Pig Problems

For breakfast today I had boiled eggs on toast and a leisurely coffee on my back deck.
After this I mowed the lawn, watered the pots of herbs and flowers that live in the yard and watched my kitten play around in the grass clippings.

I started work at 2pm, which allowed me a really relaxed morning.

I began enrolling in this semesters classes, which has proven to be somewhat of an administrative nightmare. My year advisor I feel, has failed in her role. After attempting to correspond with her about my degree changes and being responded to with one sentence emails and links to pages within the uni intranet that didn't exist I wrote her off.
I tracked down the details of the head of the Psychology department of my uni and have been working with him to get a little bit of organisation happening with this change.

Part of semester 2 Psychology is 'free electives' which basically means I pick ANY course available within the entire university (all 4 campuses) and study it in addition to my core psych units.

The tricky part is finding semester 2 subjects that don't have pre-requisite areas of study. I really wanted to do something in the arts;not possible, so I looked into philosophy, again; not possible. I have decided to use the units that I studied last semester as credit towards these free electives. If all works out I will only be doing my two core psych subjects this semester.

To be honest - I think that the idea of 'free electives' is just a money making activity. There aren't enough subjects within the Griffith Psychology Degree to fill the credit points required so, with the excuse of producing 'well-rounded' graduates, we're forced to undertake subjects that we may not necessarily be interested in - and also at around $500 a subject - not including textbooks.

I found out last week that a friend of mine Liza had been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus (swine flu). This news is terrible in itself, but made worse by the fact that she's been put into lockdown at home, AND to top it off it's her 21st birthday this weekend (she won't even be allowed a glass of champagne to celebrate)! She has told me she's been given the all clear to be around people - but the plot thickens.

My stepmother works with a respiratory program at the Coffs Harbour Base Hospital, the same place that she is in charge of management of the H1N1 virus for the region - if she is exposed to the virus, then so will the patients in the respiratoty rehab unit that she works with, for these patients a brush with any flu means severe illness or death.

My parents and my sick friend live 45 minutes drive of eachother - perfect opportunity to visit the family and see my friends - did I mention it's a 6 hour drive from my house here in Brisbane?

This is the problem I face: if I visit Liza for her birthday I might not be able to visit my family for the rest of the trip because of the risk of passing on the virus (I know it sounds extreme, but these are the measures the NSW health system are enforcing. Even if staff are only diagnosed with a common flu they aren't allowed to enter the health campus for seven days)

I'll find out tomorrow the status of Liza's 'case' and will have to decide from there what I'm going to do. As much as I love her, I don't want to be in a position to get other people, or myself ill - especially when it can be avoided.

Laura (a friend of mine from highschool) and I are driving down to Coffs Harbour tomorrow night regardless - whether I make it to Liza's party or not, I'll have to wait and see.