Today, I am flying off to Florida for a long overdue holiday. Actually, I've scheduled this to post just as I'll be taking off.

Yep. It's ma burfday today :D



I have reached the grand old age of 24!

Life as a 23 year old has been... ok.

Highlights:

• Spent my 23rd birthday in France, Grenoble to be more precise. Had a really lovely time visiting my friend there.
• Started volunteering at a local primary school and eventually got offered a paid position, which I started 3 weeks ago. Got my foot in the door.
• Got inspired and started a British sign language course and have just completed my NVQ Level 1, and I'm continuing onto the Level 2 qualification. I'm having so much fun learning it, and have met some great people through it.
• Have rediscovered my love for reading thanks to my Kindle and doing this blog :)

It was Music Month on Lifescouts and there were lots of badges to collect. I don't think I'll get many because they are mostly instrument badges, but let's see!

Clarinet Badge

I can play the clarinet! I started when I was... about 9 but stopped when I was 16. I got to Grade 3 with it. I did enjoy playing, in the orchestra and the school wind band (nerd alert!), but I wasn't too good at doing any practice.

Piano Badge

I tried to learn to play the piano when I was about 14 but, again, I didn't practice enough. Oh yeah, the teacher that was teaching me just stopped turning up! Which was nice... so yeah I can play like one song on the piano.

Concert Badge

I've been to a few concerts in my time, and there is just something magical about the shared experience at a concert. So, I've seen:

• Spice Girls
• Steps
• Busted (with McFly supporting)
• Girls Aloud
• Westlife (twice)
• Kanye West
• Stereophonics
• Miley Cyrus
• Darren Criss
• Take That
• Robbie Williams
• S Club 7

Karaoke Badge

So I haven't done 'proper' karaoke, like in a karaoke bar, but I can do a mean rendition of Beyoncé's Crazy in Love on SingStar. Wuh-oh wuh-oh wuh-oh oh no no!

So that's Music. Not many but quality over quantity... *shifty look at my concert history*

Another month has flown by! I hope everyone has had a lovely Easter break, despite the unseasonable cold weather here in the UK. Also, I know I haven't reviewed much this month, but, you know... real life and stuff equals not much reading time. Sad face.

But anyway.

This month on Lifescouts it was Nerd month. While I am a self-confessed nerd, I don't think I will be collecting many badges this month. But let's see:

Chess Badge

While I know how to play chess, I'm not very good at the whole strategy side of this game. Normally, I lose when I play, or if I play against a computer with the easiest settings, I occasionally win but mostly get to stalemate.

Video Games Badge

I love playing video games. I have a PS3, Wii and DS. My favourite game on the PS3 has to be the Lego Harry Potter games, and for the Wii/DS, the Super Mario games. Not a fan of first-person shooter games though. I am shocking at aiming my gun while moving and find them more tense than enjoyable lol.

Bowling Badge

When I was around 15, I went to New Orleans with school, and we went bowling one afternoon. While bowling around the world is essentially the same game, the difference in this particular bowling alley is that there was no automated scoring! None of us knew how to do the scoring. Our coach driver tried to explain it but we still couldn't get it. I think in the end we just added an extra 10 points for strikes and half-strikes.

Programming Badge

Over the past year or so, I've been trying (very trying) to teach myself some rudimentary programming. Mainly HTML and CSS, because let's be real, it's useful to at least be able to look at a webpage source and know what's what. Thankfully, the internet is a wonderful resource for self-learning this sort of stuff with places like codecademy and Khan Academy providing free courses to learn with. I think I'm at the point where I can made a website that looks like it was made in the early 90s, maybe late 90s with a lot of looking up stuff involved. It is so satisfying though when your code works though!

So there we go. Four badges from this month's theme. Wish I could qualify for the Observatory badge and the Rubik's cube badge.

Go here to see the other badges I have collected, and let me know in the comments which badges you have collected!

Life sucks sometimes.

I had an interview to get onto a PGCE teaching course on Friday, down in Southampton. I thought it had gone ok, because I've got tons of experience in schools, thought I answered all the questions ok and I had all the stuff I needed.

But.

