Review/Preview

2012. Year of the Queen's Jubilee. Year of the London Olympics. The year the world was, yet again, supposed to end. What did 2012 mean to you?

For me, 2012 was all about being better, doing more things, meeting more people. I feel like I accomplished all of those things. And then some. During this year I have had some of the most incredible experiences like going on safari, lying on a beach sipping cocktails in Zanzibar, watching the Rwandan Genocide trials. I've met some of the most amazing people from all over the world during volunteering and law school. I have lost a lot of weight and am sticking to the exercise plan I've drawn up for myself. I'm studying law and enjoying it.

During the past year I have grown into something different, and hopefully, something more than I was last year. I may not have achieved everything I wanted to do or be but I can look back at the past year content at my progress. There are things that I wished I had done differently, or things I would have liked to have taken a different path than they did, but I can honestly look back on 2012 and say this was the best year of my life. On 31/12/12 I am fitter, more assured, more travelled than I was on 01/01/12. I have made more friends and kept in touch with those that I have made better. I've discovered that I can be organised and that I communicate well. I've started teaching myself a new language and researching where I want to go next. Always planning for the future, instead of dwelling on the past. In my mind, this has been a successful year.

There has still been things that I haven't managed. That vacation scheme interview still eludes me and my lack of blogging since I came back from Tanzania is something I regret. However, they will just have to improve in 2013 and 2013 will be even better for it. I'm going to be fitter, more confident, going after what I want. I am gunning for that training contract, I will do well on my GDL and I am going to travel even more. I'll start blogging again, I'll learn how to fix my own car, I may even pick up my guitar again like I've always said I would. All of this because 2012 has shown me how good it can be. So to all of you who have played your part, in my studies, my work and my play, thank you and I look forward to all of you being involved in even better things to come.

Happy New Year everyone :)

I Will Be Better.

Today I turned twenty-three. Twenty-three years of my life have passed, each one better than the last. This past year, I have met some of the most amazing people I have the pleasure to know. I have done things that I never thought I would do. I have seen things I can not believe I have seen. I went to Tanzania and had the most epic four months. I went to Denmark and reconnected with some of the people that matter to me. I did all of those things and yet I still look forward to this next year.

Most people make their resolution at the turn of the year. I will lose weight. I will socialise more.

I will treat the people in my life better. I will study harder. I will be greater than I was. For me, these resolutions come now, on my birthday. Three years ago, it was quit World of Warcraft, run for JCR and be someone. Two years ago it was get that 2(i) in my degree and run for VP EWD. Last year it was get a job, earn my money and go volunteering abroad. This year...this year it is to be better. It has to be better. I want to change who I am for the better.

This has already started. Over the last week I have started running. Not the two kilometres every once in a blue moon that I was doing before but two, then four, then eight, then ten within seven days. I'm going to join the gym on Thursday and get my body to a state where I am happy with it. I have spent too much time talking the talk, that I want to lose weight and slim down and bulk up. Now is the time to put my money where my mouth is.

I have to study harder than I ever have before. This is going to be the most intense academic year of my life and also the most important. Time is not on my side when it comes to applying for training contracts. I'm not getting younger and I want to get into work as quickly as possible so I can start climbing that career ladder. This is going to take immense effort to get the best grades I can, to put enough time into my personal study and reading to be able to pass my exams as well as answer the commercial awareness questions that will inevitably pop up. I need to put all my time, effort, blood, sweat and tears into my applications. Only the best will do for the firms I want to work for so I have to be the best. That does not only apply to academics or work related stuff. I have to be the best human being I can be to stand out from the crowd.

I need to be better at getting what I want. Too many times I act too passively and I let opportunities slip past me. The potential I see in these opportunities and myself crushes me when I realise that they are out of my reach. I need to be more decisive. I need to reach with both hands and grasp these and make the most out of my potential. In social contexts as well, I need to be better. I need to care more. I need to be less selfish. I am so lucky to be surrounded by the people I am. I need to make sure that I am a good enough person to keep it that way.

This year, I will be better.

