Christian Union

So a few weeks ago I wrote a note/blog thing about my Christian Union experience and posted it on facebook- here it is:


So this week is my last ever Christian Union as a student at Oxford Brookes. And those who have seen me in the last few weeks know that I've been a little emotional about this, so I wanted to take the time to explain why this is. Although I do have a blog, I wanted to share with people what Christian Union means to me and Facebook felt like a much bigger forum for that.
Being a Christian doesn't mean that your life is easy. Having a personal relationship with God doesn't mean that you therefore follow a bunch of rules and you become a goody-two-shoes and nothing bad happens. Life isn't always good and you need people around you to lean on during that time.

University is a huge time of transition and change. For me it included having panic-attacks in halls, learning how to be a student whilst still living at home, it involved multiple placements both good and bad for a course that by nature is very hard emotionally, learning to leave the world of social work behind at the end of a work day.
It has also been a time of discovering what an amazing support Christian Union can be.

In my first year I had a small group of friends within CU, friends that I'm still incredibly close to now, and as I learnt to stand on my own two feet at uni there were some great older members in the CU who guided me and supported me.In second year my friendship group widened and I made an effort to pass on the guidance to the new freshers. I also joined the exec committee which was exciting.
In third year I made new friends still. I worked hard to try and bring glory to God by helping to organise events and pastorally support the CU, before handing over to a brilliant new exec who I know will continue to serve God through this work. I learnt alot and had a good time doing it.

Throughout it all I have gained some wonderful friends. Friends who were there every Wednesday and lots of days in between, who I knew would be there any time I needed to talk, who I could debate big questions with and go for drinks with and would be there and accept me no matter what.
Friends who were there to laugh with me, friends who backed me up when I was trying to talk to non-christians about God, friends who held my hand and hugged me when I cried...friends who held me up when I could not hold myself.
I hope my friends, old and new, know how much I value them and how incredibly grateful I am for their unwavering friendship.

Churches are there for teaching and guiding, Christian Union is there for friendship, support and doing mission together.
Oxford Brookes Christian Union is great. They have more members every year, their mission is growing and their faith is astounding. If you aren't part of this family then please let me encourage you to find out about it for yourself.

Christian Union is a group of christians who share the same faith as I do, who are there to support each other and socialise with each other. I am so grateful for the group I have known- they are genuine, kind, generous and loyal, and that is why I am sad to leave them.

They have encouraged me, held me accountable, and loved me unconditionally.
I LOVE Christian Union and I will never forget them.

endings

A friend told me that she'd been reading my blog and it prompted me to realise that once again I've been pretty rubbish at writing in it this month :s

Apologies for that! But as I said to this friend- in the past I have tended to use my blog to get out my stress and upset. I think that the lack of blog postings are maybe a reflection of the lack of stress in my life at the moment which can only be seen as a good thing I think!

I also think I've grown up alot since I started my blog in 6th form...I still have the odd stress-filled rant but perhaps over slightly bigger issues rather than small things that I've blown out of proportion!

I've also realised that my relationship with God has grown massively since I started this blog. Not that my relationship with God was bad or anything, I just think that as I've matured so has my faith and that means that I am more likely to go running to God with my rants rather than on here. And I think that leaning on God can be no bad thing!

Aside from my lack of posting- in 3 weeks and 5 days I will have finished my degree. Which is absolutely mind-blowing to me- I'm sure I'll write a more sentimental blog when I actually finish! But for now I'm hoping that when I do finish I'll have more time to blog about life and my insights into the world :)

Even if hardly anyone reads it, I enjoy writing it :) so I'll try to be better at it!
Much love xxx

almost a month

So it's Saturday afternoon and I log onto blogspot to check in on my fellow bloggers and I notice that the last time I blogged myself was 27th March (the day I finished my dissertation).
Today is the 30th April and tomorrow it is the beginning of May.
On my blog you can find past blogs by clicking through the archive and selecting a year and then a month...I like this feature as it shows me when I wrote more blogs in a month and when I wrote less. This is often linked to either how busy I am or how stressed I am and therefore need to talk alot about it.
I realised when seeing that I hadn't written a blog since end of March that if I didn't write a blog today that I would have a zero next to April 2011 and that would make me sad.
Coupled with the fact that I'm enjoying a relatively free Saturday and writing a blog feels like a quite a nice thing to do.