Apparently, that is not enough. And I didn't get in.

Anyway.

Life goes on.

On the bright side, I do have a back-up plan involving sign language, which I'm learning at the moment. Which may still lead to working in school at the very least.

Keeping positive!

But boo hiss.

February on Lifescouts has been Animal month. So here are my memories/experiences that go with the badges.

Swimming with Dolphins

When I was about 10, my mum and dad in an amazing feat of sneakery took me and my sister to Florida for 2 weeks. As in, we had no idea until the night before that we were even going. Yeah... neither of us got a whole lot of sleep that night. Anyway, when we went to Seaworld Orlando, I got to swim with the dolphins! At the time, they were my favourite animal so I was ecstatic. We got to hold on to their dorsal fin and be dragged along and feed them and all sorts. I think we also got to make them do some tricks. It was amazing. And to top it off, I swam with the dolphin was named Dixie, which is the name of my school!

Snake Holding Badge

Pet-Owning Badge

Badges from this month that I'd like to gain/fulfill in the future:

• Horse-Riding Badge 
• Safari Badge 
• Rainforest Badge
• Falconry Badge

I am joining Lifescouts.

Lifescouts is a badge-collecting community of people who share their real-world experiences online (x)

Similar to if/when you were in the Boy Scouts or Brownies or whatever you called it, and you got a badge for learning a new skill, Lifescouts is a way to collect badges for life experiences. You can do it through Tumblr, Twitter or, like me, on a blog, or you can even collect actual real-life badges! I'm rather tempted by some of the badges.

It was created by Alex Day off of YouTube and he talks about it here.

I think this would be a great way to inspire my blogposts, give me something to talk about, and let you get to know me that much better. I'm going to post the first month's ones here (the ones that apply to me obv) and then after that I will probably post when I have 'collected' around 4 or 5 badges.

French Language Badge

I have read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in French. I'm currently working my way through the whole Harry Potter series en français.

Empire State Building Badge

New York City is one of my favourite places in the world. I first visited and went up the ESB when I was 16. It is a bit of a blur, my whole first visit to NYC. The second time was on my third visit to New York last year with my sister. The weather was bitterly cold but the views were spectacular. Despite it being a tourist trap, it is an absolute must see for the views of Manhattan and beyond. I definitely recommend going early in the morning to miss the queues.

Driving Badge

I passed my test first time, with only 4 minors. I have now been driving 6 years. I have a red Fiat 500, which started out life as Polly, but is now called Mario. He would like you to respect his life choices ;).

Scuba-Diving Badge

Niagara Falls Badge

Eiffel Tower Badge

Yesterday (Monday), I had my interview for a PGCE in Primary Education at the Univ. of Leeds.

And I think it went at least ok! So yay!

It was very nerve-wracking the night before and the morning of! I had so much nervous energy, I could hardly sit still for breakfast. I wanted to get going and make sure I was there with plenty of time to spare.

Thankfully, my stress was lessened a little because I went down on the Sunday night to my friend, Andy's flat, and he was a student at Leeds for a little while so knows the campus. So at least I didn't have to know where I was going.

I got into the waiting room and it was full... with, like, actual adults.

Ok, that sounds stupid because yeah, we were all there to get onto a postgraduate course but for some reason I had imagined the other interviewees to look, well, younger. This might be partly to do with the fact I don't feel or look 23, so I think other 23 year olds also look only about 20... Either way, it was slightly intimidating.

But I got talking to some of the other interviewees and, of course, they were all lovely and northern. After the obligatory introductions, including where we were from and what degree we had done, and where we did it, we went and did the maths and English tests.

Well. Thank god I had relearnt how to work fractions! I reckon at least half the questions were fraction based... Things like:

Express 17/25 as a percentage.

Or

What is 3/4 + 2/3 + 4/6? Express it in it's simplest form. 

If you'd have asked me how to do that like two weeks ago,  I would have been very stuck.

I thought it went well, anyway. The English test was a test of our spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as whether we had legible handwriting and could write at a masters level. It was very short so hopefully that was ok too.

