The light at the end of the tunnel

I'm handing in my MA on Thursday. The end is near! Hurray!

Monday Morning Madness

I am still alive - albeit barely! Things have been mad, but it's actually been quite fun. In retrospect. Basically, 2 months ago, the morning receptionist at work broke her ankle while she was in Durban. Ankles are funny things, and never seem to result in simple breaks, and so she had to stay in Durban, have surgery and then get her husband to drive her back to Jo'burg. As a result, I was thrown in the deep end of having to work morning shifts in addition to my afternoon shifts, and I had to train our new afternoon receptionist to do mornings as well. Naturally, this would all happen as I was trying to finish my MA draft.

It was not a pleasant 6 weeks. I would wake up at 5:30 and go for a run (or work on my MA), have breakfast, go to work at 7:15, get back from work at about 11:30, work on the MA some more (or have a power nap out of desperation), go back to work for my afternoon shift and then come home and work on the MA again. I would usually have some afternoons off, but all of this coincided with the afternoon receptionist's Unisa exams, so I ended up working a lot of her afternoon shifts as well.

Somehow, however, through all of this, I have managed to produce a semblance of a draft of my MA, which has gone off to my supervisor and which has now come back to me for more corrections. So far (I'm only on page 4), it doesn't seem too bad. I'm hoping to get it done this week and then send it back to her for further inspection. I'd quite like the entire MA thing to be done and dusted by December, if only because I start MA number 2 (Masters in Community and Counselling Psychology) in the 3rd week of January. And somewhere along the line, I'd quite like to have an MA-free week or 2!

The "to do" list for this week is thus:

1. finish MA corrections


2. bake red velvet cake for my mom's birthday


3. start some MA #2 reading


4. go running


5. survive the heat wave that seems to have swept Jo'burg

I hope to have good news soon!

At last!

After 3 years of applying, and 2 years of being on the waiting-list (and living in hope and then not-hope), I've finally been accepted into the Masters in Community-based Counselling Psychology degree! Woop woop! Myself and 11 other psychoanalytic souls will be selling our sanity to the academic gods for a year. I'm excited! And terrified. And uncertain. Because of the uncertainty, I've applied for Clinical Psychology Masters as well. I'm busy going through the interviews this week. I've fluctuated between feeling very confident and very guilty, and both feelings are related to the fact that I've already been accepted for a degree. I'm risking angering the MACC crowd by applying, but I've also noticed that 2 other people are doing exactly the same thing. My reason for applying is basically that I know more about clinical theory than I do about community stuff, and so I'm really just making my life easier. Hopefully. This didn't stop me receiving a very dirty look and a "What on earth are you doing?" from one of the MACC lecturers when he saw me standing outside the office, waiting for my clinical interview. I'm waiting to by lynched - either by one of the lecturers or one of my fellow applicants.

This basically sums up how I feel right now:

And in other news, I really want one of these:
http://www.bandstores.co.uk/shop/freddieforaday/proddetail.php?prod=32860703

Of Bears

As someone who did a degree in English Literature, I do occasionally struggle with the fact that my boyfriend (HOMSI) is dyslexic. He's worked really hard to improve his reading, and he and I have similarly extensive book collections. That said, his spelling is often interesting to say the least. Which makes for some fun, like today's SMS conversation:

Candice: I haven't heard from you in a while. Are you still alive?

HOMSI: Bearly.

Candice: Panda or grizzly?

HOMSI: Grizzzlly.

Candice: Breathe. Connect with your inner koala.

HOMSI: I have a panda.

I now realise that koalas aren't bears, but marsupials. Sorry. They are terribly cute though. Observe below:

C'mon, c'mon...

When I heard that Kylie Minogue was coming to perform in South Africa, I really couldn't have cared less. Unfortunately, because the concert is this weekend, the radio stations have been playing her music as if there's no tomorrow. Because of this song being played repeatedly, I am now forced to admit that some small part of me may want to be in a crowd full of people, singing along, when she performs this on stage. Oh, the shame!

Male broodiness

For what it's worth, I'm not sure if men get broody, but if they do, then HOMSI definitely has a case of male broodiness.

It all started on Sunday, when his neighbour's tabby cat came to visit us. This cat (which I've named Charlie, simply because it's a suitably gender-neutral name and I can't for the life of me figure out if said cat is male or female) is ridiculously friendly and probably falls into the category of "aggressively affectionate". It was sitting on the outside windowsill of HOMSI's place, but as soon as we opened the window, it came inside. What followed was about 20 minutes of head-scratching on our part, and lots of purring from Charlie, who also decided to purr all over HOMSI's couch and stairs, as if to claim them as his/her own. I eventually coaxed Charlie back outside (I was slightly worried that some neighbourhood dispute might arise if HOMSI's neighbours thought we'd stolen Charlie), and he rolled happily in the grass (and then attacked my hand when I tried to tickle his tummy).

Later that evening, when HOMSI was driving me home, we had the following (strange) conversation:

• HOMSI: I nearly bought a guinea pig today.



• Me: Why?



• H: They had them at the Lifestyle Garden Centre and they were cute.



• M: (containing laughter) Oh. Okay.



• H: I'm seriously considering getting a cat.



• M: Why? (while barely able to contain excitement and amusement)



• H: I don't like coming home to an empty house in the evenings.



• M: Do you want me to move that ugly cactus that your mom gave you back inside?
  

The "I don't like coming home to an empty house" part is apparently seriously indicative of broodiness (according to Kath). Since HOMSI has given up trying to get me to move in with him (it would be a ridiculous commute to work), I'm quite excited about the prospect of him getting a cat. HOMSI's garden is quite small, and so he would have to get a small dog. Unfortunately, no "manly" small dogs exist - and the men who own small dogs generally have life partners. HOMSI likes big dogs, like Great Danes and St. Bernards and so toy poms, yorkies and sausage dogs are not an option. And his garden is far too small for a Jack Russell. So, he has opted for a cat. A giant cat. Yes, my boyfriend has fallen in love with Maine Coons. They can weigh up to 11kg, are huge and fluffly, have manes and are pretty much like owning a tiger.

The only problem is that HOMSI would quite like a rescue cat. Where we would find a homeless Maine Coon is our first problem - the second being how much Sinutab HOMSI will have to consume to be able to breathe, since he's mildly allergic to cats. Maybe the guinea pig is a good idea after all.

Questioning things

The point at which I really started wondering whether things would work out with us was about 400km into our 600km roadtrip.

I changed the CD. Somehow, of the 10 tracks on it, the one he loves the most is the 1 track that I want to skip.

A quick note

I've come to realise that writing up my epic MA (and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting) has made me blog a lot less. I actually can't even remember when I last posted anything. *Bad Candice. Very bad Candice. No biscuits for you.*

So, instead of never getting around to writing proper posts, I'm going to be trying something new by posting bits and pieces on my blog to get me back into the swing of things. Sound good? Kthanxbye. :)