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

Life lately...

Well hello there internet, its been a while! I've still been living an internet free existence, and I've resorted to spending my time in various coffee shops around Leeds, eating cake and catching up on important internet based things (mostly New Girl and GBBO...).

Since I've been without wifi for so long, some of the posts I'd have otherwise written seem a bit redundant now so instead I thought I'd do a bit of a whistlestop tour of my summer to bring all you nosy people out there up to speed with what I've been up to over the last month or so.

Harewood House

Mama and Papa T managed to squeeze a day trip to see little Kaz in a few weeks ago (anyone else's parents have a busier social calendar than them?). Considering I've lived in Leeds for 6 years with such a huge stately home and park practically down the road, I'd never taken a visit except when I did a Color Me Rad run there a few months back (but we were too busy throwing paint around to pay too much attention to the surroundings!). The weather was bloomin' beautiful and we spent hours and hours wandering about the grounds. I love a good family day trip, especially when we end it in one of my favourite pubs for tea.

Big Reunion

Its been three whole years since graduation now (although I still have difficulty coming to terms with how old that makes me...), and somehow it had been two years since the five faces above were last in a room together. We finally managed to pin everybody down to a weekend in August to meet up and catch up on the gossip from the many, many months that had flown by. We spent ages running around Asda picking up plentiful supplies of hummus, popcorn and any other picnic food we could get our hands on before heading off on a trip to Temple Newsam to see the animals at the farm. After eating our body weights in cocktail sausages, making a few furry friends and playing running around after a frisbee we headed back home to get ready before an evening of bowling and ping pong at Roxy Lanes and Roxy Ballroom. Normal bars just aren't enough for me anymore, unless there's some sort of drunken sport I can participate in I'm just not interested! 

Corfu

The big activity of the month was a well deserved summer holiday to Sidari in Corfu. We mostly spent the week eating unimaginable quantities of saganaki, drinking crazily cheap cocktails and gazing longingly at a God-like Greek waiter at one of the restaurants. All the stereotypes of a Greek holiday right there. My personal highlight of the trip was the waterpark as I have the holiday requirements of a 10 year old, the 25m freefall slide was one of the best/scariest things I've done before... mostly scary because my bikini top came undone somewhere along the way down the slide. The people at the bottom of the slide don't know how lucky they are that I had a sunburnt back and had put a t-shirt on to cover it up...

 Back home

The week after my holiday I had a few more cheeky days off work and headed home to see my parents. I did myself proud and managed my first solo mission on the motorway to anywhere further than Ikea (which is about 5 mins down the motorway from where I live...) all the way down the M62, through the centre of Liverpool and back to my Mum and Dad's house. I mostly just enjoyed being able to sing along to my driving playlist without fear of people spotting me at traffic lights! Whilst home I had a yummy meal out at Bill's, caught up with my friend about her wedding preparations and had a look at Liverpool from the top of the Cathedral before driving back to Leeds (and missing my junction on the motorway because I was too busy singing along to Biffy Clyro).

Leeds West Indian Carnival

My Bank Holiday Monday was spent in the rain, feeling grateful for my nice warm coat and many layers of clothes whilst watching lots of people in very minimal costumes parading down the streets of Leeds. The Leeds West Indian Carnival is one of the biggest in the country, and since I wasn't at Leeds Festival this year (sob) I was around to go and have a nosy with friend. The costumes were incredible, and despite the rain there was a brilliant atmosphere (which may have been partly due to the crazy amount of people I spied swigging vodka and rum straight from the bottle as they danced down the parade route!).

Alton Towers

My buddy and I took a trip to Alton Towers last week. I hadn't been for a few years and was bouncing around like a child (see, I really am a 10 year old...) the whole way there. Considering it was still the summer holidays, we didn't have to queue all that much, except for The Smiler where we spent 90 minutes queuing under the ride watching endless carts of people whizzing past us. By the time we'd got to the front of the queue my knees were knocking together and I was starting to question why I'd ever wanted to go on a ride with 14 loops in it, but I wasn't planning on letting an hour and a half's worth of queuing go to waste. And OHEMGEE it was so worth the wait. Well done Alton Towers, you did good with that one. 