The second part of the interview day was something we could prepare for. We were to give a little lesson to the other interviewees in our group. It could be on anything at all. I chose the BSL manual alphabet. So, there was me thinking that surely the chance of someone else choosing that is low, but lo and behold, one of the four others in my group had also chosen the BSL alphabet. I was before her so it didn't affect my lesson, but it definitely stole her thunder a bit and she was struggling to fill the allotted time. I felt a bit bad. She must have felt horrible once she knew what I was planning to do! Thankfully the interviewers understood so, even though I am technically fighting her for a place, it shouldn't affect her overall performance. Anyway, I think my lesson went ok, though probably nerves showed through a bit. But what can you do...

Finally, it was the individual interview. Being interviewed is not my strong suit. I mostly come across as both too honest, and too blasé about whatever I'm being interviewed for. But I think I managed to avoid too many interview pitfalls, and didn't have any horrible moments where I couldn't think of an answer. And the interviewers were very friendly and made me feel pretty relaxed considering.

After that was finished, and some admin was completed, that was my interview day over! It could have gone a whole hell of a lot worse so I'm cautiously hopeful. If I don't get in... well, it'll be back to square one probably. But let's not think about that!

Plus, I would really like to go to Leeds. It's a really nice city (though the driving is confusing!) and the uni has a Harry Potter society!!! Done and done!

Bit of a life update for you today.

Bit of a dodgy photo, but this is Megan and I all dressed up! (Watch this space for a better photo)

Yesterday (Tuesday), I went to see Les Mis with my family. If you're from the US reading this, you might think "Hannah waited a long time to see that." But if you're from my neck of the woods (aka the UK), you may be thinking, "How, Hannah, have you seen Les Mis?? It's not even out yet here!"

Well, you'd be right, it's not out over here until Friday, but through a fortunate turn of events, we got to see it early!

I was looking up cinema times for Les Mis for the weekend, when I saw that there was a showing at 7pm on Tuesday. Brilliant. I figured it must be some sort of preview screening... After a bit of faffing, sorting out if my dad would be able to meet us in Leicester after work and stuff, I went on and booked four seats. Done.

We arrive at the cinema with a few minutes to spare, and a guy at the bottom of the escalator ushers up, telling us it's in Screen 4. Thanks very much. Up we go.

We walk over to, what we think must be the queue into the screen, when a lady asks us what film we are there to see. Les Mis, four of us, please.

Ah.

"There has been a mistake."

"What??"

"Not to worry! You'll still see your film. It's just that it wasn't supposed to be available to book on the website. Entirely our fault. In fact, we're going to give you your money back, and you have reserved seats in the theatre."

"Ooookay." There must be a catch.

But there was no catch! The cinema had made a mistake of putting a Daily Mail screening of Les Mis up on their website, available to book, which a few people had managed to catch like us, but they felt it was unfair to let us pay for our tickets when others were seeing it for free. AND we got, like, perfect seats!

Win-win all around if you ask me.

As for the film itself, it was great. My review is here.

• Keep this blog going.
• Get fitter.
• Actually do things, rather than say I'm going to do them.
• Read more.

Harry Potter ring :D

A Kindle Paperwhite! Now fully kitted out with Harry Potter. Obv.

A rather impressive stack of Blurays. Gonna take me a while to get through these!

A Darren Criss calendar!!! Hells yeah.

My sister knows me so well...

Yep, did pretty well this year. How about you??

Today, I officially enrolled on a British sign language (BSL) level 1 course. Yay me!

This might seem quite random to some, but if you have seen my Tumblr or Twitter in the last few months, stuff from a telly show called Switched At Birth may have shown up between the myriad of Darren Criss (he's just so pretty) and Glee posts.

My sister, Megan, introduced me to this show. It's about these two girls, Bay and Daphne, who get, surprise surprise, switched at birth. And it turns out the one of the girls, Daphne, is deaf and therefore uses sign language. She uses American sign language (ASL), which is actually almost unintelligible to BSL users but still, it's what got me interested initially. And I don't really care if it's not using ASL correctly or what-have-you, it is still introducing a culture and language to a whole new audience, which can only be a good thing (/rant).

