Life

So, life has a funny way of changing so much;
and in such a short space of time.

It makes me start to question things,
re-evaluate things,
look at things from a new perspective.

On Saturday, one of my besties,
and the only actual friend I have living in town,
told me she's leaving town,
that she was handing in her resignation.

It makes sense, and it's the best thing for her.
Really, it is.
She's been so miserable at work for ages, and it's taking it's toll on her.
On everything she says, does, thinks.
It's definitely the right thing for her.

But, it devastated me a little.

She has only been here for 5 years but that 5 years feels like a lifetime

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do without her,
she's the one I call on a regular basis,
for any reason at all.

She's the one I fangirl over The Hobbit, and Sherlock,
and numerous other things with.

She's the one who's place I randomly show up to,
or her at mine,
for no reason at all,
and it ends hours later with great conversations, dinner, and movies

She's the one I go and see movies with.

She's the one I tell everything to.

I really don't know what I'm going to do without her.

Sure, she's still a phone call away,
but she's also 8 hours drive
(on a good day),
so I can't really just decide, spur of the moment, that I want/need to see her.

It's gonna suck, but it's what's best for her.

She wrote out her resignation letter at my place on Sunday night.
She handed it in yesterday.

It's all very real now.

It made me start to question a few things.

Then on Sunday night my aunt died

I wasn't really sure how to feel, actually, I'm still not

She has been very sick for a long time
2 years suffering from cancer.

By the end she barely ate
and all she did was sleep

I felt bad when my first feeling was of relief, and not a lot of surprise.

She's no longer suffering, she's not in pain.

But at the same time, a wonderful, kind, spirited lady is no longer with us.

One of the few aunt's on my dad's side (she married my dad's brother)
who actually was interested in what my sister and I did
She didn't ask us when we were getting married
or when we're having kids like so many others do

She was interested in us, and what we wanted to do.

Her funeral is Friday.
She is being cremated

She would have had everything planned out, down to the last flower and song

She was just that sort of person
She wouldn't have wanted her husband, kids, grandkids, and great grandkids
(She was my aunt, but only a year younger than my Gran, they went to school together)
to have to organise that on top of their grief

That;s just who she was

All this change and upheaval has made me start to re-evaluate things

Big things and small things

Goals and wants and dreams

It has made me even more certain that physiology is what I want to do,
and that I want to work with the kids in a hospital like Westmead, or Randwick Children's Hospitals

It has made me more certain that I want a partner (ideally a husband), and children
I want a house filled with family and friends and laughter and love

But at the same time, it has made me more certain that I need to travel again,
That I shouldn't put off my trip to the UK any further
That, no matter what my mother says about finishing uni first,
I should put it off for a few years and go

Before husbands and kids come around

Uni will still be there when I get back
It's really not going anywhere

When my mum says 'wait' all I can think about is Barry doing Canada and the Rockies alone
Barry and Barbara had been talking about it for years
They were planning on going next year
Now he will go on his own, if he goes at all

I don't want to do that

I don't want to put off what I want to do, and can do, now, for later

A later that might never come.

My grandfather (my mum's dad), died when he was 62.
My Gran was a widow at 50.
My mum is 54, my dad 59 this year

It puts things into perspective

About ages, and being 'old' and how out views change as we get older

I loved doing Contiki through the USA a few years ago,
getting up early and going to bed late,
hauling my luggage up the stairs of our motels
(my roommate and I got every top floor whenever we stayed somewhere that didn't have an elevator)
running about to be places on time,
exploring new places with new friends
or on my own,
without a map, or any idea where I was going

I loved Vancouver when I lived there for 6 months nearly 3 years ago

Again, on my own
with no-one I knew,
and no idea what I was doing or where I was going.

I look at my parents doing a Topdeck tour through Europe a few months before I left for Canada

My dad was over hauling suitcases and travelling everyday by the end of it
My mum was over traipsing up and down stairs all the time
They needed the week they spent in Ireland, hiring a car and doing it at their own pace
they needed the week spent in Greece at the end of it all to unwind and relax

I don't want to be that age and struggling to do Europe,
being so exhausted at the end

I want to LIVE in the UK
Or Ireland, I'm not picky

I don't want to just holiday

Australia is so far away from everything else,
I need to make the most of whatever time I have to spend in these far off places.

A friend of mine (Canadian) asked if she could visit me when I move.
Of course she can
She said 'It's only a 6 hour flight from Toronto to London'

I'm pretty sure it's a 6 hour flight from Sydney to Perth

It's 3 hours to New Zealand

It's 9 hours to Japan

16 hours to the West Coast of the States/Canada

It's 24+ hours (depending on stop over length) to get to London

I want to stay for as long as I can. It's not like it's a simple trip to hop back over there to see something I didn't get to see before.

