DECEMBER!!

Okay so let's start things with saying "WOW!!" It feels as if the year had only just started and it's coming to an end already. Which means that in less than 50 days I'll be leaving to go back to the UK. As you'd probably guess this isn't the worst news in the world. but to be honest it's not the best news either. I love New Zealand, more so due to the people as opposed to the country, but i suppose it could be worse. So far since being here it has been a bit of a roller-coaster journey. There have been good times and Just don't even go there times, but as of right now I can safely say I wouldn't change a thing. The things that have happened have taught me some valuable life lessons and I'm not about to forget them in a hurry. So what are these lessons, I suppose I should answer that right?? 

 So life lesson one: Look after Number 1 and by number 1 I mean ME/YOU/I, basically yourself. This doesn't mean you have to become self-centered, but to look out for you. Okay??

 Next life lesson: Actions have consequences, whether they are good or bad. You make your bed and you have to lie in it. Sometimes the decisions of others can affect you, and all you can do is stand tall, head up high and ride out the storm. 

 So the very last lesson is simple, Have opinions, have goals, have desires, dreams, wishes, hopes and aspirations and most of all have faith that one day your dreams will come true. But most of all remember this, when one door closes another door opens. You may not see the light now, but in time all will become clear.

"For with each dawn, she found new hope that someday, her dreams of happiness would come true."

So I guess I should quit with the life coaching attempts, heh ¬.¬'' I guess i'm not good at it after all, but oh well. Right so what else can I update you with. Well lets see, the last post I really had a good talk to you with, kinda ended on a depressing note. But I can say since then things have been moving on up. Booyahh hunny!! Right so my birthday happened, I got a new job, I went on a road trip with friends and I started learning to drive. So yeah, not that much has happened but it's been far more eventful than my life has been since I finished school. Guess that shows how much of an anti-social person I am. 

I'm 22 and next year (no surprise) I'll be turning 23. I'd have thought that by now I'd have everything in life basically sorted. Well guess what, it hasn't happened yet. I'm still as childish as ever and I still have no control over my life. So how do you suppose I change this?? First step, learning to drive. Once I have managed to do that my world will open up. I won't be relying on others to get me from A to B, I'll be able to take myself places. So what are my future plans aside from driving? I plan on learning to love myself and appreciate me for what I can provide on my own. I want to be able to buy my own car, rent my own place and hold a steady job. I don't want to be a woman who needs a man, but rather a woman that a man needs. :| Yeah that sounded way better in my head that it does on here but hopefully you get the message right?? It's not like people take that much notice of what I write on here, or do they?? 

Okay so lets switch it up. For the past couple of months I've noticed things changing. I'm no longer agreeing with everything people say and I've kicked the people pleasing habit to a certain degree. I've been doing things my way and have started to feel better for it. I am me and no-one else can be a better me. 

So maybe I should tell you a little bit about myself ( not that you don't know too much already ) 

I'm a 22 year old woman trying to swim in the sea of life. I have lots of hobbies and interests but they all seem to be old granny hobbies; Crosstitching, Sewing, Baking, Knitting, scrapbooking etc... I love music, I basically have a favourite song from every genre, from the heavy metal and Screamo, to the classical melodies. I also love movies, with my favourite genre being thriller/psychological horrors and my least fave genre being comedies. But on saying that I do love  a good Adam Sandler movie, Will Smith, The carry on series and a couple more comedy films :/ SO I guess I'm a bit of a contradiction. But the truth be told that's me all over. I don't like dogs and yet I want a puppy, I hate the colour pink and yet I have pretty much everything in pink. I prefer Winter to summer, Spring to Autumn. White to Black, Gothic to girly, Night to day and the list goes on. My lucky number is 7, though I always seem the find the number 3 doing more favours for me. I love Tarot cards and mystical creatures such as fairies, demons, witches and all things magical, but I don't believe in them. My star sign is cancer and my favourite crystal is Amethyst. So that's it, I don't think I've missed too much out :3

Right so as for the life changing lessons, this is what I've been doing to fix all the mistakes that I keep making. I try to be happy and not let stress get to me which has caused me to develop the f**k it mentality. kinda strange right. The mentality is this, I was anxious about flying to New Zealand on my own, but then suddenly I realised If I didn't take that step I'd be stuck in my hometown forever, the solution is simple, I just thought f**k it, and pushed myself forward. Another way for you to look at it is the "bite the bullet" theory. As at the end of the day if you don't try then you'll always fail, but if you take that chance you have the opportunity to succeed in life. I chose to stop letting my fears control my life, I'm in the driving seat now and THIS IS MY LIFE!!!!

