Who said cramming doesn't work?

I passed my exam! I got 67% - who ever said that cramming was a bad thing! Out of the 60 that took the exam only three failed - the highest mark was 76%, so I think I'm justified in feeling smug. Even if I'm not entitled to do so - I'm enjoying the smugness anyway. Unfortunately we get our "Methods of Enquiry" essay result back on Friday. I'm a bit worried that I didn't put enough about ethics in it to get a pass, quite apart from the fact that I'm pretty sure that I missed the whole point of the literature review part anyway. I'll just have to crack on with getting the rest of my essays finished before I go out on placement so that I've got time to resubmit that one if I've failed it.

I had a nice lunch with my friend Angela today - she come home with me and we stuffed ourselves with pizza and fresh fruit salad, and spent lots of time cuddling the bunnies. Not to mention the obligatory gossiping and laughing of course!

In other news today I found out where I'm going for my FP4 placement in September. Unfortunately it's in deepest darkest West Cumbria, about 70 miles from home so I think I might have to sort out some accommodation. The good news is that I don't think I'll have to wear uniform for it as it's in a child and adolescent mental health team - which sounds pretty scary to me. Still it means that I'll have had a good range of experiences of placements; community, hospital, forensic, mental health and children/young adults which will please the HPC when I come to register as an O.T. It also means that I should be able to do a physical placement for my elective next year, which I think is the area I'd prefer to work in rather than mental health. I quite fancy palliative care or intermediate care or possibly even learning disabilities (although that might be viewed by college as a bit too mental healthish and I should do something more physical based). Oh well I guess it'll come down to where I can actually get a placement!

Mum and Dad phoned last night - they had a very relaxing time in the Loire Valley and have now travelled further north and are staying near Mont Saint-Michel for the next few days. Sounds like the weather has been a bit mixed for them and they were invaded by thunder bugs yesterday. Dad found my awakening on Sunday very funny when I told him about it - at least it means that they don't need to worry about me!

Whoops!

It's now official I can sleep for England. It took me a while to get to sleep last night as my neck was so painful, hence I was still awake at 3 am. I woke up about 7 then dozed off again, eventually getting up about 9. When I opened the blind in Mum & Dad's room, had some breakfast then watched some TV in bed.

I obviously fell asleep again as I awoke about midday, when it sounded like the garage door was rattling. I thought I'd better investigate and so I pulled on my dressing gown. As I walked past the arch window in the lounge I saw one of our neighbours stood there. When I opened the door, two neighbours were stood there. I then realised that a third neighbour had climbed over the wall using a step ladder between our two properties. Apparently they were worried as they hadn't seen me that day, they knew that Mum & Dad were away and the rabbits hadn't been let into the run. Apparently they tried knocking on the door about an hour earlier, ringing the door bell and phoning me. I hadn't heard a thing. They thought I might be possibly be asleep and so they left it an hour before trying again. There were five missed calls on the phone, next door had climbed into the garden and been knocking on my bedroom window, and it was only when they banged for the umpteenth time on the garage door that I stirred!

At least I can safely say that we have excellent neighbours who keep an eye out for our well being here. Next door had apparently tried to contact me yesterday morning as well as he'd had to come into the garden to repair their side roof. Obviously I' d slept through that as well. I would like to point out that I did in fact surface yesterday as I had a chat with the neighbour at the back who was pulling out the hedge, just the rest of the neighbours hadn't seen me!

Notes to self :

1. Don't leave both cordless phones in the hallway , keep one by the bed.
2. Don't leave the side gate locked so that people have to climb over the wall.
   
3. Open both blinds at the front so they don't think you've collapsed before you had a chance to open the other!
   

It was all my fault....

I cursed the weather and made it go really wet and cold and miserable. How? Well, Sunday and Monday nights were so hot and humid that I couldn't sleep. I tried using the fan, but the rattling drove me mad. So on Tuesday I ordered a new quiet fan from Lakeland, and it's not stopped raining since. The fan has arrived and is fab, really quiet and I'm sure it'll keep me lovely and cool should we ever have hot weather again.

