Monday, November 3, 2008

university sadness

I learnt some interesting news a few days back, it seems Bundoora wants to ruin my dreams, and the dreams of many others.

Bundoora has introduced a two year plan to phase out the philosophy and religion department from the humanities and social science faculty.- yep, my major will cease to exist in less than 24 months. they say it is because no one wants to do an art degree, that the philosophy component is no longer viable ( even though we get just as many first years majoring in RPS as other arts departments.)Its about the components of your degree and wether its compatible with education ( yep, thats right, if your doing an art course your obviously doing it for a dip Ed...) this move is putting Harry Oldmeadow, Rod Blackhirst and Roger Sworder out of jobs ( and suprise, suprise Latrobe suddenly starts offering a redundancy package for 150 employees....oooooh) BUT when these lecturers are gone, or shifted to other learning streams, is the money they are saving going to go back to the humanities department to improve what's left of our stripped arts degree? The answer is probably not, it will be put toward more viable sources, for those students in the big smoke! So it has been stated that this years first years are the last batch that can choose philosophy and religion studies as a major, and if any of us decide they want to do any post graduate studies we have to do it at Bundoora! not to mention that if they start to cut these subjects, whats next? literature? history?

The funny thing is, Latrobe's five year plan is to increase rural enrolments by 20%! how is that going to be possible when our arts degree is becoming so woeful that anyone who does get a placing at our campus will immediately transfer to Bundoora at the end of the first year for lack of choice!?


so much for religious tolerance
so much for understanding
so much for choice!
and so much for learning!

screw you Bundoora, we love our lecturers and our major!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

a wedding, a funeral, and a birthday.

On Thursday it was my birthday. I turned 24! yay!
the whole day (until Dave got home) was spent doing my medieval studies essay.
Kaitlin and i had set a deadline of 1pm to hand it in, so I did it. I think I did OK. we will see.

when Dave got home he was carrying a huuuuge package- i had no idea what it was, but when i opened it it was a toolbox! how exciting- i think it was a hint for me to clean up all my tools i have lying around actually hehehe. inside the tool box was another, smaller package, this contained a brand new DS lite, a cyclon-d memory chip ( so you can play multiple games) and two tickets to the rocky horror show!! he had secretly organised with Katy for her to have the day off of the show, and now me and her are going to go together! wow! isn't he sweet?!

that night i went to Tegan's house and dropped off some kebabs, and we organised to travel to the park on Friday ( yesterday) and have a BBQ together with the ducks. Tegan gave me a beautiful pagan journal, an awesome piece of art/spell craft made from her own hand made felt, and some printed calico with a key on it, and a handmade paper card. it was all so tactile and loverly mmmmm texture.....*drool*

I went to Katy's house yesterday while Dave was at a funeral and we had fun times getting tipsy ( at 10.30am!!) and listening to songs from the past and talking about stuff. ( at one point i nearly cried when she was talking about her dad!) and wishing Sam a merry wedding, since both of us had no way to get there. Katy made me a mix CD of songs that we both used to listen to, and we fondly remembered all of our long history together ( nearly 10 years now!)

today ( Saturday) I bought some fisherman pants and a new pair of boots, and it was glorious! I haven't been up to spotlight, but i hope when Dave returns from work, we will go to k mart, I will buy a bike, and then spotlight! yay!

love to you all! !