Oh no, and that's how summer passed

image: Pinterest

Hello world! Sorry for my non-existence in the blogging world lately! As some of you may remember, I started a PGCE last month to set me off on my merry way towards becoming an English Teacher. Since then, I've been a busy little bee finding my way around my first placement school as well as having loads of Uni stuff going on too. I'm absolutely loving it though, I'm learning a lot and I can't wait to get stuck in teaching my own classes now. I've amazed myself with how organised and let's face it nerdy I've become since starting the course, somehow I'm almost enjoying writing my first essay... Being a big grown up person I've found it a lot easier to motivate myself to do work than I did when I was doing my undergraduate degree and have found myself thinking "Why did I never do this at Uni?!" so often over the last few weeks. So I thought I'd put a little list together of things I wish my 20 year old self knew or did, and hopefully it might help one or two of you out there too!

- Putting in the graft, doing your reading and writing your assignments is a billion times easier if it's a topic you're interested in. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my English Language degree, but sometimes no matter how much I tried, reading about corpus linguistics and other, erm, fascinating topics just wasn't ever going to fill me with much enthusiasn. Obviously there'll be some elements of your degree you'll like better than others, but think carefully when you're picking your modules (and even your course!) to make sure you're going to have enough passion to push yourself through.

- There are actually a lot of hours in the day. Ok, so I'm living a very different lifestyle to the one I had a few years ago, three years of working full time waved a sad farewell to midweek nights out, but if you have time off USE IT. I spent so many hours rewatching Friends and Come Dine With Me and just doing anything I possibly could to avoid work (including one time when my housemate and I spent HOURS throwing a foam lemon to each other instead of writing our essays...), but being used to working full time, I've been trying to get up at a reasonable time on my days off and then either packing myself off to the library to work for a good few hours or setting up a fort in my bed to work from there. It makes it SO much easier and you'll find you've got more time for fun in the evenings if you make use of your days.

-Kind of linked to that last point, but making the most of your time at Uni is so important. I did little bits and bobs with a few societies in second and third year but didn't get involved in anything in first year. Now I'm a postgrad, I keep thinking of loads of different societies I'd join if I had more free time to play with. Make the most of it while you can. Once you've got a busy full time working lifestyle ahead of you you'll wish you'd done all the exciting things you don't have time for anymore.

- Weekly planners are your friend. On one of my big stationary binges a few months ago, I bought a weekly desk planner from Paperchase. Now, not having a desk, I've had to find my own uses for this (mostly just throwing it into whatever folder/notebook I'm carrying around that day) but I've been using it religiously each week to set myself tasks each day and to remind myself when certain pieces of work need doing by. So simple, but it works so well and there's something really satisfying about scribbling things out once you've done them.

Anyone else out there got any tips you'd give to their younger self?

I Forget Where We Were- Ben Howard

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

(image: Pinterest)

Two leaving dos, three last days and countless goodbye hugs later and I've finally left my job. I've spent the last three years in a job I absolutely love, helping teenage cancer patients to stay engaged with education during their treatment.  Although I technically finished my job at the end of August, I was asked to come back last week, challenged with the task of handing over my job and everything that went with it to my replacement. It was so strange to be introducing somebody else to all the families I've spent so long working with and saying "as of next week, this is who you'll need to speak to instead of me", there's a part of me that is itching to phone up the office and check that she's remembered to speak to so and so about what we discussed last week, or to ask her to check with such and such's school about the whatdyamacallit. I've never been in a position where I've left a job I truly cared about before, and it has made me strangely protective of it. 

I'm trying really hard to put my slightly obsessive attitude towards my old job to one side and let the new girl have her new beginning there in peace, whilst in the meantime I focus on my own new start. This week I've got my induction and registration day for my PGCE and in a few weeks I'll be let loose in front of gaggles of secondary school students whilst I try and teach them English. To say I'm scared is an understatement, but I'm also incredibly excited. I've gone from a job where I felt like an expert, and suddenly I'm at the bottom of the ladder again. But actually, that's not a bad thing at all, I'm excited to challenge myself, learn lots of new skills and become an expert in something new.

So here we go. Teaching, I'M READY FOR YA.

(If somebody could remind me of this positivity in a month or so when I'm drowning under piles of lesson plans and marking it'd be very much appreciated...)

Don't Stop- Fleetwood Mac

Funk my life up

You might have seen me mention a few months ago that I've been accepted onto a PGCE course for September. I'm hugely excited as I've wanted to teach (with the exception of a year or two at Uni when I was adamant that I wasn't going to follow the stereotypical view that all English students want to become English teachers...) since I was a small person and used to line up my teddies on the staircase at home and give them a damn fine education. Although, thinking about it, I also used to pretend to be a bus driver with my teddies in much the same formation so I suppose I was always open to other careers!

As excited as I am, I'm dreading the whole living off a student loan lifestyle as after three years of working full time I've become quite accustomed to being able to spend as much as I want on Topshop, burgers and cider (who says I don't lead a fulfilling life?!). To soften the blow slightly, I've been trying to prepare myself now by stocking up on bits and bobs I need for next year so that I'm not running around like a madwoman when I have my last payday trying to buy stationary and a wardrobe full of smart, teacher clothes.

