Birthdays, Sixth Form, etc.

Hi! It is half term currently and I am so glad that I’m on holiday because this first half term has been a LONG 7 weeks. I almost don’t know where to start.

Let me begin with my birthday – I turned 18 last month! I’m officially an adult now! It’s super weird! I mean, I can legally buy alcohol now so, there you are. I was quite ill over my birthday but I still enjoyed it a lot thankfully.

I also got a notification last week telling me that it was my 6th anniversary on WordPress. That means I’ve been blogging for a third of my life which is…A Thing. It is weird for me to think that this blog has been a document of all that time – in fact, it’s an online record of my whole time at secondary school. I’ve changed a lot over the course of that time, and there are definitely posts that I’m embarrassed about now. I like that I wrote them, though.

Obviously, my relationship to my blog has changed. I no longer post as much, and I would say that it is no longer one of the primary sources of communication that I have. But I like the little space that I’ve made for myself here. In a way, it’s like a 21st century version of a diary.

So yeah – Year 13. The final year of school. I can’t lie, it hasn’t been the easiest first half of term. I enjoy all of my subjects very much but the workload has stepped up. On top of that I have university application which has been taking up a LOT of time and mental energy.

It feels weird to talk about university stuff on here, just because I haven’t shared what I’ve been doing that much so it’s a bit of a departure from any content that I regularly posted. I don’t know, maybe you’re all a bit surprised that I’m applying for Classics since I haven’t talked about it that much? (I am a bit too. Life works in weird ways. I might be doing something different if we didn’t have to pick just one subject for university, but there it is.) I’m nervous, but I’m also excited, and I genuinely believe that I will really enjoy studying this subject at university. The university system has many flaws but I am just VERY hyped to learn stuff!! Now I just have to, like, actually get in somewhere and get the grades… A problem for future me.

What else have I been up to? I’ve also been doing some climate activism — I went on the world climate strike in September which was good. I’m still stressed about climate change and I am trying my best to strike a balance between doing what I can to help and not being so anxious about it that I am unable to function in my daily life. If anyone has tips, please let me know.

Getting older is weird. I’m not going to pretend that I know the answer to everything now, but I do feel like my future is starting to become more concrete. I am much better at knowing my limits and knowing when I feel bad, even if I don’t always take the right steps to make it better. I know the things that I find fun and that I want to do in the future. I am realising that if I want to do something, I need to make time for it or else it doesn’t happen — and that’s okay. It’s okay to change what I’m doing.

I dunno. I’m sure this will all change in the future. I’ve got some big things coming up. I’m worried about university and A-Levels and politics and about 1382 other things. I am very much muddling through this all. It’s going to be alright, I hope. (Isn’t that what we all hope?)

Bye for now and see you soon. 🙂

 

I Am Worried About the Future

I just got a very sudden urge to write a blog post, so HERE I AM.

I’m just going to jump right in and say — if I’m honest, this blog has not been the place where I truly write about all my feelings for some time.

I always feel like there’s a strange tension (for me at least) between trying to put your blog out there as a ~brand~ and between using it as a diary to discuss your innermost feelings. As my blog expanded and I’ve shown it to be more people, it has become less of a diary. I think part of this is down to me; I’m not very good at discussing my feelings with people in real life, and when I write them down I feel worried about what people I know IRL who could read this blog might think of them. (I’m kind of doing it now.) I’m not sure why that scares me so much, but there it is.

I think it’s also due to fear that whatever I publish on the internet is permanent, in some way. I shy away from posting precise details about my life because a) I don’t want people to be able to find me and b) it just freaks me out that this might all be…there for people to find. I want to keep something for myself.

Anyway. I’ve recently got a couple of things on my mind, and I wanted to talk about them a little bit (mainly to get them off my chest because, lol, this blog barely gets traffic anymore). Mainly, I am worried about the future: specifically, about climate change and university/post-school plans. It feels trivial to worry about university in comparison to climate change, which is obviously a WAY bigger issue, but I guess uni is something that I have more control over, so there we are. I can’t change my brain.

