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Lab_Rat
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Bluebottles can be found on most WA beaches and they give you a nasty sting but are not usually dangerous. I wanted to take Zac to the beach at Albany when he was a little tacker for his first swim but there had been a lot of bluebottles blown in so he missed out.

Around Geraldton at certain times of the year you have to be very cautious of the sea slugs that get washed up on the beach. They look like large chunks of raw liver and are very very toxic and fatal to dogs.

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She's gorgeous! You'll have a lot of fun with her :thumbsup:

Morning WA DOLers.

I thought I'd introduce my new(ish) arrival...introducing 'Kyte' my little Aussie. We are also hoping to do obedience and agility in the future. She is 6 1/2 months old although I've only had her since she was 5 months, unfortunately she didn't have the ideal start to life but seems to be settling in well. A very different dog to train than a Siberian Husky, that's for sure!

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Weasels do you go to the Kwinana dog beach near those big blue silos?

I was hoping to introduce the beach to my 14wo pup too - will have to wait now I think!!

I was on Warnbro beach, I think that because of the storminess last night a lot of sea-life and rubbish had washed up. We grabbed a couple of dead fish off the beach as well including a huge spiky porcupinefish :eek:

Maybe when the weather is a bit calmer it will be a good time to introduce your pup :)

Yup stay well clear Weasels, if the same as in your pic then they are bluebottles - I know them as Portuguese Man o'War!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o'_War

Ugh creepy things! At least the ones we came across were dead and young, I think that lessened the impact. All this was about 2 hours ago and I can barely feel any stinging in my toe now. The Fox has just had breakfast and seems her normal sooky self, fingers crossed.

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Thanks OSS and bedazzled!

We had the sea slugs last summer, fortunately the dogs aren't interested in them at all. There was a warning up about them at our local vet. I am very anal about keeping a close eye on my dogs at the beach tho with all the nasty things that wash up. I knew there was a reason I avoided marine biology at uni!

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I did marine biology at uni, love all that stuff :)

For some reason I just see the sea as a seething mass of things that are trying to kill me :laugh: But I did terrestrial ecology and had to contend with leeches, ticks and snakes, so I suppose it's just a matter of perspective :D

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Guest RosieFT

i have always thought they were blue bottles.. had them in south africa as well, as far as my memory stretches anyway! LOL

RS - doing education support aka teacher's aide :-) .. wasn't dealing with a job that was outside school hours and trying to be there for the kids. This way i will get paid peanuts, but will have holidays with my kids without stressing - well worth it. They get almost 12 weeks a year so with most jobs you are looking for holiday care, lumping them on family etc. and for me personally, that is not why i had kids and i want to enjoy them while they still want to be around me. Won't be long and i will be just one huge embarrassment to them LOL.

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i have always thought they were blue bottles.. had them in south africa as well, as far as my memory stretches anyway! LOL

RS - doing education support aka teacher's aide :-) .. wasn't dealing with a job that was outside school hours and trying to be there for the kids. This way i will get paid peanuts, but will have holidays with my kids without stressing - well worth it. They get almost 12 weeks a year so with most jobs you are looking for holiday care, lumping them on family etc. and for me personally, that is not why i had kids and i want to enjoy them while they still want to be around me. Won't be long and i will be just one huge embarrassment to them LOL.

rofl1.gif

That's the part about being a teacher that entices me, all the holidays they get! But I don't think I could handle children embarrass.gif

Best of luck with it! How long is the course? Are you a qualified teacher's aid after you get the tafe certificate?

I'm enrolling in uni next year, eeeek!! eek1.gif I've decided to give tafe the flick, the course I am doing won't get me anywhere. But my previous tafe diplomas got me the job I'm in now and have allowed me entry to uni so yay :D Now I have to figure out how to handle full time work, part time study, and maintain dog activities!! But I am really looking forward to it (and will hold onto that excitement for as long as I can because I know it won't be long before I'm over all the assignments and exams!)

