University - Is It Worth It?

I chose to study English Literature with Modern Languages at Roehampton University in London. If I had had a pound for every time I have been asked "What job are you going to get with that?" I may have been able to pay off a sizeable amount of loan.

So what job am I going to get? We are told that a University Education increases our chances of higher wages by 200% (direct quote from my head of 6th form) so ... will that happen to me? I see two possible outcomes a) I am going to be a high-flying earner in TV or advertising or publishing or something equally yawn-worthy if I get a 2-1, or if I get a 2-2 I may become b) a dole-dosser eating value bacon sandwiches and smoking weed all day in my council house, of course there is always c) an unrelated anomaly result such as becoming a pop singer or actress, TV presenter or the like. Will it make no difference at all? Perhaps because my University isn't Red-brick and there's "loads of competition in the job market" I will head straight to option b) ... perhaps it isn't even anything to do with University and my sparkling personality will hold strong through interview and get me where I want to be without a second glance at that Education section on my Curriculum Vitae? Truth is, right now it's January and I won't know until June at least what grade (if any?!?) I may achieve. And until I finish University I won't know if it has all been worth it, and if I will end up earning more than 15K a year, and returning the money kindly lent to me by the SLC. So, if it's such a big chance, with no actual guarantee of positive final outcome (obviously bar medicine and law) why do so many students enrol themselves into this often boring, stressful, difficult, long and costly process?

The recent student riots that took place have brought the issue of University to the forefront of Pubic attention, highlighting the financial strain it can take, and the tripled debt prospects for students who do not have the funds to pay for their studies upfront. The "connundrum" of University is so multi-faceted I hardly know where to begin.

So lets see, obviously when deciding whether or not to go to University, one must be in Education, heading towards achieving you A Levels, or equivalent. Surprisingly, for a girl who went to an Independent, high-achieving (academically) school, and is now a final year undergraduate student, a large amount of my friends actually don't have any GCSEs. Apart from those friends at University, most of my friends that I hang out with went to local schools close to my home area in London, which has a large amount of low-achieving schools. Some of my friends from this area of London, went to schools such as Burlington Danes, Sion Manning, or Holland Park, which can be seen on the Teach First Charity list.

So, as you can imagine, I often find it difficult to concentrate at University, and have often considered dropping out. I don't know what the final outcome will be, but I do know the experiences I have had during these past Two and a half years. I have to say, I believe University Education to be fairly overrated. I think that those who are exceptionally high-achieving academics should not hesitate to study, but that people should not enter lightly into a University Education. There are many other routes to take, and most millionaires did not go to University, take for example, Cheryl Cole, David Beckham, (Ok they sing and play football) but neither did Richard Branson, and he's a businessman, with his own set of Islands.

There is no conclusion to this blog .. I know you love a bit of mystery. If you are thinking of going to University these days and do come from a less-financially developed background 9grand a year may actually be out of grasp to imagine, however if it is really what you want to do go for it. I urge people however, like myself, who are in doubt about what they want to do in life, which subjects they want to study ect, to really research and be ready to commit, with the knowledge in mind that whilst you study, life happens. And it sometimes gets in the way...

Following my last post, I decided to go into detail about some of the more interesting less known places I've been ... starting to feel like a travel journalist!

Lethem, Border Town, British Guyana, South America:

If I had to describe this town in one word it would be AIDS. (Because, as I found out after I left, over 90% of the population suffer from the disease.) The other word would be backwards – their border was a river you could have swum across, and when I got stamped into the country the guy signed his name on my passport – Pugsley. What a joke. The entire place was like an open farmyard and the woman who we stayed with ran a restaurant that received one customer in our three day visit. Her daughter was obsessed with the colour white, I bought flip-flops and she convinced me to get white ones, when we watched the horses go past she said she dreamed of having her own beautiful white horse one day, and she stared at my skin so much it started feeling embarrassed. This Country receives little tourism, but it was the biggest eye opener I experienced during my three months in South America.

Manali,. India,

This towns closest airport is Kulu, and from there it takes one hour to reach the breathtaking town of manali. Marijuana plants grow freely by the roadside, adn as we were walking up one day from the town to the hotel a gorilla about twice as large as me was casually having a good old rummage in the bins. Being at the foothills of the Himalayas you obvious have a stunning backdrop and the air and the water (especially coming from London) is really something else.

