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SHANA-TAN!!!

(Taken from Shakugan No Shana-Tan Dos)

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A Little Rant About Me:

I've always dreamed of becoming a marine biologist and working with dolphins therefore school has always been of utmost priority to me. School has always come before everything, due to my own personal preference, not parents nagging me or anything. I know they say you are supposed to have a balance between school and social life, of which i do. 

So when i have previously been in relationships with un-named people, I still tended to put school before them and they got upset, despite being warned prior to the relationship that this might happen. Unfortunately these relationships didnt last due to my undoing. This is because i have a combination of things that didn't help it to start with:

1- Protective parents who still think i'm a little girl

2- Live in a rural area with no public transport services

3- School being my priority

4- The majority of my friends being male and older than me

5- Spending alot of my time on school rather than socalising.

These reasons can help to explain why i'm single (which in turn is better for me right now). The reason i broke up with my last boyfriend is simply because i felt like i wasn't being fair on him, i couldnt hang out with him, he couldnt visit me because of my parents, we attended different schools, i cant catch public transport to see him when he moved further away. Things just weren't working in the logistics side of things. I loved my previous boyfriend with all my heart, i never cheated on him, i always talked about him and how perfect i thought he was, how sweet he was to me, i loved EVERYTHING about him and most importantly, i trusted him more than anyone else... i felt safe in his arms and company, like no one could hurt me while he was there. 

Since we broke up almost a year ago, he's been in relationships, which didnt bother me so much except for the fact he moved on literally within a month which kind of hurt me, made me feel like i meant nothing however i could see his side of the story.

Okay so this is just a little rant i need to let out to cool of type of thing. Basically ever since i was little, i knew i wanted to work with dolphins which was sparked by my love for these majestic marine mammals. At the time i only ever thought of this position as a dolphin trainer not taking into consideration roles such as research, conservation, zookeeping and husbandry.

Once i got older, i realized the path in which i took would be Marine Biology. In Year 9, i went on a holiday to Cairns where one day, we passed James Cook University, which i then researched when i got home and found out that it is the WORLD LEADING university in marine sciences, hence it's setting on the Great Barrier Reef. And so i decided this would be my university of choice.

Once i hit Year 10 and we had to further research our subject pattern and options into senior school and pave the pathway to our dream profession of choice so to speak, i discovered i would need to take a Bachelor Of Science degree, majoring in Marine Biology.I deduced that i would have to attend James Cook University in Townsville to do a 3 year university course. I also researched the alternate, yet practical path of TAFE to achieve my goals of zookeeping after looking at a job application to be a zookeeper at Sea World. I eventually found out that i required a minimum of a Certificate III in Captive Animals to be a zookeeper which required me to take a Cert II in Animal Studies as a prerequisite. The TAFE Certificates are a legal requirement to work with animals in a public domain so knew they would need to be done on the side of university and so i needed to keep all my options open. I soon found out that i didn't even need to go to university at all, i just needed my TAFE certificates to work with animals, but as Zookeeping is a highly desired job yet there aren't many opportunities to be employed, i thought i should do university because any experience and qualifications i could add to my resume at the time would boost my chance of getting the job. And so I decided to add this subject to my senior school subject pattern by selecting this Cert II in Animal Studies as a TVET course so that when i finished year 12, i'd already have some qualifications up  my sleeve so that i could then pair up my university degree with a Cert III at TAFE in QLD. As well as this, i also needed prerequisite subjects of Chemistry, Advanced Maths and Advanced English of which i was already planning to take, except i decided to take Extension 1 Mathematics, which i planned to use to boost my ATAR if i went well in it.

Throughout Prelim, i struggled with 1 subject, being Extension 1 Maths, so halfway through term 2, i decided to drop down (much to my own anguish) to advanced mathematics to boost my grades and reduce my stress and allow time to be spent on my subjects other than maths.

Now that i have just finished year 11 (prelim), i had to formulate a plan to start to find out what ATAR i needed to achieve and therefore which subjects i needed to drop or improve my grades in in order to achieve what is a fairly low ATAR of 65 (after converting it from QLD OP/Rank). I am doing well in all my subjects aside from Maths, in which i am struggling despite the fact i dropped down a level. I now faced the issue of whether to stay in advanced maths and struggle along for just one more year and kill my self esteem and risk scaling down my ATAR, or drop down to general maths which would not allow me direct access into uni as it was not an applicable prerequisite subject. 

