We wear the mask...

I've just finished my fifth week of teaching practice. 

It's been a tough but enjoyable five weeks and, at times, I have wondered why I am doing this. One morning I even considered driving straight past the gates and taking myself off somewhere... I didn't though, and the Head of Department has been pleased with my progress, so it can't have been too bad a start. I do, however, feel like I've spent it wearing a mask: a mask of competence when I have most felt like I have no idea what I am doing; a mask of certainty when I have most doubted myself; and a mask of calm when I have most wanted to go and cry in the English Resource Room...

While I have enjoyed the experiences I have had in the classroom, I have also had moments when I have wondered whether this has been a mistake... That's not to say that I want to return to my former life - in many ways that would be easier - it's much worse to have a stomach-churning, 'I'm not happy' moment, fully aware that you weren't happy in your former life either, because that makes you feel like perhaps you won't be happy anywhere, and that's one realisation I could do without...

Six months ago I was an independent adult (although not always a very good one) and now I live with my parents (ostensibly in an annexe), am a student and, once again, a beginner. I'm not very good at not being good at something and it's hard to give myself time to learn and even (gasp) make mistakes...

This feeling of lack of control has triggered all kinds of reactions and suddenly (despite some resistance of my part) old, familiar coping mechanisms move quickly (much faster than ever before) from a momentary lapse, to a crutch, a friend... And before you know it, you're wearing an entirely different mask altogether: a mask that, ultimately, isn't much of a mask at all.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, 

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth our myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask!

Paul Laurence Dunbar

'...we're not in Kansas anymore.'

 So. I now live in Northern Ireland.

I moved to England to go to university in 2002 and became one of those people who didn’t come back. Until I did…

I’ve been back for eleven weeks: the longest amount of time I have spent in NI in ten years.

It’s weird.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t regret my decisions (‘regret’ is a very strong word…) but it’s rapidly becoming clear to me that I have underestimated quite how unsettling the transition from London-living lawyer to country-dwelling trainee teacher would be…

I knew people would query my life-changing decisions because few people were privy to the months of agonizing and soul-searching that preceded them. Nevertheless, I am nonplussed by some of the responses my news has provoked. The questions I have been asked range from the incredulous (‘You did what?!’), via the pointed (‘So you didn’t manage to get a man while you were over there?’), to the disconcerting (‘Do you think you’ve committed emotional suicide by moving back to NI?’) and back again. There have been times when the clinical anonymity of London seems preferable to having to continually offer an account of my choices.

If I had been pinning my hopes of stability on my return to full-time education (and I had), I was to be somewhat disappointed... Last week was Induction Week on my PGCE course. It entailed a series of introductory sessions and was the first time all 140 of us were in the same room together. The actual lectures were very interesting (if a little overwhelming) and I’ve already become attached to the rather swish university library.  What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to be regarded with something approaching suspicion by many of the other students.  Yes, I’m approximately eight years older than many of them; yes, I haven’t previously attended the university I do now; yes, I have spent the last ten years in England and yes, I have already tried a different career, but I wasn’t expecting to feel quite so… detached. Admittedly, there is a chance that this says more about me than it does about them, but it’s a feeling that I wasn’t expecting to encounter.

For the moment, I’m seeking solace in my first week of lectures (while simultaneously being incredibly nervous about my first English Methods classes on Wednesday…) and subsuming my emotions with exhausting gym workouts (while I still have the time) and generally hoping that it will all settle down before I have to deal with my first eleven-week block of teaching practice…

Oh, and did I mention I’m living with my parents…?

"Once you label me, you negate me."

As a society we like labels. They help us categorise and make sense of the general chaos that is life. Lately, I've been thinking about them a lot.  A little over three weeks ago, I was a City lawyer with all of the (misplaced) connotations of glamour and importance that phrase conveys.  Two weeks ago, I was a Londoner with all of the anonymity and excitement that suggests. In six weeks, I start a PGCE course. Then, I'll be, in turn, a mature student, a trainee teacher and, simply, 'Miss'.

