End of My Second Year

Endless blue sky - A view from my village.

Well that's it, I have finished my second year.  To be perfectly honest I can't quite believe how quickly this year has gone.  Last September I felt like I had a huge mountain to climb and then in January I actually wondered if I would make it to the end of this academic year.  But yesterday I completed my last shift for my second year, handed in my practice portfolio and drove home too tired to feel elated.  This morning I am still feeling a little emotional and incredibly tired, having climbed the mountain but am left impatiently waiting to know if I passed and can climb down the other side.  Exam and assignment results aren't due until later this month, so until then I will keep my fingers and toes crossed!

So I now have eight and a half weeks to rest, enjoy and just be.  The best part of course will be having time at home with my family.  I miss my children and husband when I am on placement as the long commute and funny hours mean that normal family time is limited.  Weekends become precious but during school terms these are often filled with sports clubs and matches, concerts, play rehersals and performances and birthday parties.  Therefore the summer holidays are even more precious, no commitments, just endless days to enjoy.  Of course I am hoping for many sunny, blue sky, warm, hazy, lazy summer days.

Until next time, take care.

Zoe

xo

Retraining - Studying As A Parent

Nobody said retraining would be easy but being a parent makes it doubly hard.  Not only will you still be trying to be mummy or daddy but you are also a student, with deadlines, maybe clinical placements. Suddenly life as you know it is very different.  There will be days when you wonder if you are doing the right thing, moments of despair, often in the middle of the night, when you actually think it would be easier to just stop, to go back to the old way of life, when it was all so much easier.  But was it? There is a reason you have chosen to retrain, to be something else.  

Believe me there have been days when I have wanted to quit, to return to my old life.  That is when I remind myself why I am retraining, why I wanted to be something else.  Yes I have this blog and still freelance a little, perhaps it's my comfort blanket. But in all honesty I love my new life, which sometimes I need to remind myself.  Right now I am in the depths of revision, assignment writing and clinical practice.  The long commute adds to my tiredness, but I know that in four weeks time all my assignments will be handed in, all my exams finished and just a few more weeks on placement.  I will have almost finished my second year, in thirteen months from now I will be qualified.  These are the carrots dangle in front of myself in those dark moments in the middle of the night.

So whatever life throws at me I will persevere.  My children have adapted to our new life, although I know they aren't so keen on me not being here as much.  Just because I am doing something else that means I am not home as much doesn't mean I love them any less.  I still adore them, am partly doing this for them.  To help them financially through university, to pay for driving lessons.  But above all I like to think that I am showing my daughters that women can make changes, they can be more and yes we can juggle family and career.

Until next time, take care.
Zoe
xo

The Need To Focus

I returned to lectures last week and boy it's been a tough week.  The work isn't beyond me but the brutal realisation about the amount of work I need to do before the beginning of June has been horrid. To be perfectly honest I have spent the last few days feeling really quite fed up, panicky and not quite sure how to go forward.  I know I can easily write a study schedule, planning when do to what, but a vital ingredient to make that work is time.  Obviously being a mature student with a family means time is not something I have lots of.  Whilst I may finish lectures at 3.30 I then have evening clubs to run the children to, help them with their homework, sort the washing ( a full time job in itself), dinner to cook if it's my turn, make sure the children have baths, read stories, oh the list goes on! So it is often after nine o'clock before I can think about studying.  

I know I am not alone and yesterday thought about the comparisons with women running their own businesses or working and studying too.  With or without children, there is always something else to do.  Never mind all those ideas we have, the ones that we want to try now.  I am my own worst enemy when it comes to ideas.  I always seem to have amazing ideas when I'm at my busiest.  

Yesterday I had a tutorial with my personal tutor, trying to workout how I can make it through the next four months, with as little grey hair as possible and still married and friends with my children!  My husband is amazing and incredibly supportive but I know how stressy I can become and test even the most patient of people.  Anyway, speaking to my tutor has really helped and one thing she said was like a light switching on.  She suggested when I want to go off and research something interesting from a lecture to first consider if it will be beneficial for my assignments.  If it is then go ahead, read up about it. If it's not then keep a list and return to these at a later date,when I have completed my assignments.  I realised that I needed to focus and not just in my studies.  I could apply this way of working to other ideas too.  So if I have a fab idea for my book idea, my husbands business or my other writing, I will keep a list.  Then I can return to this list when I have time to think them through properly, to consider them as realistic ideas to be grown or just binned.  

A huge sense of relief has washed over me now and I feel more confident in completing my assignments.  I truly believe that there is a way we can balance our lives, getting to do most of the things we want, but we must focus on the tasks that need to be done first.  Do you struggle with focusing on the task in hand too? I would love to know I am not alone!

Until next time, take care.

Zoe

x