Beginnings and worries and fears and anxieties and..... I don't know if I can do it.

I have tried to write this post so many times.

Here goes- 

I've started my PGCE course. 

I've been at uni for a few weeks and now I'm starting my first placement. I'm absolutely terrified. TERRIFIED. 

I keep going through these highs and lows. At first my brain tells me I'll be fine. That I can do it. But then I picture myself standing in front of a class and I just have this image of water passing through my fingers and the kids not listening to me. Then my brain shuts itself down and I retreat. A bit like how a hedgehog turns back into itself. And then my rational self tells me that I'll have to confront the fear. 

I have these constant thoughts about quitting. I keep saying that I don't need to put myself through this. I tell myself that it'll be ok. But every time I think this, it gets slightly better. 

Of course, the moments are fleeting. Uni has become a haven. A safe place. The tutors are like a warm, comforting blanket on a cold day. I had two days at my new school and went back to uni feeling panicked. Being around the others in my group, however, made me feel less scared and more hopeful. Sitting here now though, the fear is creeping back. 

People always talk about how hard this year is. I'm seeing it already. The hard bit for me is trying to identify if I can do it. Can I do it? 

I'm worried about the teaching element. I'm nervous about having to find a place in a school where I'm the 'new' one. I have to navigate the staff room and other places in the school where I'm not already someone who belongs. In general, I'm having to create spaces for myself and assert myself. This isn't something that I'm used to. In fact, it goes against my entire being. It freaks me out.

The hardest part is deep down I know I can do it. I know that I could be a good teacher. But that's not enough. Knowing it isn't enough. I have to learn how to be a great teacher. I have to figure out how to manage a class so that I can teach. 

In summary:

Level of hope-           1%

Level of fear-          99%

Pre-Graduation Jitters/Doubts/Worries/Apathy?

Graduating feels so different from leaving secondary school and sixth form. It's so much more lonely. Usually when you leave school, there is a last day, a finale. Uni isn't like that. There's no closure. It's just a long process of being in limbo.

You come to the end of your final semester, the last seminar, but you're still yet to face exams or coursework. Then you embark on a month of horrid exam preparation or coursework all-nighters. Then you have another month of waiting for results. After that, you wait for your final award to be ratified. Then you are bombarded by e-mails about graduation and you're ultimately just confused. Apart from the few friends you have on your course, there's no collective moment where you know everything has come to end.

I remember leaving primary and secondary school. There were hugs and lingering goodbyes. Right now, I haven't experienced any of that. I feel numb. I know there are things I should be feeling- nervous, excited, sad about endings, hopeful etc- but I'm more anxious than anything. I just want it to be over. I don't feel sure about anything.

I know that this is all in my head. I know that if I told people what I am feeling, they would tell me it's normal. Everyone is scared. Everyone is anxious. No one knows what they are doing.

But I'm not sure that it's enough.

It's not enough to know everyone is finding it hard.

I want to stop finding things hard.

And I think that's what makes it all the more difficult. Graduating is another milestone achieved and yet I feel like nothing has changed for me. I can see posts on Facebook where distant acquaintances and friends reminisce and ponder on the most rewarding and life-changing three years of their life. Instead, I look back and I find it hard to see where I've grown. I know that if anyone is reading this (who isn't me), they're thinking that I'm feeling sorry for myself.

"Of course in three years you've achieved something!".....you're probably shouting at me right now. You and the rational side of my brain are in agreement.

I think graduation for me is finding the ability to face the past three years and accept that I have changed.
It means being less hard on myself.
It means realising that there is time to make the progress I wanted to make, but haven't.
It means looking forward and not staying in a slump.

Of course, this is all easier said than done.

T

'Tis the season. Everyone is going back to school. There's something about the move from August to September that signals a new year for me. It's the time when many of us re-learn what it means to be a student. And more specifically, we re-programme ourselves to write because let's face it, we've used our fingers to tweet, post instagram pictures, blog, scour Netflix and search YouTube. Writing seems almost archaic. Even though I am an avid letter writer, I have felt almost disallusioned with my penmanship over the past summer. I have forgotten how my pen fits into my hand and what it's like to physically hold it to paper. With typing, the words rush from you and swiftly appear on your screen but with writing in real time I feel as if my brain is moving quicker than my hands and words are eluding me. Cutting and pasting is so much easier than TipExing or striking through an ill-fitting word. And yet for some reason I have only ever used my laptop at university once over the past few years. It may be archaic and fewer people may use it as often as they did centuries ago, but there is something about the act of writing that intrigues me.  I don't know. Maybe this struggle with writing is a pscyhological barrier that represents coming to terms with the new year. Maybe it's the same reason why as a child I used to love going back to school just to be able to write the date on the immaculate first page of my exercise book. It was always bittersweet because I knew that the first moment I unleashed ink onto that page, however delicately, was the most important. It set the tone for the rest of the book (and the rest of my school year) but it was at a moment when I'd just returned from the holidays. I could never get my handwriting right despite my continued efforts over the years, so in the end I would make the intention of finishing the book early so I could start over. Writing in the summer is like that. Starting over. What will your font be in the next year? What size font? I prefer small. What type of pen? Fountain or biro? I prefer the fountain. How will you underline the date- single or double? I'd go for the double. Black or blue ink? Definitely blue.

It seems inane and perhaps it is. But as I began to pen a letter to my friend today I thought about how my hands seemed so uncomfortable. I tried writing with a black ink pen and it seemed so unfamiliar I had to change to my regular store-bought blue ink fountain pen. It felt better but I wasn't completely there yet. I think my transition from August to September is slow moving. But I think that's the point. I can't barge into my last year of university. I need to enter it slowly and I feel (in a very corny way, I know) that re-learning how to write is my metaphor for entering back into the 'Academic Sphere'. It will be a gentle transition albeit a messy one. It's not something I can force, but something I must settle into naturally. I have to go through that process of entering all my classes with a clean slate, a chance to start off well. Even though I've been so out of practice that I will inevitably forget the month and have to cross out something, it's something I need to go through.

This will be the last year that I am a student.

I hope I write it well.


T