Results and Holidays

Exam results got released this afternoon! Happy dances all round, with a pass for my placement and both B grades for my nursing papers- professional development (law & ethics) and long-term adaptation.

These holidays I have spent a lot of time at home, but also back at my flat, where I have been doing a puzzle for a change! Here is the beginning of it... I have done quite a bit more since this photo.

Semester Break 2015!

Exams are finished (campus wide), and I have already been on holidays for a week!

Its funny when there is no Uni to do or even think about (unless I jump ahead into next semesters textbooks) and none of my flatmates are here... It has become very quiet and very cold as no one is constantly in the lounge resetting the heater when it turns off (every half an hour...)

Although I have spent the last 4 days at home (yesterday I came back down), and I'm going back tomorrow...  (so my car can get new brake pads and its oil leak fixed and so I can go and see Mum Friday).

Last Tuesday (16th June) I went to Piha with Caitlin as the others were going into the city, and we went for a walk/hike to the waterfall half an hour or so into the Waitakere Ranges.  It was beautiful! Once we got over the rocks around the waterfall we found a track of mud and used tree roots as footholds to climb up a further 15minutes above the waterfall and found a second one.  (We did have a little difficulty getting down though...)

After going to the waterfall we drove over to Piha beach to walk along it and make footprints in the sand... and ended up shin-deep in the ocean- boy was it cold!!!

Photos to come...

End of Semester One

With only one more exam to go, I am nearing the middle of my Nursing Degree.  I am taking a break from study because it seems to be all I have done for some time now.  My next exam is Monday so I do have five days left before it.

This semester apart from writing assignments and being out on placement I have done some extra uni and non-uni related things:

- Bungy jumping in Taupo with Bianca and Sarah (flatmates)

- I have done an 11km hike

- Been in a flight simulator 

- Been on flat outings with my flatmates (beach, dinner, pub quiz (we won!), JUMP)

- Had nursing class dinners

- Learn't all about Auckland traffic in the mornings and evenings (before/after placements)

Basically I have been a lot more social things than previously...

Throughout this semester I have also in a way conquered my fear of public speaking... well, gotten over it, as I have had to do two presentations! One marked and one not marked (just course work).

Only Exams to go!

I have now completed all assessments that are internally assessed and just have three exams to go until the end of the semester! Very excited that my first year is coming to an end, to be able to celebrate the fact that I have done eight university level papers and am still going!

I will be doing one paper over the summer period- impaired body function (science); this is to get me ahead for next year, as in the first semester I will be doing purely nursing paper with out this science one meaning I can concentrate on my nursing, and placement without having impaired to do as well.  In second semester I will have four again, including my last science paper of the degree- pharmacology.

By science papers I mean the health sciences that come under their own category for paper numbers, as they are not part of the nursing department, and are used for more than one degree.  Most of my other papers are all nursing based.

Placement is over, and so are lectures (almost)

Last friday was my last day at the hospital on placement, it was an amazing experience and I can't wait for next years Nursing placements! I am nearing the end of my first year at university, I handed my last assignment in on Sunday night (due Monday 9am) and only have tomorrow's catch-up lecture and a lab, and then I'm on study leave for my exams!

I have one next Thursday which is a practical examination, And the a week a half break until my three written exams.

I will finish the Aussie posts at some point... but for now, I should study.

Just another uni post...

In the week coming up I have three assignments due, I am just extremely thankful that none of them are on the same day! I have one due Monday 9am, one Friday midnight (I think), and the other on Sunday at midnight.  Weird times as all the assignments that I have done previously have all been due on the Monday at 9am.

I have also found out where I am spending my two weeks on placement.  I have been given my ward, times, charge nurse, and also the other student in my class who is sorta like my partner in a way.  I have my first 40 hour week doing 3pm-11pm Monday-Friday and the second week is 7am-3pm Monday-Friday.  I will be car-pooling with a friend as we have to pay for parking and petrol costs.. so that will at least be halved between us!

