Guest Blogs

The days are long. Everything is done happily, properly, with talking for hours and hours about the past and its people. This is interlaced with breakfast, washing up, then a cup of tea – Earl Grey or PG.

Take a walk, take in the warm air, the clouds seem whiter, the sky feels bluer. Listen. Maybe catching a woodpecker, a Skylark, if we’re lucky, as we smell the pure fields of Easter. We return for a simple lunch, brought to the table, covered in a white cloth, on a trolley with gold edges and legs.

She sits in her favourite chair, flowery, and soft, in the afternoon, in the conservatory, a cigarette burning to the end, as she talks, just talks. We listen, just listen.

Out of all the Favourites, she is our Favourite. She speaks elegantly only pausing at times to cough into a cotton handkerchief. Her mind for detail is exquisite, every word like a drip of silver. She picks up the telephone and requests, “a table for three, please. Yes, that’s correct. For Mrs Jenkins”.

We let the afternoon slide into the evening.

The evening is long, and everything is done properly.

This is not enough
Walking to the end, but not the end of the night
Air foggy as I stay in the gaze of sight
The same looks from the night before are thrown
As I stand so very much on my own
As I stand and wait for my fate
Another day where comfort comes late.

Counting coins, I hear a noise, assessing every shadow,
Fingers frozen feel the chill and the burn from old tobacco.

My day is finally done
The long awaited time has come.

As I hold it up to the light,
This won’t last me through the night.
This is not enough.

He loves me,
He loves me not.
Each petal I pray.
I pray for a shot.

A shot that he loves me,
When I know it’s not true,
Because if he loved me,
He wouldn’t be dating you.

Why he dates you at all,
 I’m not so sure.
You treat him like dirt,
Then say you’re just insecure.

I know you’re much prettier,
You live with a flare.
But when he wants something quieter,
I just hope he’ll see me waiting there.

I don’t know why I waste my time,
When he doesn’t know I exist.
I just dream of true love,
Something I’m willing to persist.

I know he doesn’t love me,
It’s just not something I can admit,
So, I pick off another petal,
Hoping it’ll say the opposite.

I think it should be a diagnosis, something I can tell people whenever they start judging me for hating on others, “sorry, I have chronic jealousy, I can’t really control my feelings.” It’s not like I want to be envious of others, not like I want to feel resentful every time I see a love-struck couple in a coffee shop, or watch as my friends give out presents and think mine is so much worse than everyone else’s. I just can’t be happy for other people and that makes me a terrible person.

I’m not a terrible person.

Jealousy doesn’t make me a bad person.

It’s healthy to be a little jealous. Okay, maybe not to the extent I used to be, but still. Jealousy is a part of life and it’s there tell to us something about ourselves, about our needs. It is widely considered a ‘toxic’ emotion. Something that causes rifts in friendships and the end of relationships which therefore causes us to start expressing our jealousy as hatred – to ourselves and/or to other.

The main mistake most people make with their jealousy is telling themselves that the feeling is “wrong” or “sinful”. The guilt of jealousy is what makes it a negative emotion. In reality, by accepting and listening to your jealousy, you can better understand what it is you really want and therefore work towards your goal. Jealousy stems from a place of anxiety: the more stressed and tired you are, the more jealous your likely to be. By realising the intensity of your jealousy, you can realise just how worn down your body is and take a break. It doesn’t have to be a long one, just enough to distract yourself before your thoughts become overwhelming. Try writing a gratitude list. It may sound kind of corny, but a little gratitude can go a long way as it reminds you that while your life may not be perfect, there’s still plenty of things in life that are going for you.

Jealousy is a difficult emotion to deal with. It’s painful and difficult to express, but it festers. You have to confront your jealousy or it will only cause more issues. Remember your worth and take time for yourself.

So I may be a jealous person, but I’m also a good person and I always try to be.

AI is becoming an increasingly bigger topic in recent years. Technology is constantly improving, doing things humans struggle with and helping in all aspects of life from school homework to manufacturing cars. It’s only a matter of time before AI has mastered even the most intricate tasks such as brain surgery. However, as technology improves, more concerns surface.

In the past few weeks, I’ve read my share of newspapers – for a school project –where in every single one there were countless articles about AI. Many were about the reliability of AI, talking about what the future will look like with AI. In each article, I found the same issue reoccurring: what will happen to humanity with the constant improving of AI? By this I mean that AI is being adapted to take over more and more jobs, leaving less and less for humans who are already struggling with a unemployment crisis. This could become a major issue for future generations, and perhaps even my own, when trying to make a life for themselves.

I agree with the wonders of AI, having seen countless art designs on social media and even having my own personal AI on Snapchat of whom I talk to from time to time when needing help with homework. However, it does make me worry that humans may become too dependable on artificial intelligence when there is still a large potential of it one day failing. I believe that there should perhaps be a point where humans should settle with the AI we already have and focus on different aspects of technology.

However, if we are to adapt our lifestyles to use new AI then it should be done so in all aspects of life. School currently is very old fashioned in my opinion, even frowning on the use of technology at home for homework. I think that schools should also adapt to modern technology and use it for learning – rather than consuming millions of trees through the use of workbooks. However, this may also enhance the class divide – similar to lockdown – as the rich can afford the best technology while lower classes struggle and tend to use school granted technology.

Furthermore, technology has not been fully researched yet and increasing health problems such as poor mental health are assumed to be side affects from spending too much time in front of screens. It’s also evident younger generations who’ve grown up with this kind of technology are more familiar with its programming which may cause issues if used in the school system such as increased and easier cheating.

All of this may be my opinion, but they are influenced by things I’ve seen and heard about. AI is a very scary concept, and while the future of it worries me, I understand adapting is the best course of action.

