Monday, 30 December 2013

Crisis over!

I have completed my shifts at Crisis for this year. I only did 3 but it was a great insight into another world. I intend to do it again next year.
I met some lovely people...I didn't expect to feel quite so sad to leave these guys, knowing I have a home to go to and they don't.
We did some more karaoke yesterday. We had a young volunteer with an amazing voice who started it up and a few of the guests came to join in. Even if they didn't know the song their improvisation skills were awesome! 
I wrote out some certificates for everyone who participated over the days I was there and I did not expect the response I got. I was expecting people to say "what's this? I don't want this rubbish"... But instead they treated their certificates like I'd given them gold. I did also give them gold coins, but they were unfortunately only chocolate! They were so proud to receive them. A few of them said they'd never received anything like it before and they were so happy. Another went round telling the others to get a plastic folder to put them in so they could keep it forever and show all their friends. I'm touched that a piece of paper could put such big smiles on their faces. I wrote them all personal messages on their certificates so I hope they take notice of what I said and realise they are amazing and can achieve anything they want. If they want to....

I was amazed to see how well our debate class, creative writing and drama lesson went. There's so much talent amongst these people. They just need to build some confidence to show it. One of the girls gave out a notebook as a prize for creative writing. The receiver treasured it and showed us the next day how proud he was of his new book and had already written poems into it. He says he is going to write his life story and experiences in it. I'd love to read that. 

I spoke to a lovely bubbly girl who was brought up just near me. She refused to ask for help. She thinks the government won't help her and she shouldn't get benefits. She sees the people around her on drugs and thinks they get all the help and is too scared to be housed as in the past it's only brought bad experiencesand she doesn't want to be led on the wrong path. She was so paranoid about everything. I guess living with a constant eye open makes you like that. Considering she said all this, you'd have never have guessed. She was a beautiful bubbly girl who I bet could achieve so much. 
I felt angry that she was such a lovely girl but wasn't getting any help, so I persuaded her to come with me to the advice office and get some help. Even if it was only for a little while, so she could fulfill her dream of getting a boat with her boyfriend. I hope they helped her somehow...and I hope this time next year the two of them are living happily on the river :) 

Some stories shocked me. I see so many people on benefits, with kids, buying xboxes, crack, wasting money, yet most of the people I spoke to who actually want to try, get nothing. I wish I understood how our government works. 

Saying goodbye was pretty hard. My usual act would be to avoid it and slip away silently. But this time I found each and every guest I'd talked to a lot and said goodbye and wished them well. It was so hard knowing they were all going to have to leave the next day and have nowhere to go... 
One told me it wasn't goodbye because he knew he was going to see me again someday. He was my karaoke king and resident DJ. He was awesome. 
I hope I do see them again... But I hope it's because we will be working together at Crisis next year. 

My mindset has changed. 
Who cares if I'm not perfect...I try... Although it's never good enough, maybe it is... 
I feel more confident. Why shouldn't I strike up conversation with random people and be myself. What is it about myself that I have to hide away... I'm me... I need to start realising who I am...

I'm sitting in Starbucks at Waterloo, writing this.... And I noticed a little girl watching me for a long time so I said hi. 5 mins later I had 2 little girls crowding me, asking me what I'm doing, where I'm going... 
I think their father was quite embarrassed.
I've never had that before. 
Told me her favourite Xmas present was toothpaste.... Random

Chris, David, Melvin, Nuala, Jay, Jess, Rob, Taylor, Isa and many others....I hope someday you read this or I see you again so that I can tell you all that you also helped me... Xx 

Saturday, 28 December 2013

What a crisis!

It's Christmas... A time for giving and eating... In my eyes. I've eaten too much over the last year so I decided not to sit on my ass and stuff my face but to go and do something useful. 
So at 6:30am on Xmas morning I got in my car and drove to London Bridge to start my day as Entertainment Organiser for Crisis at Christmas. A centre for the homeless which opens all over London over the Xmas period. My friend told me about it a few years ago and I've wanted to take part for a while... I just never gave up my stuffing, sausage meat and gravy...until now.
So I arrived at the centre, completely out of my comfort zone, worried about what I'd volunteered to do. I'm not exactly the most confident of people...so facing a load of new people and having to entertain people who don't have homes to go to... How do I do that?!!! With my scintillating conversation and outgoing bubbly personality...ermmm I think not. 
One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because of the above. Challenging myself to do something I'm not comfortable with is only going to help me.... So being forced to randomly talk to people I'd never thought to talk to before, striking up conversations with people from all walks of life was challenging but a great eye opener. 

