La dee dee, a post from me!

Spring has sprung!  But wait, that's in Canada :)  It's autumn here, and the year is disappearing before my eyes.  April is rearing her head, which is okay with me.  April is quite pleasant!

I start April off not just with my mum's birthday and of course, April Fool's Day...but with my looming confirmation....DUH DUH DUH!

You might be wondering what a confirmation is.  As far as I knew, it was this thing that you do in the Catholic church in grade 6 when you are meant to confirm your faith.  Nope, this one is slightly different.  It is one of three 'milestones' that a PhD candidate must complete in order to successfully obtain the degree.  Confirmation is the first milestone.  Wikipedia can help with a brief explanation here:

A PhD confirmation is a preliminary presentation or lecture that a PhD candidate presents to faculty and possibly other interested members. The lecture follows after a suitable topic has been identified, and can include such matters as the aim of the research, methodology, first results, planned (or finished) publications, etc.  The confirmation lecture can be seen as a trial run for the final public defense, though faculty members at this stage can still largely influence the direction of the research. At the end of the lecture, the PhD candidate can be seen as "confirmed" - faculty members give their approval and trust that the study is well directed and will with high probability result in the candidate being successful.

Basically, this is where a panel decides whether I am allowed to even continue with my PhD!  I submitted a 149 page document to the panel two weeks ahead of time which included many of the components listed above.  In addition, the 'introduction' to the document is a literature review of the area of self-management in aphasia and took freaking forever to write...I pretty much don't want to ever see it again!  My panel will be on of the postgraduate coordinators and another expert in the area of aphasia who is not part of my advisory team - that would be cheating.

I'm not sure what they're going to say/ask me, but I do know that it took ages to put this damn document together, so hopefully it will all go swimmingly!  I didn't think I was nervous, but last night I had a nightmare about colour coordinated tables of information not being aligned properly (terrifying) and woke up feeling extremely anxious.  Normally you would face this panel in person, but since we are in different states, I will be doing it by Skype.  The future is now!!  Hahaha.  So this has been fairly all consuming and I'm looking forward to (fingers crossed) having it DONE AND DUSTED!  (and passed...it would be fairly humiliating to have them say I couldn't continue!!)

Jeremy has been consumed as well, with studying for his fellowship exam.  He will take this at the end of July - sadly no birthday celebrations for him as the exam falls either the day after his birthday, or the one after that.  However, he can't complain too much since right after to exam he will be flying to Greenland via Denmark to embark on an adventure and achieve a dream he has had since before I met him.  He will head to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland to do a nine day hike of the Arctic circle.  After the hike, he will have a short time to fly out to Canada and spend some time with his family.  Sounds a bit like the trip of a lifetime, and will be well-deserved after sooooo many years of study only to have another massive exam to fall right before his 40th birthday!  Everyone, please send whatever well wishes/prayers you choose into the universe as this exam is REALLY expensive and you have to pay the full fee again if you don't pass.  Eeeeeek!  I have confidence in Jeremy and I know that he is putting lots of time and effort into studying though, so that is definitely the most important thing. 

As usual, there are all sorts of events going on around here.  My diary keeps filling up, although I'm trying to let Jeremy have peace and quiet for studying :)  This weekend, after the dreaded confirmation Friday, I will drive from Clare to Adelaide on Saturday to meet up with my lovely Irish friend Maria who used to live in Adelaide but moved to Melbourne last year.  We are going to do some painting while sipping wine with a couple of other girls, which should be amusing and creative!  Sunday I have a goodbye dinner for a member of my book club who is leaving us and going back to her hometown of Woolloongong, NSW.  She always talked about how she missed it there, so it's not entirely surprising.  We might need to find a new member or two for our group...it's dwindling!  We have Sara, the dietitian, who is off in Italy working at her dream job currently, and now Amy is leaving as well.  Sidenote: the latest book we read for book club was Geraldine Brooks' "People of the Book".  She is a fantastic author and it was great to read one of her books that I hadn't already read.

Looks like it's about time to head to bed so I can provide excellent therapy to my day rehab patients tomorrow and then drive up to Clare.  Oh, one last thing - the kittens are extremely adorable and are already dominating our older cat (Mac).  He seems to be getting more tolerant, which is excellent and we're keeping the kittens as indoor cats and bringing Mac in overnight.  Everyone seems to be adjusting.  It's really fun to have two little curious kitten balls of energy and they love each other to bits...I'm really happy that despite my reservations I kept these two little guys together.

That's all for now, folks...watch this space, maybe next time I write an entry I will be a CONFIRMED PhD candidate :)