Period of Adjustment

Crikey! I haven’t blogged in ages. Mainly cos it’s been a busy old time here, as you’d expect.

Got just THREE shifts left in work. It feels weird. After working there for over three and half years, all I have left to do is 35 hours. I thought I’d feel a bit sentimental about by now, but to be honest my three shifts this week have been shifts from hell. Talk about going out with a bang.
Obviously, in this line of work, you face incidents which could be classed as challenging constantly. But this week I had an “official” challenging incident as defined by my employers policies and procedures. In the whole time I’ve worked there I think I’ve only ever had two incidents serious enough to warrant official Challenging Incident procedures. This one involved a knife.

Not the quiet, hassle-free final shifts I envisaged! And last night I had to file a missing persons report which we haven’t had to do there for ages either.

If anything I am now more sure than ever that packing it all in and retraining is the best decision I have ever made. I hope my last three shifts this week will be more like their usual selves.

One lovely thing did happen last night though. Our projects are dispersed and sometimes staff who don’t usually work at my hostel have to come and cover the sleep-in shifts. A senior member of staff was sleeping-in last night and we were chatting about my future, when she turned and said to me that the first time she ever came to the hostel to do a sleep-in I’d made her feel more welcome and comfortable than she’d ever felt anywhere before. Apparently I took her down to the staff areas and showed her around, and fetched her a glass of water for the night.

I couldn’t remember any of this – and she said that I probably wouldn’t because those little actions are probably things I would have done for anyone and are simply in my nature, but that night they meant the world to her.

I was so moved by that! Small actions can sometimes make big differences – go share the love, people!!!

It’s a hell of a tough job that even at the best of times can really take it out of you, so it’s nice that I guess somewhere, somehow, over all that time in the hostel I made at least the smallest difference to someone, even if they were a colleague.

Either that, or she made it all up just to be nice to me hahaha!!

So anyway…………I’m all ready to start my new life. Three more shifts and a bit of mental-adjustment, and I’ll be a student. A trainee teacher. Weird!!!

Can I also say a big thanks to all the kind wishes people have sent me for starting the course, especially the offers of a shout out from teachery peeps should I need any advice or help. It really truly is appreciated and no doubt I'll be calling upon your expertise in the near future :)

I said I’d been shopping for lots of things I probably won’t be able to afford anymore…..namely clothes! Here are some pics of my loot!

I love these bags from good ole cheapy Peacocks, I lug my stuff to work in one now, and when I saw them reduced to just £1.50 each I thought I’d snap a couple up for uni. A couple turned into 4 as I had trouble choosing between all the fab designs! My fave is the blue heart one – it’s such a cute size and has little pleats in it. They are just the right size and as they’re cotton they can just be chucked in the wash and come out like new. Fabulous! I also made sure Lee treated me to a couple of smart leather bags too and a hoard of new shoes. I bought myself the bargains; he got to pay for the pricey stuff. I’m quite an opportunist like that!!!

Here’s my new student wardrobe lol! At the moment it's nicely organised into sections: knitwear, long sleeves, tshirts, vest tops..........wonder how long that will last?!How I will decide what to wear first I don’t know! My top picks are:Tweet!Twoot! (I wore this to the Swansea retreat and got pasta sauce down it. Praise the lord for Vanish Stain Remover in all it's pink-bottled glory!!)Bought loads of accessories too. Whilst picking up those cotton bags in Peacocks I spied they had their fashion jewellery reduced to stooooopid prices so bagged plenty, and then headed down to Outfit, where they always have loads of nice fashion jewellery from Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Evans reduced to under £4. I often pick up things for a pound there! Think this big blue heart on a long chain and little silver butterfly were my favourite finds this time though.Speaking of jewellery – lookey what I made! I got my ever-so-talented mum to show me how to make wrapped loop, nicked all her tools for a couple of evenings and away I went! This is a pendant but I haven’t attached it to anything yet. I’m thinking either a long chain or organza ribbon, although the pendant might be a bit heavy for that. I lurve green at the mo!Right. I’m off to see if I’ve won the lottery :) Catch you soon blogeroonies xxx