First Day of School

Everyone sort of remembers their first day at school and this one, for me, was no different. I was collected at 9am by Robert, a Projects Abroad employee, who took me via dala dala to just outside Mount Meru hotel. Robert is a nice intelligent guy who has a university degree in geographical and environmental science or something similar from Dar Es Salaam and was nice to talk to. Getting off the dala dala I was greeted with yet another dirt road leading north, indistinguishable from my own, or the other one I accidently walked down on Saturday. Turning right onto yet another muddy path led us past the usual mud houses but then became a trail through tall trees and greenery and on the right came Gohechi, a collection of classrooms fronted by a big...tent. The classrooms themselves were the usualy mud walls, corrogated sheet roof things but the dining area  was literally a tent. I arrived in time for lower school break. This consisted of two classes of nursery aged children running around a yard about half the size of Lonsdale quad. A bit of background about Gohechi. It is a mixed primary and nursery school generally for children from poor backgrounds or orphans. The classes are baby, nursery, class one, class two and class three; the classes are arranged according to ability rather than age. After being cautiously observed by the smaller children, the bolder ones ran to me and attached themselves to my legs. And refused to let go. Ever. When we had finally release me of their grip and taken them in for their lessons, it was the turn of the older children to have their break. These kids would range from around 5 to 8 I would say but Quirine told me that some don't even know their own age, or how to spell their names. The children were running about wildly, calling for the teachers to allow them to play with the football. Nothing was really different from any school in England, except some of the play was a little more violent than I remember but, then again, my memories of those days is hazy at best. After the break I was taken by the hand by two children in class two and really wasn't given an option: today I was going to observe class two's English lesson where the teacher was trying to explain when to use 'have' and when to use 'has'. As a native speaker, this is second nature and even when I tried to explain it to myself I was using concepts such as first, second and third person which these kids would not understand. First step on a steep learning curve, I imagine, as I am only at the school for a month.

As the day drew to a close, the heavens opened. It is entering the rainy season and the monsoon like rains battered down keeping the children who had been messing about in the classroom before going home trapped. It did give me a great chance to observe two of the children though, two girls called Doris (or Dorice, her name is spelled differently on all her books) and Rose who's giggling and liveliness would not have looked out of place in a British primary school. It was disturbing to imagine that if one were to transport them into a parellel universe, as two American or British children, they would have probably acted exactly the same, growing up together and becoming the classic best friends trope seen in many a high school drama. Both Quirine and I stayed later to do some tuition for some of the struggling children and I got the chance to do a bit of teaching on my first day. The children were working on subtraction, in particular subtration that required carrying over, and it was a good test of my ability to communicate a point across to the children who were understandably shy and reserved. As we left the school, the rain had stopped and we were treated to a magnificent view of Mount Meru rising up into a sky free of cloud.

Finally a message from Glory whose house I am staying in: I greeting everyone he or she sit. I am GLORY.  I am at kilimani primary  school  at  MANCHESTER place i am a girl i am 10 years old  I love my FAMILY ,teachers and my friends. [Spelling has been edited, full stops added]

Happiness 02/03/12

Are you happy in life? How happy are you? On a scale of 1 to 100 with 1 being completely unhappy and 100 perfectly happy, where would you land? These are questions that I often ask myself. I am a pretty analytical person; I believe that I have the ability to take a step back from the mess and confusion that is everyday life and look at events and circumstances with a more objective opinion that my involvement usually allows. However, these are rarely questions that get fully discussed in the open. We all like to think we're happy. We all like to think the people surrounding us are happy. I suppose it allows us to accept our first world guilt when the media bombards us, once or twice a year when its Comic/Sports Relief time, with images of poverty in India or Africa. It also allows us to accept any decisions we make as the right ones and, as narcissitic creatures, we like to think we always make and always have made the right decision.
There usually comes a point, though, when we look at our lives and are not completely satisfied. We decide to change things. This usually happens on January 1st of each year when countless resolutions are made and then forgotten a week later. How many times have you decided to change your diet to lose weight? Do more chores to help out your parents? Watch less TV and read more books? Learn a second language? I've done all of these and, to be honest, I do them all regularly in cycles. I have never followed one of these through. Sure, for two weeks I might pick up a book instead of switching on my laptop but that soon ends when I discover a new internet obsession. When faced with such a drastic change in circumstances, one is forced to change, to reevaluate. For the next three months I won't have the unlimited bandwidth and broadband speeds I have at home. The people around me will all speak Swahili, not perfect English. This is an opportunity for me to improve, to experience new culture and situations not available to me living in England.
So, what are my goals?

1. Learn Swahili. There are multiple reasons for this, first and foremost because it will make life in Tanzania so much easier. Secondary reasons include becoming bilingual and speaking a language that much of my family speak (Yes, I will learn Cantonese at some point too. Sit down).

2. Read more. I'm an English Literature graduate for crying out loud. I should be reading often anyway. But I don't. I brought with me a collection of Hemingway's, The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, a Fitzgerald collection of short stories including 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', and Friedrich Nietzsche's Why I Am So Wise.

