I've started at the new Pt. Chev McDonalds now, and have been working there for just over a week. It's a tough question whether I prefer working at St Lukes or Pt. Chev, because they both have their good sides and their bad sides. The good side of working at Pt. Chev is that it's a new store, that some of the people who I didn't like at St Lukes are no longer working with me, and that I seem to have more respect from the managers and fellow crew people because I know what I'm doing. The bad side is that I'm working with a whole bunch of people that I don't know, that the place is really small and is actually a bit further away from my house than St. Lukes was for walking. Also, the managers seem so serious at Pt. Chev - there's not that much joking around which is a bit sad because the job is so boring that you need a cool crew to make life bearable. I also miss working with some of the people at St. Lukes, and the staff at Pt. Chev aren't up to the standard of St. Lukes because there are a lot of new people, people are only starting to figure out the systems and people aren't used to working together.

On a brighter note, I was pleasantly surprised by my university marks for this year - getting two A-'s, one A and an A+. The A+ is the first one I have managed to achieve at university so far (hopefully not the last!) and it was really satisfying to know that I've managed to balance my life well this semester, and that even thought things have been busier than ever before I've managed not to make my university quality suffer. In contrast it's probably the best semester so far in terms of marks, which is a good thing as I felt I had slowly been going downhill since the beginning of last year. It gives me confidence that I can step up to the next level and that next year isn't going to be too hard, but rather it's going to be an interesting challenge which I'm more than capable of rising to.

After completely ignoring my news page for the last couple of weeks I thought that I had better say something before I need to click into my December page. Exams are all finished now, which is pretty good except I'm working fulltime which is pretty shitty.

However it is quite interesting that I am shifting from St. Lukes McDonalds over to the new one in Pt. Chev which should be pretty cool because it will have all new equipment and stuff like that. The bad side is that it's further from my place than St. Lukes is - and that I don't know anyone.

Two exams gone and only the one to go now - it's going to be a relief when that's out of the way (although I will be working fulltime), because I'll have less stress and hopefully I'll feel better about myself. Sometimes I get really guilty about doing stuff that I like because I have this feeling I should be spending the time studying - it really sucks because it's like my entire life is being taken over by university study and that I shouldn't actually have any time spare at all for having fun.

Exams have gone pretty well so-far, although in Geography you know that the questions are never going to suit you perfectly, and that in history they're always going to find something wrong with your essay, I feel that I've done pretty well so far and that my marks should be better than they were last semester. This is mainly because I placed more emphasis upon my course work this semester than I did last semester - and as a result my coursework marks have improved immensely. Or maybe the more challenging work has brought out the best in me. Who knows?

I thought that I had better create something for my November news page, since I'm doing an absolutely huge overhaul of my entire news site. It'll be interesting, I'll probably get bored to tears through copying and pasting all my old news entries into my new page.... but the good side is that my understanding of HTML and of Microsoft Frontpage will probably improve drastically,

Exams are still going on - I should probably be studying now instead of working on this, but I'm kind of getting sick and tired of National Parks, environmental geography and the rest of it. I am kind of lying in a sense, since I do find it interesting. But it's just that you get a bit sick of something that you have been studying insanely over the past week (almost).

Life is pretty strange at the moment - it doesn't rain, it pours, as the saying goes. I guess that can be interpreted as the fact that one or two things won't go wrong in life - but everything decides to go wrong at the same time. I try to comfort myself by saying that things will be better once my exams are finished, and this is true to some extent because they are causing me quite a lot of stress at the moment. However the problem is that I'm going to be working fulltime after exams are done, and at McDonald's of all places, where I have become increasingly bored and irritated with their policies in the past few months. I decided not to apply for the Borders job quite yet, because I know that I can guarantee pretty good hours at McDonald's over the Christmas and New Year period - and that's what I need because I will need a lot of money for my uni fees. Maybe next year I might work at Borders throughout the year, it would be nice and close to university, and there are many many many other reasons why I would want to work there which I have mentioned earlier.

For the second week running there is a New Zealand artist's album at #1 on the charts - good on Stellar* for producing yet another really cool album. Along with The Feelers and Anika Moa, there are three NZ albums out at the moment which are really really good.