So here I am at Stoke rail station again, waiting for a train over an hour away. Why? Because Newcastle United are playing at home.
I do so wish I had a car. I would certainly save a lot of hassle. It would definitely lead to me being less tired!
I taught today. It’s not the first time: it’s just the first time I’ve mentioned it here. It didn’t go terribly badly, there was still a lot of criticisms but I’m still learning. So despite being catastrophically tired, it’s all still good.
So great to be on a train again. Mother trying to navigate three very young children with her limited but nonetheless colourful vocabulary. I’m trying to do an assignment here!
I finished my week-long primary placement on Friday. I’ll miss those kids! They were cheeky at times but they were friendly and we had a laugh. I most likely cemented myself in lore by falling unexpectedly and acrobatically trying to play football with them. Lesson learned.
And now I’m on my way back to Keele having watched Newcastle draw again. Thinking about a nice cup of tea…
I’ve taken respite from the world of… nothing. I’m in Lincolnshire to visit my grandparents. We went to Lincoln today, which was quite nice but it rained a lot. They say the weather is very localised around here. I’ve noticed that. It’s reminded me of that song… “Why does it always rain on me?” – Travis, is who that was.
I have received some sort of confirmation that I’ve been offered a place on the PGCE course – conditional on my satisfactory criminal record and health. They should be fine, except I’m not sure whether I’m a hypochondriac or a hyperchondriac! I live with the determination that there must be something wrong with me, but not the inclination to go and find out what that is! So I could get all-clear good news or double-whammy bad news. However, seeing as I’m in Lincs at the moment, I’m not likely to find out any time soon.
So in some regard, I can’t wait to get back and sort things out. However, that’s also something I’m very much not looking forward to!
Everything seemed fine until I got to Manchester Piccadilly. There it poured down: an omen of things to come. An announcement rang out, informing that my train was to be moved to another platform. Quite which platform was unknown to passengers because a rather loud, mouthy announcer voiced her announcement all over the top of it. In the event, it was moved to the next platform. Even so… not very good.
Without too much further frustrations I arrived at Stoke, where it was pouring even heavier. I had a look for the bus station and walked in one direction for about a minute before deciding it must have been the other way. It transpired Stoke’s bus station is actually Stoke’s train station with a bus shelter outside. So I was a little wet, and those already seeking shelter under the bus stop were curiously reluctant to allow a further lost soul camp under it. So I got even wetter.
The bus did eventually come, however where it stopped I was pretty clueless. I found that Keele University was a rather bewildering place, and being unclear on where to get off, I just stayed onboard until the driver alerted me it was the last stop.
I got my map out and tried to work out where to go. After twenty minutes of lonely wandering in the torrential rain and two phone calls later, I found out I was at the right place after all. The automatic doors weren’t automatic and I needed to pull instead of push. Anyway, I was a little wet and my map was beyond redemption. I quickly developed a stonking migraine which kept me awake (and violently moving, shaking, punching and kicking) much of the night.
At the moment, I am in the lounge of the Management Centre, using the free wireless. I am doing this because I am to be interviewed last and was invited to leave and come back later. So thus I am, watching the cricket with one wicket to fall. As for the interview, I’m not greatly confident. But oh well…
…but I have to. Another interview, miles upon miles away. Despite being in a fantastic position, with the experience I have accrued, I can’t help but feel I’m still not a teacher, qualified or otherwise.
But having spent so much time, effort and money in order to get to this point, I mustn’t let my hesitations impede the interview.
It’s quite funny really. After six months of unemployment, Jobcentre Plus will send you on a “13 week course”. Putting you on such a “training programme” gets you off their books for the time being, and they give you about £15 a week extra. While you are on there, you are no longer regarded as unemployed as such: government figures on unemployment for July will exclude me.
I have an interview next week, which requires hotel stays and long train journeys again. It’s cost me about £150 so far. JC+ are, of course, unwilling to help remunerate that cost, for it is not a job I am applying for… it’s a course. Annoying.