It's probably a good idea if I update you (my loyal and almost non-existant readers) about what's been happening this month.

I've continued going with placement, now working full-time. I'm enjoying it alot and really feel like I've gotten my confidence back up after the last placement.

Having finished my dissertation I've since done almost no uni work...which isn't a good thing considering I have an essay due this week :S good thing we have a long bank holiday weekend...which brings my onto some of my more recent fun times- yesterday it was the Royal Wedding of Will & Kate which was lovely to watch. Something very patriotic about watching the nation gather to celebrate :) I think it must've been incredibly weird for them knowing that millions were watching their wedding but as much as Britain isn't great at alot of things, we sure love our royal family!

To celebrate I had friends over for a tea party, I wore my tiara and made cake and drank pimms, we went down into down for the local town tradition of bun throwing (where the local
counsellors and mayor throw fruit buns from the top of our town hall to the crowds below). We then wandered back through the wood and the park before having fish & chips with my family. It was lovely to hang out with some lovely friends, maybe daydream a little about marrying a prince one day (Harry is still free, yes?), but mostly just do lots of fun British things.

I'm starting to think about the future now too (and not just daydreaming about marrying Prince Harry!). This week is my last ever CU as a student which is going to be very emotional for me. When we handed over to the new exec and were given cards as a thankyou (this was a few weeks ago) I cried a little because I've loved CU so much. It's been a great support for me these last few years and I'm going to miss it. I'm sure I'll still see people and still be involved but not in the same way.
I'll have my last Focus group, my last social work course lunch with my coursemates...soon people will be graduating (mine is delayed until September), people will be leaving Oxford, I will finish placement and then what?

I have some plans for the summer, holiday to Guernsey with uni friends, New Wine (potentially for two weeks), Momentum, Holiday Club, my birthday.
But then what? I need to get a job and hopefully my own place.
There are some developments in both of those areas. I've had some positive conversations about potential jobs but nothing concrete yet so for now I keep praying that God will show me the plan that he has and that I'll find the right job in the right team.
As for my own job, I'm always checking out places online but without a job I won't be chosing anywhere just yet...but I am excited about it. Which is a massive thing for me, after all my panic attacks and fear over staying away from home, the fact that I'm excited to find my own place and potentially my own place on my own :) it's an exciting step.

My overall thought for this blog is that I am happy.
I love my placement, I have almost finished university which is a huge achievement...I have a brilliant family and lovely friends who I get to spend a lot of time with. The future looks exciting, and as much as I'd love some reassurance on when certain things might happen (job, house, husband and family), actually I trust that God has a plan that will make me incredibly happy and it will all work out for the best.

That's all for now I think, nothing major has happening in the last month but actually lots of amazingly good, fun things have happened and I am enjoying my life :)
Much love xxx

What a way to celebrate!

I've finished and handed in my dissertation!!! :D :D :D And how else would I choose to celebrate other than the Godzone Sleepover Weekend! I am tired but happy and have had a great weekend :) Really glad I've taken tomorrow off work though! Will write more soon I promise Much love xxx

'The Fear'

So yesterday I got the writing bug...that feeling like I want to sit down and do some work, so I jumped on that feeling and went to work on my dissertation.

Unfortunately as I started work my head went a bit crazy and was jumping all over the place with all the different jobs I need to do. So I wrote out my plan for the next 3 weeks...which is when I realised that I only have 3 weeks to finish my dissertation!
Plus my skeleton portfolio is due in at the same time...



