Dreadful anticipation

Today at the Foodbank, I had to explain to a girl that I wouldn't be gone for just a week as she thought. That I will be going for ten weeks. She is half my age and so the nature of our friendship is mainly us playing computer games and talking about random stuff. As she is so young, she does not really understand my reasons for leaving and she was so distraught that she began to beat me up and made me promise that for her birthday I will take her to the arcade and that I will come to her house in the holiday.

Everything was sort of centred around me going. Everyone was telling me good luck and after every body left we had a meal together. It was so sort of final with all the goodbyes and presents and it is like, why is everyone making a big deal about things?

Only, it feels now like SUCH A BIG DEAL and it is like, how did I fail to comprehend that I am taking this MASSIVE step out into the unknown? I will know scarcely anyone and I will be responsible for EVERYTHING and I realize now how sort of vulnerable that makes a person if that kind of makes sense.

I am leaving my childhood behind and it feels so bad.


I remember when Andrew (old priest) left the church, he wrote all the young adults a letter and that at the moment is an inspiration for me (like three years later). I did not understand then and now I do. (Perhaps I should email Andrew to tell him this or would that be weird?) Anyway he wrote:

I arrived home at 11:14 pm today. I had an impromptu meeting at the cinema with a friend. I thought mum would be pissed but she was chill. And it is a bit emotional because I have just realised how hard it will be for my parents with me leaving. Like I will be gone and then it will not matter if I am home before 10:00 pm. I just want to cry and hug them and tell them I love them and spend time with them.

Epiphany

I don't want to go. I don't want all this freedom.

Oh shit, I have literally just realised how big a step this is.

What the f have I got myself into?!

Thank you

Okay, so on Saturday i got a bunch of leaving presents and I was really touched. So even though I arrived home at 10:40 pm, I set to work making thank you cards. As well as this, I watched the Chamber of Secrets (and complained so much about the differences between the book and movie). I went to sleep past midnight because midway through making cards, my brother started to pour out his heart to me. It was a tiny bit weird because he was so unrestrained which is not common for him.

On Sunday, I went to go find R to give him some chocolates and a card. Alas, he was not there. (So I will get my sister to give him a card for me next week, I guess.)

On Monday, I gave Mohammed a thank you card and chocolates. My brother came home with the same chocolates that I gave him. I got slightly offended because like how can I give someone chocolates only for them to give them to my brother who brings them home. Like it is not discrete at all.

Today, I went back to the foodbank to talk to Saba. We were midway through talking and she was like, 'oh by the way, he stuck it up' and I turned around and saw the card I made for him and I was happy. I thought about it and to be frank, if someone bought me chocolates I wouldn't eat it either. Therefore I no longer feel offended.

Hello guys,

I'm so happy and I am lucky that I am surrounded by great people.

Today we had a volunteer / goodbye Linda dinner at Jimmy's. It was really cool and I was so overwhelmed because they paid for all of us and I got presents.

Mohammed asked my sister to ask me if I am buying my pans and pots in Warwick or here. So he bought me a pots and pans set and I was so overwhelmed. I would have hugged him if it weren't sort of inappropiate.

Vivetha presented me with a box of chocolates and Adham got me perfume. He apparently worried I'd beat him up for getting a bad present. However, I was so surprised and pleased.

To add to that, when I before I got into the car, Fahim gave me a box and I was confused. As in, why am I holding this and then he explained that it was a goodbye gift and I was all like thank you.

And then the night before, Rikesh got me 160 pounds in gift vouchers and indian food.

I feel so special and lucky. However, I feel bad at the same time. I don't deserve all this kindness and special treatment. With Rikesh, it was even more overwhelming in that sort of way because he seeked me out. He decided to get to know me and to treat me and like no strings attached. Just to be kind and just because he felt that I deserved a treat.

Its really cool if that makes sense and I want to be like that. Being kind to others just to be kind.

Also, by the way, this is the first blog post I have done on my phone. :)

* By 

Work

I am now a part time student librarian  in college up until I start Uni. I no longer work with my old colleague from last year. However the guy I am working with is pretty cool. He spent his summer working three jobs so that he could pay to buy a car and he is working three jobs currently and studying through his break times to get distinctions in all his business BTEC. I admire that dedication.

I talked to one of the librarians tonight. Imagine, I have been there for two years and I have never had a conversation with him. We talked about Psychology. He did it back in his day alongside computing which was like 16 years ago. He asked where I was going and we talked about how back in his day 77 pounds for accomodation would have been considered expensive.