Talking of annoying… and of this 13 week course…
Before I started, I was volunteering at a local secondary school, getting good quality experience. I had enrolled on two short courses to get decent qualifications. I was sending up to six application forms a week and getting a rather good ratio of applications to interviews. Now I’ve started, I’m not able to carry on my volunteer work, and the placement in exactly the same place doing exactly the same thing they have meant to have organised has not materialised. I have been told I cannot attend those two courses and must do one rather pointless one instead, because they can get double-funding. I attend this course for about 30 hours a week, doing six hours of “jobsearch”: which actually prevents me from filling in application forms.
When you add communist protesters camping outside, weekly bomb scares and fire alerts, crying staff and violent outbursts, it’s not a great place to be. Having said that, I’ve been allocated to a group that’s actually quite nice. But I still feel I would have been much better placed carrying on what I was doing off my own back.
I haven’t really updated this recently. Not an awful lot has happened, yet a lot has. In short, I’m no nearer to achieving my goals. What’s worse is that I’m being stifled from trying to.
But some good things have happened: I’ve been in contact with my sister and one of my stepbrothers; my business is creeping slowly forward (very slowly…); and um… well they say things come in threes, so I’ll report back later with the other one!
Got two interviews this week. They tell me that’s really good, and they say I’m pessimistic when I don’t agree. I don’t count my chickens before they hatch; I approach each role with trepidation and respect. It seems interviewers appreciate that… but nothing more. Let’s see anyway.
Plenty of fish in the sea, the slippery buggers!
I was wondering about global warming the other day. I have my own (fairly) uneducated opinions on what would happen should the Earth warm up significantly.
The icecaps will melt, there will be more water in the water cycle. That suggests the sea levels would rise, as many people have stated. They have also suggested there will be long droughts, more deserts. But I wonder whether that will happen. In a warmer atmosphere, with a larger surface area of water, I would guess that more water will be taken into the atmosphere. There would perhaps be more unpredictable weather, with long rain storms. Perhaps this would result in the Earth “repairing itself” by creating ideal conditions for new rainforests to grow.
All said and done though, I do feel we should still invest in renewable energies and reducing our consumption of raw materials: it is good practice not to waste the resources available to us. Even if we weren’t constantly faced by the bleak predictions of ecology experts, we would in most likelihood be told that we need to reduce consumption in order to maintain stock.
In the last couple of days I’ve felt a little more optimistic. It’s funny how one small dream can quickly lead to another. Making those dreams happen is the difficult part, but optimism certainly helps.
I’ve struggled to find things to be optimistic about just lately. My football team is an eternal disappointment; everyday life is a muddle and a struggle; and I wasn’t able to retrieve my iTunes downloads. However, all that changed today. Someone at iTunes let me download all my old purchases. Well, that is except for More Than A Feeling by Boston, sadly (and strangely). But I do have The Final Countdown by Europe back. I only buy cheese in download form, and I only download cheese! I must buy Lordi’s Hard Rock Hallelujah at some point…
Music makes it better again, somehow.
Where do the days go? You meet me in a confused state of mind at the moment. I am on tablets to prevent migraines, yet they further manifest on my being by imposing an extra hour on my day. This drug makes me ever-tired and ever-hungry. I have been able to, as in most of my life thus far, been able to control my appetite but I have struggled with, as I have for the past fifteen years or so, sleeping.
It has left me rather disoriented, forgetful and dazed. Things that happened in the morning feel like they had happened in a previous epoch yet other past events seem to repeat themselves in a strange déjà vu. And my dreams haunt me. They prey on my mind day and night, as I live them and relive them in cycles. The same people crop up, and there isn’t much I can do about it. It is somehow worse that I can only remember fragments of my nightmares, as they seem to develop but conclude as the nasty things I do recall. Yet I don’t think it’s my medication that’s the cause, however they may be a catalyst.
In this time I have redesigned two of my websites… somehow. I have also ditched much of www.stephenbroughton.net, which was my personal CV (really, absolutely no-one cares right now) and changed it into something that might be a little more “commercial”. We’ll see how it goes.
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