Recife, Brasil

Recife was the last town I stopped in as I was heading South before I really got to the most visited towns in Brasil (Salvador, Rio and Sao Paulo.) It was in Recife where I saw my first favela, with a street kid I got talking to as my tour guide. It was wierd. My “tour guide’s” girlfriend was pregnant but wouldn’t let me buy her any food, she only wanted money (undoubtedly for crack.) I did give her some clothes though which she could grow into as she got bigger! The favela in that town was, as I said something else! It was like walking into a miniature town where they were running an open plan laundrette, old peoples home and nursery all meshed into one, in the street. Clothing lines, wrinkled old men, scrawny dirty kids, screaming babies, bags of drugs and disgustingly dirty banknotes everywhere you looked. And everywhere you looked everyone was looing at you, the gringo. Memorable and definitely worth a visit if you can get someone to show you the real side.

Travelling

I read on someone elses' blog that each City in the world can be summed up in a word. I like this idea, however surely, according to your own personal experience places can mean different things? I mean, if you found your true love in Islamabad, it could be a more of a romantic city to you than say Paris or Rome, although the latter two are widely considered as typically romantic cities, and were "summed up" as I read, as romance and sex. I made a little list of some of the places I have been, not just cities, the memories I have of them and the impressions they made on me personally. I couldn't sum them up in a word so I expanded to a sentence Feel free to comment if you had a totally diffferent experience, or just to read, and get some ideas. I also put a list after of some of the places I still want to go to and why.

Enjoy! X

Ibiza, Spain – My birth town, Santa Eulalia, beautiful, special, like nowhere else, relaxed, calm and hippy, happy, party.

London, U.K – Diverse, buzzing, fast paced, cosmopolitan, big.

Rio De Janeiro, Brasil – Sexy, sunny, short.

Sao Paulo, Brasil – Beautiful, unexpected, romantic,

Bologna, Italy, - Sights, shopping with friends, Oldest university in Europe and quaint feel.

Berlin, Germany – Party city, fun times, extended stay, post-club kebabas, and Australians

Amsterdam, Holland – Hostels, weed, boats, typical tourist stay, (viewing only – red light district.)

Barcelona, Venezuela – A beautiful sunrise, and the start of an adventure

Marseille, France – Holidaying with a friend and family, good times, nice beaches.

Mexico City – Smoky, busy, poverty striken, huge and confusing.

Delhi, India – Something else! rickshaws, beggars, bad smells. Markets and clothing and a small village on a grassy patch next to a roundabout.

Caracus, Venzuela – Bewildering, busy, similar to Spain i.e. road signs, buildings, first place I ever went to outside of Europe.

Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain – Architechture, cool clubs as venues but a lot of mainstream music, metro, coloured trainers and tight jeans everywhere!

Belem, North Brasil – Mangoes and Amazonian marijuana, had a great time.

Karlstad, Sweeden – Clean and cute, friendly and beautiful northern lights and people.

Oslo, Norway – Expensive! Breathtaking scenery, super clean air.

New York (Airport only) Huge portion of chips and Elephant size sandwiches, fingerprints just on a stopover!!?? US security is tight.

Places I want to go and Why

Tokyo, Japan - This one is a little random, but Japanese culture intrigues me, the low tables, the animation in the films, Memoirs of a Geisha is also one of my favourite books, I've read it several times so it would be cool to see the places mentioned there.

Sydney, Australia - The other side of the world, see how it feels to be upside down, the beaches, the parties. Australia has certain things you just don't get anywhere else - I don't want to die without having seen a Kangaroo in it's natural habitat! Plus, when you do travel you tend to run into a lot Australians, so I have a few people who I have promised a visit to.

Los Angeles, USA - Again this one is obvious, Hollywood, Rodeo Drive, beach clubs ect. However, I also want to see some other places in California, it's the American state that interests me most, I mean Joni Mitchell wrote a song about it, so did the guys from the OC soundtrack, so did x, y and z, I want to know what all the fuss is about.

New York, USA - I was in Newark Airport coming back from Mexico and it made an impression on me, I still need to go and explore the city, drink the coffee, eat an apple in the big apple and go see the Empire State Building.

Paris, France - Another big building that needs climbing, La tour Eifel, (probably spelt wrong -sorry) I hae been to France loads, however, never made it to Paris, La Louvre, the Champs Elysee amongst other sites are on my to see list.

