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I'm a bit lazy on cold winter mornings but if the cost of petrol keeps going up, I'm going to seriously have to think about getting the bike out and riding to uni once semester starts again. I know I should ride more often but there's the whole thing about how much time it takes and carting all the things I need with me. I guess I could just eat less - hmm, I don't know if that's a real option. Rising costs of petrol must be really hurting some people though, even more than me.

My last blog post seems so long ago as I am concentrating so hard on not tihnking about thinking about my exam results (quite the paradox as Katie@UniAccess says!).  But it's still only Friday evening.  Good job I'm off out tonight - hopefully that'll take my mind off it.  Although someone said that the results might come out earlier than the official date (Monday).  Does that really happen...?

Does that sound like a lot?  102 hours?  apparently that's when the exam results are *out*.  So my efforts to not think about it are completely not working despite my (small) logical brain telling me that there is nothing to be done about it now, the results were decided weeks ago blah blah (maybe i AM turning into my mother...).  Either way it sounds like an example of my logical brain being at war with my emotional one (and guess who's winning!?). 

Where have my last two posted blogs gone? Anyone?

Last week in chilly Hobart, uni staff from around Australia, NZ and UK met to discuss what the big issues are for first year students. The annual First Year in Higher Education conference saw a range of issues covered but for me, the big one was that we have a good body of literature now on the FYE, but too many great initiatives and programs are dependent on individuals. We need to see stronger commitment from universities to put emphasis on the importance of FY and make sure that there is support at policy level.

Second Semester is often met with a flurry of students asking how they can improve their skills.  Some students want to get higher marks than they did in Semester 1 (and there are lots of ways of doing that!) but many many students want to find ways of becoming more time efficient and managing stress levels. 

I've just re-read my post below and there are so many questions in it that reading it out loud will give you a high-pitched squeaky voice (just like mine!).  Mucho apologies readers!

This is *sort* of related to Katie's post below..[begin promotion :)]  Did you know that the Study Smarter workshops are now available free via iTunes?  You could always get them via the Lectopia website but now you can subscribe and manage the recordings the iTunesU.  way cool (IMHO)

It's true - blogging makes you happy. This is the finding of Masters student, James Baker, from Swinburne University. He did some on-line surveys and discovered that people who blogged regularly were more content. People who responded that they intended to blog but didn't, were more distressed. The bloggers said that they felt more connected socially online and they were also more satisfied with their offline friends.

So go for it -get blogging on node and feel happier!