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Guest RosieFT

i have always thought they were blue bottles.. had them in south africa as well, as far as my memory stretches anyway! LOL

RS - doing education support aka teacher's aide :-) .. wasn't dealing with a job that was outside school hours and trying to be there for the kids. This way i will get paid peanuts, but will have holidays with my kids without stressing - well worth it. They get almost 12 weeks a year so with most jobs you are looking for holiday care, lumping them on family etc. and for me personally, that is not why i had kids and i want to enjoy them while they still want to be around me. Won't be long and i will be just one huge embarrassment to them LOL.

rofl1.gif

That's the part about being a teacher that entices me, all the holidays they get! But I don't think I could handle children embarrass.gif

Best of luck with it! How long is the course? Are you a qualified teacher's aid after you get the tafe certificate?

I'm enrolling in uni next year, eeeek!! eek1.gif I've decided to give tafe the flick, the course I am doing won't get me anywhere. But my previous tafe diplomas got me the job I'm in now and have allowed me entry to uni so yay :D Now I have to figure out how to handle full time work, part time study, and maintain dog activities!! But I am really looking forward to it (and will hold onto that excitement for as long as I can because I know it won't be long before I'm over all the assignments and exams!)

I did it the other way around, uni whilst single and care free (but had horses and they took up ALL my time when I wasn't studying) now doing the TAFE thing. It is a full time course for 6 months. I go 4 days a week but only 9-3pm. They say that the education dept will demand some sort of qualification by 2013 to work as EA, but in reality many EA's are parents with no qualifications. You have to do a 4 week placement in a school at the end of this, and then hopefully i will get my certificate. The course is so so... many parts i just don't .. see.. the .. point... ugh.. But some of it is interesting. Lots of little assignments that don't require much brain power but are very time consuming. Once you get the EA cert, you still have to get an 'education number' from ed dept which you can only get by working in a school, which will only give you a job if you have an Ed number..... yeah, chicken and the egg.... but i have been enquiring about relief work in the schools in this area and might have found one who wants me and will get me an Ed number NOW.

What are you going to study at uni? I looked at doing speech pathology but just too hard with kids. Just warning you, Uni will be more intense than TAFE.. well my science degree was anyway!

ETA - sssHHHH but not sure i will be able to handle the children..........

Edited by RosieFT
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I did it the other way around, uni whilst single and care free (but had horses and they took up ALL my time when I wasn't studying) now doing the TAFE thing. It is a full time course for 6 months. I go 4 days a week but only 9-3pm. They say that the education dept will demand some sort of qualification by 2013 to work as EA, but in reality many EA's are parents with no qualifications. You have to do a 4 week placement in a school at the end of this, and then hopefully i will get my certificate. The course is so so... many parts i just don't .. see.. the .. point... ugh.. But some of it is interesting. Lots of little assignments that don't require much brain power but are very time consuming. Once you get the EA cert, you still have to get an 'education number' from ed dept which you can only get by working in a school, which will only give you a job if you have an Ed number..... yeah, chicken and the egg.... but i have been enquiring about relief work in the schools in this area and might have found one who wants me and will get me an Ed number NOW.

What are you going to study at uni? I looked at doing speech pathology but just too hard with kids. Just warning you, Uni will be more intense than TAFE.. well my science degree was anyway!

ETA - sssHHHH but not sure i will be able to handle the children..........

Hope the school takes you on! Sounds great :)

I had no idea what I wanted to be when I "grew up" so I never went to Uni after year 12, I went to TAFE instead and did a generic admin course as I thought I could always fall back on that. During that course, I found my passion in IT but still had no desire to go to Uni so I did a 2 year diploma in IT. Now almost 6 years in IT, I need a change! And I'm at the point in my life now where I would actually like to have a degree, feel some sort of self accomplishment :) I would really like to quit full time work and study full time to have my degree in 4 years as opposed to 8! But I don't want to lose my house so part time study/full time work is the only way I can keep the house.

My TAFE course is totally useless. Modules in there that are pointless and ugh, so yes I understand what you mean! I also realise uni is going to be very full on and different to TAFE - TAFE handhold way too much for my liking, so I feel no sense of accomplishment doing this course. My diplomas were challenging, but this is a cert III and not providing me any mental stimulation whatsoever.