Given that I really struggle with finding smart (but still fun) work clothes that I actually WANT to wear, I decided to do the sensible thing and started out with the far easier task of pimping out my stationary.

ideas notebook: Blott, exercise books: Paperchase, weekly desk pad: Paperchase

I feel like I'm 13 again, when all my pocket money used to go on stationary. Maybe I should buy some scented gel pens too. I'm guessing they still make them, right?! Don't tell me I'm that old...

Scream- Paolo Nutini

Louder than sirens, louder than bells

It occurred to me when all of the new baby freshers started appearing in Leeds (I can tell they're all appearing as their trolleys full of supernoodles and frying pans getting in my way in the aisles of Morrisons when I'm trying to buy excessive amounts of chocolate and biscuits...) that 5 years have passed since I was squished between six thousand boxes and bags in the back of my Dad's car and driven across the pennines to my new home in Leeds. At that point I had no idea whatsoever what the next few days were going to be like, let alone have any inkling that I'd still be here with no intentions of leaving five years on.

Looking at all these new little people in my city (and silently judging the horrific quantity of baseball caps that the youth of today seem to possess) made me think back to my own 18 year old self finding my way through this strange new city I was going to be calling home for the next three years of my life. All through sixth form I'd been massively excited for my big move to Leeds but a few weeks before I was due to leave I suddenly got really scared of the big unknown world I was going to be jumping into. So much so that I managed to pull some strings to get a place on a course at Liverpool University instead and was all set to change my mind about where I was going. Until the admissions tutor at Liverpool told me I needed to officially give up my place at Leeds before they'd accept me. I did everything I could not to have to do this and buried my head in the sand for a few days but eventually put two and two together and realised my reluctance to give up my place at Leeds was probably to do with the fact that deep down I knew I was doing the right thing moving there. 

At this time of year, I always end up thinking about how different my life could have been if I'd accepted that place at Liverpool back in 2008. In the end, I made the complete right decision- I've grown up so much in the last few years (in some ways at least... there's still a big part of me that thinks I'm only about 15!) and most of that is to do with making Leeds my home, making roots in a new place and meeting some of the best people in the world in the process. 

Drumming Song- Florence and The Machine

Yeah its overwhelming, but what else can we do?

Since turning the grand old age of 23 a few weeks ago, I've been spending even more time than usual mulling over the fact that I'm slowly becoming a real adult (supposedly at least), and my student days are getting further and further behind me. Alice at The Cup and Saucer wrote a great post recently about being 23 and the funny little limbo period that ensues for so many of us at that age which rang so true for me as I'm happily living as an independent adult living away from home, working a full time job that I actually enjoy (at least most of the time!) and generally being quite self sufficient  but on the other hand I still sulk about having to wake up in the morning, I'm in no way ready to discuss grown up things like babies, mortgages or weddings (unless the weddings are for other people, in which case I say bring on the wine and dress shopping) and I like to ring Mama and Papa T just to check I'm doing things like setting up phone contracts or putting up pictures right.

The worst thing for me about being 23 is the fact that the day in those pictures above was over 18 months ago. In my head it still feels like graduation was just days ago but in reality so much has changed since then. Not necessarily in a bad way, I'm still just as good friends with all of the delightful people I met when I moved to Uni, I'm still living in Leeds but in a slightly more sophisticated way than I was back then and I'm still just as silly as I was when I was 21. But still, things aren't the same as they were and that makes me feel huge pangs of nostalgia on an almost daily basis. 

Take last week for example. This time last Thursday I was at a 1920's night at a bar in Headingley  the student area of Leeds. I stayed out until midnight despite it being a school night, which to the current me felt like a massive act of rebellion. I found myself longing for the days the spontaneous, midweek nights out that used to happen if I took a trip to the pub for a few quiet drinks. Hell, there was one time I was sat in bed in my pyjamas about to switch my light off and go to sleep when one of my friends text me to say she was bored and about half an hour later I found myself on a dance floor with a vodka lemonade in my hand. 

And therein lies the main problem- spontaneity is rarely an option these days. 

Most of my friends are dotted about the country with only a small handful of us still left in Leeds, so any sort of gathering takes a good bit of planning, trying to organise everything to the letter and fit in around everybody else's calendars. Only having weekends to play with leaves little time for spontaneous activities. Even planning a lunch date can often take considerable thought to organise as we all want to make the most of our precious days off and so there's rarely any opportunity to drop someone a text and say 'shall we meet in half an hour for a drink and a cake?'. I miss the days of lunch dates being an almost daily occurrence, and I'm sure Opposite cafe in Leeds misses our regular custom too. Their brownie sales must have dropped considerably since my friends and I graduated. 

I'm so lucky that I get to see most of my friends pretty regularly still, largely due to the fact that I'm so insistent on making the most of my weekends as much as I can by doing the things I love (read: drinking too much vodka and dancing like a crazy person) as often as I can, and I absolutely love how fun it is when we do all meet up because it isn't a daily event any more so we really make the most of it. Its just at times when I'm bored in the middle of the week, or realise its going to be weeks or even months before I see some of my friends again, or even just when I'm sat at work wishing I could escape to Opposite and buy a brownie and a sandwich that I realise just how much I miss the good old days before becoming a (part-time) adult.

Time to Pretend- MGMT

This song seemed like a highly appropriate choice of post title, not only because it sums up a lot of what I've been waffling on about but also because its just one of those songs that as soon as I hear it transports me right back to happy little times in 2010- a time long before real life even crossed my mind.