Daunting Future

So there I am this morning, sat in the staffroom with my hot chocolate and toast, in come a few girls before they start and up pops a conversation about the nursery owner getting rid of people after they've passed their Level 2 in childcare. I'm sat there like "what?". 

It turns out he does it a lot, to most of the trainees. I wouldn't mind as much, if he had any qualifications in childcare at all. He doesn't. He says he's a hairdresser, which I very much doubt myself considering he's meant to cut his wife's hair (who also works at the nursery)... and that is a mess, to be frank, an absolute mess. That's beside the point, though. What really matters is my future. I know it's only 2 years away, but... but seriously? He's not the manager, only the owner (and a rather annoying one at that). But as it turns out, he does it so he doesn't have to pay more to keep them on after they've done their Level 2 and to pay them to do their Level 3. 

Now that makes sense, considering the cheap nature of the owner. The nursery itself is old and he's just an idiot trying to conserve money at every single opportunity, literally.

And apparently, during this conversation, the newest girl - who I knew from highschool - is being kept on after she's finished, while another girl is being 'kicked out'.

What a nice thing to hear on a Friday morning when I had been happy all week (well... Wednesday and Thursday).

Am I being kept on? Are they going to just kick me out after the 2 years? 

Going through my head all day. I hope not. I really do. I mean it's not like I probably will stay in childcare after that long (considering I genuinely thought of leaving only last week or something), but I'd still rather be in the knowledge that I have a job should I want to stay. 

It's possible, though, due to my 'connection's - my sister being the deputy manager and her best friend, whom I've known since I was a child, is the manager - I'll be kept on after my Level 2. 

I'm a key person, though, which apparently is only given to apprentices the management feel are capable of handling it. Those could potentially weigh in my favour. 

I hope they do.

I really, really do.

A Concert.

So yesterday I went to a Panic! At The Disco concert at the Manchester Apollo with my best friend and hag, Shanice. Standing up for around 3 hours while not fully being able to hear anything that was said, or rather: shouted; being pushed around for any space at all and not knowing most, if not all, of the lyrics to the songs were 3 main factors which made this particular experience... not the best.

The first concert I've ever been to. And for it to be for a band I've only ever heard one or two songs of was probably my own fault. However, I agreed to go - I didn't even buy the tickets, they were already bought, which was probably why I did agree to go anyway.

For the first concert it wasn't really the most enjoyable of experiences. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the experience of the experience (if that makes any sane sense at all), but not for the music, not for the crowd and not for the standing for hours. A lot of the time I was watching the crowd itself, just scanning over and keeping sceptical about outbreaks of so-called 'moshpits'. I was much more interested in just people-watching than watching the support act, Me (which I liked their songs more-so than I liked Panic!'s) and the main act.

If I could have sat on a small pole, with a pillow of course, and just stared out to the crowd and just watched, I would have; for the 3 hours, probably tirelessly. 

Around half-way through my legs started to ache. I'm honestly surprised they didn't give way, as I thought they would have. And amid the people who generally looked all the same: the long hair, in both sexes and the dark clothes and jeans the smell generally got worse. Not so much an over-powering smell. More a hot-air-sweat combo. There were occasions when I got the odd whiff of wearing-out antiperspirant (I know this smell well, as antiperspirants have failed me time and time again). 

Ignoring the drunken blonde behind me, who was constantly knocking me and spilling her drink over my foot, my space was not invaded that much. I didn't jump around and raise my hands, though. I clapped. But I prefer to appreciate my music with 2 speakers, on a much quieter volume to what was playing, without my legs aching and not jumping up and down. Oh, and not having hundreds of other people screaming lyrics around me. It's not like I would have heard the lyrics anyway, as nothing I heard was really... clear.

Towards the end I even got bored. Genuinely. Checking my phone for the time every 5 minutes. Thinking if I would have felt the same way as I did in that concert if I went to another one, preferably a classical one, or something that I could hear. But until I find such a concert, I will forever be left questioning.

In short: concerts, especially loud ones, aren't my cup of tea.

Leaving Work.

So there I am, sat down in the morning with the children and I suddenly decide I want to leave work.

I guess it can't be the best of things to experience, I'm sat in work (as a nursery practitioner) and I suddenly want to leave. Leave it all: my job, for a start, the course I'm doing and just sleep. Am I really that selfish? I want to quit a job I've been at since November (mind you, I only got it because my sister is the deputy manager and her best friend is the manager) and haven't even properly started the course to get me a level 2.

