Honey, I'm Home!

Did you miss me?

Did you?

I bet you did.

Even if you didn't, I missed you.

It's true.

These weeks went by so fast and all of a sudden I'm back at "home", trying to figure out the next steps of my life. For once, I'm not planning stuff, and its ok. I think before I left, I was so stressed about everything that was going on that I started manically planning everything I could. Which stressed me out more.

Although, its early days so it might just be a post-holiday lack of planning mode, and we will be back into full force.

Let me catch you up. I'm not going to tell you about Europe in this post, because I'm still ridiculously jet lagged and you need to know what happened before I left.

So you know I had a crazy couple of days ahead of me, and I had to plan everything crazy so I could get it all done? And on top of that, I had a photo project planned?

Well.

Friday went well. Finished my exam, had lunch, packed stuff, partied etc. Good times.

Saturday was when I lost it. Packing and cleaning my room was hard. Really hard. I hadn't quite comprehended how hard it was to leave the place I had lived for the past 2.5 years, even though I hated it at the time. Plus I had so much fricken stuff!

My brother-in-law didn't arrive with his ute until 4pm, so I didn't leave for ages.... which stuffed up my getting ready for party and drive an hour for said party plan. I was so stressed, that when at The Boyfriends house, I yelled, cried and proceeded to give myself a blood nose that didn't stop gushing (not dripping, gushing) for an hour and a half. I ended up in the doctors office and didn't get to my party. I felt so incredibly guilty about this - I have never made it to this friends birthday parties and now I've missed her 21st :(

It all turned out good in the end though. I made it to Europe and had a wonderful time.

Which I'll you about next time ;)

A Whinging Culture

It is quite often said that Australia has a drinking culture. And thats true, we do. We drink all the time. We drink to celebrate, we drink to commiserate. Something happens - hey lets have a drink. Oh Oh the sun is rising - crack open a beer! 


I have absolutely nothing against this drinking culture, given that I grew up with it, and my mother and father have been giving me sips of alcohol since I was about 4 and I'm pretty sure that wine was a base ingredient in all my food growing up. I even think they may have used that old trick when I was teething - you know stick the dummy in some bourbon and then the baby has no more pain. This is NOT recommended by doctors, dentists, or really any health care professional. It could explain some things.......


I don't really know the opinion of the rest of the world in regards to Australians - although I've been told we are fairly highly regarded. And our drinking culture is acknowledged. HOWEVER - does the rest of the world know that Australians whinge? We whinge like no tomorrow. If there was an Olympic sport of whinging, we would win gold, silver and bronze because the whole event would be filled with Australians. 
I do not like our whinging culture. I believe it has stemmed from our insistence on being tied to the apron strings of Britain, England or the United Kingdom or whatever name it is I should call them. Lets become a republic already!!!!! 


I mention this because I was reading the 'news' yesterday - yes always a dangerous thing when trying to keep anger levels low. The thing that struck me the most was not the news articles themselves, but the comments people made on them. This was online news for anyone stuck in a paper world and doesnt know how to get out. Turn on the computer. Things will happen on the screen. This is exactly like reading paper but about five gazillion trees are saved. Not quite sure how your reading this blog, unless I'm really famous, and you are one of those bosses who gets their assistant to print everything off for them to read. BTW - your assistant hates you. She (or he, but probably she - I'll do a blog post on gender next time) is probably young, technology savvy and resents you for not being able to get your head out of your own arse and catch up with the rest of the world. And you know what? One day you will be dead and she will still be ruling the world - even though you are misogynistic and rude and don't believe in her. Guess what? The world does not actually revolve around you. Get over yourself.


Anyway...


The whinginess of Australians. I mean come on. These people took time out of their day to comment on these news stories. The comments are not well written and I don't think these people actually understand what they are talking about. I detest people who have all these wonderful opinions and stick firmly and very vocally to them, but have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.


Case in point. The mining tax. Personally I was for it. Not going to go into that now. But I could also see negatives, and I think that the idea could work, but the technicalities probably needed to be ironed out. But the amount of people I met who just swallowed the anti-tax ads on the tv (which were funded and developed by the mining companies, I might add) ran into the hundreds. Hook, line and sinker. Please people, apply some critical thought here. 


Also, I bet on the online forum things - nobody actually cares what is written. The reason that people comment is so they can get a response from other people and then that can degenerate into an online slanging match. Whoop de fricken doo. If you care that much about something, get out there and do something about it. Don't just comment on a news article then sit there smugly while hundreds of other people get upset. You have achieved nothing. 


I love how I am whinging online about others whinging online. But then I'm Australian. Its my culture. Think I'll go have a drink.


Till next time


Ash 

Education - making us smarter.... or is it?

Hi everyone


Shall I list my gripes for the week? Actually the last couple of days have just been peachy when it comes to making Ashleigh bitter at the world. 


Firstly, as background information - I'm very tired. Yes I know that it is rare for me not to be tired, but it does impact on my life and my tether tends to get very short when I am more tired than usual. Although I will acknowledge that it is my fault, as I went out on Saturday night (cocktail party with the girls, then dancing the night away at a club - bliss), didn't get to sleep until 3.30am and then got up at 8.30, went out for breakfast with my mum (she is a firm believer that going out for breakfast in the city or Freo is the ultimate in city living and so we do it every time we catch up), then went to my grandparents (who just got back from Slovinia and Greece) and had to spend the entire day being chatty and smiley and generally acting like the prodigal granddaughter I am and of course, instead of going to bed early like a good girl and like I planned, as soon as an invite from Drunken Leopard came to play Wii in his flat, I went and ended up there till 12. But it wasn't an entirely fruitless day, as I did beat Horny Frog on Mario Kart on his favourite track (actually I came 1st) when I normally barely finish the race (I simply do not have video game skills - although I'm very enthusiastic). The victory was made so much sweeter by the fact Horny Frog was also very tired and therefore grumpy and subsequently sulked all evening :). Yes I'm still gloating 2 days later.