Right now.. it is half past mid-night, my flat is extremely loud as there is a bunch of drunk teenagers downstairs.  I feel sorry for the neighbours! I text a friend who is next-door and she had been wondering what was going on... that was two hours ago.  Its getting louder as it gets later.

Its also my 100th post!!!

Semester Two!

Well.... I am already two and a half weeks into semester two, it has been a super busy two weeks as well! I have spent the last two days in the library when I am not in lectures from 8am til 5pm or so writing assignments.. (trying to at least) and doing other work and quizzes for my papers too!

(Oh, and I passed all of my last semester exams/papers!)

I could almost call the library my second home! I did spend last friday in there all day but not to much exactly got done as other nursing classmates came and we sat talking (more like grossing out the people around us) about our experiences and things we had come across within our last placement/ work and general nursey things... As level one of the library is a more group/ able to talk to people study area.. its never quiet, so didn't make us feel too bad!!

Its scary to think there is only three and a half week until mid semester break and I get to go and see my brother in Australia!!!! Super excited!

O-Week!

Orientation Week for Semester Two!

Just a frosty morning walking up to Uni... (I keep wishing it was snow.. but its not!)

O-Week for me is basically just a week of 11am-1pm games and free food, and free all sorts outside of student central at Uni, the main (and official) stuff happens in semester one, but the still have a week of fun activities in the second semester.

Here are some photos from it:

Outside of student central (main cafe/amenities centre (and my science lab block) is the building to the right).

Tayla and myself... with a bunch of ANZ reps... BLUE!

Holidays!

Over the semester break/holidays I got up some pretty awesome stuff! -Never ended up doing Rangitoto because the weather didn't want me to ;)

LOTS of stay at home- relax days! I spent a day colouring in, drawing, reading, and writing in pyjama day one day.. other days I watched movies/ TV, and some.. I just sat and did not all that much, it was really good, and rather relaxing!

I took Libby (Toni's daughter) down to the Auckland Domain to meet someone to take her to her Dads, with Toni and Sam (her son), and we went through the car wash on the way back (something apparently neither had done..) IT WAS COLOURFUL FOAM!!

When I was due to go down to work to meet someone for a catch up I had to sit in stopped traffic because they were chopping trees down and doing landscaping work down the Waiwera hill to make it safer I am assuming because of slips an rock fall that happen there quite a bit!

Semester one is complete!

So, my first semester at University is now finished, its over, its complete.

I sat my last exam this morning and so I am now awaiting my results which I think take about three weeks from the end of the exam period to be marked and put online for us to see.

This afternoon I was a bit baffled as to what to do.. I am thinking I am going to need to find some projects to work on over the semester break as I am not going to have episodes of Greys Anatomy to catch up on.. but I am thinking about starting the Games of Thrones series.. not to sure if I want to enter the obsession that everyone has over it though.

I have a busy couple of days ahead of me and then it will die down and I hope to be off exploring and adventuring, one plan is to go to Rangitoto Island, to do walks around there and to spend the day there.  I believe that Rangitoto Island is New Zealand's newest formed volcanic island, approximately 600 years old.

Tomorrow I am involved in the National Men's Health Day in Northcote with a team of student nurses taking blood pressures and blood sugar levels (yes, sticking people) among other things.

I am then going to be going straight from the event to hitting my bed and having a nap before I go to work and do a night shift. They joy of having a holiday and being able to ring work to actually ask for some shifts instead of other things!

Exams are here

My Semester One exams are finally here... The past four months of classes, placement, dissections and labs have come to an end and exams are taking their place for the next week.  A weekend full of study and of course a touch of procrastination, and yesterday filled with study groups and collaboration with my nursing mates over past exam questions and lots of laughter... We are a rather loud bunch... especially when there are multiple groups of us over the bottom floor of the library making a bit of noise with people trying to study around us.

We had that exam today, my nursing praxis paper.  That exam was worth 50% of the final grade and we must get 60% in the exam to pass the paper...