The letter

I am happy. The other day I wrote a letter to a friend and I delivered it to her house but it was 10:00pm and so she was asleep. She messaged me today telling me that I made her day :) The letter itself was just me telling her that she is a strong and amazing person, because I don't think she hears that enough and she has been through so much recently.  

At first I thought it would be awkward me sending her a letter because she is a relatively new friend and we don't talk often. However, sometimes there are things that some people need to hear. Actually saying them instead of thinking ohmygosh, I am going to look so weird can make all the difference. 

It is times like this that I cannot actually wait to leave.

Yesterday my sister borrowed money from me to buy a text book and she said she would pay me back today. So I ask her for my money back and the girl has the bloody audacity to bite my head off for doing her a favour. I thought f it. I cannot wait to live with people who are grateful and appreciative of other people as opposed to spiteful.

Also, the other day, water spilled on one of the laptops and my mum was angry understandably. What I did not like was that she used me as the scapegoat and yelled at me. The laptop wouldn't have been damaged if you did not take it downstairs, she said. Whilst I tried to explain that I wasn't even using it. I didn't leave it in the kitchen. My brother did. Therefore he should have brought it up. I didn't pour water on the laptop, my sister did. What the hell was it that I did? But no, she had no idea how to listen so she just continued shouting at me. She was even like, I will never forgive you for letting this happen. For F sake. I dislike how people need to find a scapegoat for all their problems. However, I should be used to it by now, having been blamed for all the problems in her marriage a number of occasions. That blew over and then she came to me and tried to argue with me and she was like 'Just stop arguing and accept all the blame for the laptop being damaged,'

That will happen when she learns how to listen.

Which I don't see happening anytime soon.

The Talk

There is this guy - let us call him R. He volunteers at the foodbank on Sundays and I used to volunteer with him. However he came in on a Friday and he asked me about Uni and when I told him I was going Warwick, he was like, come on Sunday and I will help you with stuff.

The entire of today I was dreading turning up. It would be awkward, I told myself. I talked to him yes, but never like a proper conversation. I turned up anyhow because he had been adamant about me coming in. He said at least three times and that isn't even exaggeration.

I turned up anyhow and we went outside and talked. It was an interesting conversation. He started off asking me if I have had everything sorted with accommodation and finances and then suggested that I get a job and asked me if I had been there. Then he asked why I wanted to go outside London and I sort of gave him the half truth - my wish of independence and my parents not agreeing with my choice of subject.

Then he asked me about societies. What I am interested in and what about them interests me and so we talked about the use of drugs to treat conditions and then we talked about whether the welfare state is the best decision. Then he probed me about my motivation academically. I intended to give him vague crap about wanting do well for the sake of it but he sort of knew already that there is more to what motivates me than simply wanting to do well. So I ended up being honest without realising that I was doing so.

And also he invited me out with his friends. One went Warwick and one I met briefly on Friday. He suggested that we go somewhere fancy in Central London and sort of celebrate me going to uni.

I thought it would be super awkward but he was really nice and he listened to what I said and sort of actually cared about what I said which was quite cool. At the end, he told me that he told me to come in the first place because when he was applying to Uni, he didn't have anyone to sort of tell him how everything goes. Also he felt sort of connected to me because he knew that I did academically well and thought that other people may not sort of understand me.

Hello world,


I think that I have figured out how I am getting to Warwick.

Hayat, being the lovely person she is, offered to come with me to take my stuff up there.

I was thinking yesterday. What if I made a huge mistake? 

Actually I was overthinking. I was thinking, Oh crap did I just ruin the whole of my future. Although that was an exaggeration and I realized that today. 

Psychology. Why... why did I do that? Because I enjoy the subjects. It's biology and statistics and writing and more grey areas than facts and that appeals to me. It is thinking and questioning. It seems interesting. I picked the subject because I though I would enjoy it. 

The problem is that now I am thinking of it in terms of: will I get a job in the field? What if I go into medicine after? Wouldn't those three years have been a waste? What if I end up working in TESCO's? How will I look after my family? Will I make money?

And it really sucks that I am thinking like this. But realistically, doesn't this world revolved around money? Could a person honestly say that they didn't care about money at all or anything materialistic?

I personally don't think so. 

So the question is ultimately, do I follow my heart and do something I love? Or do I do a degree (like medicine) that had a pretty much 100 percent graduate prospect? 

Everyone, my mum got a job yesterday :)

I just realized actually that she is rather quite qualified when it comes to the care sector. It is just that she hasn't got English GCSE's.

I am so proud of her.