There are obvious many other places I want to travel, even for silly reasons (Russia because I'm one eighth Russian, Austria becuase my Grandmother was from there.) And I wouldn't say no to a free ticket anywhere, it's always cool to get to know new places, even if you have a lousy time you always learn something. Hope you enjoyed reading, Big love X

Ibiza / Chandras Birthday / Barcelona

I have been a very bad blogger as of late, however life has been nothing of interest for months now; it is just starting to get there. From march to may I was working as a waitress and studying for end of year exams in London. As soon as I finished uni I went to Ibiza and worked some more as a waitress in a beach bar for the three summer months of june, july and august. I figure in my life I have now carried more than a million plates in various restaurants in England and now Spain. Whilst doing this nothing of particular interest happened I was just working and saving; so not going out loads either.

Towards the end of the summer one of my best friends has her birthday, and as she works in nightclubs dancing our group of friends from Ibiza always have a reunion in a club and generally we all enter free, sit in the VIP and take lots of drugs. I hate to give Ibiza this sterotypically bad name, but it is only an annual event and who isn't partial to a little MDMA punch once in a while? Ibiza wasn't like that for me all summer anyways, just so you know.

So this year Chandrita was 21. I didn't even see that much of her during the night, spending most of the time at the staff bar with everyone and dancing with Sophie and Maya in the centre of Amnesia. The punch was insane and I knew I had work the next day but I didn't care; so I took a few shots. I have never had any drug that felt quite so good .. I literally floated round the club feeling as if I weighed nothing at all, it was incredible.

Before we knew it, it was about 7 or 8 am and time to leave. Maya, her boyfriend, another random guy Sophie and I all headed out together in the same car. Everyone had copious ammounts of alcohol and MDMA in their systems, including Maya, the driver.

As we pulled out onto the Autovia, who should be there but the Guardia Civil, checking any cars they wanted. As we were full of under- 25s you can guess what happened. No licence, no Identification and a breathaliser that showed her way over the limit and we were looking at being stuck there and the driver in jail. Maya called a friend Dean to drive over and pick us up, Dean is a crazy party animal, however doesn't drink alcohol so he was cool to drive us. We waited whilst Maya did the test again after ten minutes. Same result, as she had no ID the only passage out of the Guardia Civil layby was 250 Eurazos, (big euros). Everyone clubbed together and coincidentally the total sum of everyones money was exactly what we needed,

Only problem was of course, that there were now 6 of us to fit in Deans car. By this point it was about 930am and I was starting to wonder whether I would make it work at 1030.. so I said I would crouch in the back so the Guardias only saw 3 heads. Luck finally came back on our side and they let us go, happy with their dollar.

The story ends here for everyone else, we all went back to the guy whose name I can't remembers house, and I asked Dean to take me into Santa (the nearest town) where I would get my daily lift into work on the back of my colleaugue Barneys motorbike. Barney and myself met for coffee, I recounted the crazy night and then we headed off. I don't quite know what happened, whether it was the grit on the road, the speed we were going or if I actually nodded off on the back of the motorbike but suddenly when we turned the corner we ended on the ground.

It was only a fall but when we got up I could see Barneys ankle bone and his whole forearm was cut. My knee was covered in blood. We got back on and continued to work. When we arrived Barney got taken to the doctors and I began to set up the restaurant, after an hour or two I was feeling royally shit and went for a ciggarette and began to cry (what a baby.) And here the story ends; I got sent home and slept until 930pm. During august I had taken another job after the beach which finished around 7 or 8pm in a Pizzeria. This started at 9pm. So I lost that job by sleeping through it and shortly afterwards finished working at the beach for the end of the season. Isn't it funny sometimes you can have a very boring period of your life and all of sudden so many absurb and random things happen to you in the space of 24 hours.

As an english girl who was born in Spain and lived in Ibiza perhaps 35 or 40% of my life (all added together) I now face one year in Barcelona studying abroad, and going to school in Spain for the first time since Guarderia (Nursery.) What happened with the 250euro fine is a typical example of some of the differrences between England and Spain, however when I came over two days ago on the flight to Barca I managed to save myself 120 english pounds for an overweight suitcase by giving the guy at the check in a tenner. So this really does happen in England too. The world never ceases to amaze me. I could write a whole other blog on the differences between England and Spain but I think you may be losing interest already, and perhaps it's best to save that for when I've been in Barcelona a little longer and can tell you from this perspective.

