Improved Confidence- November

I've decided that I'm going to make monthly posts up until I go to university (and possibly even beyond then) where I keep track of everything I've done in the month that has gone towards improving my confidence. These things would usually be stuff I wouldn't have normally done, but could also include things that made me feel much happier and gave me a better perspective on life. This will hopefully help me achieve my aim of improving my confidence over my gap year. These are the things I've done over November:

• Successfully reapplied to university and managed my online application without getting stressed.
• Began the activities I said I would (art, playing guitar, reading, cooking)
• Started this blog
• Looked into doing some unpaid work at a school
• Started applying for jobs
• Made contact with and visited a friend
• Got contacted by another friend 
• Attended a recruitment day in a different town, dealt with the rejection well and learned from the experience
• Attended an interview the day after the awful recruitment day in the same town

I've bolded one of my points because I feel that this was a real breakthrough for me confidence wise, and because of this I wanted to discuss it in more detail. When applying jobs I was contacted to say that one brand were having a recruitment day that I could attend. After debating whether I did actually want to attend I remembered that part of plan for coming back was to make the most of every opportunity I could get, and this included going to this recruitment day. The fact that it was in another town and I would have to get the train there made it even more challenging, but I decided to take it on. This was part of my plan, to push myself and to go beyond my comfort zone in order to improve my confidence. I arrived early and sat in McDonalds eating some cheap porridge and reading (I only went early so I could get a lift to the station). When the time came I plucked up the courage to enter the store it was held at. I won't go into to much detail about the actual process- it wasn't pleasant and is not something that I particularly want to remember. My lack of knowledge of the company (a make up and, apparently, skin care company) was completely embarrassing. This was the basis of my rejection, which seemed fair enough, though I have to add that I was really proud of the way I managed the handing out leaflets task- most people actually took one! However, I didn't like the woman's attitude, she was completely devoid of any warmth and relatively snobbish, though she had no reason to be. This made the rejection a bit harder to bear. It was my behaviour afterwards, however, that I'm most proud of. Instead of letting it get to me and rushing on the first train home, I picked myself up and took myself round town asking about vacancies and distributing CVs. This definitely had a great impact on my confidence, and it cheered me up to since most of the people I encountered were pretty nice and friendly. Even though it was a terrible experience in hindsight I realise that I got a lot out of it and discovered that I was capable of far more than I thought I was, and it helped eradicate a large portion of the anxiousness I had been feeling since I'd come back. Also, the town had all its Christmas decorations up, which was very pretty.

I think this month has been quite productive considering it's been my first month back and I have struggled with my emotions since coming back. I'm really pleased.

Reflection #1

I thought I'd reflect on my progress since leaving- it's been nearly three weeks! I can confidently say that I'm glad I left, I know it wasn't the place for me, and though most people would preach about how it gets better, I just need to give it a bit of time, the first year is always difficult or it takes time to make good friends I'm happy I left when I did. It lessens the effect the environment would have had on me. I do feel a bit strange though- not completely miserable like I did before, but... a bit lost I suppose. I didn't plan to leave so didn't expect to have all this time off, and I'm sure what to do with it (plus I feel weirdly guilty, like I should be doing something. I suppose I just need to give it time).

Despite feeling a bit strange, I'm relatively proud of myself. I haven't accomplished as much as I'd have liked, but I've done a few things, and I'm quite happy with that. It's eased my mind, since I was worried that I wouldn't progress at all. I've managed to complete my university application, which I was probably most worried about since I didn't want give up on getting my degree, I just felt deeply uncomfortable in the environment I was getting my degree in. Hopefully I'll like university better the second time round! (and if not I'll be just a stone's throw away from home so I can come back regularly if I need to.)

I've also applied for one job, and will shortly start applying for more. In the mean time, however, I have arranged to do some unpaid work in the school my mum works at to gain some more work experience and fill my weeks out, because it gets quite lonely staying at home by yourself all the time. Hopefully it will help boost my confidence too! I've made a start on some of the activities that I said I would undertake during this time off- I've done a few paintings/drawings, started reading 'Jane Eyre' and I've been in the process of trying to teach myself a song on the guitar (though I haven't touched the guitar in a few days- it probably needs tuning). I've even done a little bit of cooking (and written a blog post about it), which is good for me, because I'm not the most talented chef and, therefore, try to avoid cooking as much as I can. I've also done, and enjoyed doing, a bit of housework. More that I'd normally do. It's relaxing in a way, and it makes me feel like I'm being productive. Plus it's nice to know that I'm helping my family.

I think the next thing I need to do is establish a proper routine, I've been waking up and going to sleep way later than I should, which is mildly disruptive. I think I'll get more done if I set myself a proper routine (and stick to it).  I think I might make a post about my routine pretty soon. I also need to work on applying for jobs, lots of jobs. I'll do reflective posts like these fairly regularly to help me track my progress during this 'gap year,' and to also help me pick myself up if I feel I'm slacking. I'm hoping they'll keep me on track.

