Siete tutti così gentili

Yes you are.

I've been needing inspiration and confidence and support with this crazy Ph.D idea. And I got some from you guys - thanks so much.

So, yes, I'm applying. The app has to be in by the end of the week and I'm almost finished writing it. I've been reading articles and talking to peeps and getting excellent references done for me. I'll get accepted for the Ph.D program no problems, but what I need to be able to do it is the scholarship. Which is not a big amount in itself ... but ... the reason I'm even applying is because this guy came to work the other day and asked us (me) to run a big online survey for him. The he mentioned that he was thinking of supplementing a Ph.D scholarship to make it more attractive to a Ph.D student - his top-up would make the Ph.D worth $40,000 a year to do. He offered it to me and I scoffed and refused it immediately.

However, I went home and realised that maybe I can do a Masters/PhD combo for $160,000 over 4 years.  That actually sounds like a pretty good deal!  I have to do another two years study minimum (Masters) to get registered and practice as a psych. And all I was going to do was wait til I'd recovered from the horrors of the honours thesis I just handed in in March. But would I ever really be ready? Nope. I don't think so. Who the hell wants to write a fucking thesis anyway.  Be it 16,000 words (Mas.ters) or 80,000 (Mas.ters/Ph.D combo) (that's $2/word!).

So. I never managed to have a baby but I'm going to see if I can be a sooper-dooper academic and birth a book instead.

On the craptacular side of life, my Mum has just been diagnosed with a CIN III cervical dysplasia.  The awfullest kind to find on your annual pap smear. She didn't even go for an annual smear though. She's been spotting and having discharge and pain in her uterus and lower back for a couple of months and that's what prompted her to go get checked out. As you might recall, faithful readers, my Mum was done and dusted with periods when she was 41 - which was 18 years ago.  So bleeding and period pains are terribly fucking weird things for her to be getting.

Even worse for her, she was raped about 30 years ago and she has serious issues with pap smears and pretty much any and all vaginal exams. So of all the places in her body to have a problem that requires invasive treatment, this is the worst. She'd prefer brain cancer to this.

As far as I'm concerned, prayers are just kind thoughts, so go on and think kind thoughts for my Mama. I love her and I don't want her to have cancer or for me to be an orphan. She's my only family. Here's a quicky-piccie of her so you can concentrate on it and send healing-hippy-vibes her way please.

PhD of crazy

Calling all academics - tell me I can manage a PhD. M'kay? I'm applying and I'm freakin' out.

RIP Lou - fly free

Sad news in the bloggy IF world, Louise (evil stepmonster) died in August of the cancer that took her by surprise early this year.

Her lovely husband came in to tell us long-time stalkers and cheerers-on-ers, which was a kind and thoughtful thing to do. What a dreadful awful terrible time for him and them all.

If you can, go send the family some love.

YayBoo for me too

Maddy did it and so am I.

*~Yay~* We went to the Royal Show. 
I love the Show and I have great memories of the Shows of my youth.  Like the time my Mum and I went to the Royal Easter Show when I was very small.  At the end of the day it was raining and awful and so Mum left me with a policeman at the Police Portable Van while she went to get the car. I have an abiding memory of sitting on a bench in front of a big policeman while eating a drippy chocolate paddlepop and seeing dark grey stormy skies out the van window.

More memories, riding the Hurricane with my Mum and us both laughing hysterically as we were whirled and thrown up and down with our tummies flying. Going on the Loop de Loop which flipped us up upside down. At the peak of the ride all the stuff in Mum's pockets emptied out and fell to the ground below while we giggled together. (She got her stuff back once we were on the ground.) Mum is great fun to ride with.

The year I got a stack of Showbags with lollies and chocolates and our dog ate them all, I was devastated.  The following year, I got Showbags again and we locked my Bags in the Ping-Pong room, on the ping-pong table with my cousin's Bags. That bloody dog leaped onto the wall outside the room and squeezed himself through the very narrow opening in the awning window and ate all MY bags but left my cousin's alone.  Even more tears that year.

This year we had a ball at the Show, my Mum accompanied us and we spent some happy times laughing on rides together.  She can't go on any high rides any more because she's developed old-person-vertigo (she's not that old, 59). Now she feels sick if rides go up and down, but if they go round and round she's fine. So we rode the crazy spinning rides together and took turns taking the kids on rides and tBG and I went on the extreme rides. Like this one.

That's us under the empty orange chairs at the top right

We saw prize-wining bulls and prize-winning roosters and prize-winning scones, muffins, quilts and shoes. We ate hot dogs, lollies, chocolate and fairy floss balls bigger than our heads.

L-R (back) tMG, my Marmie, tPP, (at front) tLG

All in all a great day out.

*Boo* R.I.P Ivy
 She was fine at 11am, dead on her side by 1pm.  Poor Ivy, the Unknown Chickeh. I never really got much of a sense of her personality, except I did think she was a quiet chickeh. She would stretch her head up high and make a quiet, breathy attempt at a cackle. But her poos were fine (blerk, it's amazing how much a poo can tell you about henhealth look at your own risk) and she was eating, drinking and getting along well.

Bizarrely, we found her after I'd invited our Crazy Neighbour over to view the birds.  I was all "Oh they're doing great" and "we love the hens" and "they're in such good shape" and then ... there's Ivy lying down with her eyes shut. I thought maybe she was just lying down like she was having a dust bath.  So I walked over saying "Maybe she's having a dirt-bath, hahaha, they look so dead when they're doing that, I'm sure she'll jump up and run away" but she didn't.  She was dead and Crazy Neighbour must have thought I was the delusional crazy one, because she kept saying "Oh, she's dead. She's definitely dead."

So passeth the first bird.  And when informed, the children were saddened but immediately asked when we would get another, because they are resilient little persons.