Graduated

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks and the next couple of weeks are going to be just as crazy. I had a post typed up the other week when uni results were released but my phone ate. Suffice to say I did exceptionally well on the exam that I was sure I had bombed out on. Exceptionally well in the sense of jumping round the house like a Maasai at 6:30 in the morning excited.

 

Graduated!

Last Thursday night, I tripped the light fantastic across the stage of the Concert Hall at QPAC. Level of overall excitement that night? Oh, about 300%. This graduation ceremony meant 500 times more to me than my undergraduate ceremony Looking back at that post now makes me realise just how much I’ve changed in the last six years! To start with I now own more pairs of heels than I do flats! I also graduated with a full mouth of teeth (the fake tooth that I had back in 2006 broke the day before the ceremony). Just like my undergrad there was only a small number of people graduating with my degree (13 grads and 5 of us at the ceremony). Unlike my undergrad though, I knew just about everyone graduating with my degree (Graduate Diploma in Business – Professional Accounting) and those who graduated with the Masters as we’ve all done at least 75% of our subjects together. This of course meant that before the ceremony, during the ceremony and afterwards there was lots and lots of excited chatter, hugs, drinks and celebrations.

 

My dearest friend sent me flowers at work which of course made a bit of an emotional mess as it had been a roller coaster day at work. I also got some more flowers, cards, a graduation bear and a bottle of bubbles which made me feel very loved. I’ve had a lot of support from those I work with the last 2.5yrs since I returned from uni and as one of the ladies said “it feels like we are all graduating with you”, so true.

Graduation Flowers

The Accountancy school lucked out and got the evening graduation ceremony. Mum had arrived the night before and was ever so kind to drop me at work in the morning with all my accoutrements. I got ready at work, with a flat iron plugged in beside the ECG machine and a revolving stream of work mothers taking photos, rearranging my dress and what not else. Then it was onto QPAC for the real deal to begin. I met up with T who I started with two years ago and we went off to get robed and played a game of Cinderella trying to find mortarboard that were exactly the right size. Once we were robed it was time for a celebratory glass of bubbles.

 

Graduated!

 

There was then more bubbles and hot chips to give us fuel for the next few hours before we lined up for photos, photos and photos.  Before we knew it it was time for us to head back stage again for our final briefing. We thoroughly enjoyed walking the hallways of backstage at QPAC. It was quite something.  Seats were found on stage and then it was a briefing and then we watched our family start to stream in.  After a bit of waving and pointing Mum found me on stage.

I was the 182nd person to graduate on Thursday night. That was a lot of names to read out before me! QUT was live streaming the grad ceremonies but unfortunately only two people I know were able to watch the stream. For the rest of my family and friends the website kept crashing. 🙁 🙁 🙁

When the ceremony was finally over after much, it was time for lots more hugs, excited chatter and what not with another round of celebratory bubbles. Smiled so much all night. Then we had to return our gowns and head back to reality. Reality for me is just under seven weeks left at my current work before I head off into the big accounting world. Going to be a bit of a change!

Graduated!Graduated!

and that is how I graduated last Thursday night.

Bubbles and more bubbles means Uni is finished.

So I’m getting not so subtle hints from various people that since Uni is now finished I need to update my little place on the internet more often.

Yep.

Uni is finished.

I’m currently not so patiently waiting for my results. As I’ve mentioned previously, the two subjects I did this past semester were hard.  QUT also ever so kindly scheduled my final exam for 5:30 on a Friday night. It also earns the title of hardest exam I’ve ever done, both in my undergrad and postgrad lives. It was the exam where we all walked out at the very end of the time and looked at each other and just went “mmm, well that was fun”. Still it was the last exam and we celebrated like the good postgrad students we are with cheap bubbly and plastic cups.

 

We then celebrated again with a long lunch and more expensive bubbly  the following week after T had her last exam.  It was a lovely lunch, there was eight of us who started together two years ago and now we were all finished.  We’ve all gone or are going into very different aspects of the accounting/finance world but we’ve all toiled together over the past semesters.

 

Since then I’ve enjoyed doing a lot of sweet nothing. It’s been fantastic to no longer be reading text books on the bus to and from work or falling asleep on the aforementioned books. Coming home from work and just kicking back on the patio with a drink and watching the world go by. In saying all that I’ve also done a whole lot of everything else as well. There’s been road trips, cleaning, early family Christmas, shopping, gardening and hanging out with those dear friends who let me go radio silent during the semester. Now the count down is on to graduation and Christmas.

The Hippeastrums say hello

 

Hippeastrums

Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.

In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.

Textbook pages a flutter

 

I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago  I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.

Tim tam pikelet stack

 

The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.


Bubble wrapped

Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.

Birthday blooms from Mum

My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.

Nexus 7

These are my shoes. They’re silver. Oh so pretty. Oh so comfy. They Spin in silver from Ecco.

Shoes, Silver Shoes.

 

For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty and turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.

Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long.   I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally used cocaine.  Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a local anesthetic.

Roses from work in a Figgjo Flint Lotte jug

Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

 

Bed time

Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow and sæng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.

And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.

Lorikeet

Semester 1, finished.

My life from the last post until this past Tuesday has looked like this.

Books, paper, pens etc covering the study desk kitchen table. It’s been a tough semester as I’ve juggled the renovations, upheavals at work, another death in the family and life whilst doing my two subjects. It’s been fun 🙂 and now I have just two subjects to go 😀

However, I had my last exam for the semester on Tuesday 🙂 🙂 🙂 and it also meant that the group of us four girls who all started together last year is now down to two, as S finished mid-year. The four of us grouped together again on Tuesday after the exam for a  lunch celebration at Vapiano.

I had a Caprese pizza, it was 210 times delish. It was at least three times as good as the spinach and ricotta pizza I had at  Giardinetto’s on Friday night with the girls ladies (when I was the youngest by almost 20 years, I don’t think girls is the correct word) from work.

Keeping on the food theme, a random assortment of food photos from my phone.

Mushroom risotto. I ♥ mushroom risotto.

 

Vegetable minestrone soup with a good dash of Pimentón Dulce. So so so so good.

 

Possibly one of my favourite quick dinners. Spaghetti with carrot and zucchini. You cook the spaghetti and just before the spaghetti is cooked, you add in the zucchini and carrot which has been julienned with a  julienne peeler. Once the they are all cooked, drain, drizzle with a some olive oil and top with a good crack of pepper and some ricotta (props if you “make” it yourself). Eat.

How cute is this Siamese mushroom I got in my Food Connect box the other week?

 

To finish it off. Some avocados of the ornamental variety…. I spotted these at WAC yesterday and just had to take a photo.

Reading chair

image

I finally set up my reading area again today. Exams are fast approaching and there is serious study to be done. Oh I so do love the new polished floors 🙂 I’ll have to take some photos of the house when the painting is finished (our painter is currently overseas on a holiday), gosh it looks different.

Winter Days

On the beach

I took some photos for a friend of her little family down the coast and gave my camera some love last weekend. It has been some time between shots for my baby. Was quite good to have fun with the camera again as uni/work/house “reno” has pretty much consumed my life for the last X weeks. Uni however is just about finished for the semester and I’m looking forward to that day in 2.5 weeks or so when it is all over 🙂