changes

The MA and Me

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So, I’m on a Masters… not a Masters in education, as was suggested to me during the Poster Presentations ession of the PGCE, but a Masters in Art Practice.

Now, as excited and as proud as I am to have been accepted onto this course and as eager as I am to start, I find myself belittling it. It’s been something that, over the past few months, I’ve caught myself doing, and doing a lot. Not just with the Masters, but with every aspect of my life.

I would like to state the fact, and make it heard, that I’m proud of my choice to return home and set up a life after China and travel, and then after only being home for a few months start a PGCE in Further Education and Training. Continue to do very well in the PGCE, excel within my placement, and work part-time as a caregiver alongside it all. After finishing the course and placement, I applied for and gaining a position on the MA in Art Practice, despite not having studied or even academically practicing my own photography in about 5 years…

I’m only 26, and have done a lot already, and have plans to do so much more with myself as the years go on, yet, I find myself talking down my accomplishments, my personal milestones, and basically, my life.

When I’m working there’s a fairly repetitive and regular dialogue that ensues between myself and either the old ladies I care for, or the staff I work with:

“So, what are you going back to uni to study, are you in your final year?” Continue reading →

From China to the Chinese

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Imagine my delight when I was told one of our assignments for uni is to write a minimum of 3 reflective blogs.
FINALLY!
I’ve been given an excuse to tap away at the keys again and upload more of my rambling thoughts and feelings onto my dusty old blog.

This blog has gone from a personal venting space (a ‘let me try and sort my life/mind out’sort of thing), to somewhere for me to pass the time while I was bored sat at my desk in work, and then it became a place for me to tell the tales (and brag about) my travels around South East Asia. Well, hold onto the handlebars kids, this rollercoaster of a blog is about to take another wild turn… It’s about to become my “Academic, reflective blog”… It won’t be as interesting or as exciting as me telling you about (prepare for some more casual bragging here) that one time I rented a scooter and rode the Hai Van Pass in Vietnam, or the time I went to a questionably named festival under the Hong Kong skyline (Clockenflap, I’m talking about you)…

 

Hai Van Pass, Vietnam
Clockenflap, HongKong

But, it is nice to have something that will have adapted with me and travelled through my ups and downs and twirly-whirly path of life I’ve found myself on, at the ripe old age of 25.

Anyways, I’ll quit rambling now, that’s definitely something I’m going to have to try and get better at for these posts!

Here we go, my first academic, reflective blog… enjoy!

Let me start with a genuine conversation I had with my mum and my sister:

Me: “I’m freaking out a bit! I mean, I’m going to be an actual teacher, like, I’m going to have to teach people things!” 
Mum: “Why are you freaking out, you’ve done this…”
Me: “What? No I haven’t, I’ve got no experience of being a teacher, how am I supposed to handle this year?!”

Sister: “Charlie, what do you think you’ve been doing for the past year and a half…? You’ve been working at a school, TEACHING English to Chinese kids… you’re already a teacher.”
Me: “Oh… right. I mean, that didn’t count. Wait, did that count? Damn… I never thought of that.”

 For my whole life, I’ve grown up saying “I’ll never be a teacher, can’t think of anything worse!”. This is basically just because I’ve seen the Continue reading →

Coming up…

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Now it’s time to stop looking back, and look forward… In just over a week I’m flying down to Langkawi, Malaysia. I’m spending 2 nights there, and then 3 nights on a crazy small Thai island, Koh Lipe, and after that… I have no set plan. I’m going at it alone, for the first time in my life; I’ll be travelling (for more than 5 days) on my own. Just me. No childhood best friend. No travel buddy I met in China. No one. It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do, and do slowly. When I was a teenager I dreamed of picking up, leaving, and having no life plan. I wanted to travel to different countries, working as I went along to earn enough money for my next destination. Sadly, as I got older, and some might say wiser (?), I realised, for me, that’s not a feasible way to do it. And you know what? It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that that’s okay.

Being in the kind of environment I’ve found myself in, surrounded by travellers, people who only know how to live internationally, people who spend every weekend, every holiday, every day off going out to explore new places… it makes you view your own adventures and plans very differently. I sometimes feel inferior to the people around me, a lesser “ex-pat” or “traveller” because my list of ticked off countries isn’t as long as theirs… You live in this constant different mind-set that the only reason you’re here, the only reason you’re working 40 hours a week and living in a country that makes every task difficult, is to get that next stamp in your passport. And, please, don’t think I’m Continue reading →

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

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This is not a travel blog. This is not an adventure blog.

This is a Charlie pours her head and heart out into the internet blog… just like old times…

[Also, if you didn’t read that title in the beauitful unique voice of my beloved Bowie, please stop right here and listen. I was torn between him and the Scorpions for this one…]

At this moment in time, I’ve decided to start making changes to myself. Improvements in some way… Now, when someway say that, you tend to think they you’ll soon be bombarded with gym selfies, healthy meal updates and half naked before and after photos. Well, don’t worry I’m not talking about those kind of changes. That’s not me, I mean; anyone who knows me knows that that is the polar opposite of who I am.

