This post is also found on my travel blog page: www.thepotteringpanda.wordpress.com/pottering-on-the-cheap/booking-tips/
Please read on for my tips about how to book a holiday cheaply (and don’t forget to have a look at my other blog too!)
Twenties and your pursuit of happiness
I’m fed up of seeing posts like ’20 pieces of advice I should’ve listened to when I was in my 20s’. Some of them, may well contain small snippets of good advice, for example, leave a job if you aren’t happy. The majority of these posts though? They just allow for the writer or sharer of them to lecture you in something THEY think that you should be doing. This doesn’t just go for posts either, I also mean when it happens in real life conversations too. When someone asks you what you are up to and the moment, and the reaction is a ‘sigh’ or a ‘well if I was you…’. Well that’s just it – you aren’t me.
School: A few times it failed to make you a successful adult
6 years out of school, 4 years out of sixth form, a year out of university, and a job change later, it has finally hit me that school, and university failed to adequately educate me for most aspects of adult life. You run out in to the big bad world, ready to be the best adultiest -adult there is, to fulfill the dream of being a proper grown up you have since you were 4. Only then, do you realize that actually you are completely, woefully under prepared for your next big adventure.
The Joys of Graduate Job Hunting
By the end of our degrees, most of us are desperate to be finished, whether that be because we want to get out in the big bad world to finally earn some pennies, or because education has simply begun to lose its appeal.
However, the question that most graduates fear answering is the “so…have you started job hunting yet?’’ Combine that with the inevitable ‘’Well what do you want to do?’’ and it’s enough bring you out in a cold sweat. Right on cue, the quick mumblings of ‘’oh well I’m not sure, I’m sure I’ll work it out’’ surface, and you will then get flooded with a barrage of suggestions of far flung careers that you may be suited too. Thanks, I always knew I might have wanted to work in [insert ridiculous job title here].
As if you didn’t have enough to think about with the looming dissertation, excessive amounts of reading and exams. As if you weren’t already crying inside about leaving your friends behind, you’re now being forced to think about the real world. It’s like reliving the dreaded final year of sixth form and being badgered about university and UCAS – oh the nightmares! Only this time, there aren’t any teachers to help you, no one to draft your personal statement for you, and suddenly it seems, nowhere to turn when you realize you don’t have the foggiest what’s going to happen come July and that lovely graduation hat lands on the floor in front of you.
The Perils and Perks of Student Living
Moving home post university – it all seems great at the time. You finally get to leave the mess of a student house behind. No more dirty dishes! Finally some pans that you can use without having to wash first! The fridge will always be fully stocked with treats. Hurrah! No sad looking lettuce salads any more. If your late on your rent because you went out boozing and schmooz-ing last night, its fine because your parents are much more understanding than your landlord or agent. No more noise from the raucous student neighbours next door who never bothered to invite you over. And the most important one – you will finally be able to put the heating on or have an extended shower without a heated row over bills.
Just over 6 months on from moving out from a student house, I can honestly say I miss it more than first thought. As adult life now well and truly begins to set in, I thought now might be an appropriate time to reminisce about some of the perils and perks of student house sharing.
‘’Why would I fear hell – I’ve worked in retail!’’ A small selection of horrors every worker faces!
Having worked in retail since the tender age of 16, and this having been the first New Year where I haven’t, it seems only right to see off my past career with this post. So here it goes – a small selection of realisations, types of customers, redundant questions and general horrors that I am sure every retail worker will have encountered, whatever it is you sell.
- The realisation that the customer is NOT always right.
In fact, they rarely are. If ever.
You can argue with me all you want. You still won’t be right, and the more you argue with me, the less inclined I will be to fix your problem.
The Trauma of Tea Brewing
Tea.
It is quite possibly the most British solution to any problem faced. Stressed? Have a cup of tea. Ruthlessly dumped? Tea will make it better. What is the first thing people do when they get in to work – often even if they were late? Make a cup of tea. What’s the best kind of procrastination? Making a pot of tea.
Small Acts of Kindness
I wrote this earlier in the week to post today before the terror attacks on Paris this weekend. I’m still going to post it, because given Friday’s awful events, the message I wanted to convey now seems even more poignant than it was 3 days ago – as humans we should be there for each other in whatever capacity we can be: whether than is in one individuals time of need, or an entire nations. The images of Parisians queuing up to give blood, and opening their homes to keep strangers safe shows how, as humans, we have a unique capacity to come together in times of crises. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt this week is that small acts of kindness can help us though dark days. #PrayforParis – but let’s also take a moment to remember other countries being affected by terrorism every day. We’re all humans, whatever nationality or religion we are.
The Dreaded Commute: My Open Letter to London Midland
It’s Sunday morning and the thoughts about the dreaded commute in to London Euston tomorrow are already creeping in. Anyone that knows me or indeed, follows my twitter will know that me and you, London Midland, do not always see eye to eye.
Tinder, Dating and the list of seemingly endless questions that surrounds them
As a twenty something singleton, the world of dating is a perilous maze to be navigated most cautiously, in some vain attempt to save any possible shame, mortification or general humiliation. Having just graduated, been recently heartbroken while also with a huge overdraft; I was quite literally ruined and thus was soon forced to fly back to the nest. As I completed my final drive back from university, it become unbearably clear that, at the tender age of 21, it would now be absolutely impossible to meet someone. How would I find ‘the one’ if I am no longer in the midst of student life; meeting new people or simply catching the eye of a fellow scholar across the library? Cue the shock horror realisation that my only opportunities to now find true love were quite possibly now restricted to work or sweaty bars and nightclubs. Having had two failed relationships that sprung from the workplace, and with the thought of VK strawpedos and a bad hangover weighing heavily on my mind, alternative options were soon considered.
sophiegdonnelly 