Morag's move, and Barbara's death have just solidified the knowledge that there is nothing in my hometown for me anymore

My school friends have all left or moved on, or we are no longer friends,
even if we still say hello to each other when we see each other

My family are all in various stages of moving

My sister bought a house last year with her partner and will be moving into it,
in another town (our uni town) in July, to be with him rather than long distance

My parents put their house on the market,
within a week there was an offer on it (just waiting to see if they get finance)
They will rent somewhere in town for 6 months,
and apply for jobs in and around Newcastle
They have a house down there that they are renting out to someone
They will move as soon as they get jobs

There will be nothing in this town for me by the end of the year most likely

Even my good friends at work are leaving me

Carlyn is going back home to Canada with her Aussie fiance,
and Josh is going with them

I have to do this for me, not for anyone else.

Time is too short,

and life is too precious

So, decide what you want to do,
what is important to you,
what you will regret not doing on your deathbed

Then go and do it

Life is too short to do what others want you to do at the expense of what you want

Dance, sing, laugh, travel, learn, experience, cry, believe and live

That is all you can do.

Well, hi there

So, I planned to take a social media time out. Which I did...

Clearly.

But, I never planned to take this long off. A whole year and a bit...

Oops.

Oh well.

The time out was good for me. For a while there I started obsessing about what everyone else was doing, then I started asking questions, then it just made me miserable.

You know, when everyone you went to school/uni with are settling down, having families, and just getting their lives sorted?

I started asking why that wasn't happening with me. Where did I go wrong? What was so bad about me that it just wasn't happening to me?

But then, when I took Facebook away, and stepped away from Tumblr, and blogs etc, I realised that while I want that, eventually, I don't want that right now. 

I mean sure, if Mr. Right happened to walk in the door (or Mr, Right Now, I'm not picky, I've been single for many, many years) I wouldn't say no, but there are many many things I want to do before babies, and mortgages. You know? Like travel to Europe and the UK, and do things, and meet people and have fun. Not have to worry about what everyone else wants to do.

It made me feel good and kind of re-centered me again.

So, you know how you have some good years and some bad years? And then you have those years that are kinda good, and kinda bad?

I had the last one.

Although, it was more like the beginning and the end were good, the middle... not so much.

Let me recap the highlights and the lowlights for you:

January: A month of highlights:

• I was offered the job of personal trainer for a gym I was a member of. Literally, mum was having a walk through, thinking of joining, and the woman who was leading her around knew me, and asked if I wanted to be a personal trainer at the gym. I said yes, put in my resume (which was really just a formality), and got the job, plus 15 hours a week in reception as well, so I got to quit my job at the pub.

• I also sat an interview in Sydney for a job in a call center. Not what I want to do, but stable hours, and a stable income, which I haven't ever really had. This job offer should have been a sign.

• I also moved out of mum and dad's house (hopefully for the last time), and in with a friend of mine. It was amazing!!! No parents asking 'where are you going?', 'who are you going with?', 'when will you be home?' type questions. Surely I'm not the only one who has parents that treat you like a child again when you're living under their roof? Right?

February: A bit of an everything month:

• I was settling into my new job and loving it. I had many clients, and was really busy. I absolutely loved it. We started an 8 week challenge, and my clients were doing really well.

• However, I started my new year of uni, and while I really enjoyed my exercise science class (possibly because a lot of it was recap from the year before), my anatomy class moved too fast with too much information. (So many people complained about the info overload, and the issues we had with getting the lectures etc that we were all given special consideration for our exam which gave us an automatic 5 marks on top of our exam mark).

• Was still loving living at home

March: Nothing worth mentioning.

April: Lows, Many, many lows

• We finished our 8 week challenge to find many miners (I live in a coal mining town) were losing, or going to lose their jobs, so my PT work went downhill really fast. I was getting maybe 4-5 clients a week at most.

• One of my high school 'enemies' (we weren't really enemies, she disliked me, I hated her back, but I pretty much ignored her while she went out of her way to make me miserable), had a public go at me on her facebook page. While she never mentioned me by name she did put 'the personal trainer at insert workplace name' and made mention of what I was eating (which was wrong). When someone made mention that maybe I didn't eat like that all the time, she told them that I was very overweight and unfit. Made for a very miserable me for a few weeks. And yes, I was overweight, and I still am (although I am starting to work on this again), but she didn't need to publicly shame me. And the gym just put up a note around the gym telling people to be courteous to other people. Strike one against my employer.

• Went to res school (where we basically sit in lectures, and do all out practical work. I met up with some great people I met the year before, but felt like I was just so far out of my depth it wasn't funny.

• Lost my hours in reception, because I had too many clients and they didn't want me splitting the shifts. (In hindsight this should have been a sign too).

May: 

• My birthday!!!! I specifically took this day off, and had a spa day. I also had a session with a psychic (a friend of my then housemate) which is a whole other post on it's own.

June: highs!!!

• I managed to pass my exams!!! Pass for anatomy (which I thought I would fail), and credit for exercise science!!! Yay!!! happy dance was done round and round my house.

July: lows!!! lows, lows, lows.