My exam on Friday is human bioscience... the dissection paper! That one is worth 50% too, and I must get 40% in the exam to pass the paper.

Next Monday I have my academic writing and research in nursing paper.  This one I have already passed as I got my second assignment results yesterday and needed a scraping pass to pass the paper without the need of relying on the exam.  The exam is only worth 20% and not set passing percentage in it.

Next Tuesday I have psychology as a social science exam, there is no set mark in it though, just have to get about 40% to pass the paper with my grades from my assignments combined as the exam is worth 60% of the final grade.

First Semester is coming to an end...

My first semester at University is coming to an end soon, this is my last week of lectures before going on exam leave! I have my normal classes and labs this week and next week I think I have two revision sessions for two different papers, but put on the same day to save those that travel from coming in twice as majority in my bioscience class are nursing students.  I have my first exam of four, on June 10th and the last on June 17th, where I will then be done for the semester and awaiting my final marks I get for each paper.

Last day of my first Clinical Placement

Today I had my last 5.30am wake up for this semesters clinical placement! I am proud to say that I have attended every single day without being sick or using being sick as a way of having a day off.  I have learn't a lot through practical work and keen to go on to do my exams and my next placement next semester at the actual hospital!

Here are a couple photos we took this afternoon just before we finished for the day..

Just a casual snapchat I sent someone... haha this was at like 6.30am... Meryn, Holly and I always get to placement super early.. before we are suppose to start so we can come in a chat and get sorted before we need to be at the nurses' stations for handover.

"SELFIE" haha, as you do... 

Back: Meryn, me, Nick

Front: Josie, CTA, Lauren and Eilish.

Missing: Holly

Our awesome as clinical placement group! We reckon we had the best group- we all get along really well and help each other out when needed :)

First Day of Uni!

Lectures started today! I had a pretty easy day with only two lectures BUT one of them was 3 hours long! The other was two.  On a normal Monday I would have two 2 hour lectures and a 1 hour tutorial but because its the first week of the semester they aren't doing some of the tutorials and labs for most papers... (apart from my other three which they are doing for some reason).

Tomorrow I will have my first day in the lab going over basic lab rules and expectations and all the health and safety blah and then later on in the semester we get to do HEAPS of dissections and even get to dissect a pigs head :).

Gross but pretty awesome!

Even having to do work before my lectures and labs tomorrow and Wednesday...

(Thats actually for Wednesday.. Just jumping ahead of myself before doing the stuff for tomorrow knowing I wont have time tomorrow to do much)

Going to Nursing School!!

Acceptance Letter

Well, it took a long time to get to this post... I have been rather busy with work, and such, but also getting ready for UNIVERSITY.  I got told that I was second on the Bachelor Of Nursing waitlist about the 24th of January... and then found out on the Monday 27th that I had gotten a place at Massey University for Nursing!!!!

I had also been accepted into AUT starting semester two, but I wasn't particually wanting to go there and wanted to be at Massey if I got the chance.

I ended up having to wait all summer to find out if I was even going to be going on to tertiary study and had then since finding out everything has been having to happen so fast as the start of lectures and starting dates were looming close!

My ONE elective paper that get to choose from out of three, is a psychology paper (Psychology as a social science) I will get to be in my friend Danielle's (cake baking partner in crime) main lecture class and possibly even the tutorial classes, which is good, as I will know at least someone, and we will be able to help each other like we have done the past couple years at school as we were in multiple classes together and in the same form class.

Tomorrow I will be moving into halls of residence in Albany, and on the 24th I will be starting semester one.  I also will have orientation week (or two) starting from saturday, with a couple of introductions and meeting etc, that I have to attend that are compulsory for me.

Summer at beach cottage 2014- Day Four

DAY 4

Exam results came out… I woke up at 7am and couldn't go back to sleep… waiting anxiously for the results to be released online, I got up just after 8am to create a hotspot and go online to check them… I was rather surprised with some of my results.  These are my final results for 2013 examinations.