So anyway, it got me interested in learning sign language or at least, finding out more about Deaf culture. And by coinky-dink, I found out that one of my colleagues is hard-of-hearing and actually knows and uses BSL! Now, we end up spending a good chunk of time (when we should be working... shhhh!) talking about BSL, and him teaching me some signs. Important signs like how to not to mix up f**k you with thank you. Still waiting for the sign for lemonade though...

It definitely opened my eyes to how many people are affected by hearing impairments, and how useful it could be, as a hearing person, to be able to communicate with them in their language. To me, it's no different than going to a foreign country and at least trying to use the local language, rather than talk more loudly and slowly in English.

Also, it can only be advantageous as someone going into teaching to know some sign language. I would love to be able to help out a possible Deaf student in my classroom, than have to rely on a communication support worker all the time.

In other news, I've just painted my nails for Christmas and they look awesome:

They're so Christmassy!

And also, my sister and I filmed a Christmas tag video. It's really quite hilarious so please have a peek!

Go check out my sister's other videos on her YouTube channel, MeganShaelyn. She sings and stuff.

I have discovered a previously untapped skill of mine!

Apparently, I can bake a mean chocolate cake!

It is a favourite question/remark about how I work in a sweet shop and that I must find it hard not to just eat sweets all day. Actually, if I worked in a cake shop, I'd have no resistance. Cake is my biggest weakness.

Anyway, my mum charged me with the task of making some cake and I think you'll find I nailed it.

Look at this beauty:

I almost didn't want to cut into it...

Chocolate cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream filling, covered in chocolate buttercream. I followed Lorraine Pascal's recipe, which is rather extravagant but definitely well worth it.

Om nom nom nom nom...

And it is delicious, if I may say so.

Reckon I could enter the Great British Bake Off next year? I only need to be able to bake a victoria sponge right?

I just came across a thing on the New Yorker website which I thought might be fun to do.

If you were trapped on a desert island and could only bring one book, one movie and one record, what would they be?

Book:

I could obviously go for Harry Potter but I'm going to assume that you can only take one book, and I'm not sure I could choose which one to take...

And I'm not going to go for anything "useful", you know, that could be used as kindling or whatever

So I could now say The Fault in Our Stars by John Green because it is probably the best book I've read in a while.

Maybe A Game of Thrones? Because there are a lot of characters and there would be lots of scope for fanfic to keep me amused ;)

Movie:

Hmmm... difficult. Again, I could go for Harry Potter but same problem, which one do I choose?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower? But that feels like a cop out as it's the most recent film I've seen and loved...

I think I need a film that is funny with some emotional side to it. I haven't seen Pitch Perfect but I have high hopes and could be the film I would take.

If it has to be one I've seen, I think... the Avengers. Yep, that is a film I could watch again and again. Lots of pretty men and very funny to boot!

Record:

After a small amount of thought, this is probably the easiest of the three. Teenage Dream by Darren Criss. The version with his own arrangement. Because I never get tired of listening to that song.

So what would be your three choices?

Confession: I have coasted through my life up to this point.

I am under no illusion that I have had to work very hard to get what I have in life. I coasted through school, doing just enough to get where I wanted/needed to go. My family are (on the outside looking in anyway) well-off, I don't want for anything. I have my own car, that I can afford to run. I've traveled quite extensively. I have an iPhone and a Macbook. I have savings.

I have means to do things. Nothing is stopping me...

So why can't I coast through this next stage of life??

I am at the proverbial fork in the road. I could do anything. But I feel like I can't.

It's like there are some roadworks that need to be done before I can move forwards, but what roadworks are needed?

Friends, family, Joe Bloggs on the streets offer me advice frequently on what I could or should do next and I appreciate that it's all just to try and help me. But I still honestly don't know what to do.

Should I go back to university? Do the PGCE thing and become a teacher? Or look into doing a Masters, possibly even abroad?

Should I bite the bullet and go and live abroad for a bit and do whatever? Just for the hell of it. And because I keep saying I want to and I will.

Maybe I should just move out and break out on my own either way.

All I know is that if I don't do something definitive soon, I'll get stuck in a rut that I can't escape.

