TOUR

So yesterday I got given a tour around the places I'm going to work. It was so amazing! There are two sites that I'll be working on and me and the other apprentice are going to be working in one or the other, depending on which one is easier for us to get to. But oh my god, I've never been so overwhelmed with the amount of cool stuff there. Now this is where I go full nerd, because it is IT and it was just full of IT things and I was in awe of everyone who was already working there because they got to work with such cool stuff!

For lunch we got taken to this little pub and our soon to be bosses paid for our lunch. I got a duck wrap with a few chips. My favourite part was probably the chips, they were cooked perfectly and tasted amazing. The duck wrap on the other hand, I was a bit disappointed. Now, if you know me, you'll know I absolutely love duck, duck pancakes, duck wraps.. ANYTHING with duck in. But this wrap.. there was too much wrap itself, the sauce was just a little thicker than the consistency of water and there was too much lettuce in it.. I may just be being picky there though..

I got home from it all around 4/4:30pm and had my dinner, Spaghetti on toast! (most amazing small dinner ever!) and then I went to see C. His mum and brother are coming home from holiday today so he was cleaning up for most of the day. We watched Lone Ranger and Dark Souls, it was a Johnny Depp kinda night and then he walk me home around 10 ish. That's where i got in bed and fell asleep around 11 ish i think (quite early for me really!) :)

What did you guys do yesterday? Did anybody go and get their GCSE results? If so, congrats on whatever you got!

WHAT THE FUDGE IS GOING ON!?

GUYS, why the f*ck do you need to sign so much paperwork to just work! Oh my god! I got my Apprenticeship Agreement form, Terms and Conditions, Medical Questionnaire, Personal Details and Bank Details before and I have never been more confused in my life.. I mean, being an 18 year old, I expected to at least know a little about this stuff but I was baffled.. I really was. All I know is that if I f*ck up in the first 12 weeks of my employment, I'm getting fired, and I /really/ don't want that to happen.

They should teach this stuff in school, there should be an Employment Education class. I suppose we kinda did it in PSHCE (Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education) but all I can remember doing is making a CV and watching Mean Girls (Best. Film. Ever.) I can remember as soon as the teacher would say, what film do you want to watch, immediately everyone (including the guys) would just go "MEAN GIRLS!". But seriously, they need to teach us how to fill this sh*t in! I was sitting there with my mum saying "What does it mean?" "Where do I sign?" "Have I done it right?" 

Fortunately enough though, it's all done with and now I can sit here and get excited about my tour tomorrow. I'm going down to chester for 9am and I'm getting a tour of where I'm working and meeting the people I'll be working with. I'm so EXCITED!

HONEY, I'M HOOOOOOOOOME

I think my title and photo here pretty much sums up whats happened in the last few days.. If you haven't caught the just of it.. I'M HOME!

It was a journey back though, we left the village we were staying in at like 12pm and started the 6 hour drive to Dublin port. We got there at 6, got let on the boat at 7 and the boat left the port at 8pm. I took my laptop onto the ferry with me and sat there watching films for the 4 hour sail, it went pretty quick really. 

We got to holyhead at 12am and then set off on the 2 hour car journey home and we got home at like 2am. Instead of going straight to bed like I planned, we stayed up for a while talking to my brother who stayed home while we were in Ireland. He was fine, drunk, but fine. :')

Yesterday, i didn't do anything, I sat at home doing nothing at all and I don't know how I did it. Yesterday is just empty of memories until 8, when i went to see C. We watched part of The Hangover Part 3 and then the beginning of Judge Dredd before I came home again.

Today though, I went to school to pick up my results and then I came home, now i'm trying to sort out the travelling for my work which starts in about 2 or 3 weeks. I'm really excited. But the shortest travelling time is an hour and a half which I'm not that happy about.. :/

THEME 1 - SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER

Just a little foreword here.. I'm going on holiday in 4 hours and 22 minutes.. WOO!

Anyway, the first themed post from lists I made yesterday is - "SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER"

Now thinking about it, not many "big" things happened to me while I was in high school.. I suppose I could say that I had my "first" boyfriend and stuff but most of the relationships I had while there never lasted longer than a month or two so I don't really know if the guys count as "proper" boyfriends..