Then, last night I had the lovely Uni Games boys in the village and they were playing drinking games outside my flat. I swear if I have to hear one more rendition of the drinking song 'XXX is the captain of the ship, captain of the ship' or the highly intelligent 'tits out for the boys, tits out for the boys' chant, I will kill someone. So I have discovered that I have control issues and thus this situation made me very tense as I could not control any aspect of it. And the insomnia begins - even after they finished. Gripe number 1 complete.


Gripe number 2. 
The TAFE education system in Western Australia is appalling - I believe. Yes I am a bit of a snob and do think that university degrees reign supreme over Tafe diplomas/certificates but I can see (as any normal person could) that they are very good for people who don't necessarily want to complete a degree or want to get into a trade etc. I have almost zero time for people who do not want to complete any further education and even less for those who voluntarily drop out in high school - and do nothing. 


Anyway, I recently began a Tafe course to complement my degree (see I can see the point of tafe!) - a Certificate IV in Occupational Health and Safety. So I've been doing it externally, just one unit at a time, fitting it in around my degree. Today was one of those fitting it in times. I thought I would begin the second assignment (an essay/report type thing) by reading the sample assignment they had so thoughtfully provided. Well, I thought it was thoughtful until I read it carefully and it turned out they had just repeated the same 3 sentences 27 times!! I called up the lecturer and said that this assignment did not help me in any way at all and she told me that the words are just there to indicate that you have to put words under those headings, and in fact, the "sample assignment" isn't even the one that corresponds to my unit - its for a different unit. Now my big question is this - why even put it in there? The answer was that people don't realise you have to put words under the headings, and if the TAFE people only put 1 set of 3 sentences under a heading as opposed to 4 then people wouldn't realise that they had to put more than 3 sentences in. 


So this is adult education (as I was so kindly informed - she also spoke to me like I was an idiot - which I REALLY do not appreciate), and you are expected to work things out for yourself. But not enough that you might figure out that you need to put words under your headings. 
Is this 'adult education' really making us smarter? Or is it merely making us know more facts, but waste away our common sense by not letting us make decisions ourselves? Personally I have always been the kind of person who likes to work things out for themselves by using COMMON SENSE. 
WHERE HAS THE COMMON SENSE GONE?!?!?! 


Anyway there is my rant. Below are a couple of my favourite education quotes:

"There is nothing sadder in life than the waste of human potential. The purpose of evolution is to raise us out of the mud, not have us grovelling in it" Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance" Will Durant

Until next time...

Ashleigh 

The Perpetually Tired Student

Hi everyone,


So it has been an uneventful couple of days. I woke for my 9.30 lecture yesterday, promptly groaned, switched off my alarm and went back to sleep until 11.30. This is becoming a disturbingly common occurrence. I don't remember what I did on Monday night, but I'm sure it wasn't particularly exhausting. 


Just as a side note - in Australia, lectures are NOT compulsory and I can listen/watch it online later, so its nothing detrimental to my education, just annoying and a bit more difficult to listen to later. 


Normally the mere thought of a cup of coffee is enough to propel me out of bed, no matter what time it is. I think I know what the issue was though.


Have you ever heard of a sleep debt? Or sleep bank?
We covered this stuff a bit in psychology (no I don't know exactly why we were talking about sleep habits, I'm pretty sure its because its linked to mental health). Basically, theres some equation that for every hour of sleep you lose, you need 8 hours to gain it back. Or something along those lines. So when you build up a sleep debt, you can't just have a massive sleep in to pay it off - you need to do it in increments every night. 
And when you consider the average uni student stays up late studying probably 1 or 2 nights a week, stays up late partying 1 or 2 (sometimes 3) nights and has to get up for classes/work/more studying at a 'reasonable' time, thats a lot of sleep debt! So when I went out on Friday night (in my defense, it was the Village Pirate Party and it was happening outside my window anyway) and had one of those fantastic nights where you end up awake until 4am, then finally sleep, then when you sober up in your sleep your body wakes you at some ridiculous hour (9.30am in my case) (the 'go-to-sleep-drunk-then-wake-up-when-you-get-sober theory' came from Flying Monkey - in my experience, its definitely true). 


So I have accumulated this massive sleep debt - which was probably never 0 to begin with, as I've had some major assignment dramas last week (one horrible moment when I finally went to bed at 12.30 after doing an assignment, then waking up at 1am only to realise I had forgotten about another assignment due the next day and having to get out of bed to do it) and so unless I start getting some serious 9 hour nights in, I will probably be tired forevermore. And since, there is little chance of me getting those coveted 9 hour uninterrupted sleeps, I will be tired until my holidays. But then I have an internship so that'll put me back a bit. So yeah, we are looking at Christmas for me to feel properly rested again. 


I think this is a fairly widely spread phenomenon around universities and maybe, just maybe, one day I will be able to go to my lecturer and say 'I'm really sorry Professor but my sleep debt is just HUGE, can I have one more day to do this assignment'. Of course, the response will probably be 'No Ashleigh, you shouldn't have gone to that party/club/potluck/drinking game last week. If you hadn't we wouldn't have this sleep debt problem'. Which is true. But I maintain that going to those parties/clubs/potlucks/drinking games is all part of being a student, and if I'm tired the next day, but I had an awesome night the night before - I reckon its worth it :)


Thanks guys
Ashleigh xo


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-can-you-catch-up-on-sleep