Life Lately #4

The summer in between university years is hard. Because I chose a course at Derby that has no exams (tactical move, I'm shocking under exam pressure), my academic year ends in April and starts again mid September. Four and a half months of freedom, what could possibly be wrong with that I hear you cry?

As much as I love it, I definitely come firmly into the category of students that struggle to readjust. Suddenly going from being independent, meeting up with all my friends, and having loads of deadlines to worry over to moving back to Norwich slightly in the middle of nowhere. Like most other people, I lost touch with a lot of my friends from home, so there's not as many people to see and it's just generally harder to get out and keep myself busy.

Trying to get a job isn't as easy as you think; I've applied for at least 20 since I came home, and instead ended up volunteering in my local Primary school for a month. Not many people want to employ someone for just the summer months that you're back, and so many students are trying anyway. If you have a job before you leave, ask if you can come back if you think you're going to want to work. Don't feel like rubbish if you don't get anything. Last year I applied for about 40 jobs and internships, and heard back from under 10. It's just one of those things!

Take literally any opportunity that is thrown at you. I took a few days off school to go down to London for an event with RED magazine and then something similar with Cosmo. For both of them I found out I was going literally only a few days before. I'm also now looking at festivals and throwing myself out there for any beauty or blogging event under the sun, which has worked out a hundred times better than if I were working in my local Tesco or something.

I really struggled with my time off last year, so this year I'm doing all I can to stay busy. So far I've had extra time to make personal presents for my friends birthdays, been able to put a lot more into planning out a future for my blog, finished off a few scrapbooks that have been sitting around, and started clearing out and cleaning every room in the house (that one was my mothers idea. Oh the fun of steam cleaning floors). 

I think my point for this post is that you don't have to sit around feeling awful like I did for 3 months last summer. Get yourself out there, even if you're not totally sure. How else would I have found out that I am definitely not primary school teacher material?!

I hope you're all keeping well!

n xx