January 2018

God new year new me has never been more apt. I have loved this month. Good things have been happening and its so fantastic! Something I could never say about 2017.

I left the prawns and my gang, I was so sad to leave as I felt I was just getting started, but I was so ready to restart the teaching adventure. What a difference a nice school environment can make. I love this new school, absolutely love it. I feel freedom there, security, wanted and no one is shouting at me every five minutes. My feedback is positive with areas and suggestions to improve, theres no 'you're disappointing the children' here. Even if I don't pass because I'm not good enough, I'll cherish this time for helping me remember why I love working with kids and for giving me my confidence back.

January has been a month for me to also adjust once again to something my dad did, you might have seen my post on sober alcoholics, I've come to the conclusion over 2017 and especially now, I just can't have people in my life that drain me, and he is one of them. I will always love him but I can't abide him or like him or any of his actions anymore. I am tired of being the one to manufacture a relationship and it's up to him now. I'm out, and for my own mental health and wellbeing, I think that's for the best.

and January marks the fact that I am going on the big travel adventure next month! The 26th Feb cannot come quick enough. My plan is to do mini blog posts on the countries and big cities I visit (provided wifi is ok!) and answer some of the questions I have and can't find answers for!

Short and sweet but what a positive month, bring on February

xxx

Sober Alcoholics

It's been nearly three years since my dad decided to get plastered, attempted to drive home from his factory but instead plowed himself into a load of parked cars and got himself arrested. The day before his birthday. It marked a seismic shift in our family and our relationship with each other.

November

November has been kind to me. I have finally been given a school and a start date to go and get my teaching qualification, and I am gonna go in there and kick arse. It's a completely different school and area than I have ever lived in/ worked in before, which will be a challenge but I am so excited to go and teach somewhere completely new, somewhere with different challenges and issues. I am hoping that going back into school will make me want to go back into school; I feel that I don't want to be a teacher anymore once I qualify, which most people get since how badly I was treated in placement 2. I am really enjoying having my evenings to myself, to watch tv and hermit myself, in a good way. I'm really trying to focus on what I want to do if I don't want to teach anymore. It's really hard, I keep saying that 2017 has been the worst year of my life and it has- Jan to June were abysmal and the fact I didn't have an emotional breakdown shocks me and makes me so bloody proud of myself. This is the career I've wanted since I was 11, and that I am so traumatised towards it at the moment is making it hard to want to do it for the rest of my life. 

Onto more positive notes, I have finally found my feet in my job at work and have started making proper mates, I don't feel quite as lonely as I have done since I've moved back home which is really helpful for me and my brain. 

Travelling plans have ramped up dramatically- all of my 11 (gahhhhh) flights are booked, my aunties now coming for my two weeks in Vietnam (hiya comfy hotels!) and I've booked many of my hostels. My current plans are to write a small summary of each country as I go along, so 1) I don't forget anything and 2) so other people might stumble across some info, cos lots of bits I've been really struggling to find online, and being the control freak that I am I just need to know where that boat comes from or where I can get on that bus. When I have more elements, I'm gonna write a post about my plans so far, what shit I've taken with me too, just to see when I come back what has actually been helpful and what hasn't!

I had a week off in November too (which is rare for me) and I made the most of seeing my favourite people and doing absolutely nothing, as it's my last week off before I go travelling in Feb! I went back to Sheffield to see some pals graduate (it was really hard watching the ceremony I should have been in) and some of my best people came to visit me too, which just made me feel so much better and so much more like myself. 

I'm just feeling really quite happy in myself, which I've only ever had brief glimpses of in the past, I know I'm not as skinny as i would like (and I'm rather banking on travelling to help me out with this!) but I'm sort of ok with it currently, I'm being good with my food choices again and I'm maintaining around 11 stone, which is ok to me! Granted this might only last for a week or until tomorrow or until forever but I'm savouring it and feeling quite content. 

And the best part of November for me was seeing The Killers again. Holy shit balls. I just love them and they played my favourite song of all time which I really wasn't expecting as its an album song off Hot Fuss and I would be lying if I said I didn't cry. I was there with my family and were all mega Killers fans and it was just bootiful.

So that's me for November, here's to a very merry December!

Hev

October

Slightly early I know- we haven't quite got to the end of the month yet! But as we all know my urge to blog (and time to) comes and goes, so I thought I would make a start now.

I've had a good month. Nothing horrendous has happened! It makes quite the change to be honest with you. I'm still temping and I am still enjoying it, sometimes it is slightly stressful, but it ain't on a lev of teaching! Talking of teaching, would I be sounding dramatic if I say I think I may have mild PTSD from last year? Every. Single. Time. I think about January to June, the longest and worst six months of my life, I cry; heck, I'm doing it now. It really makes me wonder if I will actually cope going back into a classroom; I'm sure I will, I fucking love teaching kids about food, but I don't think I will be able to bear it if my momentary mentor is a cowbag this time. Placement 2 damaged me, and the reaction of my Uni, my tutors lack of giving a shit and this never ending battle to get a placement 3 is still damaging me.  

I think about dying slightly less than last month, I've started exercising a bit more again and I think that really does help my brain shut off. My brain is hardwired to cling onto anything and everything that my personality is scared or horrified by, and is rather annoyingly something I'm gonna have to battle and live with for my entire life. Dying is my biggest fear, and I am going to have to make my peace with its inevitability. 

Travelling plans have ramped up! After I write this I am going to write a big post about my plans so far, but I am feeling far more organised and less like I am going to shit myself, which is always a plus with my control freak self. I am definitely 80% fucking buzzing, 10% terrified and 10% nervous.

I do think I am in the middle of a bit of a quarter life crisis- no solid career, teaching limbo, limited pals, no sight of a nice boy, feeling very lonely quite alot of the time, but its ok, I am muddling through- I always muddle through- and I will get my arse on that plane on the 26th of February lined with vodka and excitement for the future. I keep joking that I want to go find myself, but I do, I need to find myself soon, before I go a bit insane!

Apart from the mini crisis and super mild PTSD October has been fab. Lots of fun, lots of laughter, lots of love for Jamie and Claire finding each other again in Outlander, and lots of anger about Liam leaving the bake off! (It is a fucking crime that Kate and Stacey are still in, I tell thee!)

Keemon November, stick it to me

September

September. A month that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy, I just thought it would be another month in my life where not much happened.