In my case, I had just finished my PGCE about a month ago, and like all my friends on the course I was looking for my first teaching job. This is probably one of the most competitive jobs out there and I was not the only one looking out of their comfort zone and branching out to other counties or even other countries. One of them now teaches in Spain, which is amazing! I and about three others landed our first job in London. Before I go on, this is not going to be a blog post on surviving your first year of teaching. What I want to write about is something even scarier but at the same time, so exciting.
I had only ever been to London once before when I was 16 with my Dad to celebrate finishing my GCSEs. I knew no one down there, except those three people who were on my course. My world was so small. I never thought I would ever leave the North East! I was excited to try something new and couldn't wait to explore.
I imagined going to Pickadilly Circus, shopping on Oxford Street, seeing a west end show every other weekend and exploring other cultures. And the reality was that I had no money, hardly any friends and I cried myself to sleep pretty much every night for about 3 months. I was homesick. The only thing that truly kept me sane was speaking to my parents and family back home and knowing how proud they were that I was doing this.
Well eventually I did pick myself up and gave myself a mental kick up the backside and set out to do the things I had planned in those few weeks before I moved to London. Honestly, I started to have the time of my life. The two years I spent there were scary but I wouldn't exchange that experience for anything. I learnt that this is life; you're going to have to do things that may scare you in order to live. How else do we learn?
Well that's a bit of my experience of moving away. I won't say too much, otherwise I might scare the shit out of anybody wanting to visit or even move to London. It really is a lovely city. Most of the time.
These tips I did develop over 2 years of living away from home and I hope they help people.
Take out a loan: Whether this is a student loan or a bank loan, this will help you when you first set up. There are so many things you need to sort out when you first move like a deposit on a flat and first months rent, maybe your car insurance has increased (bloody hell mine did!). This did help me out a lot when I first moved away as I wasn't due to start work until September, therefore I wouldn't be getting paid until later that month. In the case of the student loan, you don't have to pay that back until you have a job and it's only a tiny amount from your pay every month. As for a bank loan you can choose how long you want to pay them back over. They even give the option to pay it all off in one go if you're in a financially stable position later on. Not everyone will need to do this; you may have saving saved especially for this type of situation. I had never planned on moving away, so this wasn't the case for me. Taking out a loan was really helpful for me at the time.
Watch every penny: My first thought when someone said this to me was actually, 'Whatever, I'm loaded! I get £1,500 a month. Why would I ever need to watch my pennies????' I was a complete idiot! I actually forgot that grownups have bills to pay: rent, gas, electricity, car insurance, water, phone bills. On top of that, you need food. I think my spendings with bills came to about £1100 a month, and that was before I bought my groceries. Oh dear. I quickly waved bye-bye to that glamourous life-style I thought I'd be living. Any savings I had built up disappeared too. I started to write down everything I bought every month. I started to think about what I actually needed out of these things, and what was a luxury item. After I worked through this I had enough money to start doing a few sociable things every month, and I managed to buy more make-up. Hurray!
Join a club/ exercise class: Thank goodness for Collette, Colleen, Jane, Lindsay and Clare. Thank you girls you saved me many a boring night! I put on an awful lot of weight down in London. I was actually up from my original size 14 to a size 20. I was rather unhealthy and knew I had to do something about it, but couldn't bring up the energy to do anything about it. Jane came up with the idea that we should all start doing zumba. We all started going, and sure enough we all had fun, got healthier and made a lot of new friends, some I'm still friends with today. If you really don't know anyone in your new city or town, join a club, you get to have a good banter and have fun. You will make new friends who may be able to help you find places to help you in my next tip.
Get yourself out the house: Even if it's just for a walk down the street or a trip to do some window shopping. It is so easy to get depressed and homesick when you don't know the area, and you can psyche yourself out to never step outside in case something happens to you, as you heard this thing happened to a girl not far from here. I always imagine I was like Marshall from How I Met Your Mother when he first moves to New York. I made it my weekly duty to go somewhere every saturday, just to have time to myself. I found some places I shared with friends this way, and got to know the many good aspects of the place I'd chosen to live too.
Don't be tough: If you do get homesick, don't bottle it up, tell someone. If you're at uni there will be loads of people feeling the same way, you can talk to each other and help each other out. You never know, you could start exploring your new home together and help each other out of your slump. And always remember, your family are right at the other end of a phone call. Chances are, they're missing you just as much as you miss them.
And finally..... As awesome as your experiences will be, always remember that if you hate being away from your home so much, remember you can always come back. No one would ever force you to do something that you hate. I hope not anyway. Always remember, going home is always an option for you if things get too bad.
I did eventually return home, I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but the experiences I gained from following these tips will benefit me for the rest of my life.
If there's anything that you feel helped you if you moved away from home, leave them as a comment below.
Enjoy your day guys,
Byeee
xxx