The waiting game...

Hello you lovely lot! Hope you're all enjoying you week so far, as we've only got 3 more weeks left of 2025...

As of such, I'm trying my absolute hardest to relax & take it easy for the remainder of this month. This is due to no LSA work coming in now until after New Year. I like to say that it's been easy for some part, but other times, it's been emotionally exhausting & frustrating.

As a consequence, my mind always feels the need to keep busy to prevent me from being bored. This is just another thing I find incredibly frustrating about being an Agency LSA, in case if I've not mentioned that already.

For example: I can get a phone call from an agency on one day about me being available to be needed to work in a school for the next day or so. However, come the next day at precisely 7:30am the next morning, I get no phone calls whatsoever?! At around this time, I'll be calling the agency up to ask them if I'm still needed to work in the school today. But then they don't answer their phone, or I just get told that I'm no longer needed to work at the school anymore. Even though I've made every ounce of effort to be on "standby" just in case.

In my case, this is EXACTLY what has been going on for the past 2 months now, and frustrated would be an understatement to describe how I had felt throughout all of this malarkey. Hence, this blog's title - "The waiting game". And my intention for this post is to share this experience of constantly being put on hold by recruiters from several agencies, when they keep telling you that they will put you in a LSA job the following day('s), but they keep on leaving you out to dry but not contacting you in any way at all.

I get that there is hardly work now in the 3 weeks running up to Christmas, but to not be contacted by any agency to keep me updated on what sort of jobs I can start in the New Year is really grinding my patience down.

Any Agency LSA's reading this, or anyone working in a similar industry, I'd be very interested to hear if you've been through what I've been going through as well over the past 2 months.

Over & out.

How going out travelling gives me a sense of freedom (A personal post)

Hello everyone! Just a random "off the top of my head" kind of post today. 

As the above title states, I want to share something more different, and it's also on a wee bit of a personal level too. Especially when I have to do this on an almost daily basis. 

For what I do in my line of work, I am required to travel to various place across the country. Even on days where I am not traveling, or traveling to anywhere for work related things, I still find the time to go out traveling to places I haven't been to before yet, or just want to revisit somewhere mainly for nostalgia purposes. That being said, I have just come to realise that doing all of this makes me feel lucky to work in such a competitive & growing industry, where I have the privilege to travel to so many different places, which make me feel alive & free.

I'll get on to explaining that...

*The above picture is the view of Leeds, which was taken from the balcony of the room I had my IOPC Youth Panel Conference in*

Even from a very young age, I was constantly moving around different places, I have lived in a total of 6 different places, and went to a school & college that was not located in any of the 6 places I had resided in. Every other weekend, when I was with my dad, we'd always go out somewhere by train or by car.

I remember this where my love for travelling manifested from.

Fast forward to now, where I have a Saturday job that's in a another county, and I travel to different places across the country for industry related meetings or conferences.

On a more personal note, I enjoy nothing more than having the freedom to go out and have a wander, as this helps my mind to adjust into a positive mental state by clearing all of the negative thoughts that are trapped inside it. Especially going on long walks or train journeys that take up the whole day!😂

Sometimes, there have been times where I didn't think I would have the confidence to be able to travel long distances by myself, as I always carry a small fear of: "What's going to happen?" But then I have learned that the more I do these kinds of things, the more confidence I will gain when travelling long distances. Especially that it really helps me to feel more independent as a person.

*I began this post on the 24/9, but didn't finish it until the 25/9*

Always look back on how far you've come

Hello everyone! Just a quick one for today, as once again, worklife is taking over me at the moment. Well, as of this Monday. And I had a busy rest of July doing other non-work related things as well.

On the 16/7, I went for a walk from Weybridge - Walton-On-Thames via the Thames Path after a busy afternoon of doing "non-work related things". It was also just over a year ago since I have walked on that very same path, as I used to go to college in the area, and I used to like walking along that path alongside the Thames during long breaktimes or if I've finished early for the day.

It was also a coincidence that I wasn't feeling in the best of moods throughout most of that day by constantly worrying about things like finance & what will happen for me in the future.

However, whilst I was halfway along the pathway between Weybridge & Walton-On-Thames, I stopped very briefly, turned round, and that's when a truthful thought entered my mind. It just kept telling me: "Since I was last in this area, I've done & accomplished so much."

That thought was indeed nothing but true, as during the past year, I have: 

• Worked alongside the Surrey PCC & her Deputy on crime issues in Surrey with other SYC members

• Attended/ran the SYC conference with other SYC members in Woking to showcase all of our hard work we've done with tackling crime in Surrey, as well as gathering views from young people across Surrey to help shape our key findings as evidence

• Joined the IOPC Youth Panel, and began working with members all across the country to gather views of young people on their experiences of the police, criminal justice system & the police complaints system

• Did my own fitness challenge throughout July of last year to raise some money for Mind

• Attended 2 Surrey Police Training Workshops in Ewell with some IOPC members, where we provided the police better strategies when it came to dealing with young & vulnerable members of the public 

• Jumped out of a plane from a staggering height of 13,000ft to raise vital funds for Challengers (I was even joined by the CEO & her wife too!)

• Registered with an agency, where I worked as an LSA in a SEMH school from November - May, and gained a better understanding of how SEMH affects pupils. Not to mention the emotional & inspirational journey I had been on in those 6 months as well with the school, as it went from a instructured & failing environment to a safe & thriving place to learn. (More blog posts to come relating to this...)

