School, Skin, and Mexican Food

I have three more weeks left of classes and the pressure is certainly building. Naturally the pressure of working on assignments has made me more lethargic. Over the weekend I couldn't get myself to work on anything. I have my major assignments coming up quick and I can only hope that I will get them all done and get a decent grade. In order to keep my scholarship I have to get 75% on average for the semester, but I just learned you will get a larger scholarship if you get 85% or more. Of course I will do the best I can, but now there's more pressure to do really well and 85% is really high for Australia grading systems.

Another concern lately has been about my skin. I've suffered from acne for a long time. Normally my face acne isn't that bad, but I make it look worse because of my habit of picking at it. Severe skin-picking is even considered a disorder called dermatillomania, although I'm not sure I qualify. I'm a perfectionist and little bumps or pimples on my face are great targets. I also do it subconsciously and most often when I am stressed or in deep thought. Add all of my previous acne problems with my birth control implant (see picture of Implanon to the right) and suddenly I have severe acne that never disappears! A while ago in Eugene, OR I saw a dermatologist who told me to get the implant taken out for my acne problem. At the time I decided to try managing my acne because I was not ready to take out a free implant that lasts for 3 years and switch to a pill. Since I have been in Australia my acne has continued to get worse and I have finally come to the conclusion that the implant has GOT to come out. 

My first plan of action was to get my healthcare card, which I had forgotten to do when I first arrived. This led to a very frustrating experience. I went to the Overseas Healthcare (OSHC) desk on campus who told me I don't show having any coverage and sent me to the Higher Degree Research Office (HDRO). After about 20 minutes there they sent me back to OSHC with proof of my payment for OSHC as well as the University documentation of my coverage. Unfortunately the woman at the OSHC (I should add I've talked to this woman before and she is very cold) said that the papers don't give her anything and that HDRO needs to fix it by talking to Avikash who makes sure the money goes to OSHC. I asked to speak the first time I spoke to her since I knew he was the one to solve this problem, but she told me she couldn't just have any student go and talk to him. Luckily the second time she seemed sorry for me and tried to call him, but he was gone. Frustrated with this whole scenario, I went back to HDRO to tell them about what happened and my advisor there said Avikash was on leave and she will work to try to get it sorted out and get back to me. The whole thing was ridiculous, and who knows when I'll get it sorted out. In the end I called the medical services and they told me I can bring in the proof of my OSHC (the papers I received) and that should be enough. I now have an appointment with the doctor on Thursday and I am hoping all will go well and I can get my implant out!

Over the weekend I finally came to terms with the fact that my face looks terrible due to acne. On Saturday the ward had a Mexican Fiesta Activity as a late Cinco de Mayo. I had agreed to help out and arrived early to help with decorating and food prep. I caked on makeup to hide my blemishes and kept my hair down to hide the worst spots, but when I started helping in the kitchen I had to pull my hair back. I was in the kitchen for most of the activity helping serve the chicken or pork for the tostadas/tortillas as well as refilling sauces and whatnot so hiding my face was not an option and I soon become more occupied with what I was doing than how I looked. 

The activity was a total success. We had so many people and too much food. The Riveros family did all the cooking and Daniel Riveros used to be a manager at the Los Hermanos restaurant in Provo, Utah so you can be sure the food was good. My favorite was the fried ice cream and I hope I will be able to recreate it some day. Daniel says you mix Kellog's Corn Flakes, coconut, chocolate chips, and honey as the batter for the frozen ice cream balls (click here for the closest recipe I could find). It took hours to clean everything up and I didn't get home until late that night, but I wasn't really complaining. 

Sunday I decided to keep my hair up since by then most people had already seen my acne scarred face. Ironically the first talk was by one of the counselors and he was talking about how he lost his two front teeth and was really distressed about it (luckily he was already married). As he prayed to God about his teeth he felt that the Lord told him not to worry about his body and to focus on his wife and his family. Not long after he met a dental student that led him to an orthodontist that fixed his teeth. I felt this talk was for me and the Lord wanted me to know that He would help my body to heal. Nothing miraculous has happened, but since then I have a doctor's appointment to hopefully resolve some of my concerns, and I have become less frustrated about it. 

Life Without Technology

I remember in high school and earlier where my life didn’t rely on internet, cell phones, and other forms of technology. Back then my friends and I played more outdoor games, or used old school video games like Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64. It didn’t take long after high school though for me to completely rely on technology and not just for entertainment, but for getting things done.

It used to be that I preferred always physically writing out my notes/outlines for everything. I still do that once in a while, but I have learned the value of embracing technology. I’m significantly faster at taking notes on my laptop, and if I need to write something down I can note things by voice onto my phone. My favorite is using my scriptures on the LDS app on my kindle. No matter the device I use I can highlight passages of scripture or conference talks and add notes or tags to my highlighted sections for later reference. Since my notes are synced on all my devices I can always find them. Life is certainly made easier in many ways with technology.

