"It'S HELL in the Niger Delta" - I should probably have that tattooed on my forehead. I've just completed two days campaigning for Amnesty International's Shell Hell Campaign within my college. We had petitions and a pretty cool handprinting stall yesterday too. I'm not sure of the total number of signatures, but we had over 350 last time I counted at around 12pm today so I'm sure we'll have got quite a few more since then.
I got to help out with some current friends and some pretty awesome people that I'm slowly getting to know as well, so being a part of things was quite fun. I got to work on my confidence by going round every table in the learning café and asking people if they were interested in signing the petition, so that was good. I did realise something though: students fit into two categories - 1) actually caring about the world; 2) caring about nothing but themselves (though of course if they were impoverished and living in inhumane conditions, I reckon they'd have something to say about it...). Not only that, but they find this lack of basic human rights amusing. Yes, amusing. Ay ay ay...
College is still quite hellish, but it's slowly getting better. My tutor is pretty mental and likes telling me things such as ''your aim is to do the worst piece of work you've ever done" and "I want you to go to Student Exec and get them to start up a Dodgy Knees Club". He does give good advice though, so the humour is balanced out with sane comments too. I had an odd conversation with him and the Acting Principal yesterday morning about ''the ability to see the wood for the trees". It concluded with the AP spotting me in the common room about two hours later and asking me if I could see the wood for the trees yet. I probably responded with ''er, yeah, I think so...'' then shuffled off back behind the Amnesty stall.
My Psychology teacher has helped me quite a lot too. He's also a bit mad (though he's a Psych teacher, I can let him off for it a bit easier) but again, he's very good at giving advice. He decided to spend half an hour after college ended on Wednesday talking to me about how I was, what I wanted to do at uni and what it's like being a teacher. That, combined with a particularly moving comment my school Head of Year said at the Awards Evening last night, helped me to realise what I want and that I shouldn't let anything get in my way. He (Psych teacher) also ended an email to me with a smiley face earlier, how can you not like someone who does that?
It was my GCSE Awards Evening last night. I won three special awards - High Achiever, Outstanding Achievement (from Governors) and Outstanding Contribution To the Life of the School. I had to go up on stage so many times that the teacher responsible for ushering us all onstage told me "You don't need me, you've done this before". It was nice to see everyone again for one last time and I feel like I can finally move on from school now I'm no longer tied to it in the same way that I still have been since starting college. I'm not going to spend ages talking about it, because the things that I took from the evening are personal and there is a line between what I do want to write about and what I want to keep personal. It did spur me on to email my Psychology teacher thanking him for the talk we had after college though.
Have a lovely weekend, and ensure that you make room for some ''you time'' (as my tutor AND Psychology teacher both told me today...)
Besos ♥
Rachel
"It's hard to take courage. In a world full of people you can lose sight of it all." - Cyndi Lauper - True Colors
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