University a Reality???

So I have some very good yet confusing (well to me anyway) news today.
I was given an early round offer for a very good university to do a combined double degree, Bachelor of International Studies / Bachelor of Law.
This is absolutely amazing because I never thought I'd make it into university considering how my schooling years ended. And I never expected to get into this course let alone receive an early round offer, especially considering the required ATAR is 95.9, and I don't even have an ATAR.
For all you confused non Australian readers out there i'll do a quick explanation of New South Whales (my states) education system.
After finishing primary school K-6 you start high school yrs 7-8 are considered juniour years.
Years 9-10 are your School Certificate years, wich is the minimum qualification needed to get into trade colleges and also the allowed drop out point. For people who choose to continue there's a further two years yr 11 and 12 wich are considered the HSC, Higher School Certificate years. I dropped out after my Preliminary HSC so never received a full HSC. Once you complete your HSC your given a ranking by UAC (University's Admission Centre) which used to be called the UAI (University Admissions Index) but was changed last year to a nation wide index called the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank). This rank dictates what course you can be accepted into at University.
I went from an A grade honours student to a barely passing flunky within a year, due to some serious issues I had in my life at the time, so I never finished my schooling and never received a ranking, I basically thought University was a dream I'd never get any more. So I started a trade and began to apprentice in Patisserie Chefing.
Thankfully I found out about a test I could sit called the STAT (Special Tertiary Admissions Test) that would be an ATAR equivelant offered by UAC. So I applied, and sat the two different required tests. I then applied for a multitude of university's, picking low level courses basically cause I thought its all I would be able to get into with a STAT as its not as good as an ATAR. Putting down Bachelor of International Studies / Bachelor of Law for me was done on a whim, I honestly didn't expect to be accepted for any courses so thought I may as well aim high for the heck of it.
I finally got my STAT results back, there graded from 100 - 200 and your given a percentile of how many people you beat basically, I scored 194 beating an apparent 96.7 % of applicants, I was incredibly happy, and so I got my hopes up thinking I might get into a low level Bachelor of Arts or something similar. Never ever did I expect to receive this offer.

But the problem is I'm now unsure if I want to commit to five years of study, for what is a rather rigorous degree, being a double bachelor. Both sides are very demanding, and the international studies side requires me to study at a foreign University for a Semester, add on top all the Law topics I have to complete it's quite daunting. So I'm thinking of accepting the offer but deferring for a year. That way I can get another year of perspective, hopefully travel and gain some more wisdom in life. And if at the end of this year I still want to study that course, then I'll do it. I'm just so unsure, I don't want to do it for a year and find I don't like it, because that's a lot of money and time to waste.

So do you guys have any opinions or insights for what i should do... it would be greatly appreciated

Adam xoxo

An Amazing Reader

So, I'm very, very happy and excited to tell you all about a new follower of my blog Mr. Coggy Colin. This guy is truly awesome, as he is responsible for the beautiful new personalised image header I now have. I didn't even ask him, I got this wonderful surprise when I woke up this morning and checked my inbox. So thankyou Coggy, your work is very much appreciated!!!
I think you should all go check out his blog at http://coggycolin.blogspot.com/ and give him some love by following him =D I know I have...

Laters my prettys

xoxo

Long time, no see...

Hello all my weary readers,

I'm sorry I haven't posted these past few weeks, but my life has been absolutely crazy and I do hope you can forgive me. The short story for my lack of updates is I had a major health scare and I finally came out to my overjoyed and proud father (if you couldn't pick up the sarcasm on the second point, shame on you!).
So basically over the past few weeks I've been told I had as much as a few years to as little as two months left to live. I'm rather happy to be able to tell you that both diagnosis were wrong, the downside is that instead of a rather aggressive cancer, I have a rather obnoxious and rare autoimmune disease with far too many letters in its name for me to ever pronounce properly. Well actually that's really a positive downside.
It shouldn't impact to severely on my life thankfully, just a few more medications to add to my list is all. And it has helped to explain why I seem to get every single bug out there, and why my colds always turn into full blown influenza!

In the midst of this scary health scare I came out to my father, lets just say I don't think I will ever experience anything quite as unpleasant. I hope you all remember D the boy I jumped ship to over C. Well long story short we will never ever be boyfriends because we discovered how very very good we are at being best friends. It's ridiculous really, who ever heard of dating for best friends lol. But back to the coming out story. So D was feeling down over some boy troubles so I went out with him for ice cream and coffee, and then like all good boys we went to the pub and got way too tipsy, which resulted in me doing a make shift poll dance on the stage using a pool table cue, the straight boys loved it funnily enough (thank god I shaved as well). On my way home I met the most wonderful bogan (the Australian version of a hill billy red neck hick) lady who shared her bottle of Jim Beam with me on the train, it was a right laugh!
Needless to say by the time I got home I was no where near capable of walking in a straight line, and my father was less then impressed being the anti alcohol Christian he is. I only remember snippets of that night, but here's how the bits I do remember went down.
Dad: Where have you been?
Me: Out with D
Dad: Who's D?
Me: A really good friend of mine.
Dad: Ohh I'm sure he is!
This is where things start getting really foggy, but I remember him yelling something about my sexuality, then he came at me and got a little bit physical and the next thing I knew I was kicked out of the house. It was about midnight, and I was wearing shorts and a really light cotton shirt, so it didn't take long before I began to freeze. Four hours later my dad let me back in telling me we would be having a talk when he got home from work.
That afternoon when he came home I refused to speak to him at all, so he kicked me out again, this time less violently thankfully. Until eventually he came outside and I yelled at him "I'm Gay!!! Happy now!"
We then went back inside for one of the hardest conversations of my life where I was constantly biting my tongue to stop myself from yelling at him. Basically he told me it was just tendencies I had, and like any other sin in the bible I could fix it. He went on and on about how he had talked to his minister and how he's organising what is essentially ex-gay counselling for me. I've come to the realisation that my father 'thinks' he is being supportive by adopting this course of action without actually realising how insensitive I find it all.
The kicker came when he asked me "Is it just urges and tendencies? Or are you actually practising?" I replied exasperatedly not wanting to go down that line of questioning "I'm just gay." To which he responded "Yes but what does that mean?" I couldnt help myself and responded "It means, I'm gay..."
That's where our conversation ended, I made my escape to my room, and since then we've barely talked about it, except for me getting my way out of every appointment my dads made with the minister.

I'm hoping given time, he might come around to a more supportive view. I'm not holding my breath though, at least he wont find an ally in my brother, which I think he was sought of banking on, so that's helpful at least.

I'm hoping to get into a good pattern of posting again now that most of my dramas have been soughted out.

Until next time

xoxo