I am interested in Occupational Therapy, with the ultimate goal to eventually work with the vision impaired in mobility. But as OT is so varied, I am open to my goals changing as other areas become more interesting. I am not sure my year 12 Human Biology meets the science prerequisite for OT as it was so long ago, so if I don't get into that I will be putting Speech Pathology and Psychology down as preferences. They all have common units in the first year so I will tackle the first year first and then see about transferring to OT :) But Speech Pathology interests me, too! Except I have my own troubles with speaking sometimes :laugh: (though I realise Speech Pathology involves more than just speaking difficulties, just like Psychology is more than just about listening to people's problems!)

Wow sorry guys for the major Off Topic and life story!!!! :o

RS what have you decided to study at Uni?

See above :)

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Guest RosieFT

Wow that is great RS. Wishing you luck and perseverance! Because of my science background I believe i could do the speech pathology in 2yrs, but it requires alot of placement work and it is just so hard to juggle with kids. I wanted to be a vet straight out of school, but didn't get the marks as it was higher than medicine to get in the year i went through. I did biotechnology as a second preference after reading some blurb about how you can create vaccines to help animals LOL.. yeah, well they didn't mention how many you would kill along the way! All my life i wanted to be a vet (with a digression in year 9 wanting to train dogs for blind people LOL) .

yeah, mine is a cert III and i am finding *some* parts interesting, but on the whole i am enjoying the cross section of our community that i am being exposed to hee hee. It has been awhile since i have done something as Emma as apposed to a mum, so it is nice to get out and be 'me'. The irony is of course that there are quite a few mums who are doing it for their kids - like me LOL.. but more 17yr olds coming to it straight from school, plus the older people. So i am enjoying the people watching and the new friends i have made as much as anything LOL

I am sure you know what you are in for having done a diploma :-) , and if you do it parttime you should be fine. You never know, you might find someone happy to support you while you study ;) . Not that you need that, obviously.

Funny you are interested in speech path too :-) ... i find speech quite fascinating. Haven't noticed your impairment .... heehee JK.

I am supposed to be writing up a lesson plan on gross motor skills... i am going to do an obstacle course incorporating some of my agility gear hee hee

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Wow that is great RS. Wishing you luck and perseverance! Because of my science background I believe i could do the speech pathology in 2yrs, but it requires alot of placement work and it is just so hard to juggle with kids. I wanted to be a vet straight out of school, but didn't get the marks as it was higher than medicine to get in the year i went through. I did biotechnology as a second preference after reading some blurb about how you can create vaccines to help animals LOL.. yeah, well they didn't mention how many you would kill along the way! All my life i wanted to be a vet (with a digression in year 9 wanting to train dogs for blind people LOL) .

yeah, mine is a cert III and i am finding *some* parts interesting, but on the whole i am enjoying the cross section of our community that i am being exposed to hee hee. It has been awhile since i have done something as Emma as apposed to a mum, so it is nice to get out and be 'me'. The irony is of course that there are quite a few mums who are doing it for their kids - like me LOL.. but more 17yr olds coming to it straight from school, plus the older people. So i am enjoying the people watching and the new friends i have made as much as anything LOL

I am sure you know what you are in for having done a diploma :-) , and if you do it parttime you should be fine. You never know, you might find someone happy to support you while you study ;) . Not that you need that, obviously.

Funny you are interested in speech path too :-) ... i find speech quite fascinating. Haven't noticed your impairment .... heehee JK.

I am supposed to be writing up a lesson plan on gross motor skills... i am going to do an obstacle course incorporating some of my agility gear hee hee

Thanks :) As soon as I can decide on my preference order, my application will be submitted! I have til the end of the month to decide.