Biology:

Not Achieved

Not Achieved

Achieved

Classical Studies:

Achieved

Achieved

English:

Not Achieved

Merit

Social Studies:

Achieved

I also did maths but did not have any exams for it.

I had already got University Entrance and got the credits to pass my NCEA Level 3 certificate, so the exams were mainly getting the credits needed to get the credits needed to do the actual nursing course, which I got enough bio credits for by just passing one standard luckily enough.

The rest of the day we spent outside relaxing in the sun on the deck and just hanging out.

Myself and Eloise

We went for a beach walk the day before and found a tree branch we could sit on and use as a trampoline! Also found a tyre 3/4 of the way into the sand that we could jump on.

Elosie took this picture cause she liked my hair cause it was all wavy from the sea salt and swimming.

Summer at beach cottage 2014- Day Two

We went swimming at the bach! With the beach cottage going right out onto the beach we have been fortunate enough to be able to look at what the tide and water is doing and be able to judge swimming times, it has been very good to be able to go:

"oh the tide is in",

Lets go for a swim- instead of having to guess because we didn't have the internet unless we created a hotspot from one of the cellphone (but that didn't mean for much useage- I used it to check my emails briefly to hear from uni if they told me if I was in or not and also to check my exam results on the Wednesday morning). 

Note: Yes, my results are coming, and I will be finding out if I will be going to uni tomorrow morning hopefully when I ring the Bachelor of Nursing co-ordinator.

Uni....... again.

Thought I may as well let you all know, after months of anticipation in finding out if I am going to be accepted into the the BN (Bachelor of Nursing) at Massey in Albany, today I knew they would contact me.... I received the email, but frustratingly they have only said that it will now be mid January before they let anyone know because of the inundation of applications in the last week of November-- the week that applications closed.

So with all that, I will let you know in January now if I am going to university or not basically next year.  I should find out around the same time that my NCEA results get released as well!!!

Exams and Updates

About time I posted something...

I am in the middle of a 12 day break between my third exam and my last! I have been full on studying, shopping, working, sitting exams, and touring.

I have sat three of my four exams now and I think I have done pretty well in biology, not sure about english or classics.  I have social studies on Tuesday 3rd Dec, so as of 12.30pm at the latest I will have officially finished my high school exams and as of Friday 6th Dec I will have officially signed out of school and completed a whole 13 years and 6 weeks at school!!! Its pretty exciting when I type it out and think about it!

I also have the last two PORSE booklets to complete to get my New Zealand's Level 3 Nanny Certificate- I am aiming to have these completed and signed off by Friday!

Next year I will hopefully be moving forward and onto tertiary education, studying a three year degree to get a Bachelor of Nursing- I will be finding this out in just under two weeks if I have officially gotten a place a Massey!!

I have been doing a few shifts caregiving as I am trying to work around my exams, studying and also other things I have to do and want to do.  Also, getting the only shifts that are really available as there is quite a lot of staff at the moment.

Last Thursday I went and toured one of the accommodation villages for Massey University, and then went late night shopping with a friend and came back to my house and wrote and card and wrapped a gift for one of our teachers- last year Taylor (friend) and I were in her class, it was her first year at Orewa and we were known as the ones that were constantly talking, laughing, giggling and so on- I also managed to continue that particular trend on this year with Danielle as I was this particular teachers class again this year! .... we decided on getting her a mug that had "little miss giggles" written on it from the "little miss" series by Roger Hargreaves.  Our teacher laughed and said, yeah, I will think of you two every time I drink from it- our aim! :)

No more Maths or Internals ever!

Today I finished my last internal forever! And my last ever anything to do with maths forever!! So freeking exciting!  I now only have to focus for another two weeks for Biology and English, another three for Classics and another four for Social Studies..... And then never again.... Until February when university starts, but that's different to being at school as it will be working towards something that I want to do, to have a purpose to doing the work and and learning the stuff :)