Unfortunately, I’m experiencing some serious setbacks by having very limited internet access. My apartment internet is not working at all currently. Regardless of the complaints made by my roommate and I last week and again yesterday, nothing has been fixed. So to complete my assignments and projects I have had to go to the library to get things done. Saturday I was there all day from opening to close (10am to 6pm). Things got worse because Monday my laptop decided it won’t connect to the internet in the library. The IT people told me that the library is working on some internet improvements and my computer probably won’t work in the library until it’s fixed in a week or so. Now I have to wander around campus to find a good quiet place that I can stay for 6-8 hours and work. This has been EXTREMELY frustrating! I no longer work out because I want to maximize my daylight time at Uni for the internet and I can’t motivate myself to workout at night. Now I have to download whatever I can so I might be able to work or do some reading for class at home, but some things such as my class blogs are impossible without internet access. Life without technology and internet in particular is no fun.

On a happier note, I have completed the majority of my smaller assignments (click here to check out my biology blog) and can now put most of my efforts into my large assignments due in a few weeks. I feel confident I’ll be able to get everything done and I’m mostly grateful I don’t have a job so that I have been able to devote as much time as needed to my assignments as well as work around my current internet issues. Additionally this internet inconvenience has allowed me to spend more time reading other books like Pride and Prejudice. Also, I’ve been able to assist the missionaries with two lessons this last week which is always fun and uplifting. In short, I’m greatly missing technology, but I’m trying to make the most of it. Hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

Time Flies...And So Will I

As I mentioned before, Macquarie University is a semester based school where each term is 13 weeks long. We get a two-week break mid-semester (Macquarie is one of the few that does this) and there are two-weeks at the end for exams (click here to see Macquarie calendar). So my term ends in the middle of June and that is just over a month away! Now that I am more than halfway the semester is moving by quickly and assignments are coming up fast.

The ideal situation for a student would be to have each assignment evenly spread out so that you only have to focus on one at a time. So far I have been able to take care of just one at a time for the most part, but now things have changed. I have one major assignment worth 60% of my grade due at the end of the semester which you are supposed to be working on regularly throughout - easier said than done. I just finished my statistics assignment due tomorrow, and now I am working on the biggest assignment I have for my MRes (Academic Writing) class which is due on Friday. We have to do a 2000 word critical analysis of an article or comparison of two articles. I'm just now starting it! After this I have two major assignments to continuously work on. I have one major assignment for Biology worth 60% of my grade due at the end of the semester which you are supposed to be working on regularly throughout - easier said than done. The other big assignment is a working group proposal that has the potential to be a nightmare. The proposal is basically a 5 page summary of some fantastic question that you would address by bringing in multiple researchers from various disciplines or backgrounds on that topic. Coming up with the idea, the people, the theoretical itinerary of the meetings, etc can be quite difficult. I definitely have my work cut out for me for the rest of the semester. 

On top of my building amount of work to do, my internet is being really finicky again. I talked to Maria who works at the main office and she said it's always had problems and that it's worse than dial-up! She's going to talk to the IT people, but it sounds like I'm just going to have to live with it for now. My solution is just to spend loads of time at the library. Although school is going by quite quickly, the time it's taking for me to be with Matt again seems slow. I'll have to deal with all the internet issues till the end of July when Matt will be here and we will get our own place. That transition may bring it's own set of frustrations so perhaps I should just be happy with what I have for now. 

If you were not yet aware of my July plans, I am going to fly back to the US on July 4th and then the very next day Matt and I are going on a trip to Ft. Lauderdale, the Bahamas, and then Orlando/Walt Disney World. After we get back we'll have just enough time to make any final preparations before we fly to Sydney. I've been monitoring flights to Florida and Sydney for a long time. It's quite stressful actually. I created e-mail alerts on kayak.com for every possible combination of flying to and from Florida, different dates to fly to Sydney, and more. Last week my e-mail alert showed a really good drop in a flight from Orlando to Eugene, but Sydney flights had jumped up $300! I found a decent combination for the Florida trip and decided to look at a flight to Sydney on July 21st which I hadn't really looked at. It wasn't the cheapest I had seen, but it seemed likely the flights would not go down much below the $1086. I was still torn on whether I should buy them right then or not so I e-mailed the information to my mom, and got ready for bed. As I was praying I was asking Heavenly Father what I should do about the flights and felt that I should trust my mom's advice. By the time I ended the prayer my mom had e-mailed me and I was able to call her. Normally she doesn't check her e-mail at that time, but that day was different. This was a huge blessing because my internet wouldn't let me load the pages to purchase the tickets so I had to give my mom all the information over the phone to purchase them. Had I waited I likely would not have gotten the  prices I did. Although I was up past 1 a.m. that night it was well worth it. Now I don't have the stress of getting stuck with expensive flights anymore. 