Life changing wise though I can only really think of 2 things.. One, the whole dilemma I had a while ago where none of my friends spoke to me for a week.. That was pretty life changing because it made me realise that you can't always depend on your friends, and that you really can't trust anyone.. I was so used to depending on them to made me laugh and to make me happy and then they just weren't there, it was weird. So that was pretty life changing because it made me look at things differently and to be honest I think it was a change for the better.

The other life changing thing was applying for the apprenticeship with Unilever.. I did it while I was in an IT lesson, supposed to be doing my work. I'd just decided i didn't want to go to uni anymore so I was looking on the apprenticeship website and I found it. So I applied, not thinking I'd get anyway from it and before I know it, I was in the next stage of the application.. Then the next, and then the next, then the next again and finally I was in the last stage with 9 other people, basically competing for 1 of 5 apprenticeships they were offering. After the final assessment day I waited a week and as it turns out, I GOT IT! So that was pretty life changing because now I definitely know that if you work your butt of for something and don't give up, you'' most likely get the outcome you want. :) 

There's a lesson in life from Jenny, people! ;)

Anything happen while you were in High School that was life changing for you? If so, what is it? I'd love to hear your stories. :)£

UPDATE!

I'm just going to state straight off now, I should live in Antarctica or somewhere cold because i CAN NOT handle this heat! I feel like a witch, you know when they touch water they melt? I feel like that but with heat and not water, I'm physically melting and I don't have any spare height to give away, I'm small enough as it is!

As far as my application to Unilever is going, I've recently had the assessment centre and now all I have to do is air for my feedback. If I get it, I'll be ecstatic! If I don't I suppose I'll be a little downhearted but I mean, obviously it wasn't the job for me. Plus, they've said if we aren't successful, they'll give us feedback so we know what we're good at and not so good at, which will be really useful for the next time we do an interview..

I've been with my crush now in a relationship for a little over a week (so i can use boyfriend instead of crush now!) and compared to the last dreadful one I was in, I'm really happy, he makes me laugh, we like the same things, his friends are my friends so now I can just hope that we last haha! I mean, I really hope it does. :)

Anyway, as for today, I've just opened the front door to a delivery man while wearing short dungarees and no shirt at all.. I think it's safe to say that was embarrassing! :S But it's too hot to wear clothes! 

How are you all dealing with the heat? Ice baths? Cool showers? Or are you soaking it in and sunbathing? :)

WHATS HAPPENING AROUND ABOUT NOW?

Hey guys, it is the 3rd July today and I've got a few things coming up over the next few days or even the next week.

Tomorrow is my school's leavers assembly for Sixth Form, which is me! So I have to go in at 9 for that so that should be nice to see everyone one last time. Also, tomorrow is also the day of our Sixth Form Prom, but, I'm not going. I used to be excited about going, I really did, like how my brother described his I was excited about going but since we've gotten a new head teacher it's just changed so I'm not going.

Another reason I'm not going is that, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY ON SATURDAY! Yes, just two days from now I turn the huge age of 18! I'm joking, it's not huge but it's a big birthday. I'm not having a party, unlike every other newly-turned 18 year old. I don't see the appeal in parties. I understand that everyone is happy and stuff but again, I don't see the appeal of bringing people over to my house or a venue, for me to watch them drink and get drunk on my behalf.. Even if they are my friends. Also on Saturday, I HAVE MY FIRST DRIVING LESSON! A present off of my parents. I'm nervous, but I'm excited at the same time.

Sunday, I doubt I'll be doing anything, probably just relaxing like Sundays are made for. :)

Monday, at 6-8pm me and my parents are going to a Work Familiarisation and Open Evening for my apprenticeship so I'm excited and nervous for that. 

So they're my plans for the next few days. What are yours? Or if you don't have any plans, what would you like to be doing over the next few days?

THE STORM POST!

It's been that long since i've been planning this post that I can't even remember the date it was.. Serves me right for not making the post when i wanted to..

Anyway, not the weekend just gone, the weekend before, me and two friends went over to Liverpool. The main reason for this was so I could take some photos with Snap for my friend's Media Coursework..

This is Snap.. Well it's not Snap but it's a clone of Snap. You get the jist of it ;)

So I took some photo's for him of a museum in Liverpool.. (There are two, it's the newer one) and here some of them are;

Afterwards we walked around the docks and I took a few photo's of the Albert Dock;

After the docks, we walked around for a while before I came up with the idea to go and look at the new Wake Park in another dock nearby. So we walked over there and after we watched the boarders for a while, we decided that we wanted to go wake boarding and enquired about it.. Fortunately enough theres a sale on!

