A new-found respect for primary school

Update is a little later than usual, since I've had an insanely busy week this week. A while ago, I applied with for a job with 'The Tutor Trust', a charity set up in Manchester that works with local schools to try and close the attainment gap within students from different backgrounds. This week I had all my formal training- learning how to be a tutor.

This first night was an introduction- some of us, me included, had had no experience working with children before, or indeed of having that responsibility of supporting their education. The first night then, was spent going through the basics, including safeguarding- which to be honest was a lot stricter than I ever could have imagined. It was a long night all in all, but they were all very engaging speakers- and the free wine didn't hurt!

The second day was, again, another long one- I have to say I don't think I've had a six hour day since my GCSEs, which was now 3 years ago- awful when you put it like that really! This day was a lot more specific- focussing on actually creating tutoring sessions. Once more, it was slightly unnerving, with an emphasis on learning objectives, learning outcomes, kinaesthetic learning - I had no idea primary teachers put such a huge amount of planning into their lessons- primary teachers, they do the easy stuff don't they? Well, that's exactly why I chose primary tuition as opposed to secondary- I won't lie! The following training session however, proved me completely wrong. Looking through the curriculum, there are words I have never seen before, let alone understand. As for the activities- I'm not sure I appreciated just how complex times tables could actually be- no wonder I found it hard then if I can't understand it now!

So, over the past few days, I've learned so much more than simply how to be patient with children and teaching them things I assumed I already knew. I have a new-found appreciation for the education system - both the teachers and especially the pupils. Currently part way through my undergrad degree, I've looked back on primary school without a second thought, dismissing it as easy- even wishing I was back there again. But actually it turns out it was nowhere near as easy as I thought, mind you if I haven't remembered it now- does that beg the question if it was really worth it?

Are we all guilty of not truly caring for our hair?

So yesterday, I made the terrible decision of not blow-drying and straightening my hair properly before going to bed. It was late.. I was tired... and I really regret it today. Having a 9am lecture meant I had to choose between that valuable extra half hour's sleep or organising my hair into some sort of acceptable style. Needless to say.. in questions such as these, my bed triumphs every time.


On the bus this morning then, I became very aware, being incredibly self-conscious of my own look, of everyone else's hairstyles. There was some frizzy, some straight, some up and some laced with  incredibly blinding colours. I began to wonder at the sheer variety and noticed just how your hairstyle can completely change your look and, to a certain extent, define your character. For me, I definitely aim for that straight, sleek and shiny look, reflecting perhaps my OCD with regards to neatness and tidiness- or perhaps it is just because I have not yet been able to get that 'messy-sheek' look that I have tried so often, without looking like I've had an electric shock. I have to say, the straight, careful appearance is an awful lot easier to obtain than the 'scruffy, couldn't care less' one. So what are my tips to staying away from frizz and maintaining a strong shine?


1. Heat. Despite the fact we are all told not to touch any form of heat-styler with a barge pole, it is necessary if you harbour such a frizzy and untamed mess as I do. Provided you use an essential heat protection, my favourite being TRESemmé Care & Protect Heat Defence Styling Spray, and maintain a distance between your blow-dryer and your hair, or use the lowest setting on the straighteners for example, heat should not cause much of a problem.


2. Never go to bed with wet hair. We are all guilty of having a quick shower before bed and then hitting the sheets before thoroughly drying our hair, but not only does this have immediate effects the next day, but it could also damage your hair in the long run. Moving around on your pillow will create a static between the strands of your hair. Rubbing the individual strands against one another as you move, creates friction and will wear away at them. Even better would be if you could plait your hair or weave it into a style that protects the majority of the strands before going to bed.


3. Use a comb. The urge to drag a brush through your hair when you just need to get rid of a few of those knotty tangles in the morning can be overwhelming. However, all that achieves is pulling the hair with unreasonable force, rendering it weaker at the roots, or even succeeding in tearing out the knot by actually breaking the hair. A far better solution would be to use a comb in order to gently tease out the knots, or even using your fingers to separate the individual strands. In you have particularly knotty hair, perhaps consider investing in a de-tangling conditioner, and comb through your hair while it is wet in the shower.