New Zealand Trip - Part 1

Ok so where should I start? At the beginning I guess. SO on the 5^th February 2014 I arrived in New Zealand, a little jet lagged but so happy and excited. The first day here I was shown around the town and got to have a quick look at what the town was like. It was nice, a little quiet, but hey it’s not Wales right??

So then on my first full day here I found myself with nothing to do. I was taken to a market festival during lunch which was nice but it was over pretty quickly and I found I had gone back to having nothing to do. This is what the first couple of weeks were like, admittedly I was taken to get a new phone and to get a bank account but nothing really happened. 

Then almost two weeks later things changed, my aunt’s new husbands niece came back to stay with them so things became a lot more interesting in the house. Introducing Little Miss Robyn. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of her as I’d heard stories from my aunt and she didn’t exactly paint a good impression of Robyn. I didn’t want to be the annoying relative that she was forced to be friends with. I also thought that seeing as she’s older we wouldn’t have much to talk about. But guess what? I was wrong.

Meeting Robyn turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to me since coming to New Zealand. It gave me the opportunity to speak to someone and be honest with myself about how I truly felt. This is because she didn’t judge me and I could pretty much say whatever was on my mind, even if it cause a few weird looks. It was good to be able to be myself around such a happy and confident person. She made me feel more confident and brave I guess you could say.

Robyn was the one who helped me to get a job here, she set up the meeting and I went and got signed up for work. She was also the one who helped to do my first bit of travelling since being here. We went to Queenstown and it was an amazing experience for me, you’d have to ask Robyn for her opinion, but I think she enjoyed it too. In order to get to Queenstown I had to purchase bus tickets online, however as I did and still don’t have a debit card I wasn’t able to. In comes Robyn, she let me use her card so that I could pay for bus tickets and accommodation. I transferred the money to her and she entered her details. Job done, yay. Robyn offered, my aunt did not :\

Not long after Robyn arrived, her and my aunt had a falling out which resulted in Robyn moving out. When this happened I was upset as I couldn’t figure out what she was supposed to have done to make my aunt hate her so much. Yes my aunt does hate her, she tells me so pretty much every time she ever mentions Robyn. She’s on a “Make Leigh hate Robyn” campaign at the moment but that’s another story.

So lets talk about Queenstown. It was great, admittedly the long bus journey there was so damn boring, but it was worth it. The first night we arrived in QT (QT-Queenstown) late at night so we checked into the hostel, put our bags away and then went out for dinner. We had thai food and what I ordered was damn hot that I couldn’t eat it :,). After that we went back to our dorm/room and went to sleep.

The next day we were up early to catch the bus to do the Milford Sound tour. It was another long drive but yet again it was worth it. The views on the way down were amazing and I wish I could have taken better photos but unfortunately I’m crap at photography so that didn’t happen :,). When we arrived at Milford Sound to the cruise I was amazed that there could such a beautiful place tucked away here in NZ. The cruise that we went on was short, about an hour and a half, but it was filled with breath-taking views and it was simply amazing. I took lots of pictures but as I’m not great at photography they didn’t all turn out great, but that’s okay at least I tried, right?

So day 3 of QT, not much happened, we had a browse through the shops and got to have a look at the beautiful scenery around the town, it was a good day. The one thing that sticks in my mind though is when we went to price up some adrenaline things for Robyn. We went to a place called Peter Pans and asked about the different things. We ended up deciding to do the Shotover Canyon swing, or should I say I decided to do it. I kind of didn’t give Robyn much of a choice, I told her that she’s doing it as I wanted to and I wasn’t going to do it alone. XD So after we’d booked it we were able to relax for the rest of the evening.  We went on a self-made mini pub crawl, which was a lot of fun. We went into a bar that was pretty much inside of a freezer, Minus 5 and boy did it live up to its name. We were given warm coats to wear and gloves. It was great, we stayed and had 2 vodka cocktails each before moving onto the next place. So that’s pretty much how we spent our night. :3

