

Mother's Day reminds me of how lucky I am to have three beautiful children. Although we don't always see eye to eye and these teenage years are proving to be a little more challenging than I envisaged, I know I can look forward to a time when we can enjoy each other's company as friends and adults. 

Happy Mother's Day!