This is me

When Spencer and I woke up on August 1st I jokingly said to him, "You're totally not going to ask me a special question today...if you were you would look so happy, you would wake up with the biggest smile on your face!"  How he managed to not have the hugest smirk on his face when I said those words is beyond me, but he did.  Little did I know that that was the day that he would finally, after 8 1/2 years of dating, make me his fiancee.

That's right!  For those of you that I could not phone to tell in person I am sorry.  For the length of time it took to get this blog post up I am also sorry, but there was certain people that I did not want to find out about our engagement over a blogpost.  Now that they have been told I can go nuts!

I am finally engaged, it was totally worth the wait and I would have had it no other way.

The day started off like any other day really.  There's this coffee shop by our house that makes awesome coffee and desserts so we went there around noon.  I had been craving a lemon tart like crazy and it totally hit the spot.  Once again how Spencer managed to sit there looking all normal as we discussed various drug-drug interactions is beyond me.  It was such a nice day out, not a cloud in the sky and not a drop of rain in sight, it was a nice change after the week long straight of crappy weather.  So I suggested a walk...and walk we did.

It was a crazy long walk, a great walk though, with possibly the best discussion that we have ever had.  My comments of "This is going to be a long walk home" were met with, "I don't think it will be as bad as you think"...little did I know about the hidden meaning behind that one.  So we kept walking and walking and walking until we got to Point of Resolution.  Now this place holds a special place in my heart.  When I first came out to Perth it is one of the places we went to early on.  I remember clearly that when I first saw it, and saw the name of the park, I thought, "This is where I want to be asked".  I never told Spencer that, never even hinted it and somehow he knew.  

So we sat down on the bench and continued our conversation, watched the boats and the birds.  I think that afternoon was one of the most relaxing ones we had in a very long time.  We sat there forever and as Spencer looked over his shoulder now and then and fiddled with his pocket I became a wee bit suspicious of what was really going on.  But when he said, "I'm just so relaxed here" I thought, "Crap, maybe he is just really relaxed, maybe I'm getting this all wrong."

Then the couple I will forever refer to as the "Subway couple" sat directly behind us with their fold-out chairs and subway lunch.  Out of all the places they could have sat I don't know why they sat there!  5 minutes after they left two girls came and sat near us and started laying on eachother and whatnot so we moved benches.

And then finally it happened.  Just like that.  One minute he was sitting on the bench next to me, and the next he was in front of me on one knee asking me to marry him and putting a ring on my finger.  It was perfect.  It really was.  I cannot believe he lucked out and had such good weather and such good conversation, and that he asked me where I wanted to be asked.  I never wanted some big spectacle of a proposal, he got it absolutely perfect. 

And he was right, the walk back home wasn't long at all.  It seemed to last for about 5 minutes. 



The above and below picture are "the bench".


Yes when this picture was taken I did say something cheesy along the lines of, "The path of love".



Ring pictures as requested, although neither give it the justice it deserves...it is absolutely amazing and sparkles like nothing I have ever seen.  I've had it for a week and the only time it has been touched by water is in my pharmaceutics lab.  I can't bear to get it dirty. The best part though is that it was made just for me, which makes me smile.





The bench where it was supposed to all go down...



No date has been set yet...we're in the process of trying to figure it all out!  But I will keep you posted!  Until then I somehow have to figure out how this whole study-being in uni-being engaged thing is supposed to work.  It's a bit hard to learn about antibiotics when I am sitting there with a huge smile thinking about being engaged.

This week:

1) We played the $90 million dollar lotto and lost.  I was so sad after, as I had already started planning how I would spend some of the money.

2) I Became absolutely obsessed with the Twilight books.  Obsessed.

3) I turned 8.5 years with someone special.

4) We tried to learn how to play the LOST boardgame, the key word being TRIED.

5) We tried to make gnocchi which didn't turn out so great, but the braised beef was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

6) A wee little someone was kind of left standing at work wondering where someone else was- sharing a car gets tricky sometimes.

7) We celebrated Canada Day with our Canadian friends Scott and Erica.

8) I paid a huge chunk of my tuition in attempt to avoid having to pay it on par like first year second semester.  The exchange rate was mediocre at best.