I’ve actually decided to change myself mentally… now, this isn’t even changing myself mentally as in I’m going all zen, I’m starting yoga and meditation. No. I’ve decided it’s time to change and improve myself in a different way, a better way. A way that I haven’t done in quite a few years… I’ve decided to start doing some online courses. I’ve come to the point in my life at the moment, and especially during my time here, that I’ve started to feel like I’m not using my brain as much as I’d like to. Yes I’m a teacher so I’m using it in that sense every day to ensure the kids understand what we’re working on. But, it’s not as mentally challenging in the educational way as I’d thought and hoped it would be (which is ironic as I’m still in the educational system). Although I’m thoroughly enjoying what I do and am very happy doing it, it’s not challenging my brain as much as I’d like. So this is when I decided to take it upon myself (with the help of a suggestion from a friend) to start to improve myself on an academic level. I’ve started an online course titled Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching.

I’ve never had any experience in this before, apart from the numerous times in my life I’ve been told I should be tested for dyslexia. But, I signed on anyway, because my friend and colleague Emilija, who is actually very involved in this area of study, had a conversation with me about dyslexia while we were grading test papers a week or so ago. I mentioned something about that when I was a kid, and sometimes Continue reading →

What next…?

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[Photo: tegalalang rice terrace, Bali from mine and Shelb’s travel this summer]

Planning for the future is a scary thing. Making decisions about your life is a terrifying concept. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you end up missing other opportunities due to the path you chose? It’s inevitable that you’ll always look back and say “Ow, I wish I could have been there for that.” Or “Damn it, I should have done this instead.” You can never cover all the bases that you wish to. You’re always going to have to choose one side of the coin. My coin currently has a few sides; it’s more like a triangular dice, or cute little (intimidating) cube…

A co-worker sat down with me the other day and discussed in great lengths her options and thoughts for the end of this academic year. It sounded exciting, adventurous, and fuelled with purpose and passion. I guess it helped that there was a love interest thrown in there to help aid and focus her attention, but still, she had a plan (vague as it was), and it could work [for her]. It was so easy for me to sit there and encourage her to follow this dream, to book the flights, to plan her trips. “Just do it!” I cried, “What have you got to loose!?”… Why is it so much easier for me to have that much faith and trust in someone else’s life and travel plan, than I have in my own? I have very little/no faith that the decisions I make at the end of this academic year will lead me to exactly where I’m supposed to be. I feel like I’m being torn across the globe. Pulled in all directions… I have to go there. I have to be back for this. I should think about that. I need to do it…

In all honesty, I feel selfish for what my thoughts and possible plans are. I can’t call them plans; they’re, at best, ideas. I know people repeatedly say “Your 20s are your selfish years. Do what you want. Go where you want. Be who you want.”… but I feel like I have to have some sort of structured plan right? Like, I don’t want to get to 29 and suddenly be like “Oh crap, I’ve had a great 8 years, but what now?! I’m not qualified to do anything; I’ve got no money to start my life. Is it time to whack out the old Maccies uniform and cap?!” I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, I feel like I’ve Continue reading →

Transformation: 25th Oct Prompt

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[Photo: Taken on Monday 24th Oct while sat wating for the bus heading to Dong Yuan at lunch time. Within 2 hours the weather transformed from this bright blue sky, to heavy dark and angry storm clouds that drenched the gardens.]

So this one is a few days behind. Transformation was the word prompt for October 25th. Today; the first day of me sitting down to attempt this post, laptop on knee, Tom Petty singing about losers and American girls, cuppa to my right, is October 27th. I used to do a “prompt a day” a couple of times a week when I started this blog, but, at that time I also had more spare quiet moments at my desk with not much to do. Things have changed. Things have…. Transformed. I’m sorry, that was cheesy, but I stand by it! A friend who is currently up to June in trawling their way through my long winded and self-absorbed posts mentioned that they miss when I used to “explain my idea of stuff”. Meaning, they liked the posts where I take this one word, the selected jumble of letters that WordPress presents us with each day, and run with it. Sometimes I run head strong in one focused direction, other times I may as well be trying to dodge bullets with the amount of zig-zagging and tumbling over myself I do while trying to explain my thoughts and feelings of the word. I noticed this word pop up in my inbox a couple of days ago and it’s been on my mind since. So here we go…

Transformation – 

  • a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance

  • a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal

  • the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process.

Shamefully, one of the first things that pings up into my mind when I read this word is not the incredible journey a caterpillar embarks on during its life. Nor is it the leg sprouting, tail loosing changes a wee little tadpole goes through to become the frog. No. My first thought was: #TransformationTuesday. It pains me to even admit that and see it here in my ever growing Word Document that I type my blog post drafts upon (currently at 74 pages; 40,000 words). Yep. A bloody hashtag about body changes, diet achievements, when puberty hit hard to a lesser than average looking kid etc. is what I think of when I read those 14 letters strung together. Maybe that’s an embarrassing and awful insight into my social media habits and slight addiction (which, I must admit, I’m slightly getting over). I recently posted a somewhat #TransformationTuesday post myself, except, it was on a Sunday. I’ll start by admitting how much I wasted a perfectly good weekend. Did I go out and explore my new surrounding some more? No. Did I go and Continue reading →