So....my first hour consisted of being daunted. If that's not a real word, it is now. Taking in what was going on around me.... People hanging around, watching TV, sitting, pondering, staring, talking.... I stood on the sideline for a bit and watched. My thoughts were "how am I going to entertain these people".... I had no idea what so ever. But hang on, before that, I'm going to have to engage with them to get them to come with me to be entertained... That means going over and speaking...about what... Totally out of my comfort zone .... Totally. 
Thankfully there was another volunteer who knew what she was doing. She told me how things work there and I realised I've got to stop sitting on the sideline and do something... So I started making posters to show what activities we had planned for the day. A volunteer singer/guitarist, Bingo, Jewellery making and Karaoke. Sitting making the posters a few passers by stopped to see what we were doing. "Are you creative? Come and help me!" I said, and from then on my comfort zone barrier slipped away as guests helped to make posters and chatted. These people may be homeless but why am I so intimidated. They are a human being just like me. No different. I realised, although I don't judge, I was intimidated by people, stereotyping homeless, to what I've experienced before. Usually drunk people hanging around in groups, sometimes shouting out. But so what. Everyone has a right to express their opinion. It may not be right but who cares. As long as you're not hurting someone. You know what, today on my 2nd shift. I was one of the group. I sat outside in a circle with 5 homeless guests, chatting...and realised, I'm sitting in a group that I was once intimidated by. I imagined seeing myself if I walked past, in that situation. I never thought I would see that. My stereotype or rather my intimidation was wrong. I sat with 5 others today, having a laugh, finding out about the past and present, arranging to do karaoke together...just like anyone else would. What a strange situation to find myself in. I got nicknamed "eyes" because I have 'Chinese' eyes and got hugged for chatting and having normal conversation. 
I can't really describe my thoughts right now as it's still processing. Once I've finished my shifts I'll try to put my thoughts into words...

The rest of the days went on with organising activities/entertainment for the guests. In the food area, we started karaoke. The guests watched us dubiously at first. And there's me, who won't sing in front of anyone, draw attention to myself at any cost...singing and dancing to try to get the guys up with us. 
A few of the guys edged toward us, sitting in front of us singing quietly under their breaths. So I handed them the mic... "Nooooo" they protested. Clutching the mics, 10 mins later their lovely voices got louder. 20 mins later they were standing up. 30 mins later we had 4 guests singing and dancing. It was so lovely to see smiles on their faces, enjoying themselves. I stepped away at one point and watched from afar. My thoughts were lost with emotion. I wish I could do something to give these guys better lives. To have a home to go to and make something of their lives. Which I, and they, know they can. 

I made my karaoke star an origami balloon today with "X the Karaoke king" written on it. I was happy to see he sat with it in front of him for most of the day :) Tomorrow I'm going to find him for a duet of Angels.

I'm tired now... I have one more shift tomorrow and although at times I've been dubious about going to Crisis, I'll miss seeing some of the great people I've met. I'd love to know how they all get on and hope Crisis helped them to see that they are amazing people just like everyone else and they CAN do anything they want....
I'll write more when my last shifts done... Hopefully before my next shift next Xmas :) 


Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Fulfilling a light dream

I've been trawling the internet for weeks looking for where to go on holiday next. A hot country? An interesting city? Visit Santa? And I finally decided to check off one on my travel list and decided on Iceland. I searched Reyjavik high and low for a good deal in which I wouldn't end up in a cheap b&b (when I say cheap, I guess I mean tacky...as nothing's cheap in Iceland) with a nightclub in the basement and tourists flooding the place. 
I kept searching and kept losing patience at how many options there were. I decided to ring the company who sorted out my Burma flights who have the most exceptional service I've ever experienced from a travel company. It's Dial-A-Flight, by the way. 
They suggested a holiday to a place in the middle of nowhere in South Iceland. Specifically for Northern lights, which is why I want to go Iceland. 
The hotel has outdoor hot tubs and surrounded by lakes, mountains and glaciers. It looks amazing. Although the price deterred me a bit...you only live once! 
I just hope I actually manage to capture some northern lights. Watching them from a hot tub sounds pretty amazing to me! And hopefully I can make some snow angels and snowmen too :) 

It's been weird not travelling this year. I can't say I miss it.... But I do miss visiting random places I've never been to before. Working in an office environment, although not quite the normal office, is quite a change. I have to sit still for long periods of time! Not easy for someone like me... I've been used to bounding around the world, constantly being busy and physically active. 
Now I eat cake and play with servers. 

Anyway I am too excited about going away again in December. I can't wait. It always excites me to go to a new place and I usually look for the unusual. I am still searching the net for random things that can be done while in Iceland. I have 5 days to fit as much chilling, light searching and snow playing in :) 
Bring on December! 