Brownies

I had been wanting to make this post for some time but didn't quite get round to it since I've had a few other things that were a bit more urgent that needed doing.
One of the first things I did when I got back to help me settle into my new routine was make brownies. I had decided that I would work on improving my cooking, especially focusing of healthy (or healthier) dishes. I had seen a recipe online for healthier brownies that I had been wanting to try out for a while, mostly to see if it tasted as good as the recipe claimed it did. We happened to have (mostly) the right ingredients in the house, so I thought I'd give making these brownies a go. I'm not the best cook so I was a bit apprehensive about these, especially since they are egg-less, flour-less and sugar-less, but they were surprisingly good! Actually they were pretty damn delicious, and I really enjoyed them. I'll link the recipe I used for these in this post, but they consisted primarily of banana and peanut butter, which is not really something you would think of when it came to brownies.
These basically mimicked brownies very closely- they had a very similar texture (though they were less cakey since no flour was used), and the same chewyness that is one of the key characteristics of brownies. Those things alone made for a pretty tasty treat. They also tasted very similar to real brownies, though the banana taste comes through a bit. It's not dominant, though, so it still feels like you're eating brownies. They were a nice brown colour, though they were a bit burnt around the edges since the mixture didn't make much and ended up thinning out around the sides. I'm pretty sure that's happened to me with real brownies before. They were also amazingly easy to make- I just chucked all the ingredients into a food processor and blended until smooth, poured out the mixture into a baking tray then left it in the oven to bake. The only problem with my brownies is that I used sweetened cocoa powder instead of cacao (it's really expensive!) and processed peanut butter instead of raw peanut butter as the recipe states, so the brownies were less healthy than they should have been, and I'm not sure if they would have tasted as good if I'd used these ingredients.
Having said that, I'm really pleased with this recipe, and proud of myself for make something (kind of) healthy that tasted really nice and that I enjoyed eating. This is relatively rare for me! I would have posted pictures, but they wouldn't have done the brownies justice- they tasted much better than they looked. I've also eaten most of them. I'll definitely make them again though, and this time I'll try and use the healthier ingredients.
Recipe: http://www.loveyourselfgreen.com/2015/01/double-chocolate-grain-free-brownies-100-flourless/  

Making the most of my free time

Since leaving university I have an abundance of free time, in which I have chosen to work on improving certain hobbies and pass times of mine (at least until I get a full time job). I just feel like I need to be doing something productive with my time, and I think that this will really help with my self development. I have certain things that I have prioritised, such as reapplying to university and finding a job, and I will also be doing most of the housework now (I'm very grateful to my parents for supporting me through the whole process and letting me come home immediately when I wanted to), but rather than waste the rest of my time binge watching Netflix, I thought it would be character building to focus on improving on activities I already enjoy. I will probably still do a bit of Netflix binge watching.
These activities include:

• Drawing- I like drawing but I have always wanted to be better at it and learn how draw more realistically. I've decided to choose something to draw and follow some online tutorials and persist at it until I'm really happy with it (if I'm actually ever happy with it). I'll post the progress and results to this blog.
• Playing guitar- I've been playing guitar on and off for years now. I've never been particularly good at it, though I've always wanted to be. Maybe if I stuck at it I'd be a lot better at it. This time I'm going to try and stick at it and see where it gets me.
• Cooking- I generally want to improve my diet actually. I'd like to be healthier and ultimately aim to clear up my eczema as best I can. It would be much easier to achieve a healthy diet if I could cook well and make healthy food, so I've decided to do that too. Again, I'll blog about my progress with this, and share my favourite recipes. 
• Reading- technically this isn't something that I want to improve as such, but I do want to read more widely, and to read things that I wouldn't usually read for leisure. My aim is to basically never be without a book.
• Writing- I want to write more. I've always wanted to write more. That's why I've set up this blog, in order to encourage me to do so. I haven't really had the confidence and I've never known where to start either, so I think this blog is a good starting point. 
• Hair and make up- this one is pretty frivolous, but I thought it would be pretty fun nevertheless. I know there's more to life than looks, but I think it would be nice to see what I can do with my appearance too, and it would be awesome to learn some hair and make up skills. It's not a priority, but it might make me feel a little better in some way. I'm focusing on the inside, but it might be nice to give a bit of thought to the outside too.