If you’ve been reading the UK news lately, you might be familiar with the Extinction Rebellion and Youth Strike for Climate Change protests, both of which call on the government for far quicker action. I’ve always cared about the environment, but the recent protests (partly inspired by Greta Thunberg) has really brought it more to my daily agenda of thoughts. I’m so stressed, folks! The IPCC report says we have to achieve net zero emissions by 2050! We’re already seeing the devastating impact of climate change across the world, particularly where people are already the most vulnerable. If we don’t take direct action to keep global warming below 1 degrees Celsius then this will only worsen, as will the loss of biodiversity — I mean, if we reach a warming of 2 degrees then 99% of coral is going to die out. NINETY NINE PERCENT.

It makes me so worried for the future. It feels hard to have hope and enjoy my life when I know that everything I do is damaging the planet, and that before I’m 50 years old the world and society could be irreparably damaged. This is only added to by the absolutely inconceivable lack of political will to DO ANYTHING. I know some politicians are trying to be good but honestly can some people just stop trying to further their own ambition and actually do something good for the country and the world! The point of being a politician shouldn’t be the power itself! (Basically, the Tory leadership contest is absolutely dismal. And I continue to be frustrated that Labour still think they will win an election by not really changing any of their policies. Argh.)

We have declared a climate emergency, but if concrete policy that strengthens and increases current measures aren’t carried out, then what’s the point? We’re not just going to get to zero emissions by recycling now and then. And we need to do BIG things that limit companies rather than just pointlessly targeting vulnerable individuals (like with the plastic straws).

I feel very hopeless around the whole thing. I’ve written to my MP and downloaded the search engine Ecosia which uses the revenue from its advertising to plant trees (which can absorb carbon dioxide), as well as trying to be more active about recycling and plastic use, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Several of my friends have gone on the Youth Strike for Climate Change which I really admire. I wish I could do that, but every time it comes around I feel so worried because I know I’m missing work that will be in our exam.

Which brings me onto my next topic…this might be a bit of a strange transition, because it’s going from a huge issue that affects all of us and needs global action to an extremely personal one. And I do feel bad worrying about university when it’s not actually important in the grand scheme of things. But as I said, it is something I have more control over and, you know, if society is going to disintegrate then I want to make the most of the time that I have.

Before I started Year 12 I thought that I’d want to study something like Spanish, History, or Politics after leaving school. (I take Spanish, History, Maths and Latin.) However, as the year has progressed I’ve realised that a) one of my Spanish teachers is really not great and b) whilst History is extremely interesting and useful, it requires so much work and it’s not the work that I really look forward to. It feels like it takes so much time  from my other subjects. I’m just sort of…meh. I don’t know. And whilst I still care about politics in general, I’m just not really finding myself motivated to do extra work around it? Especially in comparison to other things I’ve been drawn into like ancient history.

Yeah. So, now I have ended up trying to decide which of these  two subjects — that I was most enthusiastic about at the start of the year — to drop, which is strange. I’ve got mock exams next week so I’m going to see how I do in those… I’ll be honest, they’re quite stressful because they’re giving me my predicted grades, but at least I don’t have to go through the whole shebang of public exams.

The idea of leaving school is stressful. I have decided that I want to go to uni but obviously I don’t know where or studying exactly what yet. My life has changed quite a bit in the last year and I feel like it’s only going to change so much more after sixth form ends. I’ll have to make new friends! I’ll probably have to discover a new place to live! I’ll have to learn about organising my own time! I really hope that I’ll be able to come out and get people to use the right pronouns for me but I know that there’ll probably be a lot of explaining to do. But it’s a nice thought.

It’s all just exciting but also terrifying. At the same time, I feel bad for getting excited because the world is also collapsing around me and I KNOW that I can’t function on worry all the time but my brain still does that I guess. I’m not exactly sure how to move forwards. At least writing this post helped; I’ve actually written a lot here, which is kind of wow. If any of you are going through or have gone through similar things — let’s share our thoughts?