Learning

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 →

My Pre-Travel Blog, Post

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[PHOTO: everything I travelled with over the 3 weeks; the rucksack I use for work, and a mini rucksack that just about holds my camera and purse]



So, I’ve been struggling to decide how to start these next 3, inevitably looonngg, blog posts about my Chinese New Year travels… I guess it would make sense to start at the beginning right? I mean, “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..” But these tales aren’t bookended by a musical do… they start and end with a mixture of excitement, worry, and uncertainty. One constant throughout my trip however, was that I was constantly learning. They say travel is the best form of education, life education that is, and I definitely did a lot of learning over the past 3 weeks. From doing research on my destinations, managing my money in both China and the UK, learning how to travel with a variety of different people, learning how to take my trip into my own hands, and so much more… (I also learnt that I’m not as good at the limbo as I used to be, but I’ll come back to that sad fact)

Well, my trip was clearly and easily broken down into 3 solid sections:

  1. Tokyo
  2. Seoul
  3. Thailand

So this is how I’ll be forming my travel blog posts. It’s going to take some time for me to get everything down, I can see it being over a month before I wrap things up and get to type up the words “and then I was back in my teeny but homey apartment in Country Garden.” But I don’t mind too much, it’s always nice to re-live the travel experiences and this will be a good way to prolong the feeling and memory of travel. Plus, it will mean you guys, my few but reliable readers, don’t have just one HUGE post to read, which would inevitably bore you to death.

At this very moment, I’m typing this up (on my phone) on Saturday at 9am… no I’m not at home in bed with a cuppa, I’m sat in one of the school theatres, while someone stands on stage, chattering away in Chinese, and all the international staff sit here with headphones in listening to some poor Chinese lady try and translate as quickly as she can. To my left, is another international teacher looking through photos on her laptop. To my right is a Chinese teacher reading a children’s English book. All around me I can see everyone on their phones, reading books, on their laptops, or just outright sleeping…

Anyway, this is a pointless blog post so I’ll cut it off here before I woffle on even more. Thanks for reading folks, and I look forward to sharing my travel adventures with you “all”.

Peace out!