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this mammoth post! Normal service shall hopefully resume on here once my wifi has been fixed.

Lighting the cracks in the road

image: Pinterest

This afternoon I went to the funeral of a 15 year old cancer patient I've known for most of the time I've worked in the world of teenage cancer. It was incredibly sad to be at a funeral for someone so young, but I think every person took away a really positive message from the day. He'd always been a massive inspiration, and will forever stick out in my mind out of all the kids I've had the chance to work with as I'd never met anyone with as much spark and love of life. 

Since being told he wasn't going to get better around this time last year, he had set about pursuing a bucket list, with everything from swimming with sharks to going to his prom being on there. With the help of his friends and family he managed to complete an incredible amount and had some brilliant adventures out of it. Top of his bucket list was to go to America and visit New York, which amazingly he managed to do just a few weeks ago despite being so ill by this point. As a celebration of his enthusiasm to grab life by both hands and achieve everything he could in the time he had, his family arranged for a bucket to be placed at the front of the crematorium. They then proceeded to hand out post it notes to everybody so we could all pledge to start our own bucket lists and make a promise to him to do something new or aim for a particular goal. The post it notes were then going to be put into the coffin with him so we'd all be sure to keep our promises. 

For any curious people out there, my promise was that one day soon I'd make it to America too. Partly for him, but also for my Uncle Stuart who also visited New York before he died back in April. Since both people absolutely fell in love with the place, I feel like its only right I go and see what all the fuss is about someday!

Even at his own funeral he managed to be a huge inspiration, with every single person there coming away from there feeling inspired to go out and live their dreams for someone who couldn't do that for himself any more. 

What's at the top of your bucket list? I'm nosey and would love to know :)

Carry Me- Bombay Bicycle Club

Go to the ends of the Earth for you

Life's a funny old thing isn't it? One minute you think everything is ticking along just hunky dory and then WHAM! you hit a dip on the rollercoaster and suddenly everything feels very different. My latest dip came about a week and a half ago when we found out that my Uncle Stuart had died very suddenly in his sleep. My Mum's little brother, something none of us could have ever anticipated in the slightest. You just can't prepare for a thing like that, something I sadly learnt last year when my Auntie Jackie passed away in much the same way. One day everything is fine, you think you know what the next days, weeks and months will bring, and then in the blink of an eye, your life and idea of 'normal' is turned on its head. 

In the last seven years I've lost 5 close family members and have watched my already small family shrink quite dramatically. Family photos become less crowded, fewer spaces at the dinner table are needed and things are never quite the same again. A friend of my Uncle's who I met at the funeral yesterday said to us "you always know death is going to happen in the end, but you never for a second think of it happening to the important people in your life" which I think sums up human nature perfectly. A consequence of living is always going to involve an ending but its something we, as caring human beings, don't ever want to imagine as it seems impossible to picture a world without our nearest and dearest. When the inevitable does happen, its heartbreaking as you know that things are never going to quite be the same again. With the case of my Uncle it has hit with a sudden realisation that our annual trips to Edinburgh with him as our unofficial tour guide are no more. Yes, we may still visit the city from time to time but we're never going to walk down the street with my Uncle taking photographs of anything and everything (and his confidence in striding up to a disguised, grumpy looking Eddie Izzard and charming him into posing for a photo...) taking us to ridiculously posh cocktail bars in the New Town when we were all dressed in walking gear and showing us thousands of little things we'd never in a million years have found on our own. 

Although really emotional, Stuart's funeral was inspirational. My Uncle didn't lead a particularly extraordinary life but his kindness, creativity and sense of fun clearly touched a lot of people, so much so that they had to upgrade us to the bigger chapel five minutes before the service was due to start as there'd have been about double the amount of people for the capacity of the original venue. Stuart clearly brought a smile to everyone he'd ever met and although his life was cut short long before it should have been, it was comforting to realise how happy he made people and how much they meant to him too. 

That's what I'm trying to take away from all of this, the idea of making the most of every second you do have on this Earth, making sure you make other people happy and make yourself happy too as really those are the things we have to live for. Life is there to be enjoyed and not wasted, we owe that to the ones who aren't there to share the party with us at least. 