4. Lastly, a key tip that I'm sure many of you have already heard of, is to change your parting regularly. Not only will that give you a fresh look every couple of months, but further wearing your parting in the same place weakens the hair attached at the roots. If this hair becomes weaker, it is more likely to fall out earlier.


These are some of the methods I use to keep my hair looking better for longer. After all, hair seems to be something we all take for granted, yet if we don't maintain it properly, we'll only realise when its too late!

The Puzzle of Individuality

I have just finished reading a popular French short story ('Un Boule de Suif') as part of my French work. If you haven't heard of it before, its about society's condemnation and judgement of prostitutes during the late 1800s, the one in the story termed 'Boule de Suif', literally meaning 'a ball of fat.' Boule de Suif, throughout the story is ultimately used by the so-called aristocratic people and then tossed aside and treated with contempt once she could no longer be of use. This completely reverses all common ideas we have of the class system, so I thought it would be interesting to consider society's judgemental attitudes towards others and how this is a fault or an error we have not really evolved away from. It was present in the 1800s, and arguably it is even more present now.

We seem to be very extreme today with our prejudices. Everyone, we feel, has to belong to some sort of clique, and the way they express themselves determines exactly which one they belong to. There is no room anymore to be individual, since even being individual is a clique itself! As every aspect of our personality is linked, i.e. the way we dress suggests how we might act, or what we do with our spare time, there is not really any room to be your own person, we all become prototypes of one idea or another. People therefore have a tendency to notice one aspect of you and, wrongly, assume all the others. A teenage smoker, for example, may be viewed as rebellious and unconcerned about their future. This after all is the way our minds work, we like to see patterns and come up with logical resolutions. Can we really limit people, however, to some sort of logical code, where everything follow a certain pattern?

I'm at University. The primary time when people learn to develop the personality they want to have, and learn to express that personality. Every day there is such a vast range of appearances and personalities that I come across, despite everyone belonging to the same age group. If there's one thing the past few months have taught me, its that appearance and self-expression does not directly correlate to the personality underneath. The problem is, everyone just wants an easy way of working people out. I disagree when people say you shouldn't judge others. Judging is an essential part of human nature, we need to judge to form opinions, and if we don't form opinions we become passive beings who merely pass through life. So I think the problem in the 1800s and equally today, is people being limited by these judgements. It is fine to judge and even to make assumptions up to a certain point, so long as you are ready to adapt and even overthrow these preliminary thoughts once you have more knowledge.

People are not straight-edged and so cannot fit into a box. I think its true that there is not much that's original these days, perhaps no one has a trait that is truly original, one that hasn't been seen in anyone in the world before, but that doesn't stop us from being individual. We are all different collections of these unoriginal pieces. Okay, so we reuse the same bits, but who is to say that different puzzles can't be put together with the same pieces?

Unsociable Media

Social media right now is unarguably a massive part of everyone’s lives. Just today I nearly bumped into four different people because their eyes were more focussed on their screens than the potentially dangerous obstacles heading towards them (I swear I would have turned dangerous if there was one more!) Having just set up a blog, arguably I am going to come across as slightly hypocritical if I say that social media is a complete distraction and useless within our daily lives. However, rather than suggesting it is overused, I would like to say it is definitely overrated.

Yes, okay, so I have Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest (need I go on?) accounts, and yes I do like to check them as soon as I wake up, just before I go to bed, and at several times during the day besides! Social media, obviously has numerous benefits, and living hundreds of miles away from several of my friends, it is nice to see how they’re doing, and what they’re doing, and how they’re doing it….. Okay, maybe it is a bit excessive?

The main criticism I have for social media sites is the superficiality it places on daily life. Suddenly, everyone in the world becomes someone with an exciting and fun-filled life, with pictures and posts that prove they never have a moment’s boredom. My question is how self-worth can be measured by a number; the number of likes on your post, or the number of cute photos you post with your friends. If social media is to be a true representation of our daily lives then maybe we should post about the bad times too- the times when we felt ugly or when we felt alone. But these are sides we wish to keep from the world. Yet, through extenuating only the good times, we leave others to believe we have no bad times. If we are so amazing that we have no bad times, does that not then make everyone who does, less than amazing? No, because everyone has both ups and downs, it’s just that those group photos and shared albums force us to forget that fact.

