and on to another year at university....

it's been a good while since my last post, life has just been... well... life!

uni is still going well, i didn't do as well as I'd have liked in Tri 1, i think i wildly underestimated how hard getting back into academic writing would be... but i passed, and i passed comfortably. my essay for my research methods module wasn't great, but i did really well in my exam, so it brought my grade up to the mid 60s. i did pretty dismally in my complex needs exam scoring in the mid 50s, but then i knew i wasn't going to do so well as it was an exam- we had to write 4 essays in 3hrs, all fully referenced. it was a bugger of an exam. i'm so glad i passed but i was still disappointed with my mark.

tri 2 was difficult, we had 3 modules on the go as well as being at placement, 3 x 3,000 word essays due in within days of each other... and this was right over the time of my mum's first anniversary.

i recognised right at the beginning of my study leave that with mum's 1st anniversary coming up my head was not in the right place at all, so we decided to go for a wee getaway, it was just to Butlins, but it was enough. we booked it on the Wednesday and went on the Friday. it was just what i needed,  a bit of sun and just getting away from all the crap in my life. when i came back my head was a lot clearer and i was able to blast through my essays.

my optional module essay i lost sleep over (AFTER i handed it in!), it was an adult branch module so totally out of my comfort zone, i really wasn't sure whether what I'd written was what they wanted.

i got 70% for it and got the most glowing feedback i have ever got for any essay ever!

my other essays scored me 60% and 73%  - the latter one completely shocked me as i felt between the 3 that it was the weakest, evidently i wrote something right!

so a few weeks ago we were told about funding being available for students to carry on their studies, either at honours or masters level. full tuition fees paid and continue to get a bursary. I'd found myself leaning towards wanting to work in research and knew that for the best chances for a job in this field, i needed to do the masters. so i applied. i was cautiously optimistic as i knew my grades had been decent but also knew a lot of people applying would have marks better than mine.

so last Friday i went for interview, it was a group interview, of course the first question asked was about your grades and any reasoning for blips (fails, low scores etc), and muggins here got picked to answer first - so i had to tell the whole story of the goings on with mum. i admitted my grades weren't brilliant when mum's diagnosis first came out, i admitted when i returned from my leave my grades weren't as good as I'd have liked - that i had underestimated how hard getting back into academic writing would be ... but i was also able to say how proud i was of myself for scoring so well last trimester despite having mum's 1st anniversary days before the essays were due in, and that had really boosted my confidence in thinking yes i actually can do it!

and just this morning - i got offered a fully funded place on the Master's in Advanced Nursing course!

so... I've got 72 days until i finish placement, 93 days left of my nursing course, 1 essay to go - i officially finish my nursing degree on Friday 6th September, I'll have a week off, and then back to it on Monday 16th - only this time I'll be walking onto campus as a post grad student!