Make You Feel My Love- Bob Dylan

(this one's for you Uncle Stuart)

And I'll never look back, just hold your head up

When I tell people that I work with teenage cancer patients, I often find myself cringing as I wait for their reaction. All to often I get a pained expression of sympathy that I have to do such a 'sad' job, and others just look at me like I'm absolutely mad for wanting to work in such a 'depressing' job. Its a good measure of people though, if somebody reacts and says something like "that must be really rewarding" or even just a "ooh that sounds like an interesting job" I generally have far more respect for people with that sort of reaction rather than somebody who has an automatic assumption that my job is all doom and gloom. 

Ok, so there are times when inevitably working in the big bad world of cancer is pretty tough as sadly not everybody has a happy ending, but 99% of the time its actually a pretty brilliant place to work. Cancer patient or not, the kids are still just normal teenagers most of the time and some of them are bloody hilarious... I had one 16 year old yesterday who was telling me that she was planning a house party at the weekend because her Mum and Dad were going out all the while her non-English speaking Dad was sat right next to us thinking she was telling me about how college was going. 

One thing my job really has taught me is perspective. I know so many kids who've had to go through some truly horrible, life changing stuff. I know a fair few who've lost a limb to cancer but they somehow manage to get through that and still come out of it the other end with a smile and a crazy amount of determination to make their future everything they've ever wanted and more, seizing every opportunity because they're just so thrilled they've got their lives back. It really makes me think about things if I've had a bad day or if something is getting me down. Moping about things doesn't get you anywhere- having determination to pick yourself up and make things better is what life is all about. Cancer doesn't have to be the end of the world for the teenagers I work with, and our own problems don't have to be the end of our world either. Life is for living and enjoying, none of us know how long we've got on this planet but we really owe it to ourselves to make the most of it and do everything we can to enjoy it.

Image: Pinterest

Falling- Haim

Arabella's got a 70's head

Last week, I took a trip down memory lane and spent a week at my old school for a bit of mainstream work experience to help boost my PGCE application. I had a great little week and was amazingly not put off becoming a teacher despite witnessing the teachers' mass hysteria at the impending threat of ofsted and lesson observations in the staff room every day. 

Aside from using my degree for a real purpose (there's a first time for everything...) by explaining lots of English Languagey things to the A-level groups and being told I'd make a great teacher by some year 9 girls (I complimented one of them on her crazy collection of stationary, not sure whether that makes me an outstanding teacher or just a stationary nerd but she seemed impressed regardless), one of the highlights of the week was getting to spend a week looking at the little trends and styles the kids had. 

Back in my school days it was socially unacceptable to carry your books in anything other than Jane Norman and Kookai school bags, having absolutely poker straight hair to the point where you could practically hold a spirit level against it was an absolute necessity and every teenager needed to be seen wearing so many charity wristbands that they looked as saintly as Mother Teresa. 

The kids in school this time around were mostly wearing Kickers, there was always at least one pair of Ray Bans being sported in every classroom and the school bag of choice was a brightly coloured satchel. Looking around, the world seems to be breeding an army of mini-hipsters, but actually I thought that was pretty cool. The kids that were considered 'cool' back in my school days were generally the chavvy girls with tonnes of orange make-up and Lacoste trainers for PE and people unconsciously seemed to follow their choices of horrific shoes and school bags, now it seems the kids that set the trends have a totally different outlook on style and their inspiration and I just loved seeing it. 

People seem to think kids are growing up far quicker as the years go by, and in a lot of ways that probably is true. Despite this, what I actually saw last week was a school full of kids who were acting their own age, not trying to look older by plastering themselves in make up, and cool points being given to the kids who were happy to look 'cute' and a bit 'quirky' rather than 'sexy' and (lets face it) 'slaggy' as seemed to be the case back when I was in school. 

I couldn't decide on an image to finish off my ramblings with, so ended up delving back into the archives and finding a picture of mini-Kaz and co from when I was in Year 11. I have a feeling that if I put my old uniform on again now I wouldn't look much older than I do on this picture...

