Anxious Over Your Future? Me too!

We all have the pressure at a young age to decide the career path we want to follow for presumably the rest of our lives, do we not? Being in Wales, UK and working my way through the public schooling system we were given choices at 14 years of age for what four subjects we'd like to studying along side core subjects (Science, Maths, Welsh, English, P.E.) for the next academic year. Obviously I choose subjects I thought were fun and didn't think about the future as I didn't know what I wanted to do yet. I didn't really see the connection between school and our lives once we finished school. To me it was just something we had to do five days a week.

Then moving into Sixth Form and having to choose more subjects there, still unsure of which career path I wanted to go into but now seeing more of a connection between my grades and my future. I focused on Art. I've always been a creative person and have always found enjoyment in drawing. Until Sixth Form that is. I started to really hate the school I was at. I was dealing badly with my own mental health and I was falling behind, having my teacher constantly telling me that I needed to pick up my slacking in order to pass my exams. I felt trapped in Sixth Form and like I didn't belong so I made the decision to leave before the exams.

When I look back on this now, I regret it so much. I would have preferred I had stuck it out and gotten my AS Level exam grades and worked harder but I don't feel so bad because leaving Sixth Form resulted in what I like to call my big move!

I moved in with my Dad, a hour North up the coast of where my Mum lives, and enrolled in a Level 3 Extended Diploma in Childcare. If you've read a previous blog of mine (Half Way There!) you'll know that I studied Childcare. Reading back over that post there are a lot of things I said that didn't come true. For one I didn't go to work in Australia. I still plan to go to Australia to stay with family but the issue there is funding! Two I didn't go through with doing the extended essays to give me the option of university. I began to get bad again with m mental health and decided that I had enough work to do with the actual course let alone stacking three essays on top too. Sometimes I wish I had gone through with them but it doesn't bother me too much to be honest.

Once I had finished the two years in childcare I was thrust into the pressure of trying to find a job in the local schools or nurseries. I already have a weekend and holiday job in my village anyway so I wasn't paranoid about being left without an income (not that I was desperate for one because I am still living with my parents but I want to get on my own feet) but I wanted a full time job. When the summer was ending and I still hadn't found a job I didn't want to be sitting around doing nothing all week and decided to apply for another course at the college. 

Media Productions was my course of choice! I have been interested in filming for a couple of years and obviously I have a YouTube channel but I had never really given thought into pursuing it as a career. Since starting the course in September I have felt as if I have finally found something I feel really passionate about pursuing as a career path. I did enjoy childcare but I enjoy and feel incredibly at home on this course. I have two years of this course overall and then I'm thinking about university as an option afterwards. 

The reason I decided to write this blog post is because I haven't always had the best responses or support from those closest to me when I have decided to change my mind with subjects through my education. They have grown to support me once they have gotten used to the idea that I'm on a different course. I've learnt that it doesn't matter that if you don't know what you want to do when you're older. There's nothing wrong with exploring different subjects and trying different hobbies to find something you're really interested in. Don't worry about your age as much as I do sometimes. I'm turning 20 in two months and while most of my friends are nearing the end of their second year in university and could be out by 22 years old I won't be out of uni until I'm 24. 

I wish you all the best and I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments below!

Reminiscing over my summer

Hello!

It has been a long time since I have sat down to write a blog post for you lovely people and for that I sincerely apologise. I didn't mean to leave it for so long but I have been quite busy lately whether that may be due to saying goodbye to my friends who have left for university/another country or starting my second year of college. 

To make it up to you and to kick start my motivation into developing this blog into something better. I have decided to sit down to eat some Joe's Chocolate Swirl ice cream, watch Bridget Jones's Diary and write a few blog posts for you beautiful/handsome readers. At the moment I'm sitting home alone in my dressing gown and slippers beside the heater trying to keep warm (which I know makes no sense as I am eating ice cream but that's just how I roll!) as I think about my father and step mother on holiday in Egypt who are unable to actually sit in the sun as it is too hot for them. Anyway, let's move on from the holiday jealousy and get you up to date on what I have bee up to. 

At the start of the summer, I had decided to make a list of blog posts I wanted to write and upload to this blog. I loved some of the ideas a lot but as I said before, I was busy and seemed to run out of time because before I knew it we were back in placement! So I'd like to take this time to run through the events of my summer as I had created a summer bucket list.

Over the six weeks we had off for our summer holidays, I tried to do as much as possible in order to tick everything of my bucket list. The reason I had actually made this bucket list is the fact that I have never had a summer worth remembering. I often sat in my bedroom playing video games on my laptop and reading books. Now don't get me wrong, I love doing those things but I want more out of my summer this year, I wanted to make more memories and be more active. 

As we all know, my summer kicked off with seeing AC/DC live at Wembley in London. This was a dream come true and one of the highest things ticked off my bucket list (not just my summer bucket list). This was closely followed by the fact that I cut my hair to shoulder length and dyed it blue and purple. 