Which lead me to the next feeling- I got 'The Fear'


'The Fear' is that constant nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you have dissertation work to do. It is there regardless of what you're doing. You can feel it in your stomach, in your chest, all over your body infact. It is both positive and negative. It is motivating and terrifying. In order to do your dissertation it is important to have 'The Fear' but it is also not a fun feeling at all.


'The Fear' has hit me full force and I have realised how little time I have left to write my dissertation. Plus I've been busy so I'm tired, and I'm still going to be busy and am on placement and I still want to enjoy the last bit of university...it's a little overwhelming.

It also makes me really unmotivated to go to placement, because as much as I'm enjoying placement, I'd much rather sleep and do dissertation work. It just really limits my flexibility and my time.

I think I just need to sit down and work out my week- I feel much more in control when I've done that which always makes me calmer...I am such a control freak sometimes!

Much love xxx

Sick

Last summer, around July, I got my new academic diary and I made a prediction...that in the 4th or 5th week of this semester I would get ill.
And low and behold it's week 4 of semester and I have a cold!
Nothing horrible or anything, just a blocked nose and a sore throat, sneezing etc.
It was easy to predict, I know my body, when I get tired and busy it reacts with a cold.
I've been back doing placement almost full-time for 6 weeks now, it's missions week for CU which means events every evening...plus I've also just been busy socially anyway- so I got tired and now I have a cold.

Fortunately my placement is flexible and I've been able to do some work from home which means less driving and a comfy sofa to rest on.
The fact that it's missions week and there are events every night, and I've got lots of social things coming up, and I have my dissertation and skeleton portfolio due in soon, are things that can't be helped unfortunately!
So I'll just keep taking medicine, resting when I can, and hope it goes away quickly!

Other than that, life is pretty good- ticking along nicely :)
Much love xxx

Perhaps I can have both

So I'm back on placement after my week of lectures and it's going well.
In terms of results, I got an A and a B+ which I'm so chuffed about :D I also got a resit because I missed the point of the coursework part of one module...fortunately it was an extra module anyway so won't affect my overall degree- although I probably will resubmit the assignment anyway.

This week on placement has been good, I'm struggling to motivate myself to go though- it's a good placement and once I'm more comfortable and feel like I know what I'm doing it'll be fine but it's disheartening to know that I'm only 8 days into the 100 days and I feel like I should be further through.
But praise God that it's a good supportive placement and I'm surrounded by good people and I'm enjoying the work- am trying to keep focussed on those truths that are from God, rather than the lies that are sometimes put in my head!

The other part I was struggling with was that I felt as though I'd had my time to be a student and now I had to crack on with placement and I was going to lose the social aspect. But actually I had a great time at BASC, I had a good weekend away with the CU exec, tonight I went for dinner with one of my closest friends (date night!) and I've got plans this weekend to see more friends and visit PJ & Hannah.
It's starting to dawn on me that I can do both- I can work hard on placement, do my dissertation and still see my friends. Obviously I have to give myself time to rest and placement comes before social life- but so far I'm doing ok and enjoying life still.

Plus it's starting to dawn on me that in 4 and a half months I'll be done! that's no time at all, so I might as well enjoy it now before things change.
And although I know my life will still be good, I'll still work full time (like on placement but paid), I'll still see my friends and family, I'll still do Godzone and New Wine and holiday club and all the things I do now...but I won't have CU, not in the way I have it now. I won't have all the same friends in the same ways which scares me.
I'm also very aware of the fact that I'm still single...somehow in my head I knew that graduating was the next milestone and I figured that getting married would be the one after that, and that's not even in view at the moment. I'm trying to remember that God is enough and that He has the right man picked out for me, but that's hard when you get a bit lonely and want that companion in your life. Wanting to be married and have children is the core of who I am and I know I'm young but that's all I want and sometimes it's hard when you can't see that happening any time soon.

Anyway, enough with the melo-dramatic stream of thoughts from my head!
Praise God that I have a good placement, a good life, and good friends and family to share it with :)
Much love xxx