I'm going to try and bog about these activities- for the moment this is most likely what I will focus on in my blog posts. I'm quite pleased with my progress so far- I've filled in quite a bit of my UCAS form and I'm beginning my personal statement (this was a great source of anxiety for me but it's far less terrifying than I thought it would be), I've already started reading Jane Eyre, I'm practising a song on the guitar and I've made healthy brownies which tasted fantastic! Oh, and I set up a blog and made two posts :)

The mess that was my month at university

University is commonly painted as being the best three or four years of a person's life. Before I'd started university I'd heard and read countless stories from nostalgic individuals with rose tinted views on university, excitedly describing the close friends they made there, the fantastic nights out they had and how they grew and changed and became vastly more confident. They seized every opportunity available to them and made the most of everything on offer and generally had the best fun ever. Before going to university I'd never heard a bad word against it. When they reached the third year they were devastated when they had to graduate and move away. Nobody had ever said they'd struggled, or that they hadn't enjoyed it, or that people might not be mature and open minded. Having heard only good things about it, despite my worries (which I'm sure anyone would have said were natural) I was fizzing and bubbling with excitement when it came to my turn to depart home and settle in to my new environment. I couldn't wait to get stuck in and become immersed in the thrilling experience that is student life. I could not have been wrong about how things would play out.

Before I begin, I just want to explain this post a little. I have been keen to start blogging properly, but I suppose I haven't really had the confidence. I decided that I would once I started university- it could be a good way of organising my day in a new environment, and might help me to settle in and take care of myself better, I decided to get a bit of practice doing this on Tumblr, to get the ball rolling. However, being in the situation I'm in now, I decided that it would be best to take the plunge and set up a proper blog in which I detail the skills I've decided to improve. I've outlined these skills in my Tumblr blog but I'll probably also make a post here too. I don't want to dwell on this negative experience so this will be one of the few times (actually hopefully the only time) I post about it. I just really need to get everything out of my system, and it wouldn't hurt if this helped a few people too.

My excitement fizzled out pretty quickly when I 'settled' into my room and met my flatmates. I got the feeling that something was wrong in our dynamic- we barely hung out and I spent the first night alone in my room, feeling terrified and incredibly disappointed. As the days and weeks went on things never really improved in that area. They were decent enough and surprisingly clean (considering it was mostly boys) but no one made an attempt to socialise as a group and the six of us had never even been in the kitchen at the same time. I suppose we were slightly mismatched, and I felt like I didn't have anything in common with any of them, but it was still a huge let down nevertheless. I tried to remain positive. There were plenty of other ways to meet people and make friends, I just needed to settle into my course and join a few societies.

The people on my course were a huge let down. I didn't necessarily expect to find my best friends in my flatmates, but I thought I would at least find some like minded people who I got on well with amongst my course mates. People had formed cliques by the second week, and once they had formed their cliques they didn't want to know. This was a huge shock- surely everyone was open and willing to make friends- we were all in the same boat after all. I tried my best to make connections with people, but I often found that people seemed disinterested when I attempted conversation, or if they did engage in conversation at some point, they didn't want to again. Most of them avoided eye contact and refused to smile. The whole situation felt completely impossible and incredibly difficult. The clubs and societies were pretty pathetic too, most of them didn't get back to me when I signed up so I was a bit out of the loop.

The social aspect had a massive impact on me, but I felt like there was something else there that was also making me unhappy. The atmosphere was cold and bleak- the university almost seemed soulless, as was the student area where I was living. The course was good but not spectacular, I enjoyed some of it, but there were parts of it that I thought could be much better. Besides, being so unhappy really influenced my enjoyment of the course and my motivation to work. The support was a disgrace too. Since I was in a pretty bad place I attempted to seek out the counsellor, but finding the building was impossible, even though I the map provided by the university website, and when I approached a staff member in student welfare I was dismissed and simply told to join more clubs instead of being pointed in the right direction. I found that during the time I was there I was completely miserable, I struggled to sleep at night, I felt physically sick every time I woke up in the morning and realised where I was (and every time I had to attend a lecture for that matter), I suffered intense crying spells and spent most of my time contacting my family whenever they were available. Though I tried to wait until Christmas, I realised that this was not the environment for me and that I would feel far more comfortable, safe and secure if I left and reapplied to a university closer to home.

I just wanted to get this off my chest. Leaving has been a huge and scary decision, but I think it was worth. I feel a lot of people would think that this is too early and that things could change, but I couldn't suffer this for much longer- it's already something I've been through a few times- in one case the situation changed and in the other it did not- but I only made it through the former with lots and lots of support, both from my school and (particularly) my family. The latter was complete hell and really messed me up. I could not go through any of that again. I've realised that I value myself more than that (even though this never occurred to me until now). My other posts won't be filled with self pity and misery like this one. I just need to purge my emotions; get them out of my system. This is catharsis. If I ever come back to this it will only be to reflect, or to remind myself of my mistakes so I don't make them again. I don't want this experience to take over my life. I'm going to use this time to change and better myself, and I'm going to use this blog to capture this.