3. Get fitter. I hope that the lack of TV will give me more time to do some exercise. I really need to get into shape.

4. Learn to cook a new cuisine. My cooking repetoire is fairly limited and needs expanding. My list of impressive (personal opinion) limited to about two. Being able to cook some unusual Tanzanian dishes would be a quirky alternative for dinner parties.

5. Appreaciate what I have at home and not take things for granted. We are spoiled in the West. I have never really appreciated the fact that I have been able to have an education of the quality that I have. This needs to change before law school.

6. Gain a unique experience. In today's job market you need something to make you stand out and I hope this will help me on my way to standing out.
So, there it is. We shall see in June how far I got.

First!

Welcome, one and all, to my newest adventure. A foray into the weird and wonderful world of blogging which will hopefully entertain many and horrify few. I will probably blog about anything that springs to mind. I don't really have something that I wish to focus on; however, as it says in the description, I will probably be spending most of my time keeping track of what I am doing while in Tanzania for the benefit of my friends, family and myself. 


Firstly, though, I think it is only polite to introduce you to my mundane existence. Unfortunately, when I look at my life, nothing particularly interesting seems to happen but when you spend much of your time watching ridiculous TV shows, I suppose that real life seems to be rather boring in comparison. Prior to my current state of unemployed limbo, I worked in the alcohol section of ASDA. Not exhilarating work but it still provided a welcome distraction six days a week. I say limbo but, in actual fact, I am supposed to be preparing myself for a four month stint in East Africa. Tanzania to be more precise and Arusha to be even more precise. I have finally paid the entire invoice, booked my flights and found out the details of both my accommodation and my placements for my time in Tanzania. However, I still need my final round of vaccinations as well as buying T-shirts, shorts, a hat, a backpack, and a netbook in order to keep myself, and hopefully you, entertained throughout the months.


I fly out to Tanzania on the 1st March, with British Airways taking me from Heathrow to Dar Es Salaam and then Precision Air from Dar to Kilimanjaro Airport. From there I will, hopefully, be met by an employee of Projects Abroad (the company I am using, www.projects-abroad.co.uk, a pre-departure review of which to come later, possibly tomorrow) in order to take me to meet the family I will be staying with. Yep, no hotels and spa treatments for me. The family consists of a Mr and Mrs Jacob who have a little 11 year old girl named Glory and own a shop and backery. I think they mean bakery. I must admit that, while I know that many people are not native English speakers, misspellings are a pet peeve of mine. I think I may offer to proof all of their material while I am there. 


My first month in Tanzania will be spent at the Gohechi Centre which caters, I'm told, for 2-8 year olds, many from broken families. This scares me. I've never worked with children of this age before, my only other experience of teaching being a short placement at a secondary school for half a module at university. Another thing that scares me is that on the myprojectsabroad page lists it as care, when I did ask for teaching but as there's only two weeks to go, I wouldn't want to cause any confusion or disturbance regarding my preferred choice. As my dear father loves to remind me so, not everyone is afforded this opportunity. Likewise, it does state on the projects guide to not have any expectations of preconceptions on what your experience will be like, but I think that is almost impossible for a mere mortal such as myself. I always envisaged living in a family with a son around my age, maybe in his teens, teaching in a school for 11-16 year olds where I could play football and have conversations with. I am not complaining though and I will just have to take this in my stride, however filled with stutters and slips that may be.


That said there are other worries on my mind, mainly of the financial kind. The fees that I have paid to the company I am going with cover accommodation, food and insurance for the period that I am volunteering. For the three weeks after that, I am on my own. Which is a daunting prospect both for my person, as I have never travelled alone before, and for my wallet. I have been looking at hostels and backpackers lodgings and have found some suitable places but I worry sometimes about security, especially in Kenya which is not exactly the safest country. However, for under £125 for seven nights you can not really argue with the price. Ideally, I'll make some great friends in Tanzania who just happen to be travelling the same time as I am but, realistically, I will be on my own for the duration. I thought I would be fine with that but now the anxiety starts to set in. What exactly shall I do on my own, not only after the placement but during it too. Whereas, at home, I have endless amounts of Community re-runs and high speed broadband, with which I can play a few games of League of Legends, I struggle to think what it is I might do on, say, rainy days when no one wants to go outside? Maybe I will rediscover my appetite for reading. I hope I do anyway, judging by the amount of books I intend to take with me. Which books do I intend to take with me? A blog post for another time I think.