I’d  been here before; I knew I had. There were faint memories that glowed through the corridors, full of colour that seemed distant and otherworldly, like they belonged to a stranger. The placid halls would bubble with childish laughter which brought life to the dreary classrooms. Time would slip by without any notice, a creature awaiting in the shadows preparing to pounce. Now the silence was unbearable. Time was frozen.

Faces danced through my mind, taunts of a life I would never experience again, faces of youth and innocence. They were bright and alive but brought only the knowledge that they’d grow forever dimmer until one day they would fade into the pool of maturity – destined to bring only longing for a lost childhood.

This place was different. A carcass of the land I’d once known as home. How I’d wish  to leave, to be free of those imprisoning gates. Now I long to turn back the clock, ache for just a few more precious moments of carefree banter that had been robbed from me, for just a few reprieving moments from the looming  pressure of growing up.

Where’d all the time go?

I’d been here before, but now it was foreign. It was no longer the great iron gates keeping me prisoner, but the shackles of expectations that I’d been caught in. This time there would be no escape from my new jail cell.

As the end of summer draws closer, many parents are preparing uniforms for the next year ahead. Fortunately, I’ve now come to the end of my school uniform days and can now enjoy sixth form in the comfort of my own clothes. However, this has stirred up the ever-controversial argument of whether uniform is a good idea or a bad one.

On one hand, uniform helps students appear smart – dressed in professional work attire. This helps prepare the potential futures of students in high-toned industries, as well as keeping them focused on their work rather than getting distracted by fashion choices. Keeping students equal in their school outfits prevents pupils bullying each other based on what they’re wearing or the cost of their clothing (such as not having the latest, most popular branded clothing). Additionally, pupils are essentially ‘branded’ to a specific school by using the emblem sewed onto uniforms. This helps keep students in check outside of school grounds such as on buses and in town, reducing the risk of any significant misbehaviour  by making the individuals traceable. Therefore, it can be said that uniforms can increase student safety in school and outside of school, as well as increasing their ability to blend in and focus on learning without having to worry that their clothing choices might make them a target. Uniforms may also build community in a school as students of all ages, including alumni, bond over their shared outfits.

On the other hand, uniforms can be incredibly uncomfortable – as spoken with recent experience – which can be immensely distracting during class and can result in a student missing an important piece of information or not understanding something. Uniforms – while attempting to promote equality – do not give the student any opportunity for individual growth as they cannot personalise their outfits which can lead to students becoming detached and antsy during the school day as they are forced to conform to the expectations of society. Although not always intentional, uniforms can often be sexist: expecting females to wear skirts and males to wear trousers and not always allowing cross dressing, leading to conflicts. These ideas surrounding gendered clothing are particularly outdated in our modern world. What’s more is that often school uniforms can turn out to be a lot more expensive than  ordinary clothing (it can amount to hundreds of pounds), which is very awkward for parents with multiple children in school. Students who are at a uniform age are often in the stage of life where they do the most growing and constantly replacing outgrown pieces of the uniform can be very costly!

Overall, while there are many major cons for school uniforms, schools prioritise them due to the pro of uniforms benefitting student safety, which must always come first.

If someone had told me last year that I would be diagnosed with autism in a year’s time, I probably would’ve laughed at them and walked away – and I’m sure many of my friends and teachers would’ve done the same. So, a big question many people ask about getting a diagnosis as a 15-year-old female is, how did it affect my relationships?

This is an answer that has to be broken down into segments. First is family. Unfortunately for them, my family got the short end of the straw when in came to my autism. One of the tell-tale signs about my diagnosis was that I wore a ‘mask’ at social functions, such as school. Not the mask that most people wear, but the mask where I became a chameleon towards the people I was around. I could be boisterous and loud or quite and polite when that’s what was required of me. I matched other people’s energy to try to ‘blend in’ and be liked. At home, this act came apart as I was exhausted from keeping it up all day. This led to me being short-tempered and irritable. I would often get into arguments daily, even if the words I said I didn’t mean, all because I just couldn’t control myself.

Once I got my diagnosis, my family became understanding and realised that I wasn’t being rude and difficult for the sake of it but because they were the people I could trust to love me despite what I looked like. This led to a more positive and calmer family life. Discovering my autism didn’t just help me explain my actions and attitude to them, but also to myself.

How my friendships changed was a different story. Most of my friends also have some sort of diagnosis themselves so autism wasn’t a foreign concept within our group; perhaps there was some sort of unconscious pull that led me to find people similar to me. However, this probably made it harder to tell them, as a lot of them made subjects like this into competitions about who had it worse and I didn’t feel like making my situation any worse. When I did finally tell them, nothing changed, we continued as we usually did, and no one treated me any differently. This kind of attitude was really helpful as I didn’t feel alienated from my group. I felt accepted.

When my parents told the school about my diagnosis, who went on to inform my teachers, a lot of them were surprised as I didn’t show the warning signs that some people stereotype with autism. It made my teachers realise that some of my behaviours (such as fear and reluctance to speak in class) wasn’t because I was trying to be difficult but because I just wasn’t comfortable doing so. My teachers gave me more space and leeway when it came to class activities. Also, the school finally acted on looking into my request for extra time in exams, since I panic which leads to a processing issue when answering exam questions. While this won’t be implemented until sixth form. I wouldn’t have gotten it without my diagnosis.

I don’t regret getting tested. Although I was reluctant and opposed to the idea for a number of years, having the diagnosis has changed my life. I’ve discovered and explained parts of myself that I’d always struggled with while gaining support from my family and school. While the diagnosis came a little late into my life, it’s allowed me to see just how much it’s impacted my life as a whole and allowed me to accept myself that bit more.