Wish me luck and love and peace to you all X

Pornography

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Yesterday was my mums 61st birthday, it's the same day as Elvis Presely and just after the last day of the Xmas season. She usually tries to make a party after the party season is over and last year everyone appreciated it. However this year we just went for a quiet family dinner.

My mum really is a character. A lot of my friends love her and say "I wish my mum was more like yours." I do see where they were coming from, she doesn't give me grief about going out, smoking, partying, ect and never has done, even when I was too young to even do those things. She lets me make my own choices. On the down side however she is loud, embarassing, and always seems to be in"Have you noticed me" mode as she would say.

So, my siblings and I all managed to arrive at the pub and sit ourselves down for late lunch. My sister has two kids, and her friend turned up with her son so there were three terrors running around and ruining anyones idea of a quiet mid afternoon pint.

Nothing interesting really happened at the lunch, we ate, drank, and after everyone went home. My sister was talking about a new guy she likes which made me happy, and she really had gone into obsessive girl analytical mode. Then I started thinking about things. How is it that my mum, at 61 has a young, not neccesarily unnattractive, attentive and keen boyfriend, but her two daughters, 32 and 21 cannot pull a muscle between them? It really sucks. I don't know why but it really seems to me that there are many things wrong with our generation. We spend too much time on sites like facebook, myspace, bebo, and youtube, couple that time with smoking marijuana and friends, and no one gets laid. Really, I am convinced there is a large lack of sex at the moment for young people. However I may be wrong. I'm sure though, that my mum never text her boyfriend, blogged about him, or sent him a facebook message. I think these ways of communicating, which are supposed to enhance your social life actually cripple it.

I'm not entirely sure what the reason for this blog was. But I think it's neccesary to publish it.

Introduction

I am starting a blog for a number of different reasons. I always used to have a diary (at school it was the source of a banana fight) However in 2009 the book I bought didn't get filled in, in fact there were only a few sporadic poems, but nothing like what I used to wite when I was 15 for example. So my 2010 resolution is this blog. Anyways, as of yet I'm not sure of what it is going to be about, I must admit I am drawing upon my friends ideas as I am lacking inspriation on this snowy saturday morning. So do excuse me if I ramble and tangent in a Lawrence Sterne / Virginia Woolf style.

So the name for the blog - Extrovert Interaction. Personally I just think it sounds cool, and it has a sort of see-saw sound when you say it, but not only that, it will hopefully describe this blog, and me aswell. Extrovert is a word that people often misuse. I actually found a definition of it that I found quite interesting, and gave me an idea for a story.

So the other day I went to see my lecturer about an essay I had handed in. It was shit. I flicked through it and read all the depressing comments "this is pure description, no analysis" "You have to do this properly" "This is poor in a number of ways" "I can't believe I am recieving this from a second year student" ect ect ect. I was pretty sad as uni has been going less than smoothly this academic year (although on the plus side I did pass my first year with decent grades and no retakes). But this definition for the word extrovert did actually throw some light onto the situation. I always used to be good at writing essays, but that particular book just didn't inspire me. After I had made up some passable excuses to my lecturer and apologised for my crap work he said to me. "You're such a strong contributor in class, I was expecting something sparkling from you.... (deep sigh) and then I got this." I was thinking about that, and thought my extrovert personality could hold the answer.

Now if you read the full definition for extrovert you will see what I mean, however if you are anything like as lazy as me I don't expect you to. So here's a brief breakdown for you.

"Extroverts like to interact with the external world. Extroverts are energised by being around other people, where as introverts are energised by being alone. Extroverts may "fade" without other people around, and become easily bored."

That is so me. Perhaps thats why the people in class who don't say anything get top marks for their essays. Perhaps that is why when it is only me and my computer I lack inspiration and motivation to write good essays. Perhaps that is why as soon as I have done my essay I don't bother checking it through and run off to find someone to play with. Probably...

I think you may now have a little idea about what I'm like. I wanted to post something humourous I found yesterday when I logged into my bebo account for the first time in about three years. Isn't it funny how people use facebook now and bebo isn't really moving and shaking anymore. Too much time on facebook could also be another contributor to my bad marks at school, but i'll save that for another day. The reason I found my bebo descriptions hilarious is because there is no way in hell i would have put that stuff on facebook, however I'll leave it here for you to gander through. Hope u enjoyed and please comment boys and girls.

Ok in the interest of making this blog as real as possible, I won't edit that top section. I can't paste my Bebo page here. However, if you want to read what i wrote my name on bebo is

"ilikerunningbarefootongravel"

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