Friday, 20 September 2013

An inspirational star

A few weeks ago I got an email from my local cinema - one that has sofas and wine coolers and you can order food to your sofa. It's amazing! Recommend it if you have one near you - Everyman cinemas. Anyway before I go off on a tangent.... The email was an advert for a preview for a new film called Hawking. I had no idea what it was and saw that the evening also included a Q&A with a Professor Hawking. Professor Stephen Hawking. 
At school, science for me consisted of going to classes and playing with bunsen burners and chemicals and generally not paying much attention. I'm not a sciency maths person... I'm an English, art, PE person. Anyway, when I saw this I had to go. The story of a man who talks through a computer. That's pretty much all I knew about him. 
The film started and we were shown the life of Professor Hawking. Afterwards a satellite Q&A hosted by that annoying dude who hosts edgy documentaries and used to do the news. 
He annoyed me as when Mary Hawking was up to talk, he'd ask her questions and without giving her time to answer would interrupt and carry on talking. We're not here to listen to you host man...
Then the ultimate fail... Stephen Hawkings turn to be on stage came and it was like they didn't know he was coming. He was sat about 2 feet left from the host the entire time, but he was asked to go around the stage to the other side and they struggled for about 10 minutes trying to squeeze Stephen along the front and onto the stage. At which point I tweeted the host saying "can you not just turn your chair around and go to Stephen?!!" He sat and watched all this going on like a helpless character. It was an embarrassing scene. 

Anyway, my thoughts have been immersed by what I saw last night. I am totally amazed at the strength and character of this 71 year old man, who was told he had 2 years to live at the age of 20. 
He is a true inspiration. His voice is heard by him moving a muscle in his cheek to select letters and words on the screen which is then read out by the computer. He does this at a rate of 1 word every 3 seconds. Can you imagine having to do that? It takes me 3 seconds to think of a word sometimes! 
He has achieved so much in his life so far, despite having an awful illness. If I were in his shoes, I feel I would have given up. Having this enormous brain trapped in a slowly deteriorating body to the point now where only a few muscles remain working. 

It makes me ashamed of how i have acted sometimes. I have been in a place before where I didn't know how to carry on with life anymore. Compared to this amazing man, I'm ashamed to have even had those thoughts. He has inspired me to find determination and overcome anything. 

Not only is Professor Hawking an intelligent man who discovered the black hole theory and lots of other universy things that are way beyond my brain capacity, his humour and wittiness shows through and his personality can be seen through his eyes and expression. It saddens me that such a man has had to suffer this disability, but his attitude is inspiring.

I hope he lives a long time and continues to inspire other people and I hope things can be developed in order to make his life easier. I also hope he fulfils his dream of getting to space. 

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet"
Stephen Hawking


Friday, 19 April 2013

A day off to sort my life out

I am a hoarder.... And it is now time to get rid of the rubbish I've kept over the years, thinking that I can't throw them away or I'll use them again someday. Who am I kidding...no I won't. How old am I? 13? Keeping hold of my Japanese eraser collection, the hundreds of cheap make up, plastic jewellery, books....they all now need to go.
Have you ever had a massive clear out? Do you know the feeling of when you start clearing and sorting through things and suddenly your room looks like a bombs hit it... You can't walk on the floor, your bed is covered in a mountain so high of clothes that you could ski down it.... And then you hit a point where you don't know what to do with it all and the thought of sorting through it is unbearable so you sit there and procrastinate... That's what I'm doing now.... Playing pointless games on my ipad, thinking of where I can go and take some photos....eating, for the sake of eating to pass time... Texting my friends to tell them what I'm doing... Hmmm what else can I do to buy a few more minutes :)

But once I've got over my procrastinating and get back on it...hopefully my room will be clean and won't be filled with clutter! Another step toward making my life clutter free. In my room and my mind!

I bought some new lenses for my camera this week. I haven't picked up my camera and taken any creative photos for what feels like a few years. That's my next mission. To pick that up again. I can't wait to go out and see what these lenses can do! Going to get on the urban exploring path again and find weird and wonderful places to explore!

On another note, I started helping at the local theatre again. We're rehearsing a play called Violette which was written by the director. It's a very emotional play about a girl during WW2. I'm prompting and photographing :) I was away working for the auditions, but maybe next time I'll find some confidence to actually audition again! Can't wait to see the play come together, and I hope I can capture the emotion in photographs for memories for the cast and to promote the show.

I suppose I'd better get back to de-cluttering..... That's enough procrastinating... For now :)

Sunday, 7 April 2013

Serious subject no.1: Bullying

Bullying can be defined to so many different opinions. One may think bullying is funny and just a joke, one may think others deserve it, one may intentionally try to hurt another....
It's not funny.

I've watched so many YouTube videos lately on various subjects. When you watch a video, related videos pop up and you end up watching random videos on random subjects... Now bullying is one that I found disturbing.
There seems to be so many people that feel bullied which lead them to have suicidal thoughts, lack self esteem and self confidence. And I bet the people don't realise that this is how they're words and actions make other people feel. We are all the same human beings. Why should one person think they are more intelligent than another, more good looking than another, think that in any way they are better than another...