I should just admit that getting a fucking 2:2 in my degree has affected my confidence in a way that didn't seem obvious (to me, at least) at the time. I feel like people will just dismiss me on face value when I apply for a grad-level job.

I know I'm better than a 2:2 degree. I bloody know it. But how the hell do I show that to someone who only sees the paper version of me?



Real Life sucks. I want a reboot.

I applied for a job in a pharmacy back in... July? Maybe August. Something like that, and got an interview. When the interview finished, I asked how long I should expect to wait for an answer. They said two weeks.

I got a reply yesterday. It was a no. No shit, Sherlock. At least two months have passed since the interview. I had guessed I hadn't got the job, but thanks for the confirmation.

Seriously, this can not be considered acceptable or professional. Can it?

Urgh.

People who know me, know that I am a font of useless knowledge. I'm pretty handy in the old pub quiz. At least... I'd like to think so.

My specialist subject is Tudor history. Case and point: I visited Warwick Castle today and they had models of Henry VIII and his six wives on display. I discovered that I could apparently identify each of his wives on sight. I couldn't fully confirm my educated guess as there was no sign saying who was who though, but I'm relatively confident...

(Not my pic - source) L-R Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves, Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr.

My interest in this subject is helped by the fact that I literally live a few miles from the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard III was killed by the young Henry Tudor in 1485. The site is a place I semi-regularly visit to walk the dog, and it was the standard school trip for us.

I personally think it's pretty cool that I live very near the site where one of the most famous English monarchic dynasties started and where a civil war ended. Without the Tudors, particularly Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Britain would not be as it is now.

But anyway, I bring this up now because of the news that archaeologists may have discovered the final resting site of Richard III in Leicester, under what used to be an old Franciscan church (now a carpark).

People are debating whether knowing the burial place of an old king is relevant anymore. Someone I spoke to about the discovery wondered if we should be spending money on such things when we have the current economic situation, and problems like poverty still prevalent. An article in the HuffPost argues that finding and verifying stuff we thought we knew is culturally and emotionally satisfying. There are probably a few other opinions that are just as valid.

I put forward that spending money (either private investment or taxpayer's money) into research of any kind is a good thing. If we don't fund projects, we put people who are trained to do such projects out of work, and in turn worsen the economic climate we are already in. Fine, it may not affect our daily lives that we have (possibly) discovered the remains of a king under a Leicester carpark, or that we now think there actually is a Higg's boson-like particle but:

Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse. - Nigerian Proverb

Learning about new things is making us slowly less and less ignorant of the world around us, and that can't be a bad thing.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. - Plato 

In conclusion, I'm excited about this new development in the story of Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth Field.

So I've finally decided what I'm going to do...

Teach.

Yay...

With that bombshell out of the way, here is my penciled-in plan for the next year or so:

1. Volunteer once or twice a week at school
2. Apply for PGCEs
3. Get into one of those PGCEs
4. Work/Save money
5. Travel for a few months if possible, possibly to France to finally learn that damn language
6. Go to Leaky Con 2013 London(OMG YAYAYAYAY!!!)
7. Start PGCE

Continuing on from the last post about jobs and stuff, it reminded me about something that has affected me quite a bit while searching and applying for jobs.

How long do you expect to wait for a response to a job application?

Within a day? Week? Month? Ever?

How long should you wait for a response to a job application?

I have sent many many applications out over the past few years, some to "big" companies, some to small independent businesses. Who do you think is more likely to respond promptly? If you said the small independent businesses, you'd be in the right ball park.

It is an unfortunate side-effect of the jobs market that when one sends an application, either as a speculative inquiry or in answer to an advert, that one expects no answer.

Well, personally, I think this is extremely unprofessional, bordering on rude of the prospective employers.

You may send out, in one frenzy of applying, ten applications. In the current way of things, I'd expect perhaps two responses back.

It is drilled into us that we must respond to a correspondence (e-mail/snail mail/phone/etc.) as soon as possible. Preferably within 24 hours. Otherwise, we as potential employees could be seen as unreliable, someone who can't complete things on time, or any number of things if we do not.

So how is it acceptable that those potential employers do the very thing we are told not to do?
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