The Merriam Webster definition of 'eclectic' is: "composed of elements drawn from various sources". I basically wanted to say that I had a mixed year but seem more intelligent and optimistic. Maybe it's optimistic to think it would make me seem more intelligent. Anyhow, it really was! Considering where I am now, I can't believe that the year started off with my going to counselling. Yeah, that happened, so let's start off with my mental health!
Back in January, I went to counselling after feeling like I’d wandered down all the self-help avenues that I could and not really made much progress. In the rest of the year, I wrote a post called Life Lessons of a 21-year old, led a conversation about how volunteering helps mental health, lost motivation to do anything after my knee surgery (ruptured my ACL during my first rugby game in over a year back in Easter) and then got it back again just to jump into a mixture of worry, stress and guilt for not keeping up with all of the millions of things I had found the motivation to do and other things that I needed to do. But I got better! And not just at time management. I became a little more accepting of my flaws – less change myself and more tailor myself – and more patient with myself as a result of being more patient with others. I’m not exactly completely comfortable in myself, but I’m learning different ways that work in improving my mental health (and don’t – I’ve stopped meditating after a few hundred sessions) and I look forward to learning more with the continued support of my friends and family. Big up progress 🙌
Okay, what next, what next… music! I started learning piano, which I’ve been enjoying but not committing that much time to because of how busy I’ve been. I went to Citadel Festival with Lucy Parker over the summer, even though the artist I’d gone to see had pulled out two days prior due to illness. Sod’s law. Saw my Spotify Artist of the Decade, Newton Faulkner, live for the first time ever in Easter. His support was the incredible CHARLOTTE (I loved All My Life) who I managed to meet. I was on my own and was the first person into the venue – suppose I was a bit eager, but it was amazing. Didn’t have an opportunity to watch my mates Bedroom / Boredom live this year, but I’ll do my best this year (you should too, go check them out – I’m listening to the unplugged version of TV Brain as I type this).
More fun stuff now, summer things. Well actually, the first was mainly stressful, but I was very proud of being a Youth Programme Leader for the National Citizen Service this year, up two ranks from my previous role there. During my two-day break from NCS, I went to two nights of the Brighton Comedy Festival – again, on my own, but it had sold out by the time my mates went to buy any tickets. Managed to be a feature in one of Henning Wehn’s sketches, but felt attacked when Sean Locke took the piss out of people who go to comedy gigs on their own… After NCS, I then watched Milton Jones, again down in Brighton, but this time with friends! Moving away from Brighton, my mum and I had a wonderful[ly tasty] time at a vegan food festival in London. Back to Brighton again and towards the end of the summer I did an episode of Ask A Stranger based on a feel-good theme (also read the Christmas one I did with my family, plez) before having dinner with my cousin at a small spot that did vegan hot wings where someone she had dated happened to turn up and she got very awkward.
You guys may have noticed that I haven’t written much – well, anything – about NEST over the past few months. I’ve been busy and my roles haven’t been as exciting this academic year, but here’s some quick catch up for you! I moved away from leading Explore to working on Internal Communications and also External Engagement (working with outside organisations). As part of my External Engagement role, I managed to get the wonderful people at Bloody Good Period to donate 150 free packs of period products to our learners, which is really exciting and is a relationship that will hopefully continue for a very long time. Other NEST things that made me happy: George and Eliska (uni friends) both volunteered, with George almost immediately committing to a key volunteer role, and my brother used his one paid volunteering day in the year to help us with narrative building. I really appreciated his effort and it was great to have him get a much better understanding of who we are and why I commit so much time to it as a cause.
University was a very busy one this year and capped off with 67%, so I’m well on my way to coming out of uni with a 2:1 and possibly even a first. I started High Five Friday with the staff at the SU, achieved my Level 3 in Management & Leadership with the Chartered Management Institute (through the SU), emailed the Vice Chancellor/Principle of Newcastle to show my support for staff on strike and even managed to make friends with a couple lovely people that aren’t from NEST or people I lived with in first year! Smashed it. The most important thing that happened for me at uni this year was switching from a module that I couldn’t wrap my head around and didn’t enjoy to one that I fell in love with. I could have kept trooping on because I was already a month into the semester, so I’m proud of being brave enough to make the change. That new module is all about the Politics of Happiness, which I’ll be doing a video series about in the summer, and I think I’ll end up trying to work in that field and possibly do a related masters at LSE at some point in the future. It really feels like the change that we need in politics and I cannot wait to share more about it in the coming months, but in the meantime, check out the New Economics Foundation (hopefully they’ll employ me one day…).
Uh, so bits and bobs now, I suppose. I went to Santorini in October with my family and my brother’s girlfriend, which was one of my favourite family trips ever. I went to my first ever protest, this one being a school strike for climate because our government seems to have forgotten that it called a climate emergency. I got a couple new lenses for my camera – I can tell that I’m improving, which is a really satisfying feeling. I bought my first edition of the happy newspaper, which is just fantastic and I really recommend checking it out for the pure joy of it. Read [some of] that, as well as a handful or two of books, with my favourite being Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks. Aren’t books incredible? They’re wonderfully slow. They take time, commitment, imagination, empathy, openness to learning. Holding one... it’s simultaneously a feeling of nostalgia and one of permanence. You experience books like you are the only person in the world to ever have read it and then when you find people to share that adoration with... wow. Okay, speaking sensually about books over, I suppose we’d best finish off with the highlight of the year. Oh yeah, end of year! My cousin invited me to her end of year/decade celebrations, which I really loved. But yeah, the highlight of the year was matching with Gerard the Slug on Tinder. Big confidence boost.
I hope you all find your own Gerard this year,
Happy voluntravelling,
The Voluntraveller