Recently I made my first ever batch of oreo truffles. You grind up oreo cookies (takes a long time!) then mix it with cream cheese and form it into small 1in balls. After being in the fridge for an hour I dipped the truffles into my peanut butter/chocolate mixture and left in the fridge again to harden. They are so good! I try to only eat 2 or 3 a day. Also, to add on more calories, I went to spend time with Paiges again on Sunday. We had roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and home-made rolls! Sunday dinner American style for sure. I'll be sad when they go back to the U.S. like many other American families in our ward. That night we had some fun as I helped Corene Paige put some useful apps on her phone. One of which I highly recommend for husband and wives called Find my Friends (click here for android version, or here for iphone). This app allows you to know where someone is, create alerts for when they arrive or leave at a place (use it on your teenagers), and some other fun features. The iphone free one isn't as nifty as the android one, but they still work the same. Another thing I introduced them to was the animal personality test I randomly found (click here to test it out). Matt and I had done it earlier and discovered that I am a fox and he is an otter and our love and marriage is tricky, but worthwhile. It's a lot of fun and it was surprisingly accurate for me and Corene.

Hopefully I will be able to have some fun while I combat all my assignments in the next month! 

Dancing and Pioneers

On Thursday night Matt and I were discussing new movies coming out such as Iron Man 3 and Star Trek. He was saying how Iron Man 3 comes out May 3rd so I figured it would be a few weeks later here. To my surprise the next day Iron Man 3 was already here! Naturally I had to jump on the opportunity and see it before Matt so I went with a couple of friends that night. The movie was fantastic as expected and I won't say any more as not to spoil anything.

Before the movie we grabbed food at a sushi place which proved to be a very unique experience for me. We sat next to the sushi train where small plates of sushi and other food goes around on a conveyor belt and you just grab what you want and eat it. At the end the waiter counts how many plates of each color/value you have to calculate the cost. I discovered I'm quite American when it comes to sushi. I tried sushi with salmon and fish eggs, prawns, some kind of octopus ball thing, and a couple other unknowns. The sushi was good, but at the end I grabbed some teriyaki chicken that was easily my favorite. I still miss the Beaver Roll at the sushi place near OSU, but I think I will have to find new favorites while in Australia.

The next day was the long awaited "So You Think You Can Dance" YSA performance. I met up with Brock and Kaytlin at the central station after getting quite confused about locations, and then Damon drove us all to the Sutherland Entertainment Centre for the show. It was a packed venue with not the best visibility, but still fun. They had Jazz, Country (Toy Story themed), Musical Theatre (RM theme), Swing, Latin, Contemporary, and more. Each stake did a marvelous job, and I attempted to record a little of them, but unfortunately I can't get them to load. Although I have no desire to be a YSA again, I miss being able to participate in some of those activities. It was a blast to participate in the one I was in over 3 years ago (click here to see video) and proved to be a night to remember since I got in a car accident that night as well. I think there should be more fun married couple activities as well so we don't become hermits. Perhaps it's just expected that you'll have kids really soon meaning you aren't allowed to do fun stuff.

Sunday I gave my talk on the pioneers. This might easily be the most difficult talk I have ever had to prepare, and probably the worst one I've given in a long time. I think the Lord helped people to hear my word better than I actually spoke them since I got many nice comments. In the end I feel that I did my best and hopefully the Lord helped others to hear what they needed. Most of all I'm very grateful for having to write that talk for all the interesting things I learned about my own family history.

For years my grandparents (on father's side) have talked about the Standing and Baddley family that were pioneers. All I remember is that they had nice graves in the cemetery in Salt Lake City and were pioneers. Beyond that I didn't really pay attention to the stories. By working on my talk I learned that my great, great, great grandfather James Standing actually took care of Hyrum Smith's family for a bit, was imprisoned with Brigham Young, helped shoot home-made cannons at the mobs in Missouri, and was a stone-cutter for the Nauvoo temple and the Salt Lake City temple. I also learned about his family and how his son Joseph was killed while serving a mission in Georgia, and his eldest son James Varley Standing started to go blind in his later years. James Varley apparently was quite talented and liked to ride in wagon wheels spinning around and he could walk on his hands for over a block tricks. All of his younger days may have led to him going blind, but he still married a lovely woman by the name of Eliza Baddley. Eliza's family didn't really approve of their marriage since James was going blind. The small white house they lived in still exists about 12 blocks from the temple in Salt Lake City. Although I don't remember this, my dad claims I've been there or had it pointed out to me many times. Apparently there is some great pioneer history on my mother's side as well, but I didn't have time to extract it all. Family history can be quite fascinating and I am sad I have not delved into it more.

The last few days I have mainly focused on my next Statistics assignment. My teacher gave us all an extra week at my (and probably other's) request since just a day before many of us were still completely lost. I overthink it too much and then I get easily confused on what to do. With the extra time and working with classmates I'm sure we'll figure it out. This also gave me time to watch Life of Pi yesterday. I read the book a long time ago when someone recommended it because I wanted to work with tigers. It was a really good movie with some neat scenes. There is a lot of debate about the meaning and truth of the movie, but it's not based on a real story so I don't understand why there's so much debate. I will say that if it were true, I would believe that the boy could survive on a small boat with a tiger and all that occurred in Pi's story. I believe that things can be true even if there is no logical explanation for it.