Even now, in my transitional state I have labels: I'm a daughter and a sister. Labels whose meanings have intensified now that I'm back in Northern Ireland and living in close quarters with my immediate family. Indeed, in a small place like Northern Ireland those labels have a further dimension; to some people I'm not quite a person in my own right: I'm so-and-so's daughter/neice/sister/cousin. As my return is recent, I'm largely anonymous when going about my business by myself, but recognisable and waved at and spoken to when accompanied by a parent or my brother. I haven't quite decided whether this is preferable to the anonymity to which I was accustomed in London...

My new home is my childhood home, about a mile and a half outside a large village. The sort of place with two streets which has grown rapidly over the last thirty years as its appeal for commuters was discovered and seized upon.  The sort of place where families (like mine) have lived for generations and where anyone still a first or even a second generation resident is considered a 'blow-in' and regarded with vague suspicion. There are a dizzying array of developments encircling the village (inhabited by these blow-ins), where, I imagine, it is possible to live a life of relative anonymity. In the more rural area where I live, without pavements but with cattle-grids, I can name the families living in all but a few houses along the surrounding roads. In London, when an ambulance raced past with its sirens blaring, it was barely noticed as it fought with the general cacophony of city noises. When a siren is heard here, you find yourself listening to see if you can tell where it goes and wonder who it might be for...

Moving back home has stirred up a range of emotions, and I'm still getting used to the rural mentality where people comment on who they saw in the doctor's waiting room and where I receive text messages from aunts which begin "Tell your mum 'X' is dead."

Perhaps London has changed me more than I had realised and my labels don't fit quite so comfortably as they did before...

Nothing but a number...?

I mostly deal in words: incessant (and insistent) emails from clients and colleagues; advice to clients; drafting documents; seemingly endless 'to do' lists; tweets and blog entries.  The numbers in my life are largely limited to billable hours and time-recording.  Recently, however, numbers have been playing a larger role: I have 13 working days left as a lawyer (hallelujah!); 27 days as a resident of London; 62 days left of my twenties; and 82 days until my PGCE course begins.

All very exciting and although I've been planning this for some time (maybe because of the fact I've been planning it for some time), it doesn't quite seem real. Maybe it's a coping mechanism? (I have a lot of those.) I just can't quite believe that I'm actually getting to leave law (I really don't like my job - in case you hadn't noticed), moving back to Northern Ireland, turning thirty (thirty! I'm not sure I feel seventeen, never mind thirty...) or starting on a new career path.

I didn't think turning thirty would bother me. I mean, there's not really anything I can do about it and everyone says your thirties are better than your twenties...Don't they? Don't they?!  It doesn't really bother me (honest), but it has made me wonder if I can still accurately and fairly be described as 'young'. At what age does that stop applying? When does 'young' just start meaning 'younger than me'? If anything, it's losing that moniker which scares me more than the whole turning thirty business. I'm definitely in the 'young' category at my law firm. There's a partner who, at 78, still comes to work most days, so that helps, but still... Come September, though, I'm going to be at university where I am a lot less likely to be in the 'young' category. And when I'm on teaching practice the probability of my being in the 'young' category only becomes a possibility when qualified to mean 'young member of staff' (and even then it's not guaranteed)... If I'm not 'young' any more, then what am I, exactly? I'm certainly not old enough to be classified as middle aged (for which I am very grateful) so maybe I'll just have to be moniker-less for a while. Rather than a fear of ageing (to which the many and varied contents of my bathroom cabinet are testament enough), I think I'm more concerned about what not being young means about my life; when I was eighteen, I probably did think I would have been married by now and I might even have had a baby. My own Mum had been married for eight years and had a six-year-old and a four-year-old by the time she turned thirty. But things were different then and, as she is forever telling me, I've had a lot of opportunities that she didn't have. Still, I definitely think there's nothing like getting married, getting a mortgage or having children for making you realise that you're now a Grown Up.  I have yet to do any of those things (if I ever do) so maybe there is part of me that is forever going to feel young. Admittedly, the fact that I'm going to be living with my parents probably isn't helping (even though I will probably be in the 'granny annex' (Note to self: think of a better name for that))... So eligible gentlemen of Northern Ireland: I'm going to be thirty, unemployed and living at home. Please form an orderly queue.

