Is it just me or is it weird the way one piece of paper can represent 4 years of long hard work?!
We were given the instructions that when we go up to receive our degree it's customery to acknowledge the Dean of the University by either bowing, curtsying or touching your trencher [hat] I told Bec the safest bet would be to do all three, but she retorted with, "Nah, I reckon I'll wave, wink and blow him a few kisses".
The whole ceremony lasted about 2 hours, after which we wandered about getting piccies and catching up with all the people we haven't seen in yonks! it was great.
Eventually Tim gave me a call, which only aided in me missing him more before letting us know Alex wanted to catch up, so if we popped past his flat in the next 10 minutes or so, he can let us in through the security door.
It helped me to appreciate Tim even more, with the reminder that he is a rock in my life and I know that I can count on him through anything. I actually got a little teary throughout the course of the night wishing that he could have been there, coz as sappy as it sounds a hug would have made the difference. But My girls, Kate and Rea were with me and I love that we ended the night with a group hug and some 'love you's' - these are some of the most amazing girls I know and I do love them ridiculously.
So at 10am Saturday we headed back to Forster, knackered after only having 3 hours sleep...but we were chipper and enjoyed each others company. These girls are amazing, kate and rea. We all realised we were tired so nobody got snappy or short with anyone, we just enjoyed the groggy company of one another before falling asleep all over each other in the back seat, waking at nabiac where we voted in the state election, then met Rea's dad and she headed home.
Barring the 2 hours of emotional chaos we had a great time over the weekend. The big dissapointment was that with the move to stay across town it meant I didn't get to catch up with Rhen before her graduation from Nursing. I was looking forward to that, but all the drama made it incredibly difficult. I do hope that I will be able to see her soon.
What a weekend...chaotic fun.
I graduated on Friday. Finally it all became official.
I caught the plane back from Melbourne on Wednesday, landing in Newcastle. Mum made the treck down to pick me up and then we headed out to lunch with Matty. Sadly Timmy had to work and so couldn't arrange to be at my Grad - so I've left him for a week while I head to Mum and Dads.
Thursday was spent bumming around being useless and then on Friday we were up at 5am and on the road by 6 - picking up Rea along the way, with a loaded car chatting excitedly, which is slightly surprising considering how most of us handle early starts.
We arrived in Armidale at about 9:30am and I spend the next half hour wandering about registering and picking up my academic dress. By 10am we were seated and the show was ready to roll.
[can you spot me?]
rather than graduating under her maiden name as I thought she would, Bec was doing the whole shebang under her married name, which meant she was seated one person away from me -fan-freaking-fantastic!!
We were given the instructions that when we go up to receive our degree it's customery to acknowledge the Dean of the University by either bowing, curtsying or touching your trencher [hat] I told Bec the safest bet would be to do all three, but she retorted with, "Nah, I reckon I'll wave, wink and blow him a few kisses".
The whole ceremony lasted about 2 hours, after which we wandered about getting piccies and catching up with all the people we haven't seen in yonks! it was great.
By about 1pm our little mob was left with Mum, Dad, Kate, Rea, Felicity, laura and myself, so we headed over to the St Kilda for lunch.
After lunch as we were wandering down the street, and passing the White Bull Pub I spotted Bec and Trev, Rissa and Paul lounging around all over the Sofa's, so I popped in and spent the next 1/2 hour having a good 'ole chin-wag, I've missed my girls alot.
The afternoon was spend lounging around laura's room, before we grabbed a shower at Mary White College, which turned out more interesting than we planned. Laura didn't have any spare towels, so Rea and I ended up using our worn clothes to dry ourselves before changing into our new stuff...grotty eh! but we really had no other options...so instead we laughed about it.
[with fless and waje]
Had to wait for a bus to get into town, before meeting Waje and Fless for dinner. Had a great time carrying on and laughing as waje knicked my slushi and used it as a topping for his fries.
Eventually Tim gave me a call, which only aided in me missing him more before letting us know Alex wanted to catch up, so if we popped past his flat in the next 10 minutes or so, he can let us in through the security door.
We took him up on his offer. Was sad to leave Fless and Waje I do miss them alot, though they've been invited to visit in Melbourne and I do hope that at some point they take me up on the offer.
At Alex's place, Alex and Dan were being nerds on the computer, but stopped to humour us with conversation, before grabbing a deck of cards for us. We then spent the next hour or so playing 'loser' before suzii arrived in the flat and proceeded to teach us a newbie game, which while conplicated to begin with, actually eventually made a lot of sense.
The plan was to head to the Newie, but after hanging around the flat just goofing off and enjoying each others company, Rea Kate and I soon became pretty happy to just hang around the flat. We had been hoping to catch up with Timmi at the Newie but he had rung and cancelled because he had to work late and was buggered. Laura wanted to head out and was becoming increasingly more abrupt as time went on, at one point even stating "Look, I'm going to make a threat, either we leave for the Newie now, or you guys sleep outside for the night"...it didn't go down well with us and we quickly told her that if she wanted us to actually come out with her then using threats like that really doesn't fly well. Either your allowing us to crash at your place or your not. We don't like to be bullied. Since she wanted us to come out we agreed and decided to make the most of it -hitting the dance floor as soon as we got in.
I don't know what was going on with laura that night, she must have had more issues to handle than I knew because she became more and more cranky as the night progressed.