• Attended/ran the IOPC Youth Panel Conference up in Leeds, where we showcased all of our work on how we are making the police complaints system better for people to access, as well as how we are working with police forces across the country to form better working relationships with communities, young & vulnerable people

• Just for fun, I travelled to every major place in Kent that I haven't been to yet within just 1 week

• Went up to Parliament with a few members of the Surrey Youth Commission & the Hertfordshire Youth Commission, where we were joined by the Deputy PCC to have a round table discussion with some MP's about how vulnerable young people must be prioritzed by the government

That's definitely quite a few accomplishments I will be forever proud of! It made me feel a whole lot better about myself too by looking back at how far I've come to where I'm at now.

The morale of the story is: "Always look back on how far you've come, as it will help you to appreciate your accomplishments in the present moment."

If you've made it this far into the post, then thank you so much for taking the time to read through this, and I'll hopefully be back soon!

*I began this post on the 31/7, but didn't finish it until the 2/8*

"Into each life, some rain must fall"

As the quote states in the title of this post, I want to evaluate with you all what is the meaning of this quote is and why. This is especially because there may be people out there going through a rough patch right now. And just so it happens... I am one of those people. Hence my other main reason for this post.

What I am about to share with you all is very personal as to how I've been feeling for the past 2 months. My outcome for doing so is to encourage other people to shed some light about their feelings, as well as what they've been going through to make them feel that way in a bid to not feel alone. I know people intend to feel the need to not disclose their feelings at all to make them feel better, but inevitably, they will eventually just eat you alive by making you suffering in silence. (FTR, something I'm still in the process of  learning myself)

Not only will evaluating this quotation as to how I've been feeling help my reflect on myself, but I can use it to make me feel positively optimistic about what will be awaiting my future at the end of a temporarily pitch black tunnel.

 

During my last couple of posts, I've purposely used them to raise awareness on Mental Health. In some of these posts, I think I can recall saying that I hadn't had the time to be making posts much more often than I used too, as my focus was too prioritized on other things going on in my life which had prevented me from working on my blog. I know at first was being private as to why. However, now that I'm posting this under its title, I feel like this is the right time to disclose everything.

Here's the truthful reason behind it all...

Since the beginning of September, I began my final year at college. Towards the end of that month, I temporarily had to pull out of work in order for me to focus on my coursework. Also throughout that same month, I was getting back into swimming by getting my local leisure centre membership back. However, it had only lasted throughout September alone, as I then realized that my finance was going downhill which wasn't hugely down to paying £37 a month for my membership. Although I was crazy to even think I was able to pay that amount of money in the first place. Especially with my financial instability going on.

My finance first became unstable at the start of September, where I was due payment at one of the last places I was working at. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, (which I'm not allowed to go into detail about) I wasn't able to receive my full work payment. I say full, as that payment consists of a couple of previous jobs I did over the summer. To make those matters worse, I've been having to use the remainder of the money I've got for my travel to & from college. I do get money for my travel to college, but I only get it once per month. And if that wasn't enough, I had even paid £85 for 2 GCSE resits. Between juggling them & my coursework, my mind simply found it too hard to work on both at the same time.

As of now, I've gotten most of my resits over and done with. However, it has caused me to fall behind with some of my coursework revision due to me putting my focus upfront on my resists.

My life at home hasn't exactly been a luxury ether. I cannot afford to do much for myself right now due to my constant finance worry. Every time, I stay at home, my mind lives in a constant state of being angry about everything. Whenever I'm doing something away from home, I suddenly feel happy as if nothing has ever happened. 

Needless to say, my Mental Health has really been through it with all of the mentioned above that has happened. My anxiety has made me feel worried by continuously thinking about what the inevitable will be if any of these problems do not get better. Recently, it has gotten to a point where I feel so negative about everything that is happening in my life right now. So much, that don't give 2 slices of bread of where I'll end up in life.

This is where this quotation comes into play...

The more I think about the meaning of this quotation: "Into each life, some rain must fall" the more I make myself aware that there will be better times ahead. If we're talking psychologically here, every mindset has to experience sadness for it to become stronger. Otherwise, if it stayed happy all of the time, it would not know how to cope with being sad, let alone change it for the better.

To conclude off this long post, it is important to remain positively optimistic during a rough patch, like mine by doing what you enjoy doing in the meantime. I suppose it would be appropriate for me to compare what I'm currently going through now to how I had managed to cope during 3 of the COVID lockdowns.

There is always a way in life, stick with it.

I'm thinking about working on my self-care throughout next week

*A bit of inspiration from TheAutismDad blog*

As I've had a great day walking today, it gave me enough positive inspiration to go out walking throughout next week. I thought it would be a productive way of occupying myself, in a bid to keep healthy & active, as I could really do with the fitness kick.

Not only that, but there is psychological reasoning behind my intended self-care. As soon as I go back to college the following week, I have to go in EVERYDAY to do Maths & English exams, (hopefully the last time having to do them) with my usual lessons in-between. It will be a HECTIC week, but I'll sail through it, like a calm breeze.

Just in case if there are any walking fanatics out there reading this, let me give you the lowdown about the mindful benefits of walking in the outdoors. Especially in the sunny weather, I can think of literally nothing better to do than spend my day going on long walks. This is a psychological effect on the brain's hormone called "Serotonin" which helps your brain to boost its mood, therefore, has a domino effect on your mood. 

Here's the source link if you're curious to find out more: https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/benefits-sunlight#_noHeaderPrefixedContent