On the day of the canyon swing, I was so nervous that I woke up every hour starting at 5 and finishing at 10. All the while Robyn was still all cwtched up in bed sleeping peacefully. As I was awake and bored and I didn’t really want to wake her up, I got up showered, and went for a short walk. By the time I got back to the room, she was awake and it was almost time for us to head over to the meet up point for the canyon swing. The actual canyon swing was one of the scariest and most amazing things I have ever done in my life and I’m so thankful to Robyn for being there and helping me to do it. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been there. I have photos and a video of the event, which I won’t be sharing because I don’t think Robyn would be too happy with it lol, plus  I screamed like a baby so it’s kind of embarrassing for me. Haha

So that’s pretty much it for the Queenstown trip. After we got back to Ashburton we parted ways and I’ll admit I got upset, At the house, not when I said goodbye to Robyn. Kind of pathetic right? I was just sad that Robyn was all the way on the other side of town and that I wasn’t able to speak to her as easily as I used to , when she was living with us. I got a little depressed but it was sorted the next day :,) I was able to talk to Robyn and clear the air so to speak.

So for the next couple of weeks I wasn’t able to speak to Robyn much and this made me upset. It made me think how can I be so upset over someone I’ve only just met, It’s kind of weird. So on the 20^th March We met up for one last meal in NZ, Robyn was flying home the next day and I wanted to be able to say goodbye. I was working in the day and was almost in tears when I was told we had to work late as I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see Robyn before she left. Fortunately I was able to meet up with her. We had a meal and went out for a drink and we were able to have a really long chat which was good. When it came to saying goodbye, I didn’t want Robyn to go. I understand that she had already been in NZ for 10 months and that she wanted to see her family, I guess I was selfish but I wanted her to stay. On the way back to the house, she walked me halfway back, I kept looking behind me as I was afraid that when I did I’d find that she had disappeared. But she didn’t, halfway to the house we stopped, had a hug and ended up talking more before one last hug and parting ways. On the way back to the house I was devastated that she was going, it hurt and I can’t say why but it just did. When I got in the house, My aunt asked why I was so upset, and all I could say was “Because I don’t want Robyn to go” before starting to cry so I left the room and went and had a good cry in my room :,) I found that the way my aunt reacted was pretty cold, which made things worse. She could have at least pretended to care.

So after the realisation that Robyn was gone, back home, I found myself in tears every time someone mentioned her not being here.  It took me a while to get used to, which is weird because like I said I’d only known her for little over a month but her absence left a big void that was hard to cope with. It was made worse then, when my aunt would change the subject or stop talking whenever I mentioned Robyn’s name. It was almost as if it was a taboo subject, which I found hard. Especially seeing as I only ever seem to talk about Robyn, or so I’ve been told haha lol

So yes, that’s about as far as I’m going to for now. I have more to say but I have to figure out how to put into words, if that makes sense. A lot has happened since Robyn left which is kind of surprising seeing as she’s only really been gone a little over 2 weeks :,) 

I’ll update soon but for now Bye bye xx

Update and reason for my blog!

I can't believe how long it's been since i last wrote on here, it's shocking. When I first started this blog in 2009 I had hoped that I would update regularly and by this time I'd have thousands of blog posts, and yet I only have 13 well 14 if you include this one. I thought that if i had a blog I'd be able to write about all the amazing things that I did, except I never did, any amazing things that is. 

My first goal was to make friends as someone who had recently been cut off from her friends I was lonely and a little depressed ( okay so maybe it was more that a little) and I wanted people to talk to. I know people would say go join a club or go out with your friends, have fun. But how can you do that when you have no friends. My brother didn't understand he was popular and everyone loved him, my sister well she had her boyfriend, her son plus she had her friends so she didn't understand either. I used to find talking to people really hard and no matter how hard I tried to talk loudly nobody heard, and they would walk away. To me I was shouting and to them I was barely whispering. New situations scared me and the thought of meeting new people filled me with dread. I hated talking on the phone, the very thought of having to phone someone (even family) made me want to cry. I used to panic and think people would think I was weird, as sometimes I found it difficult to talk and forget words. It embarrassed me and made me feel so stupid. 

But that wasn't all of my problems. i never thought the same way that people my age thought, I always seemed to get along better with people who were younger than me. Which is weird considering when I was 8 I was the one who told people in my class where babies came from and preferred to read Cosmo and Elle and grown-up magazines like that. I loved make-up, doing my nails and my hair. But the one thing that was different then compared to when I started this blog at 16 was, back then I liked my own company. I was bullied in school and felt I didn't fit in. I hated this country that my parents had moved us to, (not that I remember South Africa much) I used to wish we could go home, but it never happened. Whenever my mom used to say that we were moving back, i'd get so happy, I was finally going to be free of this hell. but time and time again my mom would say the plans off we're staying here. I'd be devastated each time, Hoping that maybe this time she actually means it, but she never did.