Last week was also my full last week in school and I spent most of it waiting for my new laptop to arrive in the school. While waiting for it one of my teachers told me that I was 10 BTec points or something away from getting a distinction in Science overall so I thought, why not? I got the 4 distinction that I needed to do in a few hours and now I have distinctions in both IT and Science. So yay for that!

Then on Monday I went into school because I was told that I was going to get my new laptop and surprise surprise, I didn't get it.. So I went home at the end of the day a bit p*ssed off and I sulked when I got home. This was due to the fact that I hadn't gotten my laptop and Unilever hadn't gotten back to me in the time they said they would have. In the middle of sulking though, I went back to the school to film a school show, it was A Little Shop of Horrors. It was amazing to watch and I loved it considering I'd never seen it before, film or production on stage.

Yesterday, I stayed home instead of going into school and my friend text me saying my laptop was in school and I got excited. Soon after though, he text me again saying that the head teacher wouldn't let me get it because she wanted to give me it in person tomorrow (which is today.) So i sulked again and got in a mood, all until Unilever finally emailed me back (after a few emails from myself asking what was going on) and I found out that I had gotten through the interview stage and was in the next stage! So that cheered me up immensely!

And finally, today! We are nearly up to speed! Today I was off again but hadn't heard anything from the school so I called them up at 11:20am and asked when they wanted me to come and collect it. They called me back at 11:40am and said, "can you come in for 12:00pm as the head is leaving at that time?" Considering that it takes me an hour to walk there I was like "No, sorry I can't." Then the IT technician called me soon after and said, come in whenever you can in the afternoon and I'll give you it. So when my mum came home I asked her to take me in and she agreed and at 2:00pm, I FINALLY HAD MY LAPTOP. 

I love it already!

PRE JOB INTERVIEW NERVES

As you may or may not know, I'm currently in the middle of an application process to a company called Unilever and it's quite a big, global, Multi-brand organisation really.. 

Today was my interview day, and at 14:00 I got a call from a man called Mike Angell. And I was sh*tting one.. I don't like interviews, my heart races and I can even hear it's beating, I get all flustered, I stutter.. It's just not a good environment for me. In preparation, I wrote 5 pages of things that might help with questions he might ask (telephone interview so he can't see me read off of it ;) )

Anyway, he asked the question, told me what happens next and so on.. I'll be earning 13,000pa ish and I'll be working 9-5 if I get it, which i hope i do.. He said that I'll get feedback fairly quickly and it'll simply say i have or haven't gotten through to the next stage..

On a good note though, I am hoping to finish Sixth Form tomorrow! So then i never have to go back unless it's an emergency with my work.. (Hopefully not!) I mean, I will miss it, I've been there for the past 7 years of my life and I'm just going to be leaving like that.. But my "legacy" (as the head teacher, soon to be principle says) will carry on once I have left as my badge will be used every single weekday for the next who knows how many years! :D

Have any of you guys got interviews coming up soon? Whether for University, Apprenticeships or Jobs? Are you nervous? And what do you do to prepare for them?

TUESDAY 10TH JUNE - BEST DAY EVER!

As the title of the post states, Tuesday 10th June was the best day of my life so far, for 4 reasons..

1. I managed to get the guy i likes number! I'd be thinking about asking him for it for a while and it took me a few days to pluck up the courage to ask, but i did! And i got it! :D

2.  I got an email off of Unilever telling me I had past the small test and was through to the next stage of the application process! The next stage is a telephone interview which is next Thursday! :D

3. At about 2:35 I got called into the head teachers office of my school and I was told that i had won that competition to design the new academy badge.. I WON! So now I am the soon to be owner of a 13" Retina Display MacBook Pro! I can't wait to get it!

4. My friend had out my name in for a job at Tesco and after school i got a call off of the saying I had a group interview on Wednesday. I went but they didn't call me back afterwards. It doesn't bother me though, because everything else is amazing so i can't ask for everything! :D

A FURTHER UPDATE ON LIFE

Hi guys! Its been a while since my last post so I thought I'd come back and give you another update on how my life is going!