Arabella- Arctic Monkeys

But I fumbled and when I came down to the wire

Image: Pinterest

Earlier this week I spent half of my afternoon chatting to one of the kids at work. I know you're not meant to have favourites but its impossible not to sometimes when there are some brilliant characters amongst them. When this girl first came into the hospital I was told she was really quiet and sensible but the first time I met her I had more trouble getting her to stop talking! She comes out with some brilliant stories and comments, and this week's took the biscuit. Out of nowhere, she came out with the comment "When I'm an adult I want to be like you... I mean you're a grown up but you're not at all grown up". 

At first I wasn't quite sure how to take that one but actually I realised she'd summed me up in a nutshell and it definitely wasn't a bad thing. Yes, I can be an 'adult'... I can do my own washing, pay bills and have a job with a fair bit of responsibility, but on the other hand I love nothing more than having the sense of humour of a 10 year old boy, dancing like I'm at a school disco and pulling faces at my friend from work when we're in meetings. Growing up and being a grown up are two totally separate things. And actually, I think I'm pretty proud that this girl decided that I made a good role model- I think I've got the best of both worlds as far as adult life goes, being able to live independently but also knowing not to take life too seriously. I want to look back on my life and think about how much I enjoyed myself and all of the fun memories I had, not how great it was to be a full time grown up person who didn't take the time to enjoy herself or let her hair down every once in a while at every possible opportunity.

The Wire- Haim

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

Just keep following the heartlines on your hand

source: Pinterest

Today I'm going to tell you a little story about an encounter I had last week that I've been replaying in my mind ever since.

I was in the main entrance of the hospital for a scheduled tiffin meeting with my colleague and on my way back from the cash machine I wandered past a man with a charity bucket who looked absolutely thrilled to pieces at the sight of me walking towards him with a £10 note in my hand. This man is there day in, day out collecting money and I must admit I've never given him any money before (I'd like to feebly blame this on the fact that I'm usually tearing through the doors of the hospital in a mad rush and also the sorry emptiness of my purse 99% of the time). But this time I felt terrible when I walked straight past him to the end of the Costa queue just a few steps away from him. After putting the world of oncology Learning Mentors to rights, we ended up staring at the little old man with his bright green bucket until guilt got the better of us and we decided to empty the change out of our purses and donate it to the charity bucket. 

The man wasn't even looking at us when we threw our money into the collection, but all of a sudden he sprang to life and gave us the biggest beaming smile I think I've ever seen. That was thanks enough for our little good deed of the day, but he was so thrilled about our donations that he ended up asking us all about what we did and telling us what a great job we were doing. My friend then turned to him and exclaimed that really it was him that was doing the good job really as he's stood there day after day raising money for the Children's Hospital as it takes some serious commitment to volunteer so much time to the hospital.  

He then explained to us that he'd started volunteering when he was 81 just after his wife had died. He felt as though he needed something meaningful to fill his days with now that he had nobody to spend his time with and so decided that fundraising would be an ideal way to give something back to other people and to have an excuse to get out and about every day. Two years on and he's raised over £50,000 and he's determined to double that figure.

Its so incredibly rare to see that level of commitment from anybody, let alone from an 83 year old man who spends his days holding a bucket whilst tonnes of people pass him by without a second glance. He's just happy when those occasional kind-hearted passers by decide to pause for a moment and give him a few pence as he gets to have a bit of a chat and get that little bit closer to reaching his fundraising goal. He was adamant that he wasn't doing anything special or difficult by bucket shaking, he just saw it as a good way to spend his time and stop himself from feeling lonely.

Now that is what life is all about. Making the most out of any situation, turning a tragedy into a positive experience and making every moment of life count in whatever way we can. Its no wonder I've been thinking about this short encounter so much, the man was such a massive inspiration- he's already lived his whole life but still chose to dedicate the rest of his life to helping a good cause. I'm not saying we should all go out, give up our day jobs and bucket shake for the rest of our lives, but I think its a great reminder that life is for living and that we should do whatever we can to make our days as meaningful and valuable as we can.

Heartlines- 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.