• I was fired from my job. Basically I had only a few clients at that point in time, and the owner told me that I wasn't spending enough time there, blamed uni etc, when really the town was making no money, laying off workers left right and center, and no one had any spare money to pay a personal trainer (many people interested in PT told me that they just couldn't afford the rates and would I hold sessions outside the gym for cash in hand cheaper). Told me that if I ever wanted to come back if I tool a break from uni, or if I needed to do my prac work there, I was more than welcome to come back, Ah, no thanks. Every time I offered to do something to help get more clients it was turned down. They wanted me to start doing things for free (I already was), and they don't have the right people for me to do my training under.

• On the plus side, my few clients were sad to see me go, and I actually had one lady who demanded a refund because she had paid to have me train her and I was no longer going to be there.

August - September:

• Nothing much. Res school (again) but this time I felt a lot better about it all.

• Finally got myself back into the gym.

• Started to get down about not being able to find work.

October: highs!!!

• Finally got a job. It's only in fast food, but at least it's an income.

• Met some good people at work.

• Uni results are in!!! Credit for anatomy (a huge improvement over the first semester and only a few marks off a distinction), and a distinction for human bioscience (a few marks of a high distinction). Cue the celebrations.

November: Meh

• Decide to study over the summer to get one more unit over and done with.

• Decide to move out on my own. Started to look for a few places.

December: Highs!!!

• My little sister and her partner bought a house. (They bought it about a month before, but it settled in December).

• I got rejected for a few rental places, but then finally got a little villa type thing in the next town over. Plenty of space for me and only $90 a week more than I was paying before. I finally had my own space. Moved in the week before Christmas (the 17th)!!!

• Christmas!!!!!

So, as you can see, a little bit of a rocky year last year. Hopefully this year will be better. At least my uni units look better this year. No more foundation units, we're finally getting into the good stuff. Although I am printing out some of my lecture from last year and putting them in a binder (like my muscle and bone lectures) for future reference, because guaranteed that I'll forget things now that I'm not obsessing over them.

I also managed to catch up with friends a lot more last year, and I'm hoping to continue that even more often this year. I also have 2 girlfriends getting married this year (on the SAME BLOODY DAY!!!) and they're always occasions for get togethers.

I promise it won't take me so long to update again.

Dxo

I Think I've Found My Calling!!!

Well, maybe. Ok, so I haven't actually worked in a job that I think is my calling, but if the way I've been studying my arse off, and the marks I've been getting in return for it, are any indication, then yes, I have found my calling. And maybe, just maybe, it'll work. And I know there will be hard, incredibly hard, days in the job I want to do. And I know that, because I'm an over-sentimental person, who is way, way, waaaaay too empathetic at times, that it could, and possibly will, rip my heart out at times, and there will be days I will just want to go home and cry, I am so ready for this. And now I'm rambling

I'm sure I said this before, but I'm currently studying a Bachelor of Sports and Exercise Science in Clinical Exercise Physiology. I will, next year, transfer into the new Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology. There are new rule changes and the uni has split the degree into 2 separate ones and there was a lot of jumping up and down from everyone including me, but now that it has all died down, and I've had some time to think about it, the new rules are definitely better (from my perspective anyway). In the current degree there is an awful lot of science subjects. And I know, it's a science degree, but we were studying the biology of cane toads and plants when I'm going to be working with living, breathing humans. I have no need to dissect another cane toad. I don't think I had any reason to in the first place but that is another argument.  We also studied chemistry, which is another good subject, and I'm sure it does end up having a lot to do with what I am studying as well, but I would rather have the unit organised to suit what I'm studying. And I know that sounds selfish, and probably stupid ok, I know it sounds stupid and selfish but when I'm studying a new chapter and idea every week, and I can't see how it relates to me and my studies, I find my attention wavering, and it get's hard to concentrate. If I was doing biochemistry I would have been fine but I'm sure that I'll cover that in later biomechanics classes. And then there was math, and I'm not really sure why I needed to take that class. Maybe it was just to torture us? I didn't like calculus in high school, I hate it even more now. And again, I'm sure it has relevance to other degrees, like engineering etc, but it just didn't feel relevant to me. Yes, I like to know what I'm studying is relevant. I'm someone who learns through doing more than just reading and listening. I was sitting in my biomechanics exam waving my arms and legs around as I tried to work out some of the answers.

Anyway, moving on. SO, the new rules are more prac based (as in, they are less sciency based and more biomechanics based so we aren't spending the first 2 years of our degree saying 'we're studying sports science, why are we looking at plants, and the hardness of diamonds) there's that relevancy thing again, and yes, I know you need the basics to start with, but this course has a 70% drop out rate because the first years don't have enough relevancy to what we want to do at the end. Prime reason for the rule changes

Yay!!! for more relevancy. The downside? It turns into a 5 year degree, and, because I'm doing it mostly part time it's going to take most of my lifetime probably another 6-8 years! downside :(

However, this is definitely something I want to do, something that I can see myself doing for the rest of my life, or at least for a long time :D

Exam results come out (I think) next week, so hopefully the results will show the work I've put in this semester.

But, here's to 2 weeks of time off, and reading things that aren't textbooks :D