Well I desperately want to train dogs for blind people now :rofl: but realise that is next to impossible to get into (got as close as I was going to get last year, down to top 20 applicants for a cadetship in Melbourne, but wasn't meant to be). So instead of wasting my life away in a job I really don't care for (I realise this is a public forum but oh well!) I had to think of something else that would interest me. Helping people get back to their daily activities that we take for granted interests me, and of course the guide dog thing led me to an interest in wanting to help the vision impaired in general mobility and day to day activities. So we'll see where it takes me. It's just really nice to have a goal :)

You haven't noticed I talk way too fast and get my words mixed up? :p and no, it's not due to alcohol (though that doesn't help! :rofl:)

Well if you can find me a sugar daddy to pay my mortgage while I study full time, give them my number ;)

Shame about the vet dream - but it's never too late!! I know it would be hard with kids, but if it's a passion, you will find a way to make it work :)

I like the range of ages and groups of people who take on study for different reasons. At least you know the mature age students are there because they genuinely want to learn, as opposed to some school leavers who are going because their parents made them. I want to experience campus life at uni but realistically, I should be doing my first year externally due to work. At some stage I'm going to have to go full time, there is no choice (especially in 4th year), but I will worry about how to pull that off when the time comes!

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For some reason I just see the sea as a seething mass of things that are trying to kill me :laugh: But I did terrestrial ecology and had to contend with leeches, ticks and snakes, so I suppose it's just a matter of perspective :D

lol :laugh: I did a marine toxicology course as part of the degree....I'm amazed I ever went back in the sea again after that! but that was in the relative safety of Eurpoean waters.....I've not been brave enough to swim in the sea here yet :o:laugh:

I like the range of ages and groups of people who take on study for different reasons. At least you know the mature age students are there because they genuinely want to learn, as opposed to some school leavers who are going because their parents made them.

I loved uni as a mature student, I felt so old compared to a lot of the students there, but looking back on it I was still only a baby at 24 :laugh: There was a large % of mature students where I went, so we easily formed groups and friends :)

Good luck with whatever you choose RS :D

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I have taken a break from study as I have no idea what I want to do and enjoy my job now. I keep doubting my choice (as would anyone raised in a household under the mentality - university is the most important thing) and will likely go back to part time study at some stage but I have NO idea what I want to do.

Plus this way I can start saving a mortgage and enjoy my free time guilt free :)

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ETA - sssHHHH but not sure i will be able to handle the children..........

I don't like kids... had an 8yo at work yesterday who said he felt like he was going to throw up :eek: :eek: I pointed to the bin :laugh: Strangely, his Mum ignored him even when he actually did go over to the bin! :confused:

I am interested in Occupational Therapy, with the ultimate goal to eventually work with the vision impaired in mobility. But as OT is so varied, I am open to my goals changing as other areas become more interesting. I am not sure my year 12 Human Biology meets the science prerequisite for OT as it was so long ago, so if I don't get into that I will be putting Speech Pathology and Psychology down as preferences. They all have common units in the first year so I will tackle the first year first and then see about transferring to OT :) But Speech Pathology interests me, too! Except I have my own troubles with speaking sometimes :laugh: (though I realise Speech Pathology involves more than just speaking difficulties, just like Psychology is more than just about listening to people's problems!)

Speech Pathology is a lot harder to get into at Curtin than OT. My aunt is in her final year of OT after initially wanting to do Speech. She got in under a Psych degree with the intention of swapping after 1st semester but even getting HDs she didn't get in! So she changed to OT and after a year or so of trying to get into Speech (while still getting all Ds and HDs) she gave up trying. She also decided that she prefered OT because it was more broad rather than only being able to get a job in Speech if you do that degree.

Vision impared people are scary... it is very very frightening to know the visual acuity and visual fields of some people who still drive :eek:

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RV dont rush, i went to uni for 4 years straight out of school - parents choice and i did a BA in psych and communications but its a silly degree in that i cant use it unless u choose to become a psychologist which means further study and i never managed to go back and do honours and masters( little point in rsa as for masters they were only taking people with darker skins) looked into doing it here but its $12k a year at uni and i cant Heks it or go full time

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Morning WA DOLers.

I thought I'd introduce my new(ish) arrival...introducing 'Kyte' my little Aussie. We are also hoping to do obedience and agility in the future. She is 6 1/2 months old although I've only had her since she was 5 months, unfortunately she didn't have the ideal start to life but seems to be settling in well. A very different dog to train than a Siberian Husky, that's for sure!

Tumbleweed, Kyte looks lovely! And yes, Aussies are MUCH easier to train than Sibes :rofl:

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