It’s that time of year when college work really starts to pile up and then you keep having to remind yourself that university applications still need to be done. This is probably being reflected in what I’m posting on my blog at the minute, there’s a lot less book reviews for one. But although it’s all very stressful and scary, there’s definitely something to be said for the fact that I feel as though I’m finally moving on. I recently e-mailed my old English teacher to request a reference for university, and it got me thinking about sixth form again. It’s been two years since I left and in some ways it feels as though it was only last week. I can still remember the pranks that were played in the last days, and the filming for the leavers’ video mystifying the whole school. (All I can say about that is: Gold Shorts.)
In other ways though, it feels as though it was an age ago that I left through those gates for the last time. I’m a different person now. Not better or worse, just different. It’s almost as if I’ve been in a kind of cocoon for the past two years, studying at college because I wasn’t quite ready to move on to the next step. And I’m still not ready, but I suppose that I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Change is scary. There I said it. (Or rather, typed it.) I am afraid that when I go to university I won’t be as good at what is ‘my thing’ as I thought I was. I’m scared that it won’t be what I expected. But another part of me is screaming at me, telling me that ‘of course it won’t be as I expected’ and ‘of course you’re not as good as all that’. Because what am I going to uni for if not to learn? If I thought that I knew everything about the course, and about the experience of university life, then I wouldn’t be bothering with it. I KNOW that it won’t be as I’m expecting, and I KNOW that I’m going to flop horribly in at least my first assignment. And that’s ok.
Right now I’m just a small fish that’s swimming around in the wrong pond. I don’t want to continue down this path (I apologise for mixing metaphors, it’s just been one of those days) and I don’t want to work in childcare. Teaching, perhaps, but not childcare. As I said to myself in my morning tirade today, I need to get this writing and English thing out of my system. I might be absolutely terrible at it, but how am I ever going to face up to that if I never learn how to be better? So it’s time to move on to being a butterfly. (Oh, we’ve come full circle with the metaphors. All is right in the world.) Time to come out of the chrysalis and stretch my wings, because I need to start on my next adventure. (A little bit of Peter Pan there for you)
So that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately, what are you studying at the minute? What are you planning to move on to?
Have a lovely day,
Alys.
Alys the Book Wyrm 