the story so far

I left school in 2001, got myself a nice little office junior job in a local solicitors and was relatively happy there....over time more juniors came along, I got promoted, but I neevr really enjoyed the job quite so much. I sat on reception, it took a month or two before I would talk to any clients coming in, and it took nine months, I'm talking long enough to have a baby, for me to pick up the phone. Once I started with both of these there was no stopping me, and thus adminy receptiony people loving Ashley was born....

I changed jobs, and found myself doing admin jobs where I was working full-time hours for part-time work. Some days I literally waited until 4pm to frank the post and put it in a bag. I'd like to say it was a hugly busy switchboard....but it never was...I had a few more jobs like this one....all the while knowing admin wasn't for me, and it wasn't what I wanted.

On day I did a weekend course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and decided that was what I was going to do....my boss at the time even said I'd make an excellent teacher, because I had a lot of patience and like to be around people, and that was the encouragement that I needed. I then changed jobs and worked for a posh travel company in Newmarket, started doing an "access course" at west Suffolk College, and took on a seocond job to pay off some of my debts.

whilst doing this I then decided I would do six weeks voluntary work in South Africa through i-to-i and somehow managed to fund this, work 7 days a week and do a full-time college course in the evenings....it was crazy, I had no social life but I believed I was working towards my dream, and so I was pretty darn happy.

I got accepted at DMU and on 2nd October 2006 I started....not long after Christmas I realised uni really wasn't for me, and after a few teaching practices teaching wasn't really for me either. I also hated Leicester, hated the student lifestyle and wanted to go back to full-time work. However, after year 1 I stayed at uni, I went back and survived year 2, living in Thetford and travelling back and forth to carry on with my studies. Year 3 came and I got myself a place in halls, but again I spent much more time in Thetford than I ever did in Leicester....and yet I managed to get everything in and on time. All I have to do now is wait for my results.

At the beginning of the year I'd have done anything to get myself a first class degree, as time went on my enthusiasm curbed and I was aiming for a 2:1. And just days before I handed in my dissertation I very nearly failed my last teaching practice and almost gave up on my dissertation too....and I will now happily settle for a 2:2....!!

Trouble being, is that I have finished uni and done a degree in something I don't seem to have that much interest in at all. I taught for most of last summer. I spent 7 weeks with 3 different groups of French children who had come to learn English....but I never felt like I was giving them anything, or that they were learning anything....I don't like that feeling....so I don't want to teach. I can't really thing of anything else in an educational setting other than teaching that really pays....so it's back to the drawing board.

I wanted to get away from uni, in the morning I start work again, and guess what, it's admin. Admin will do for the time being....I know it, it bores me, but at the end of the day it pays....but does it pay to be miserable? I have no idea....maybe it's not as bad as I remember....just maybe....?!