Honours Year : Complete.

Hello Blog,

So today I handed in my dissertation. It was scary, I spent most of the morning beforehand pacing around my room and feeling nervous. Its the same feeling you get before you write an exam, well, that's how I feel before I write exams. I'm not sure if anybody else does...

ANYWAY!

So I'm finished now. It's a pretty weird feeling, I don't think it has fully sunken in yet.. Sunken in.. is that even grammatically correct? I'm at Chloe's flat right now watching Taken with Emil, Joe and Chloe so if I spell something wrong or write badly structured sentences its because I'm distracted.

This movie is AWESOME! Emil hasn't seen it so that's why I am watching it for the 6th time. SO MUCH GOODNESS!

Back to what I wanted to say though.

Honours has been such an incredible journey.

In my 'Acknowledgement' section of my dissertation I didn't get a chance to name all the people who have made this year bearable/fun/everything that it has been.

I would like to thank Jono Guy for all his encouragement, for phoning me and answering all my questions and just checking that I was handling everything OK.

Thanks Lizzie for always being enthusiastic and full of compliments. Thank you Chloe, Joe Chambers, Tim, Joel Hoo, Karam, Matt A, Matt W, Ryan, Chris and Emil for hanging out with me and making me remember that there is a life outside of Honours.

My Life Group - thank you for always being there for me, I love you guys heaps and will always cherish my memories with you. It has been such a fun few years doing life with you all.

All the encouraging church people like Huei, Johnny, Keron, Kim, etc. etc. there are so many people I want to thank, I can't even think to name them all!!!!!!

I love my Elim family so much, you guys are awesome and I can't even imagine leaving, but I know I will probably have to one day. :'(

To my flatmates, Joella and Katie, thanks for making the flat so calm and stress free! It has been AH-MAY-ZING. Thanks for understanding why I'd lock myself away in my room for hours on end in order to work on my dissertation. Also, thanks for all the fun Tim Tam slam times and making me come down and have hot drinks with you.

Thanks to Samantha and Jason for the lunch dates and Briar and Jonny for our weekly Iced Chocolate hangouts. I always looked forward to it and in the midst of the craziest semester of my life I feel like it really helped to keep me sane.

Thanks to my class mates, especially Tom, Lydia and Patty from semester one's 'Classical Hollywood Cinema' paper. Even though it was hard, I had a lot of fun. You guys are hilarious.

Big thank you to Joel Bartlett for taking over the Creative Media team when I realised I couldn't do it anymore, you really stepped up and I respect you for that man! You've always been someone I can rely on and it means a lot.

Thanks Cam Mackenzie for the phone calls. We are overdue for another one so you should probably call me again sometime.. just saying...

I'd also like to thank all the South Life peeps, I feel like you have accepted me into your wee group and its been nice to hang out with you all this year. You guys are nuts, but its a good kind of nuts. I thoroughly enjoyed all those times we played Mafia, and I will always remember Sam C's random outburst of: "I'M THE DETECTIVE!!!!" 

Right. I think that's basically everyone.

I apologize if I have forgotten anyone, I'm sure you know if you have made a positive impact in my life this year so please don't be hurt if I didn't name you specifically. :)

Oh, and obviously, the biggest thank you EVER goes to Jesus, He has helped me this year more than I can even say. I AM SO GRATEFUL!!!! I am really learning more and more to just trust Him in everything I do, it makes life so much easier not worrying about every little thing.

So now that all my thankyou's are out of the way, I would like to share some of the things I have learnt in my time of doing Honours, and actually my film degree in general.

• In order to do Honours, you NEED TO BE SELF MOTIVATED. You have to be able to tell yourself "No, I can't go watch a funny Ben Stiller movie right now, I have to go home and work on my dissertation". If you can't do that, you're going to have a bad time.

• Make the most of the time you have with your supervisor. For the first few meetings I tried to cut out all the chit chat and just go straight for the things I wanted answers to... but later on when I was more sorted I allowed myself to talk about things like my excessive nosebleeds. That's another thing, go into your supervisor meetings with things you want their help with. This will really help you to make the most of your time with them. :)

• Its probably the best idea to do your extra papers in the first semester which leaves your second semester practically completely open to just work on your dissertation. I did it this way. Yes, I did have the craziest most stressful few months of my life back in semester one, but this second semester has in turn been the cruisiest semester. SO MUCH TIME TO WORK ON THE DISSERTATION!!! It has been great. I'm glad I did it that way, even though there was a lot of stress and panic and guilt to overcome back in April/May/June.

• As long as you work hard, there is not reason why you cannot finish your dissertation early like I did. Its seriously all about just putting enough time in and being motivated to finish before you need to. JUST KEEP WORKING HARD, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!

Today I came to Chloe's flat and sent the dissertation in via email. IT FREAKED ME OUT!

THEN CHLOE TOLD ME ABOUT THIS AWESOME SURPRISE SHE PLANNED WHICH MEANS I WILL GET TO RECORD SOME OF MY SONGS THIS SUMMER!!!!!

RAAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!! SO EXCITING!!!!!!!!!

It is literally the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me so a HUGE HUGE HUGE MASSSIIIIVVVEEE thank you to everyone who is involved with this. I don't even know what to say. I am so blessed and grateful and just STOKED to have so many awesome friends!!!! EEEEEEE!!!!!!!

So yes. This is the end of my blog.

I am officially finished for the year. No exams. So if anyone reading this wants to hang out, just let me know. Or if you want me to proof read anything :D

OOOH AMBER WATSON IS HERE!

Emil bought me a creme soda before to celebrate. MMMM CREME SODA!!!!!

Tastes like your dreams coming true.

OK I HAVE TO STOP WRITING NOW!

Thanks for reading this blog, I really appreciate my blog readers. It makes me feel special.

Take it easy, keep the party alive!

x