A few things have happened recently...

So yes. I dropped out of uni. Maybe some very belated explanations are in order?

It's just for this semester, and I fully intend to go back in semester 2. I already had a little tiny neurosis about the fact that I was going to be almost 24 by the time I graduated; dealing with the fact that I will now be almost 25 when I finally finish my bloody undergrad degree has been, well... challenging. But! The decision is made, the forms are in (although, funny story: looks like the uni has actually lost my form, which should be fun), and I've moved on. Pretty much.

Of course, the decision was made a lot easier by the fact that it would have been pretty much impossible for me to finish this semester. I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that so far 2007 has been pretty crap. I mentioned a while ago (February 23 to be exact) that my back has been giving me a bit of trouble. Yeah, I'm still having a few problems - problems which mean that have seen my visit the physio 8 times in the last 7 weeks. At the moment I'm going twice a week, as well as half an hour of exercises twice a day. There was about a week there in the middle when I pretty much could not move; standing up for more than 5 minutes was excruciating, and sitting was completely out of the question unless I had very large amounts of strapping tape covering my lower back. I missed a bit of class because of that, as you might imagine.

And then my mum had a massive stroke.

The stroke happened on the evening of March 20, but my dad didn't call me or my brother until the next day at around 6am; it was the stereotypical early morning call, where your first thought is "no-one calls at this hour with good news." Which was true. I was on a flight at 9.15am (as an aside, I think I deserve some crazy respect for my high level of organisational ability that morning!), and made it to Hobart just after 12pm - mum had been transferred from Launceston by air-ambulance because apparently they don't have a neurology ward at the LGH. Who knew.

Anyway, the next week or so was as crap as you can probably imagine. There was brain surgery and ICU and then HDU and living out of a suitcase and only two visitors at a time and... well yeah. Not a fabulous time.

And then of course there was the unnecessary stress of trying to work out what I do about my courses, with the HECS census date fast approaching. So I came back to Canberra the next week on the Wednesday before the census date, met with various people, including all my lecturers, my physio, and faculty advisors, and decided to drop out. I'd promised one of my lecturers (who was absolutely wonderful, by the way - went far far beyond the call of duty in helping me out, and I'm not sure I would have made it through that week without his help) that I wouldn't make my final decision until Friday afternoon, and I didn't: the form was handed in at 4.50pm, so no-one can accuse me of rushing into the decision!

I'd originally planned to move back down to Tassie until July, but after talking to even more people etc. I've decided to stay up here and work full-time, which will hopefully earn me enough money to do the travelling I'm desperate for, and to take some of the 'financial burden' off my parents' shoulders. My boss up here has been absolutely fantastic throughout this entire debacle, and while she couldn't offer my a full-time job, she made sure that she found me someone who could, which means that as of today I have gainful full-time employment until classes go back in July!

So yeah. That's what has been happening in the life of me. There are a whole lot of other issues both related and unrelated to all of this which have been going on and for various reasons I don't particularly feel like airing on a public blog. As I said before, life has been generally crappy the last few months, but things are looking better. My mum's doing well; she's been transferred back up to the LGH, which makes it easier for everyone. She can talk and write and speak and everything like that - it turns out if you're going to have a massive stroke, my mum did it pretty well. She's still fully paralysed down her left side, so she's got months and months of rehab ahead of her (side note: many hilarious conversations can be had with the phrase "my mum's in rehab"!) - I don't think anyone was expecting me not to take out the 'most physio in 2007' award for my family, but looks like I might just be beaten by my mother...

But yesterday she wiggled her toes and today she bent her knee. So right now, things could be a hell of a lot worse.