Hello

Hi!  I am Cas.  Pleased to meet you.  Those of you who know me are well aware that I am a great one for writing long spiels about this and that.  A short background on me. (I can't guarantee it will be short though)  I am in that "no go zone" in age (51) where I'm not a pensioner yet, almost considered too old for a "decent" job and not ready to lay down and die yet.  I work full time as a marketing coordinator/estimator for a sub contracting firm to the building industry.  My job goes from head down bum up 35 hours a week to weeks where my boss and I have high tea and chocolate afternoons.  I love my job and my bosses.  Seriously, I do.  It has to be the best job I have held in over 30 years.

I decided at 48 to study at TAFE to assist my son through senior high school and discovered that not only was I able to study very well, I was also capable of obtaining good marks and it gave me a purpose in life.   I now find myself continuing my studies at university level and working toward a Bachelor of Communication majoring in Journalism.  I have worked in advertising for print media in the past and had looked enviously at the other side of the floor where the journalists did their thing.  Now it is my time.  I do not believe that there is an age limit for a journalist.  People of all ages have something to say and I'm going to say what I feel (when I can do it well).

I do not need to study, I want to study and I find that while this makes the task less of a chore it does not negate the hard yards that need to be put in to get decent marks.    I am just starting Year 2 of my studies now and I expect to be finished this degree at the end of 2013.  That seems a long way off now doesn't it?  When you see all of the interesting things that I must learn in that amount of time, it isn't that far away at all.

So far I have studied the core units of year 1 which involved Film Analysis (yuk!) News Writing, Culture Studies, Media and at the moment I am doing an elective in Photography 101.  I still eagerly await the new Study Period as they come around.  We have 4 of these SP's per year and we are advised that should take up to two units of study per SP.  I do 6 units per year as I feel that I would not cope well with any more.  This gives me the full on 2 unit SP followed by a less stressful 1 unit SP ad finitum.  It has worked well to this point.  I will be one third of my way through this degree by the beginning of June.  I think I could do this study thing for a long time yet so look out world.  I'm just over halfway through my life and in this half the decisions are mine.  woo hoo!

Cas xxx