The next event of my summer and one of the loveliest days out I have ever had was the Blogger's meet up in Cardiff where I met a bunch of lovely lasses including two of my internet friends Katie (the brains behind the blog Funsize Beauty) and Becky (aka the wonderfully hilarious Bambino Becky)! I thought my social anxiety would get the better of me and I'd end up being to timid to talk to anyone. I admit that it did hold me back a little but I enjoyed my time despite this and tried to interact with everyone at the meet up in order to get to know them. 

Another thing that was ticked off my bucket list was to have a night out with my friends after they returned from their adventures in Holland. Unfortunately one of them had travelled to Cyprus to meet her family instead of returning with our other two friends but we still had a lovely time. That night we had a spontaneous sleep over at my friends house and played a few games to pass the night. 

I also had a day out with my mum where we went shopping and had Sunday lunch in a lovely pub followed by an ice cream from a local business which only sells products with honey it in. All their flavors are a mixture of honey and something else, i.e. strawberry, coffee, hazelnut, chocolate. If any of you are ever near Aberaeron I fully suggest going to The Hive to try their honey whippy ice cream!

On the 22nd of August, it was Shaniah's birthday so I came down to spend the day with her. We had lunch, bought a minion birthday cake and had a lengthy conversation about blogging and our favourite bloggers.

I was invited to go to the cinema with two of my other friends to see the new Fantastic Four film and I just had to despite all the negative comments I'd heard about it (as I am a Marvel fan and like to judge it for myself). I have to say I do prefer the original films to this one but there were some aspects I did like but I won't go into too much detail.

I face painted on two of my friends and wrote a blog post about it (as some of you may already know - here's the link if you didn't see it - Practice makes perfect!). My brother came up to my dad's then once I was back and we spent most of the weekend watching Mrs Brown's Boys (which so happens to be a Morrison family favourite!). My dad then took us to see The Man From U.N.C.L.E. before dropping my brother off at my mum's. I really like this movie and highly suggest seeing it!

The last chunk of my summer holidays consisted of working and top secret events that I'm going to discuss in another blog post! Overall I ticked off twelve and a half out of sixteen bucket list ideas. The only ones I didn't do was:

• Look into Astrology (I bought a book, which is where the half came from, but I haven't read it yet),
• Go Geocaching with three of my friends,
• Paint my bedroom at my dad's house and;
• Give my blog a makeover (I wanted to design the layout and update it but I haven't had time to do what I wanted to do with it - this is still going to happen though, I just need to figure out when).

I hope you all had a wonderful summer as well! Why not comment below and tell me the best thing about your summer? 

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.
             -x-

Half way there!

Hello!

I just wanted to share with you that I have offically finished my first year of college, yay! It doesn't seem like I have because I'm still at placement/work experience until the 16th of July but this was my decision. 

I decided to stay until the end of the school year as I have spent nearly a whole year with them already and I won't be going back again because of two reasons: 1) I will be assigned a different placement next year and 2) The school I'm currently in is being closed at the end of next year by the government. 

It's such a nice little school and it being closed down has nothing to do with it being a bad school. It's because it's such a small school and there are many other schools in the area. So overall I guess you could say it is due to funding.

Anyway, I just wanted to spend as much time with them as I have grown to love the placement. Both the staff and children are lovely individuals and treat me like a fully qualified childcare practitioner (within reason) and I just know I'm going to miss everyone there a lot!

But getting back to the original statement, it also seems like I haven't finished because I have a few extended essays to check up on over the summer holidays which I'm sure I'll hate but it will be well worth it for the future. I'm just hoping I can get a good grade out of them as they boost your qualification. See if you don't do the essays you get an overall E grade for completing the course (Extended Diploma Child Care Learning and Development Level 3) but if you do the extended essays you can get higher grades. Apparently without the extended essays we cannot get into university. I don't know if I ever want to go to uni but I'd like to have the option and what's the harm in doing three extended essays over a two year course?

Now that I have finish my first year of work, I'm super excited to get into the next year. Yes this year was hard and stressful for me but next year has promised to be easier since we have the basics already and we have covered most of the work this year. 

I also have a prize waiting for me at the end of the second year which I'm hoping will motivate me a lot more: I'm moving to Australia to work! You read right, I'm leaving Wales for Perth, WA at the end of my course to live and work out there for a year (or more, depending on how I feel). I also have family out there who I haven't seen a lot and I would love to spend more time with them.

I hope that whilst I'm out in Australia that I can earn quite a bit of money and take as many opportunities as I can that I can't do here. Then perhaps after I have earned some money I can take some time off to travel to Edinburgh to explore my family's history and visit my friend who could possibly be in her second year of university there at the time! 

I think that's all I have to say for now but expect more posts over the next couple of weeks as I'm doing a lot of exciting things such as: travelling to London this weekend to see AC/DC live at Wembley, possibly going to Cardiff to meet a group of lovely girls and going on holiday to Somerset at the end of this month!

What are you doing during the summer? Any festivals or gigs you're going to? What about any holidays or summer jobs? I'd love to know!

Sending my love,

As always,

A Wanderlust Being.

           -x-