Maybe I drag myself over the coals about it all because I'm the oldest in my group of friends (I really need to get some older friends...). I also have a summer birthday which, in NI, means I was older than a lot of my school year and this, teamed with a gap year, made me older than the friends I made at university and law school, too. All but one of my Northern Irish friends are married and now my university friends are all lining up to follow suit. I also have friends with children (plural) and part of me still sees the sixteen and seventeen-year-old girls going to nightclubs in Banbridge and pretending to be French exchange students to get boys... To be fair to my friends (husbands and children aside), I think that most of them are still more than willing and able to don a silk neckscarf and give it another go...

After all, as the saying goes: growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

"Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change"

My Mother is thoroughly bemused by my new-found appreciation for Northern Ireland and all things rural. There's no doubt that it is a beautiful place and I will admit that I have been guilty of taking such charms for granted in the past. It has made me wonder where else my attitude to something has, or could, change; after all, as Hamlet says, "...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

Recently, I've been trying to eat more healthily and get some exercise, as I was alarmed to discover I weighed more than I ever have before. I think the most disturbing thing, however, was realising that about three years ago I weighed twenty-five pounds less that I do now... I know that I am very unlikely to ever weigh that little again (I had a lot going on at the time), but part of what shocked me was that it (finally) began to sink in just how tiny I must have been back then and yet I just couldn't see it. Plenty of people told me(!) but I couldn't (or wouldn't) see it. Even now, looking back at photographs from that time, I have difficulty in appreciating it. Our perception of something we are supposed to know so intimately (and you can't get much more intimate than yourself) can be not just incorrect, but so far removed from reality as to be irrational. Despite the fact that I let myself gain quite so much weight, I think (hope) I have a much more realistic take on what my body should look like.  The frustrating thing is having to find the patience to let it get that way in a sensible manner and in a sensible time-frame.

I suppose over the last eighteen months of so I've been re-examining and revising my entire life; looking at aspects afresh, deciding whether they still 'fit' and, if not, doing something about it: where I live, who I'm with and what I do for a living. Just because something, someone or somewhere worked for me when I was 21, 23 or 27, doesn't mean that will or has to always be the case.  Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be said for having the tenacity to see something through, but I think the key (and the difficult part) is to decide when to fight and when to change tack entirely. As with so many things in life, you only get to find out if you did the right thing after you've done it...

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

This evening, as I walked along Bishopsgate in the evening rush hour, I realised I was singing to myself. Singing...Out loud... Then I laughed, which didn't do much to reassure the throngs of commuters that I was of sound mind, and continued to smile to myself as I reflected about just how far I'd come in the last year.

You see, I haven't been particularly happy. In fact, that's not entirely true: there have been times when I've been completely crying-in-the-ladies' miserable. Eighteen months ago I was in an unhappy relationship. On the surface we had it all: two young City professionals; five 'Mr and Mrs Smith' holidays per year; dining out twice a week; 'treats' being delivered to the office (where else? I used to joke about sending out 'change of address' cards...) on a regular basis. But beneath the rampant consumerism and gloss, we rarely saw each other and really weren't suited (in my opinion, anyway). So, one particularly messy and protracted break-up later, I was safely installed in my little bachelorette pad. Problem solved.