9) Found out a matinee for students costs $13 and those plans were immediately cancelled.

10) A certain someone's cousin got lost on a hike and had to be rescued.  Crazy times I tell you.

It is 11:31pm on Wednesday night.

I am studying for my last exam tomorrow, which just happens to be a 40% oral exam.  Good times.

Spencer is watching a movie on his computer.  This makes it really easy for me to study.  Especially when he laughs.  It makes me so happy inside that I have to sit here trying to learning how many milligrams of dextromethorphan someone can have, while simultaneously trying to remember to make sure they don't have serotonin syndrome. Please note the sarcasm in that entire paragraph.

Tomorrow night we are getting a Chelsey pizza and watching LOST season 5, which brings back the amazing memories of watching LOST seson 4, which truly was legendary.  I cannot wait.  It is going to be epic.  And I am most likely not going to move out of the bed for a good long while.  

I cannot wait.

Number of exams written: 9/10

Dear graph paper,

I hate it when you show up in exams in a ten mark question of which I have no clue how to do. 

Please do not ever show your face in another exam.

Thank you.


It's always a barrel of monkeys when that happens.  I could write a big long list of swear words to show how the whole situation made me feel, but quite frankly I would run out of room, or else my gimp thumb would break off.  For some reason it feels like I've sprained the end of my thumb, I think it is just from all the writing I've been doing.  How much writing you ask?  Well I could show you the callous to prove it, but you'll just have to take my word for it.


Exams written:  8/10

Days left of this semester: 4, and trust me, I am counting.

Here in Australia the "new" thing companies are doing is DOWNSIZING their products, while simultaneously RAISING the prices.  You know what I say to that?  It is a load of rubbish.  100% pure crap.

As I sit at my desk attempting to study on a Saturday afternoon I have to try and block out the sounds of some uncontrolled child shrieking at the top of his lungs, while also screaming "I'm king of the meadow", or something ridiculous like that.  I love kids, but I don't love their shrieks of songs when I am trying to learn about stupid DLVO theory for pharmaceutics.

So I decided it was time for what has unfortunately become my daily coca-cola classic.  Afterall, the can says it is an "uplifting refreshment", maybe it will help.  While I was at it I decided to go for a full diabetic shock and include two treat size Mars bars.  This is where the downsizing comes in.  They are like HALF the size they were last time!!!  This is unacceptalbe MARS Co.  You are tempting me to write you about customer satisfaction with your whole "Guarantee of quality and Freshness" on the back of the packaging.  I mean really, lets not doubly rip customers off by decreasing the size of the product while increasing the price.  It is just wrong on so many levels.

Normally things like screaming children and decreasing chocolate bar sizes would not get me so rattled, but I've just come off of the most torturous insanely ridiculously difficult week of University of my entire 6.5 year education and quite frankly I wanted a non-downsized Mars bar.

Exams written: 7/10

Yesterday was my very last class for this semester.

The level of joy in my heart is insanely high.  I no longer have the absolutely ridiculous schedule that was this semester.  No more 8-5/6 four days a week...no more!  I am so excited.  I am also excited that I have finally reached the point of no more new material being shoved in my face to learn...although I now have to figure out some magical miracle type solution to get it all INTO my brain for exams.  This is going to be a very difficult task.

My last exam is on June 18th at precisely 2:40pm.  I will finish at 3:05pm and be done my semester.  I know what you are thinking, "25 minute exam, pretty cushy!" Think again people. It is my first oral exam and it is 40% of my mark.  I'm sure I will rock it, as long as I am prepared.  I've managed to get to the point in my life where I don't really stress too much about exams anymore, mainly because I know I am prepared.  I remember the days when I couldn't eat anything at all before exams.  It's the other way now, I have to eat something before an exam.  Who would have thought.  I also like to crank the music insanely loud on my drive to exams and sing out-loud.  I like to think it gets my brain working.  

Anyway, these next 19 days or so are going to be insanely hard.  If you could see how full my 2 inch binders are with notes and information that I have to learn you would realize that I may potentially be in a wee bit of a pickle for these exams.  Somehow I will make it through, I'll just have to muster up some of that hidden drive which resides somewhere in my body.  I was told this semester was the hardest of the entire degree and I must say that I 100% agree.  

