After writing a reflective post on my Psychology Summer Project, I realised that I really liked writing it and it gave me a chance to think about things. This reflection of my summer is split into two parts: Part 2 is about my Summer Job at Clarks and Part 1 is about everything else, which makes it more depressing…
I spent all of my summer holidays working part-time for two places. The first was at my Mom’s nail salon. Normally when I go up there I answer the phone and do the little odd errands like setting up the Soak-Off bowls or making tea, but recently I have been practising the art of doing actual acrylic nails. This involves using a special brush to dip into nail liquid, then the acrylic powder, than quickly manipulating it on the nail to create a smooth layer. This was really difficult, although I did make a lot of progress in one week.
As the store began to get a bit busier as all of Mom’s clients went on holiday, I began painting nails, mostly for Mom’s new colour wheels as well as my own nails. I learnt how gel polish works (it’s like magic, like woah) and tested out unusual and unpopular colours.
The only downside is that I did get paid something along the lines of £2.70 an hour, below minimum wage, but this doesn’t include transport (hitching a ride with Mom) and food money. Plus my parents never did pay me before so I consider this a promotion. Plus they’re my parents.
On the other hand, I had my part-time summer job at Clarks which paid much better. It was back to school season, which means parents are coming in for their kids’ new shoes for the upcoming school year. Depending on how busy it was and what roles we were allocated to that day, I measured little feet and big feet, and fitted shoes for a lot of those feet. My experiences at this job will all go in the second part to this post.
In the middle of all this was A-Level Results Day. My AS-Level grades, despite the support and reassurance from plenty of people, were disappointing to me. However, at the same time I pretty much expected this based on my unproductive attitude towards my work all year. I am surrounded by plenty of friends who seem like they doss the entire year away and then gain As at the end of the year and it has only really sunk in now (I became properly aware of this last year during GCSEs) that I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE THAT CAN DO THIS. It’s a very frustrating thing to know, as even my brother can do this. Like, what happened with me. (I understand there’s supposed to be a question mark but it’s a very flat question so I thought a full stop would suffice.)
So, this year I will probably be retaking a number of exams in order to pull my AS grades up. I am only certain about one exam so far, which is Chem2 (I did well on the other two units and flunked this one). For the other subjects that I’m taking this year I did equally okay + badly on all the exams so it is up to my discussions with my teachers to decide which ones I do, eventually, retake.
I am not feeling anything towards this school year. No nervousness, no excitement, absolutely no positivity, nothing apart from not wanting to return to that Hell. There is a little thought at the back of my head which is telling me to kind of make the most of what I have and do the best that I possibly can from here on out. At this stage, I have no long-term aspirations – I just want to get through to the end of the year in one piece (same as last year, and I barely made it), get onto a Psychology course that is ideally in a university not at home, but no more than an hour and a half away, and then see where to go from there.
There are plenty of more frivolous dreams that I would love to chase up, such as writing (this blog is my idea of keeping up with that. I am also considering a separate blog for short fiction.) and living in Japan and improving my artistic skills. I meant to do all that this summer. There is been small progresses in world development and Japanese Grammar but even more recently I have been so exhausted without much energy to spare for anything.
I have been eating more healthily and have noticed a positive correlation between the fattening foods that I eat, and the spots on my face (besides the hormonal wave). My mom is on a strict diet and she’s been making more of everything so I can have a go – almost no carbs and definitely no fats, more veg and more meat/low-fat dairy, i.e what a good, regular healthy diet [almost] looks like. This was interrupted by a brief stint of having McDonalds twice in one weekend and my face hates me for it.
On the other hand, I haven’t seen an increase in energy level and my mood plays a bigger part in this than I thought. Yesterday I was irritable or even downright bitchy and it showed early, in my walking speed. The morning walk that day took an hour, whereas this morning, I was feeling positive and more determined to do something better with my life, and finished my walk in forty minutes.
I wasn’t planning on rambling for so long about my health as it was so recent, but school hasn’t started yet so in my eyes (which can see grey clouds out of the window) it is still summer. Kind of.
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Twenty Swans 