Except that it wasn't. I knew I didn't enjoy my job, but I wasn't really sure how much of my unhappiness was work-related and how much ex-boyfriend-related. Looking back, I think it was about 50/50. During my two years at law school and four years in law firms, I have often had doubts about how suited I was to life as a City lawyer, but when it comes down to it, I've proven that I can do it... I just don't want to. I don't enjoy it nearly enough to want to sacrifice all the other great things life has to offer for a six-figure salary and 25 days' holiday per year (assuming that you don't have to cancel it because someone you've met once (and don't really like) wants to buy a shopping centre in Leeds...).

One day last summer, Christine, one of the secretaries in my department, approached me and said, 'You did an English degree, didn't you?'. Christine was doing an OU English degree and was struggling with her Shakespeare paper. She asked me to take a look at the essay she was due to submit that evening to see if I could suggest any improvements. English has always been my passion and I can honestly say that marking-up that Shakespeare essay was the most enjoyable thing I have ever done in a law firm. Don't get me wrong: Christine had done all of the hard work; my role was simply to point out where she had wandered off-topic and might want to phrase things differently. Still. It was a turning point.

I think I have always known that I would like to be an English teacher someday; last summer I decided that 'someday' was now. So here I am, ten months later and I have recently found out that I've been fortunate enough to have been offered a place on a PGCE English course. Big changes are afoot: not only will I be leaving gainful employment to commence my twenty-first year of full-time education(!); I will also be leaving London for life in rural NI in my childhood home...(there could be some very interesting blog posts in the future...).

Getting back to this evening: I have a list (I'm all about the lists) of people that I want to see before I leave London and tonight I had dinner with five (one was unfortunately still chained to her desk) of the girls I trained to be a solicitor with. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't seem some of them for a long time and I had begun to make my peace with the fact that our friendship was over, but, for the moment at least, there were renewed vows to keep in touch and we even filmed each of us saying where we hoped to be in ten years (there was a lot of laughing at that!).

They all said that I looked and seemed happier (this is rapidly becoming a common theme in conversations I've been having) and, the best part is, I really feel it and I haven't (yet) regretted resigning for a single second. I know English teaching isn't a panacea for all ills, but I think I feel better because I'm (finally) on the right track. So here's to the pursuit of happiness!

C

Sincere insincerity

The press about last week's Facebook flotation has made me think about just how much of my time I spend on that website and how much of my life I reveal there.  I'm glad to be able to say that in both cases it's a lot less than it used to be, but I am not (yet) in the position where I want to suspend my account...


I'm often baffled by some of the things that people choose to post, and have on occasion felt uncomfortable at the almost voyeuristic position in which I've found myself. I'm also guilty of comparing my life to the lives of my friends, questioning my life choices and tormenting myself about focusing on those places where I feel I've fallen short. Whilst a certain amount of introspection is healthy/necessary ("The unexamined life is not worth living"), a lot of my life is subject to serious and fundamental change at the moment and dealing with my own doubts and questions is quite enough without also using Facebook as a lens.


So this is my pledge to use Facebook as a means to stay in touch with friends in near and far, and not as (yet another) rod to beat myself with. Wish me luck!

"You are the music while the music lasts"

As I spent much longer than I had intended this afternoon updating my iPod, I began to wonder what my music collection says about me.  What do you think your music collection says about you?  Not literally, obviously, because that would be weird, but how (if at all) do you think it represents you as a person?  My iTunes library contains a diverse selection of the good, the bad and the simply embarrassing!


How intensely I listen to music can vary, but I love how that apparently simple combination of music and lyrics can enhance, frame and even alter my mood and so I've decided to write a few posts loosely based on the '30 Day Song Challenge'.


F-F-F-Friday!


When I leave the office on a Friday evening and make my way across London Bridge amongst the incessant stream of commuters, I like nothing more than to listen to something upbeat and uplifting.  Recently my songs of choice have included:

1. Cee Lo Green's "Bright Lights Bigger City";
2. Coldplay's "Viva la Vida";
3. Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days are Over"; and
4. Elbow's magnificent "One Day Like This" (one of my Favourite Songs in the World Ever).

