Wow.... another semester over. Luis had 3 exams last week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), and finished his last assignment yesterday. He's also had headaches most of the week... so it's not been a happy week- we are very glad it is over. Now we just have to hang in and wait for the results!
I have finally handed in my ethics application- it should be processed relatively quickly as it is a "low risk" application (here's hoping somebody doesn't decide it's not...), and I have completed another scholarship application. All thats left now is to finish the thesis propsal before the next semester starts in three weeks, to get going on some reading for the thesis- and to take some time to relax with Luis.

Thank you GRF! That's the Graduate Research Fund at the University. I have been given a fairly decent amount of money towards my research costs from this fund. Somebody must have thought my thesis idea was a good one! It's not enough to cover the travel costs but will help considerably... I'm back to filling in yet another scholarship application this week.
Despite this the grant has put me in a much better frame of mind about the thesis, enough to finally talk about it like it is actually going to happen. I have therefore created a new page on this site introducing the topic, and started a new blogger to detail my progress. Check out the Thesis Page first, then if you're really keen you can go on to all the gory details on the Thesis Blogger.

I should really be writing an assignment right now... or my thesis proposal.. or even Spanish study. But I'm not. I'm procrastinating. Too much stuff in my head. So I thought I'd write something here. At least thats somewhat constructive.

At this moment Luis is absorbed watching the All Blacks trial- I think he likes rugby more than soccer now! He is on study leave now, his exams are in a couple of weeks and then he'll be halfway through his degree. Time flies. It's been a stressful couple of months for him though, with a heavy workload and busy schedule of classes, and I think he's more than ready for his smeester break.

I am enjoying being a part time worker, but looking forward to being a full time student. I'm really not sure how I coped studying and working full time, I'm still finding it hard to fit everything in! I have my final assignment for the health paper due next week and my thesis proposal for ethics due... asap! Actually I nearly dropped the whole thesis idea a couple of weeks ago, worried about how we were going to survive financially. We've had to take the unpleasant option of increasing our student loan debt in order to survive the next few months, and I'm still madly applying for scholarships... but I think it will be worth it. I met with a couple of different lecturers at the university last week (other than my supervisor) and they were quite excited about my research topic, which made me feel a lot happier and more excited myself. So I'll keep walking out this plank, wildly beleiving it leads somewhere other than shark infested waters....