Other news this week - I survived my OT & Physical Trauma exam. I took it in the "special" room - there were just the four of us and the invigilator. I took in all my equipment; writing slope, bookrest attachment to hold the exam paper and bottle of water (with a few drops of rescue remedy in it) and my painkillers. I wrote a stupid amount (approx 18 sides of A4) and managed to use up all the ink in one of my new pens doing so. I had an extra 45 minutes to allow me to take rest breaks, but I actually left the exam room with 40 mins to spare. I could still have thought of more things to write, but my hand had gone very numb and I just couldn't be bothered to do anymore. The rumour is that we'll get the results on Wednesday... I'm picking Angela up from college that day as she's coming back home with me for lunch and Flip and Flop stroking, so I can cry on her shoulder if necessary.

I skived off college on Tuesday as I slept so badly (partly due to the heat and partly due to my neck pain). It was the FP4 placement briefing - I haven't done FP3 yet! Apparently I didn't miss anything and I was able to collect the paperwork the next day.

Wednesday was an IPL (inter professional learning with the nursing and radiography students) session. I think it was the first IPL session that I've actually enjoyed! The first half of the morning was taken up with three presentations about research. The first one was one of the radiography professors explaining some recent research he'd been involved in about how experience and training affect chest x-ray reading. The second presenter was a research assistant in a project that was looking at the social and health impact of the recent floods in Carlisle. The final presentation was to me the most interesting - partly because although the presenter was from a nursing background it related more to OT. He was looking at Wolfensberger's theory that by giving undervalued people roles that are valued by society (eg home ownership, parenting) automatically improves their status in society. What was interesting was not so much his findings (nope it doesn't always work like that) but the way he explained the research process and how it was okay to not have a clear idea when you found a topic you wanted to research of how the heck you could do it! After coffee we split into groups to discuss the presentations and had some really interesting and passionate conversations about them!

Thursday saw the launch of another third year module. We go straight out on placement in September and aren't back in college until November, so they're giving us the information now. The scariest part of this module (which is Professional Practice) is that it's assessed by a 45 minute viva. Eeek! I also found out on Tuesday that I got my first choice of research supervisor for my dissertation.

Finally, I got a letter from the NHS Bursary people today. They've approved my DSA recommendations in full! So not only will I get all the gadgets to help me, but I'll also get allowances for computer/printer consumables, photocopying, extra books and internet access. I think I'll be phoning the suppliers first thing on Monday!

Grrrrrr

For some reason broadband is having an identity crisis and is convinced that it's dial up if its speed is anything to go by! I'm constantly having to give up on reading posts on my favourite forum as the pages are taking so long to load that it's driving me mad.

I should of course view this as an opportunity to reduce the amount of time spent playing on the internet and instead invest more time in my studies. Nope. I can't seem to make that leap. Instead I'm just coming up with reasons why the internet is so slow. As the weather has been so warm perhaps the cables have melted, the little hamsters that run on wheels to power it have developed heatstroke, or perhaps an influx of tourists have nicked all the bandwidth.

I finally finished my "Methods of Enquiry" assignment and got it handed in. That morning we had the launch of our dissertation module. Bum. It's a bit scary. I think I'm going to develop the research proposal I devised for methods of enquiry for my dissertation, which was about how prepared students are to work with clients who have hearing impairments. The good news is that I'm likely to get my first choice of research supervisor - just hope I picked the right one.

Straight after the dissertation launch we had the launch of another module for next year. Activity Design. Actually it's two modules, the first one is to plan an intervention for a specific client group and the second is to carry it out and evaluate it. We're working in groups of about 8, and the really scary part is that they let us loose on the general public with minimal supervision to carry out the intervention that we've developed. Our inital thoughts were either to do a reminiscence group with clients with dementia, or relaxation techniques in a palliative care setting. Who knows what we'll actually end up doing though!

I've also been allocated a placement (starting in July) to catch up on the one I missed. Bizarrely it's in the same secure unit as the original one, but with a different practice educator. With a bit of luck I should find out next week where my placement is for next year, as we go straight out on placement when college restarts in September.

And finally bunny pics! They went to the vet on Monday night for their myxi jabs. The vet confirmed that they are both boys as we thought - so our internet googling and printing off pictures of baby bunny bottoms was effective. They were very well behaved and didn't wee on the vet - always a worry.

Having a stressful day (not).

Actually eating out of their own individual food bowls for once.

Until Flop finished all his and thought he'd check whether Flip had had a bigger portion.