APPRENTICESHIP
As you may or may not know if you've read the last few posts of my blog, I've applied for an apprenticeship with the company Unilever! They're this big company who are mixed in with almost everything, from food to shampoo! Anyway, I got a reply from my initial application telling me I had got to the next round of the process, which was a small online comprehension test. 

So I did a practise and thought, okay this be fine.. But when I got to doing the actual test, my heart was pounding and the 4 minutes I had for each test just flew by! So when I had finished, my heart sank because honestly, I feel like I've done terribly. It didn't even give me my results at the end so I have to wait for them to email me, telling me whether I was good enough or not :/ It's safe to say I'm nervous!

SCHOOL/COLLEGE
Recently, my school has been going through the process of changing from a normal school to an academy. This basically means that someone has been kind enough to sponsor the school and give it better things.. The name is changing, the uniform is changing and to be honest, I think everything is changing because it really needs it.

Anyway, the school put up a competition to design the new school badge, when our form tutor told us this we were like "Oh, we don't care.. We won't be here.." and then she told us first place prize is the new Apple iMac and 10 runner ups will be getting the new iPads and we were instantly getting involved.. So I designed one and gave it in and a few teachers have been telling me that they really like my design and that it was really imaginative, so I hope I win that! I mean, if I get a place in the apprenticeship and win the iMac, it'll be perfect!

SOCIALISING
In my first few posts I explained a situation I was in and I wasn't the happiest person alive around then. As an overview, basically the guy I speak to most in school, who I hang around with and work with has a girlfriend whose been off at uni for the last year. Me and this guy hadn't spoke much before this year and people starting telling his girlfriend that we were too close for comfort and it cause him and his girlfriend to argue over how close we were and whether we should speak or not, and for a while we didn't speak.

But recently, his girlfriend came back from uni and a few days ago she messaged me, apologising for making me feel like she hated me and wanted to hit me. I told her that I completely understood where she was coming from and that I was sorry for everything that I caused. Now, ever since we're just speaking about shit and it's great. I'm actually really glad we're getting along to be honest.

Anyway, that's all that's happened in my life since my last post, I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Anything happening in your lives? :) 

LIFE

HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm really sorry I haven't been here and written for ages, I just felt it wasn't good enough and I needed another hiatus.. But I'm back now! So hello friends!

Recently, I applied for an apprenticeship with Unilever. It's an IT apprenticeship that last for two years and if I get it, I get £250 a week. Now for a first job and for someone who finds it very easy to save money, that's amazing.

I worked out that if I give my mum £40 a week for keep (letting me stay in our house) and spend maybe £20-£30 a week , that leaves me £180 a week.. Times that by 4, which gives us £720 a month.. Times that by 12, which gives us £8,640 a year, times by 2 and I get that £17,280 in my bank account as savings by the end of it.

That's if I even get the apprenticeship and if I keep to that plan. I could get a car with that, the  insurance and even I'd be able to rent a flat for a while.. But, I'll stinge off my parents for as long as I can like ;)

Anyway, I've tried to go through a fitness phase and to be honest, I can never be bothered enough to do any exercise. I think that's probably because the exercises I try and do I don't enjoy. Like, I enjoy cycling and that is pretty much about it.

So I came up with this idea maybe an hour ago, because I was thinking of a SacconeJoly video where Jonathan goes cycling, you know like he does every week and I was thinking, because I really want to travel, and  I mean /really/ want to travel, maybe if  I got a bike, a really good one, I could travel on it.

Obviously the travels would just be small at first, cycle around Great Britain and then Ireland. Then I'd be cycling and seeing the world at the same time. Of course once I'd gotten used to doing it I'd move to other countries like France, Spain, Germany and then hopefully I could move to bigger countries like America and Canada.

This is just an idea, but I'd really, really, really like to do it. I thought as well that while doing it, I could start my YouTube channel then, filming it as I (or we, if someone wanted to do it with me..) travelled and learned about culture and history of the different countries and maybe even raised money for charity while doing it.

I'm literally gonna start writing the next post as soon as this one is published and it's gonna include my bucket list, and what I think travelling is because I feel like people my age don't even know the meaning of a holiday anymore.

P.S. I'm also going to change this account to a personal, so you will all find out my name, what I look like etc, etc.

Cheerio!