The Sprout

What A Difference A Year Makes

Posted by EmilySprout from Cardiff - Published on 19/08/2011 at 20:30
0 comments » - Tagged as Education, Health, Work & Training, Volunteering

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Prompted by Facebook’s new “your status in 2010… 2009…” feature (which none of my friends seem yet to have experienced!?), I’ve begun thinking what has changed in a year for me. I know it is a lot, but do you ever wonder, “Wow, what has got me here?” With a lot of you receiving exam results this week I have no doubt in a year’s time you’ll be in the same situation, pondering:

1. Where the hell has the last year gone!? And,

2. How has so much changed?

I can look back to three years ago when I got my A Levels results and think a lot has happened, I’m no longer that person but it has been this last year – my last year of education and the first time I’ve had to work full time - that has enabled and caused the most change.

Work: A year ago I was a part time catering assistant in a customer café in a large high-end department store in the centre of the city. I only had to work for 8 hours a week on a Saturday and to be honest, I loved being there. This isn’t because I like working, far far from it, but it was because to me work is social and where a large group of my friends are. There were or so girls who all worked those Saturdays with me and as much as we moaned about being it work, we liked being with each other for the day.

In the past year, I began volunteering at theSprout which lead to me being hired to work as a part time sub-editor in January… my dream job. I’ve wanted to be a journalist and work in the media since I was 14 and being able to work on such a great website as theSprout was amazing for me – work wise and experience wise. There are very few places, especially in Cardiff, where you can meet such like minded people and genuinely have a laugh.

As for today, I’m a trainee manager. “You? A manager!?” Yehh, I know, that is what everyone else says! But upon finishing uni, I needed a full time job. As much as I could have had 2/3 part time jobs and got by, I wanted stability. As of April (I handed in my dissertation on a Friday, left my old job on the Saturday and began my new one on the Monday!) I’m a trainee manager in a supermarket in the heart of Cardiff. It’s hard, it is bloody hard. Never in my dreams did I think I, out of anyone, would be a manager – I suck at telling people what to do, but I’m learning. I work ridiculous hours, involving 5.30am starts and 10.30pm finishes and work more than my paid 39 hours because this is what I have to do. I feel obligated to this place and to my staff, I try to do my best for them and help them make this store the best it can be. In the past 2 weeks I’ve spent 9 days in England for training with work, away from my new flat, my boyfriend, my social life… but the £25 a day food allowance isn’t too bad!

Accommodation: To think, this time last year I was moving into a student house in da ‘burb of Cathays with two of my friends from uni and one of their mates. That lil house, lil Flora St, was beautiful. It wasn’t like them grimy student house you imagine – it has a black marble bathroom and a green shag pile rig that wasn’t compromised of mould! I had a great 9 months with those girls and sadly I don’t get to talk to them much anymore (another trouble of working fulltime). As I write this on a rare day off, I’m sat in my own one bedroom flat which over looks the Millennium Stadium and Cardiff Blues Stadium, so much so that I can see the Blues’s rugby posts. I’ve lived here for almost a month now and I haven’t unpacked. I HATE unpacking. And I have better things to do with my time, like writing this article. I’ve probably stayed in my flat for 10 days out of the last month thanks to holidays and working away. I love this place, it is mine, it is my own, I can make it look as pretty as I like (and I will!) or let it look like a dump – I’m happy. The bills… not such a nice extra to having your own place but doing the little things such as turning off plugs blah blah and saving the world mean my bills aren’t a real worry. I even get a discount on my council tax because I live here alone. People used to be shocked that I was moving in on my own, “not with your boyfriend? Won’t you get lonely?” they’d ponder. Well, no. I’m happy in my own company and for one year I’d like to do it alone, just to see if I can.

Education: Only a mere 12 months ago I was endeavouring on my last year of education at the Uni of Glamorgan studying Broadcast Journalism, 9 months that would soon fly by with hundreds of hours spent avoiding coursework, not revising for exams and then the eventual ultimate 2 weeks of ‘oh f**k! I’ve got to write 10,000 words in a fortnight!’ I got it done with many a late night, many a TV series keeping me going through the endless days acting as background noise to the tap-tap-tap of mine and my housemate’s keyboards.

But we did it. Two 2:2’s and a first were had in my house. We made it. We graduated. 16 years of education finished just like that, and you know what? I miss it. It was all so easy and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

And that about sums it up! Not much of a change then, hey?! So, how has your last year been?

IMAGE: One year on... by Mrs Logic