After much research, i discovered i could take a 13 week bridging course at James Cook Uni whilst doing my Bachelor Of Science which would allow me to match the prerequisites, and after clarification, i would first major in mathematics whilst i was doing the bridging course, and then transfer to a major in Marine Biology. No Probs, i can do this, i'd have no extra stress from extra subjects so i could focus my time on just maths and science. Or so i thought...

After lots of tears, phone calls, emails and talking to teachers who knew my capabilities and who have worked in the field of science and mathematics, i made the decision to drop down to general mathematics and take up the bridging course in order to get direct access to university once again.

A few days later, i thought i should research TAFE institutes in the Townsville area to find out how far they were from the campus, costs and what is required of them in case they required different interstate assumed knowledge. I found out there is the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE, and thought great, they'll run my course. I then hit another brick wall with the discovery that i could not take a Cert III Captive Animals anywhere in Queensland besides Brisbane, and as it requires practical work, i couldn't do it by correspondence. Shit! I put in so much time and effort into researching all my options and planning out my future in advance so i can save myself the trouble later and now look what happens! 

I decided to ring up animal and education facilities all over QLD in order to see if they ran the course privately like Taronga Zoo in Sydney does, or if they knew of anywhere else in QLD that would allow me to take it. No luck, just people telling me that they're all having issues with the same thing, not being able to be qualified to be a zookeeper because they don't run the course.

I then thought as my very last option/attempt, that i'd google NSW TAFE to find out everywhere in NSW that runs Cert III Captive Animals and see if they run it through correspondence. Richmond TAFE in Western Sydney was my Savior! In doing this, i also discovered that they have a Cert IV Captive Animals which is the most prestige qualification and allows you to be a fully qualified senior zookeeper. I thought yes, i'll do that too, that way i have ALL the qualifications and won't have to go back to TAFE. And Yes, they both run by correspondence! I then further investigated again, reading all the fine print to make sure everything was able to be done and that i reached the requirements. Smack! Another brick wall in my path again! I needed to be a NSW resident in order to take this course, but of course, i'd been planning to move to Townsville for the duration of my university degree and then move back to NSW, a little closer to home. 

My plans were like they were predestined to just not work out for me, the person who has been planning and fine-tuning their future for such a long time! I'd worked so hard to get this far, giving myself the best hope at achieving my goals and paving all these different paths as a safety net and to give myself options when the time came. I'd done optional work experience to boost my resume and networked in the field of science by talking to highly qualified postgraduates and people working in the field of marine biology, zoology and animal sciences to gather contacts to help me out in the years to come. I'd even started TAFE earlier to help me find work in the animal industry in the meantime to again, boost my resume and contacts. As well as this, i took Biology and Earth & Environmental Science to help build foundations in science to help give me a strong background in the related fields for university, of which i topped both these subjects in Prelim. Nothing wanted to work out for me!!!

I continued to push forward and try and find another plan but i was seriously running out of options and fast! Currently, my options are

-Push back Uni 3 years and complete Cert III and IV in Captive Animals in NSW and then begin my degree in QLD

-Complete my degree in QLD (and not be qualified to work, causing money and employment issues) and then come back to NSW and complete my Cert III and IV

-Complete Cert III, Go to QLD and complete my university degree and then move back to NSW and do Cert IV

-Call Richmond TAFE and find out if they're willing to let me take the course via correspondence in QLD and affiliate with James Cook University.

-Just not do university as it isn't required to work with animals and risk not getting employed.

-Go to another university (I consider this not an option!!) 

And so now you see my great problem. Everything i've worked so hard for is not paying off. The fact i started to research ALL my options to achieve my dreams so early in the process to make sure i wasn't stressed when it came time in 2014 to apply to universities while i'm doing my HSC.. it all angers me. I have stacks upon stacks of printouts, flyers, booklets, extra work and job applications that are all there to help me in planning my future. It all may as well not exist because researching it seems to just create problems rather than just have smooth sailing from now onwards. I thought by starting to research early, i'd be benefiting myself but it just seems to be making matters worse!

All in all, i'm glad i'm dealing with these issues now rather than next year when it comes to the knitty gritty end of Year 12, but it's all still incredible frustrating!! If i can give you any words of advice for planning your future, please research ALL your options, network, keep all your doors open and START EARLY!