"I can't stand the children." I thought. Well, that's to be expected, really. I never thought I'd find myself in childcare. It's even harder because of things we're not allowed to do, and the things which are frowned upon (shouting, for an example and being the main one). I have to keep my calm whenever I'm around them, which, for most of them is actually pretty easy. It's just when they don't listen. Which they do. All the time. There are a couple, though, who I'd love to shout at sometimes.

It was only 5 minutes after I decided I wanted to leave that the consequences of such actions actually hit me my face like a child throwing a wooden block (has happened before now, too). 

Where would I get money from? I am never, never ever going to sign onto the dole. That is the last thing I ever want to do- no wait, scratch that. I NEVER want to go onto the dole. Even if I become a money-lending bastard because of it. I will never lower myself so much that I have to scrounge of the state (when, let's be honest here, Britain's in a pretty shit state as it is, doesn't need me lending off of it). 

I need the money, I need to pay for the holiday. For obvious reasons, this thought is pretty self explanatory. 

Need to pay board. Ditto.

Well, paying for a holiday would take me at least 13 weeks, and the holiday itself is in June sometime. So half a year I'd have to work. If you need that explaining (if there's anyone reading this at all), then may the gods have mercy upon your soul.

Might as well just get the level 2, and then leave. At least if I had one qualification that wasn't GCSEs - and let's accept the fact that those mean literally SHIT ALL in today's society - I could at least go into a brand new career and say I have a level 2 in childcare; not that it would even matter if I was going into an office job or something. I could compare childcare to moderation, to be quite fair they both require the same skills:

• You're looking after people, usually juniors or people younger
• You're almost having to constantly watch over some of them, unless you have some competent people
• You tell them off
• You dismiss them if they're being cheeky

As I said, it has the same set of skills. So I could, if I ever found a job that didn't decline me almost instantly or because of my age, go into moderation... somewhere. Team leaders, they may be called.

The 'consequence thoughts' pretty much ended there, all at once. And from about 10 o'clock I was fine. 

Hero Syndrome

So here I am, on Skype with a few others, and I go silent. I'm silent and I don't even know why.

Hero syndrome, or complex, as defined by wikipedia (not the most reliable of sources on the internet, I'll give you that) "is an inherent desire to help others. It is a compulsion to help make their world right."

I'll probably leave parts out of this 'definition', but in doing that does it mean I don't have it? I think I do, even though I've never had any professional advice on this subject.

I'd love to get professional advice on things, even just a general psychologist with the black leather duvan (I think it's called that), the clipboard and him nodding and hming. Even if it does nothing for me; even it comes up with nothing that I ever need to change about my person; but just for that little bit of reassurance that my life is in the hands of a professional and that, no matter what crazy thoughts I have, no matter how insane I think I am, or schizophrenic, or just depressed, everything is being handled and analysed with at least an expert's mind behind it.

I've slightly listed lazily to the left here: avoiding what I actually set out to write about. Myself and my fear of having a fear of never being recognised for anything great. I mean, it seems really selfish when I'm thinking about it. Because at the end of the day only the most famous, maybe even insane, people are eternally recognised and remembered.

I've not done anything special. I've never even reached a dream I wanted to achieve (not that I ever have a set out one; more like a vague, semi-remembered list of things), I doubt I ever really will: my motivation to achieve even my own goals is rather low. Perhaps it's this life: this life that has so many dangers around every turn. A life that means possible poverty and debt for years and years to come for just wanting to be schooled. A life that, in all honestly, really isn't that good. Sure I have friends, close ones. I love them. All 3 of them. And I like to think, that I've changed their lives, at the very least a tiny little bit. But even that doesn't seem to compare to what I don't even know I want to achieve.

I help people whenever I can, I let a woman stand in front of me in the shop today, even though she had much more. I keep doors open for people who then have to run to not feel bad for leaving me wait. I take jobs that, perhaps I don't like, just because it makes it easier for the other person. I guess that could just be courtesy, common decency and those gentleman-type of actions that are hardly seen in this day and age.

I don't even know how to finish. I don't even know if I am even finished. I will for now, because if I don't I can continue for days, into the new day and next probably.

I blame this Blue WKD.