Broadening the Mind.

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

So, since I finished college in June, I've slowly been developing a huge gap in my life that used to be filled by my full time education. It's not merely a time gap, because I work full time now and barely have enough time to breathe as it is! Then today I began on my university application for 2014 and I read my personal statement from last year... I could barely understand a word of it. I mean, I can read it obviously, but I realised that today I couldn't write a statement nearly as sophisticated as that one. 

I think my intelligence has actually lowered in these past few months and I blame myself entirely. I have been very lazy and I assumed that writing techniques and vocabulary which I had learned in school would just stay with me, but unfortunately that is not the case. So today I have made a step on my long ladder to success by restarting my extracurricular work and research into my real passions - the history, language and cultures of foreign countries. I shall be broadening my mind with great intensity in these next few weeks, because I am determined to keep up the same capability and skill set in both Spanish and German that I left college with.

I actually feel ashamed that I did not realise this earlier. I have always been very academic (it took me ages to remember that that was the correct word, that is how bad the situation has become) and I think that keeping up my own version of education and developing my knowledge is very important for my plan to become extraordinary this year. After all, we aren't able to do anything without learning first! Here is my language blog if anyone is interested, there are things like foreign news articles, quotes and music videos on it for your amusement - sprache0chica.wordpress.com

Yours,

OrdinaryGirl

Who am I?

"There are three things incredibly hard; steel, a diamond, and to know one's self."

So I thought I would give you a slight background on myself and what's happening in my life right now, before I start on this journey of (hopefully) self discovery. I am currently 18, nearly 19. I have finished college and I did relatively well in my exams, although not as well as I had hoped. I studied languages; Spanish and German, and Biology for some odd reason.

This year I went on a skiing holiday with my aunt and uncle to Zell am See, Austria. While there I decided that I didn't actually want to go to university this year at all because I'm sick of the structure and the constant education and the hard work that comes with it. So now I'm taking a gap year and I'm doing a ski course in Austria to become a Ski Instructor for the season. All of which I am funding mostly myself.

At the moment I am working full time in a fast food restaurant (I won't tell you which one). I'm not ashamed of this at all and it has actually helped me a little towards my goal for this gap year. I save every penny I earn and even still it is going to be a very tight purse that comes with me to Austria!

I live with my parents who I'm sure I will mention again, and I have a sister who is 20 and in university in Wales at the moment. There's not really much else to say as of yet, although I'm sure I will be wanting to moan about work soon seeing as I have an extremely hard week of shifts coming up... So yeah. That's me. For now.

Yours,

OrdinaryGirl

Change is the Essence of Life.

"Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become."

So I am OrdinaryGirl. The name is probably a huge cliché, but in my opinion it rings true and people always say be true to yourself, right? I'm ordinary. I admit that there is nothing particularly special about me, I'm average in almost every way. Ordinary job, ordinary family, ordinary friends (kinda)... But don't worry, this isn't going to be "just another whining teen's blog" about arguments with friends and those "mean girls at school" and sob stories about boys. Of course, some of those things may factor in at a few points (I am a girl after all)! 

In actual fact, I am writing this blog for myself, a sort of self-improvement plan I guess. I am tired of being ordinary. Average just doesn't cut it for me anymore, and I figure that now is the exact right time for me to change what I am now and become the person that I know I can be if I let myself. I am going to become extraordinary. No longer will I blend into the background of life and let everything wash past me. I am going to make a change this year to better myself in every way; how I act, how I think about things, how I treat people... So yeah, that is the plan. I want to make a difference and I suppose this blog is going to be a sort of documentation of my path from unremarkable to exceptional.

I am Becoming Extraordinary. Who knows? Maybe I will inspire someone else to do the same. 

Yours,

OrdinaryGirl