By about 2am we were all pretty knackered and ready to head home having been up since 5 that morning. After making such a huge deal about us coming with her, we lost Laura more times than we can count, at one point she was gone for so long we actually thought she may have left us there and gone somewhere else [she's been known to abruptly leave clubs before] Eventually we managed to track her down on the verandah with this 'Ben' we had heard her spak of quite a bit that day. For the next half hour or so , we hit emotional chaos. Laura didn't want to go home. We suggested that we take the keys and swipe card and head to bed and then when she arrived she could ring her room phone and we'd let her in. She forgot her swipe card rendering that idea useless. plus she didn't want to leave. She was really pushing the fact that we were her guest so we should comply with her plans and since hers were to stay then we should just handle it. We were exhausted, we were all in high heels and our feet cained...we just wanted to go to bed we were trying to explain that by going home we really weren't hindering her plans, we hadn't seen much of her since entering the newie anyway, it would just mean she'd just prank us when she arrives. Loz really couldn't see our side. We didn't want to ruin her night, we just knew when it was time to end ours, didn't mean hers needed to be over. But the conversation just dragged on and on with me feeling increasingly more and more dissapointed that such a little part of the night was engulfing so much of it. Honestly I was dissapointed that Laura couldn't see we were exhausted and just allow us the freedom of going to bed. We hated that she was using her room as the carrot in front of the donkey - leading us on and making us jump through hoops, "Do you want to stay at my place or not?!"
I think Lauras dilemma was whether to come home with us, or hang out with the boy. It hurt that the decision seemed so difficult. We weren't banning her from seeing him, we would be gone the following morning and she wouldn't be 'put out' as she put it anymore
At some point Laura actually told us that we should have probably just planned to stay with someone else who we wouldn't be putting out. Ouch
So the three of us were at the end of the line and just decided, Okay we will. There was definitely tension and we decided that it would be better for everyone if we just left. The drama was too much.
We didn't really know exactly where we should go, so I rang the person in Armidale who I thought could very possibly still be awake and not mind us crashing their place, Suzii. She is such a champion, she sounded like we'd woken her when she answered the phone, but she was lovely none the less. I felt terrible. But as Rea put it, we didn't have a clue where we were going to go and if Suzii hadn't of answered we all would probably have collapsed in a blubbering mess. Praise God, she picked up the phone!! :D So we caught the bus to Mary White, picked up all our stuff, then caught a taxi [Rea trying to chat up the driver] over to Suzii, Alex and Melinda's place, and Suzii let us through the security door.
The image was actually quite ammusing. The three of us trudging down the street with masses of bags, pillows and sleeping bags. Rea hated it, vocalising it with "I feel like I'm homeless wandering the streets with everything I own".
A 40-something year old bloke tried to crack onto the 3 of us as we wandered the street with all our stuff with;
Bloke:"Oy, where you lovely ladies going with all that stuff?"
Rea: "We're moving - outta our old house and into the new"
Bloke: "moving?! at this time of night?"
Jess: "Yep, got evicted"
and on we walked, he tried but he caught us at the wrong end of the night -well, lets be honest...none of us were ever going to go there no matter how good our night could have been ;)
I think all 3 of us sighed as we walked through the door - the drama was over. The incredible thing was, as tired as suzii was she never stopped shining her beautiful smile and made us feel so welcome in her home. She's amazing.
The irony was that after all the drama and stress of moving and adjusting to life in Melbourne I honestly thought that the night would be a night of zero stress, just hanging out and enjoying the company of friends and instead it turned into this mess of a night.
Though, as in all difficult circumstances, you see the positives. Kate, Rea and I stuck together, no matter how stressed or irritated we got we continued to support and uphold each other and I felt the love of their friendship.
It helped me to appreciate Tim even more, with the reminder that he is a rock in my life and I know that I can count on him through anything. I actually got a little teary throughout the course of the night wishing that he could have been there, coz as sappy as it sounds a hug would have made the difference. But My girls, Kate and Rea were with me and I love that we ended the night with a group hug and some 'love you's' - these are some of the most amazing girls I know and I do love them ridiculously.
I will chat to laura soon and we'll sort through some things. I think that I was just really dissapointed - I still love her, she's my sister - but even the best of us hurt each other sometimes it's the nature of being human. Only Gods ways are perfect and he came through for us friday night/saturday morning he put a new roof over our head I thank him desperately for the incredible friendships he has granted me in this life.
Suzii headed to work on Saturday, while grabbing breakfast we bought some flowers for suzii and Cadbury Creme eggs for the rest of the flat to say thanks for taking care of us and letting us crash there. Even though Alex had no idea we stayed the night, he had still let us crash 'boys night' with Dan and we wanted the whole flat to know we appreciated their hospitality intentional or not ;)
So at 10am Saturday we headed back to Forster, knackered after only having 3 hours sleep...but we were chipper and enjoyed each others company. These girls are amazing, kate and rea. We all realised we were tired so nobody got snappy or short with anyone, we just enjoyed the groggy company of one another before falling asleep all over each other in the back seat, waking at nabiac where we voted in the state election, then met Rea's dad and she headed home.
Barring the 2 hours of emotional chaos we had a great time over the weekend. The big dissapointment was that with the move to stay across town it meant I didn't get to catch up with Rhen before her graduation from Nursing. I was looking forward to that, but all the drama made it incredibly difficult. I do hope that I will be able to see her soon.
What a weekend...chaotic fun.