Growing up in Wales as a foreigner was hard, the kids in my school were horrible and I used to wish I could disappear. It's sad that the age of 8 I wanted to die. I used to think that it would be so easy, all I had to do was step off that pavement out into the traffic, I used to have to force myself to stop and walk normally. Taking pills, hanging myself, drowning and cutting my wrists, I used to think about it all the time. Wouldn't it be better if the ground would open up and swallow me whole, to be dead and free from their torment. I'd tried drowning myself on multiple occasions, by trying to fall asleep whilst in the bath so i wouldn't feel it, other times and shove my face in a sink of water and pray that it'd work but it never did. Pills? I would have done except my parents never kept them in the house,  only a few things but not enough to do any harm. The thing that scared me the most about suicide was not the dying and having my parents find me, it was the thought of what if I fail? What then? Would people look at me differently? Would they think I was crazy? or Would they understand that I hurt and wanted it to stop? I don't know when I stopped trying, but I know that I've only recently discovered what true happiness is. Back then I couldn't tell you what happy meant, I still couldn't tell you know, but I'm trying. I remember telling my sister that I was trying to be happy and she told me she knew, but did she really mean it or was she trying to stop me from going over the edge.

I guess your thinking what could be so bad as to make an eight year suicidal right? Honestly I couldn't tell you. It was the small things they said and did day after day. 'Grinch' and 'Witch' were the names the called me. "Go back to your own country", " Go back so you can get killed to" and that wasn't the worst, When my cousin Christina died, they laughed and joked about it. At that moment I died a little inside, from then on I stopped trying to be their friend, I didn't want to be like them. They were racist and cruel. They used to think they were so fantastic and that being Welsh made them Gods. But from my experience and from what other members of my family had to go through, I can safely say I'd rather be dead that call myself Welsh.

The Welsh made me miserable and lonely. They also made me (in the words of my moms friend) "afraid of people". I was constantly worrying about what people thought and it made me anxious. I know I've always been a quiet person but when I'm with people I know I'm loud and speak my mind. After secondary school that changed, I was quiet even with family and more so in college. I looked afraid all the time and I hated it. 

When I started college I though things would change, I would be happy and I'd have friends. But yes you guessed it, it didn't happen. When I went into my Geography lecture I found I was in the same class as my former best-friend. I thought that maybe if we talked we could go back to being friends, instead she ignored me. Every time I tried to talk to her it was like speaking to a brick wall, she didn't reply to anything I said. It was made worse when I found out I was in the sames classes as some of my other former-friends,  In someways that was okay, because at least they talked to me. but then I'd hear them talk about me in the corridor as I walked passed and it hurt. We used to be friends and then we were nothing. I used to hide in the library in between lectures and brought my own food so that I never had to go to the canteen.  Eventually I made a few friends but then my old ones got in the way and eventually I was on my own again.

After that I quit college and signed up for an Army prep course that by one remaining (kind of sad huh) friend had just finished. She looked so happy whilst on the course that I thought (rather stupidly) that if I went on it, I too would be happy, but it didn't work out. After that I went on a work scheme, where you tried a job for 8 weeks and had the opportunity to gain some low level qualifications whilst you worked. In some ways it was the turning point in my life but in others it was terrible.

The first placement i went to was in a Nursery day center. The job wasn't bad and I enjoyed looking after the children. The problem however was the fact that the place was short staffed and they expected us (the 3 of us there on work experience)  to look after the children, your probably thinking "isn't that what you were there to do?" In some ways yes and others no. The staff would either be in the office, staff room or the kitchen, which meant that the children ( some as young as 9 months) were left alone with us. Bearing in min the oldest out of the three of us was only 17. It was a horrific experience to be suddenly made responsible for them at 16. I remember the day one of the babies (1 yr old) fell and I told staff. They had a go at me because I apparently hadn't checked to see if he had any injuries properly. I mean what was I meant to do, I didn't know what to do. They should have been there with me supervising, but they weren't. After that I finished and went onto another placement. Fortunately it wasn't childcare. that incident has scarred me for life.

Okay, so that's it. Part of my life story at least, maybe I'll write more another time, but at the moment thinking back on when I was younger is hard, it makes me sad. I wish I could erase that part of my life, but I guess in some ways it's whats made me the person I am today. Hopefully good, stronger and maybe a little bit happier.