Social media is an amazing tool for connection and communication- I would never argue the fact. What we cannot forget however, the next time you happen to scroll through your newsfeed is that nobody’s life is as perfect as their profile picture. 

Why I love running away from my problems

I've just come back from a run and it seems high time to write a blog on my obsession with running. Running is a sport that changed my life. Many people fail to notice or recognise the vast range of benefits that are associated with a long run, and if you are not a runner, you will never understand. I do not run for an increased fitness level, to lose weight or even to be a runner- I run because the most exhausting part of my day is somehow also the most relaxing.

My parents, my friends often call me 'crazy' or say I'm ridiculous for going outside in the driving rain, armed with nothing but some short shorts and a water bottle. But crazy is in fact the exact opposite of what I am. Running is the key to my sanity- there is nothing better than pumping out all the stress, all the anxiety from the day through the soles of my feet. Reaching the mount of a hill with that purged, clean feeling, and the angrier I am, the faster I go. Hearing nothing but the rhythm of your feet against the pavement and the drumming of your heart in your ears lulls you into a sort of trance. As you feel the wind streaking past your face you are stuck in the here and now, and nothing else matters- there is no room in your mind for any thoughts other than keeping going and pushing yourself to the end.

Running, I feel, teaches you all the skills you need to get through life. It gives you a mindset of determination; to keep going, especially when it hurts, and pushing through the pain is what gets you the results, if you can train your mind for this, everything else in life is easy. You can't be a good runner without putting the work in, and if you put the work in, you will be a good runner.

The main reason I love running is that its accessible to everyone. It really doesn't matter if you're a fast runner, or a slow runner, someone who has trained for years or someone who has just started their first jog. Running is a community, in fact the next time you go out for a jog- look up at every runner who passes you and I guarantee they will give you a smile- it's like a secret runner's code! It is not limited to some elite group of people who are fit and lean, if you have the motivation to get out there, put one foot in front of the other and keep going, you are a runner.

Becoming a University Student

So today once more I have to begin with an apology, I have yet again neglected this blog when I promised myself I would continue! This is it now though- 9th of January so 'new year new me' and half way through my first year at Uni already means I need to start using my time more efficiently and basically stop giving up on things!
 So today a brief catch up- as I mentioned I have just finished my first semester at the University of Manchester studying English Literature and French. I have to say I am in no way finding it as easy as I thought I would! 4 weeks into the Xmas break and still I have started none of the essays I was supposed to do- let alone started revising for those exams coming up! and they said first year was easy.....
So how have I found my new life as an adult? Well, to be honest not as good as it should have been. I think we all are affected by those idealised visions that we have throughout the course of our lives. Generally, when we start a new chapter, be it a new job or moving away, we always begin thinking that this is not only one new beginning, but a major turning point in the course of our lives. Of course it is, in a sense, but at the same time we can't go along expecting everything to immediately sort itself out. The trick is to work through one thing at a time and that might be why I've come home from Uni not certain whether I'm going to go back. Not because there's really anything wrong, but because its not perfect, because I haven't come back a completely different person, the person that I wanted to be. But today is that day that that will change. Today I decide to work on things slowly because things worth having don't happen in an instant. Moving away, meeting new people, living alone does not mean I suddenly turn into a sophisticated adult without any faults. Moving away simply means I have started that pathway, and just because I haven't reached my goals within those 13 weeks, in no way suggests that they are unobtainable.

Oppps forgot...

Two years later and life has run away with me, or perhaps I should say from me! Completely forgetting that I have any other commitments other than A-Levels, career choices and uni, I have jumped ship and abandoned this blog. Unfortunately for me, as it always seems, apparently blogs are very important for wanna-be journalists. So I'm here to try again! and this time persevere? hopefully?

So what has changed and what's the same? Well, I'm still sitting here in the same summer job being bored- hence how I stumbled over this again! I'm still running, or trying to run at least. Apparently running isn't like blogs where you can stop and start up again as you please, apparently you have to keep going with that or it just gets harder.... who knew? I've finished school at least, so finally something's changed. An end of an era they say, but right now I'm just in this purgatory whereby I don't even know in which region of England I'll be living in the next month.  Scary stuff, or for me it is at least.

And that's it, that's pretty much all that's happened in two years.... So I guess I'll leave it there while I go away and attempt to remember how long a respectable blog entry is supposed to be!