One of the things that came most quickly to my attention on commencing the commute, is that if I want to commute successfully, I needed to hone the art of travelling light. In my younger teenage commuting days, my main … Continue reading The Art of Commuting: Travelling light
I guess I am right in thinking that most of us love free stuff. And you are reading because you either like free stuff, want your day brightened or both. This way to brighten my own day is something that struck me a while back, as you will see later. It gets hammered home periodically in no uncertain terms, and I am reminded that I needed to, once again (along with most of my resolutions…) readopt this one. A few weeks after I started my job, my colleagues and I went on a course thrillingly entitled ‘Creating Positive Communication with … Continue reading ‘Choosing your attitude’ or ‘how to brighten your day for free’
I feel like I’m living an entirely different life to the one I was a year ago. This isn’t entirely true. I have the same friends, but new ones too. I live in the same place, but with a new housemate. I drive the same car, though I mostly travel by train now. Almost a year ago I visited London with my now-housemate for her birthday. As we chilled in a cafe on the South Bank, I joked about how we were surveying my future workplace now that I’d applied for my job. At the time I didn’t even have an … Continue reading From Teacher to City Worker: Six Months In
There are life events that split your life into ‘before’ and ‘after’. We all have events where we place feelings, experiences and other events according to our personal timeline. It is now just over 3 months since I wrote about my first few days as a city worker, and therefore just over 3 months since I began working in the city. Before, my life was filled with questions; the job, the travel, and the lack of holidays. My excitement was over weekends, evenings, and not feeling so permanently stressed. Scrolling through my old facebook photos, I came across this one … Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The First Few Months
On Thursday evening I wanted to skip home. I contented myself with a little ‘hop’ up onto every pavement and a very bouncy walk home. But let me start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). Recently a colleague and I discovered we catch trains at a similar time from Waterloo, meaning that we ‘pound the pavements’ together of a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening. That evening our conversation as we exited work led us from her tutoring onto my degree (Teaching with English) and the conversation went something along the lines of this… Me: (mildly embarrassed) … Continue reading Solitary confinement and kindred spirits
I know what some of you are thinking from that title…clean out your mind and focus!
In my commuting youth (the 7:42 from Andover to Salisbury) I was in awe of the ability of my schoolmates to apply mascara on a fast moving and juddery vehicle, and to even draw eyeliner onto the inside of their eyes without maiming their sight. I do not imagine there would be the same level of success in my attempt and so I get up promptly, merely to retain my sight. I have seen the occasional person – all women thus far – expertly applying the same. For me, getting into work 5 minutes early is infinitely preferable.
The inevitable slide into technology means that the laptop, tablet and phone feature prominently in the ‘things to do’ list. It opens up a whole world – reading, writing, TV watching, working, games, music; the one object that does so much is a definite commuter consideration. I have managed to go to bed at a reasonable hour and still catch up on a TV series before arriving in the office thanks to efficient downloading overnight. However, there’s nothing wrong with the good old fashioned book, or indeed a free paper as I’m too cheap/poor to buy one. My newspaper preferences are mainly graded by how much print you end up with on your hands, so while the Metro is an enjoyable morning read, with my favourite parts being the good deeds section and crush messages (a girl can dream..), the Evening Standard is much less of a pleasurable read as my hands are completely stained by the end of my perusal. An advantage of reading over watching is that you can tune in and out of the material to listen…
…I guess this could be classed as eavesdropping, although I’m not listening in order to share information with anyone. If I want to write more, I think it’s important to listen more; as such I try not to spend both journeys of the day with earphones in. I’ve also endeavoured to walk to and fro without any form of technology in my hands/ears to be more aware of what’s around me, and below are a couple of my favourite spots this week! Sometimes though, it’s really hard not to laugh out loud. On my first evening trip someone mentioned their child’s teacher, referring to her as ‘Mrs Badcrumble’, an Eddie Izzard reference that meant I had to bite my lip and try not to giggle, as I wasn’t actually part of the conversation.
Continue reading “The Art Of Commuting: Things To Do On A Moving Train”
My shift from teacher to city worker is a mix of pros, cons, and situations with both flip sides of the coin. Part of my reason for leaving school was to change my lifestyle, which it has already. After 8 glorious weeks off, with no planning or classroom preparation to think of, 6am has been a little bit of a shock. I’ve had to get up earlier than I’ve ever got up to teach. In order to lessen the pain, I changed the alarm tone to One Direction’s ‘that’s what makes you beautiful’ – a positive yet unlikely statement to … Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The First Few Days
the entirety of life 