Whilst this little selection (invariably taken from my "Purchased" playlist) probably says more about how I feel about my job than anything else, I relish feeling my shoulders begin to drop and the cares of the working week drift away as I approach London Bridge tube station with Tower Bridge to my left ,and the lights of Canary Wharf glittering in the distance (seriously: if you've never been to London Bridge at rush hour, you should make a point of going. Whether morning or evening, that mass of be-suited people is something to behold (and, unsurprisingly, popular with photographers)).  Although I know that those cares and anxieties will have wormed their way back by 8pm on Sunday evening, at that moment that may as well be another world away...

C

Set[ting] foot on one's own country as a foreign land

Walking today across Covent Garden piazza towards Trafalgar Square, I thought to myself: I need to do this more often.  I need to be a tourist in London.  Except for a year that I spent back in Cambridge to study for my MPhil, I have lived in London since September 2005 and there are too many places in London that I still haven't seen.  Today, I scored one of those off the list.  Well, I say 'list', I haven't actually made one yet, but I intend to.


I went to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. On a Saturday. At half term.  Normally I do my best to avoid London's tourists (part of the reason why there are quite a few places I haven't been to...) but it was one of those bright, crispy days so off I went.

The Transport Museum was great and is definitely worth a visit; especially if, like me, the fact that TfL manages to keep most of the tube network running at all is fascinating.


I spend my life with a pen in hand, marking up documents.  Unbelievably, there is a prescribed sequence of colours for the order this happens in with a different colour for each 'turn' of the document.  I think it goes red, green, blue, orange, violet.  Lawyers spend their lives point-scoring by noticing extra spaces and missing capital letters.  I do think, however, that our innate pedantry can be A Good Thing. I even like to think that I notice things that some other people miss: these bricks were on the side of a Pizza Hut (of all places).

And, amidst the hubbub of Trafalgar Square,  this beautiful, partly frozen fountain.

So, here's to appreciating our local areas with the eyes of a tourist (and the lens of a camera) and to scoring some more of those as-yet unseen places off the 'must see' list (once I actually get round to making it).


C

All that glisters is not gold (take 2)

So...I spent my lunch break writing a new post based on a quote from The Merchant of Venice and this evening noticed a typo in the title and, in fixing it, managed to delete the whole thing. Lesson learned.

I'm not going to attempt to rehash it but I also think that it is a bit of a shame since I don't think it hurts to be reminded just how deceptive appearances can be.

When people hear that I am a City lawyer they are, invariably, impressed.  They imagine bright, shiny towers of capitalism, champagne receptions, business lunches, high-powered meetings, designer suits, designer bags, designer shoes...  Whilst some of these elements are accurate (the little lights of truth in the stereotype), the reality is much more prosaic: hour upon hour behind a desk, hundreds of emails a day, pressure, dull meetings with people who are much too fond of the sound of their own voice, time-recording etc etc.

I was seduced by the 'milk round' and thought that I was fulfilling my potential.  Little did I know that a fat pay cheque and a high-powered job did not necessarily mean that I was fulfilling my potential.  The size of your success is not equal to the size of your salary.  To me, success is doing a job that you love and I realise now that I need to do what I love. 

At a book launch last week, I was told that you should endeavour to do a job where your values, passions and strengths overlap and I am lucky enough to know what that job is; unfortunately it's not being a City lawyer...

C

Everybody has to start somewhere.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now.  Not because I think that what I have to say is particularly interesting but for the following reasons (amongst others):

1. I've been wanting to do some more writing;

2. I've been inspired by the blogs and websites of some friends and people I follow on Twitter; and

3. I'm planning some fundamental changes to my life and I'm hoping that, as a means of creative expression, it will help me make sense of what is going on.

So here goes.  In the words of Nina Simone, "It's a new dawn; it's a new day; it's a new life for me" (which, frustratingly wouldn't all fit as the title of my blog).  Bear with me!

C