Tuesday 30 July 2013

My thunder!

She has been stolen! Well, kind of....so, my mum's going to university next year....and so's my brother the year after....so my thunder is being stolen! Well, maybe...see, when I say my mum's going to university I'm actually talking about she's going to Truro to do an FDA in jewellery and silver work, and my brother, well he's trying to get onto to an Access Course and then university, but he doesn't know what he wants to do...so, yeah....but still, I don't know, they've never been bothered about it until I actually got into university and now they're all about it! Maybe I'm just being cynical (and that's entirely possible, I am the biggest cynic I know....though I sometimes fear I'm not cynical enough), but it seems to me that they've seen what I've accomplished and thought "well, if he could do it, anyone can!" little knowing how much thought and effort I actually put into getting to this stage. What makes me think this is my mother asked me to help her sort out her UCAS application and I was making sure she'd thought it through, asking what she'd do for money, where would she live, what would happen to the dogs and all that, and it was just "yeah, I'll deal with that at the time." You may think to yourself "well, she doesn't have to know exactly what to do about any of that now, it's at least a year away" and that is a perfectly valid, logical line of reasoning...if you didn't know my mother. When she says she'll deal with it when the time comes what she actually means is that she'll deal with it long after the times come, gone, is past and now long since when distant history...see, all my family are like that, even me to a certain extent (though I really have tried to work on it), we're ridiculously compulsive about things that pique our interest. For example, I'm sure that anyone who's spoken to me knows that I have a tendency to go on at length about random subjects once I've got the bit between my teeth. It really is this obsessive compulsive trait we have whenever we find that one topic...and I think that is what has happened here....but they don't entirely realise just how long I've been planning this.

See, I just completed an Access to HE course and that's great, that's grand! A winner is me! But then....that wasn't the first time I'd attempted a level 3 course and it wasn't the first time I'd even applied to an Access course after failing the first three attempts at A-Levels. The course I've just finished was the third time I'd applied to do an Access course. I think I've talked about my post school education before, but in case I haven't, short recap, I went to sixth form to do an International Baccalaureate course, which got cancelled in its first year. Then I went to college to do A-Levels, dropped one of the three almost immediately, completed the first year, dropped out in the second because the sads, tried to go back the next year to complete, dropped out again because MEGA SADS, spent a year moping, then I died and our story picks up in the next year when I tried to go back to college to do an Access course. I applied but they didn't even get back to me. I did a sad face and to alleviate the despair of my soul I took to walking around Liverpool at night, fighting vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night (like moon leprechauns...like regular leprechauns but from the moon! and with sharper teeth...), but I knew that one day I'd have to give up my supernatural vigilantism because there's just no future in it, what with the anti-discrimination laws the super-naturals are getting pushed through parliament at the minute....I don't see why human rights should apply to them, they're not even human! And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I mean look at them! Some of them have freaking cloven feet! They're ungulates! Like giraffes! Or deer! Or the majestic moose....if the plural of goose is geese, is the plural of moose "meese"? Anyway, I've digressed, the point is I still had the dream of going to university, even if at that moment in time it seemed like I was never going to get there.


The second time I applied was when I was twenty two and this time I actually heard back from them and I had an invite to a test and everything! Oh boy was I ever excited! The centre for the test was in North Liverpool, a place I rarely travel to because I value my sanity, but where my insane sister went to to study nursing (a course she abandoned to take up her lifelong dream of working in fast food....my family are also notoriously short-sighted, "this is making me money now, nurse course isn't, I leave!" was her thought process, no joke, she actually said that and meant it....anyway) and so, when I asked her how to get there, you might reasonably expect her to provide accurate directions. "Get on this bus, get off at this stop, get on this bus, get off at that stop, walk down, and it's there on your left." Seemed remarkably simple...too simple...that should have been my first clue that something was going to go awry. So the day comes, I go get on the first bus, get off, get on the second bus, and I'm going along, all nervous and shit because hey, future on the line, when I realise..."okay, my knowledge of North Liverpool isn't all that detailed...but I know that this is nowhere near where I need to be." And it wasn't, though I'd checked and double checked with my sister in the weeks leading up to that day, she'd evidently given me the wrong bus number to get on.

See, she studied at the college but she did work experience in Alder Hey...and she'd got her bus numbers mixed up, consistently....for weeks.....(bet you're kind of relieved she dropped out of her nursing course for a career in fast food aren't you? It's one thing to accidentally mix up the number of nuggets in your nugget meal, it's quite another to mix up the amount of meds you need to be taking to get better in hospital)...so I leaped off the bus, through the windows because there was no time to wait for it to stop, I ran through the streets yelling incoherent abuse at a sister who was miles away (I know she wouldn't have been able to hear it, but I like to believe that in her soul, she could feel the hate). I ran and I ran and I ran and then I stopped because I was out of breath because I was like 14 and a half stone at the time and hadn't done any exercise in years....then I ran and I ran some more and then I got back to the bus stop where I should have got off and onto a third bus at (eternally thankful to the sweet old lady who helped me) and then I got off that bus and ran and ran some more and I got to the college test centre just on time to be forty minutes late, looking like I'd just ran a marathon...in the rain...so much sweat.....panting, I asked if I was in the right place, I sure was, they let me go in and take the test...and then I never heard back. This time I was a bit pissed off, after the ordeal I'd been through, how could I not be? So I rang them up to ask what the hell was going on (the test, after all, was a piece of piss and not to sound arrogant or anything, but I really could not have failed it...even on purpose, it was that easy). 

They'd not graded my paper...they didn't even know where it was...they said they'd look for it and get back to me later in the day, which of course, they didn't....sometimes it just feels like the whole worlds against you....but you know, really it's just the incompetent idiots of the world that are...they don't mean it, it's just in their nature to be so. So bear them no ill will, you wouldn't hate a cat for being a cat would you? Of course, this is pretty much a do as I say, not an as I do thing, and I raged at them. But it was good in a way, it kind of galvanised my resolve. I'd spent too long blaming others for my own misfortune, like I'd blamed my sister for telling me the wrong bus numbers and that, but really, that was only partially her fault. She made a mistake, but I'd not checked it. I had the Internet, I had the bus time tables, I was unsure of the location of the college, did I ring them and ask them personally how to get there? No, I took the easier option, which turned out incorrect, then blamed that for the error...and that's only partially right, it was my mistake.

The third time I applied to do Access was this year just passed and I'm fairly certain I've talked about that at some point. But yeah, it was basically my sixth attempt at finishing my Level 3, it's something I've been focused on, one way or the other since about the age of 16...and this brings me back to my original point about feeling like my thunder is being stolen....see, I don't begrudge them wanting to self improve, I really don't, I just don't appreciate the manner in which its arose. For me it's been a long and arduous ascent, trial after trial, sacrifice after sacrifice. For them, it's a whim, because someone they know is doing it...and I'm not just being....I don't know the word...about it....but they've never shown any inclination toward it until I'd achieved it. They were content to sit around on their arses, doing nothing, letting the world pass them by, and I don't know, maybe I am just being fantastically cynical and hey, maybe I've actually inspired them to do something, but honestly, I just feel like they're trying to restore parity...can't drag me down to their level again, they'll drag themselves up to mine so it's not such a big deal....God....I am being cynical aren't I? I think that's the next thing I need to work on improving (getting rid of?). Ah well, that's enough writing for now, later taters.        

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