Words can hurt. You may not think that your one sentence can hurt that other person... You may think that you're just joking...but how do you know how the other person is going to take what you are saying. Maybe they have other issues in their life and your words relate to them. Don't say things to other people that you wouldn't like if they said it to you. Think before you speak.
I think bullying can depend on the person. You can take people's words how you want to. Some may be able to ignore them, disregard it...others may be affected by them.
I see teenagers and adults on YouTube, crying out for help.... Some threatening to end their life and others who have ended their life. Because of words said to them by someone else. This is unacceptable. Why should someone be made to feel like that. Alienated and bullied to the point that they want to take their life. It's not a sign of weakness... It's how people have made them feel. If you're constantly told you are useless, worthless, no one will ever want you, no one wants to be your friend... You start to believe it. Especially if you are young and impressionable.

I wish I could do something to stop things like this happening but I can't. Life is full of this and for some reason, there is always a problem with race, weight, height, gender, sex and sometimes...no reason. Just because people have been bullied themselves they feel the need to bully other people. I think bullies usually have their own insecurities and have to hurt someone else to make themselves feel a better person. This is wrong.

I think we all have words we regret saying to someone else... But realise it and/or fix it. No one should have to feel bullied for no reason. Every person has the same feelings and we are all the same human beings.

I hope that the people I have heard about realise how strong they are and that through all the things they experience, they will become stronger and a better person than the nasty people who hurt them.

Can't we live a life where everyone can be nice to each other?

2013, depression vs happiness

2013 has not been a barrel of laughs. I think this year has tested me and broke me and will finally make me.
I thought my year was going to be different. I had a new job back in the office and thought things were going to be more chilled out. I had a number of things happen to me lately which tested me but although sometimes I felt that I'd never recover from it, I have and I will. Things happen in life to make us stronger and I needed these changes to make me realise who I was and to really make me think about things.
Then I found myself in Australia....AGAIN. I did two races and now I can settle back into having a normal life. My life in racing is over and I am very happy that I achieved what I wanted to but I am now ready for new challenges and want to put those experiences behind me.

Depression is misunderstood. A lot of people think being depressed is just being sad... Until you've been through it you never know how it actually feels. It's a horrible disease that eats away at you and just because you're depressed it doesn't mean you're weak. To recognise it and do something about it means you're strong. I've looked at many a video on YouTube lately and I am horrified at the amount of people suffering and it pains me that I can't do anything about it. My next blog is going to be about some of the issues I've come across, because although the issues don't directly affect me, I want people to be aware of the things that happen.

I've been through depression and I needed it to make me realise who I am and who I want to be. I became lost because of many reasons which I chose to ignore until they broke me...but things always come back and bite you in the assss. Now I'm learning to deal with things, change myself for the better and be the person that I want to be. At times like these you also realise who really cares about you. I'm so grateful to a few people for showing me this and for helping me piece my life together to allow me to write this without falling apart. You know who you are, and I love you.
The last year has been full of ups and downs. Working in the job I was in, isn't the most healthy lifestyle to be in. Although it sounds glamorous, you have to be pretty strong to deal with it. It broke relationships around me, I lost who I was and I was never at home. It was hard sometimes, physically and emotionally. I'm not saying this happens to everyone. This is only related to me personally. I can't comment how it is for others.

But as I said, I shut the door on that chapter and now I'm moving onto the next. I have a lot of new challenges to face and I'm excited at the responsibility and the opportunities that lie ahead. My outlook on my work life has changed dramatically in just a week. I am now looking forward to Mondays... I'm looking forward to learning new things. I work best being thrown into the deep end, where I work as hard as I can to swim out of it and that's exactly what I'm now doing...and I'm enjoying it!

Happiness is what you make of it. What is happiness? Money? Friends? Love? Work?
For me it's none of those things. It's me. All those things play a part in finding happiness, but the main thing is what is inside me. My heart and my soul. If I can be happy with myself, then other things are an added bonus to make me even happier. I want to be the perfect person that I can be, without hurting anyone with unkind words or actions, I want people to know who I am before they judge me and hurt me, i want to love myself and show other people why. I've made mistakes and I've learnt a lot from them. I won't be making the same mistake twice.

Now, if you ever suffer from depression, don't think that you are alone. You're not. Some people will help you and stick by you, others will disappear...but it only makes you realise who is meant to be in your life. Talk to people, don't hide your feelings like I did and pretend to be ok. Deal with the problems and get over it to move on. If you need to, seek medical help. There's lots out there and this is a good site for advice...even if you're not unhappy. It can't hurt to build on positive emotions and cognitive behaviour and therapy has always interested me:

http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk

Keep smiling and think positive :)