Number of exams written: 4/10

Today was day one of exams for the end of semester (aka: semes).

Times are super stressful right now. One of the things that will get me through is obviously the Skittles that I am downing at a rate so fast you would think I was a starving child, but really one of my new fave shows "How I Met Your Mother" was a wicked discovery. That show is laugh out loud funny and serves me well for a 20 minute study break with dinner, multitasking at its best.

Anyway, last night we watched an episode and it was hilarious. One of the things in it was this song. This song will get me through exams. It is hilarious, although it probably won't be all that funny if you don't at least watch the episode "Slap bet, season 2, episode 9".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdD0j6wmMNc

Number of exams written: 1/10

Here's how a convo with me and Spencer just went...

Me: "Where's my pen?  Have you seen my pen?"

Spencer:"What pen?"

Me: "My black Curtin one!  Crap I can't find it!  I loved that pen, it wrote so smoothly." (note: it was also FREE)

Spencer: "It's in your hair."

Me: "Oh."

Good times.  I must be sleepy.
 

Today I had a tutorial.  It wasn't the typical "let's shove more info into your brains" tutorial, rather it was a motivational, study tip tutorial.  It brought laughter to my day, which is more than I could have ever hoped for out of any tutorial.

Not only did it make me come home and study hard for the afternoon, it made me realize that yes, unfortunately I do have to keep working my butt off and the amount I study is maybe not so abnormal.

Anyway, a STATIN is a drug that you take when you have high cholesterol...which you get mainly due to the whole hereditary factor, but also from eating things like McD's, chips, chocolate- you know, the study food.  :)  So my teacher today is talking about how during exams we need to give up things like, friends (they are good, but not during exams) and mobile phones (he suggested giving your phone to your dad...um that won't really work for me due to the obvious, but due to the fact that I don't know very many people out here my phone doesn't ring off the hook).  But the thing that really made me laugh was when he was like, "You know sometimes cooking or cleaning is a nice break from studying, but sometimes it takes too long and it's more of a chore, so sometimes you should eat McD's, there's always time for statins later in life."

Ummm lets just say that lately I have totally been feeling like cooking is a chore.  Like I really don't want to even bother cooking or cleaning, but the only reason I do it is because I am flat broke and can't afford McD's, plus it will make me sick, plus then I'd have to change out of my study gear to go out (which consists of pj's). 

And let's also say that all afternoon as I'm eating a coke, a mini mars bar, a caramello koala and yes, chips, I have thought on more than one occasion that there is always statins later in life. 

PS-This is not my usual diet.  Do not worry.  I've been totally off junk food as of late, until today.

You know I'm a fan of doing laundry, especially now that Spencer and I discovered a non-hypoallergenic fabric softener that actually makes our clothes have that nice laundry smell.  Now call me crazy, but even though I don't mind doing laundry I would never do it three or four times a week.  Never.  It is just such a waste of the following:

1. TIME
2. Electricity
3. Water
4. Laundry powder
5. Fabric softener
6. Time again (just because this is the main reason)

Consequently, I'm a fan of doing laundry about every 2 weeks.  Yes we both have enough of everything to make it two weeks, it was all part of the plan of how much of everything to bring down here.  Anyway, other people, namely my housemates, drive me absolutely freaking nuts about the laundry.

Now this may be due to me high stress levels, and seemingly low lack of patience mainly brought on from school and the high usage level of internets which leads to the internet running out half way through the month through no fault of mine or Spencer's, but I think it is absolute crap that people do laundry oh four times this week.

FOUR TIMES PEOPLE!

I mean the washer is basically never free when I can use it, which due to my retarded uni schedule is basically Saturday and Sunday.  So this morning I wake up early-9AM and go to put a load in.  Oh ya, there's the fourth time this week of laundry from someone else in there.  Too bad for me.  See if there was a dryer it wouldn't be all that big of a deal, but there isn't.  The clothes have to hang outside to dry, hence why they need to get in early, they need all day to dry.  

So frustrating.  Seriously.  And I know this probably sound ridiculous, but really I don't care.