Becoming a Grown Up

I finish my undergraduate degree in 10 days (even though I don't technically graduate until July) and there are several things which I plan to do after I've finished.

In my three years living in Cardiff I've mainly (believe it or not) focussed on my degree. That and making friends, forming new relationships and 'finding myself'. Ha. So now that I'm finishing I feel like I should rejoin my former self and incongregate myself into the Cardiff community. I want to embrace my talents and actually achieve other things extra-curricular...ly now that I have my fancy 'BAAAA' (or just BA, I've been told) after my name.

The first is obvious, and probably the most upsetting and scary for me: find a job. Right now it's any job which will allow me to pay rent and live comfortably. I'm hoping for £12k upwards. Chance would be a fine thing.

The second is to move out of Cathays. There's a possibility this MAY not happen. We're house hunting on the 17th May and obviously it depends what/where/how much is best for the collective three of us. But moving out of Cathays, I feel, would definitely help me feel like much less of a student.

Thirdly, and strangely, I want to start a book club. I don't want to finish my degree in English Literature and then feel like I don't make time for reading any more. So once I've moved into the new house (hopefully not in Cathays) and settled in, once a month I'll hopefully be hosting a book club evening with wine and cheese and crackers and literature and other fancy grown-up things! I really don't want to lose my love of reading. I don't think I will seeing as all three of us in the house will be English Lit graduates with me doing a Master's in Scriptwriting, Lucy doing a Master's in Creative Writing and Katt doing a PGCE with hopes of teaching English Literature. Let's keep the love alive, people.

Fourthly: this was one I've been considering for a while. I've become all lazy and unfit and I hate going to the gym. So I want to start being active again. I obviously turned immediately to martial arts. I love the discipline and regimen of the arts and I really feel like it's something I would go to weekly or even twice a week. I was really excited about this one Taekwon Do club I found, even though the instructor looked like a bit of a self-righteous arse. However, when I came home the other day and told my mum about this she reminded me that my uncle (a Sensei in Tsuen-mo-Luen karate) had had one of his former pupils open a branch of the club in Cardiff. I used to train at Tsuen-mo-Luen and am already pretty high on the belt system so this was very exciting for me. Lo and behold, Glamorgan Karate branch have a website and I'm definitely starting this. Who knows? If I train enough I can become an instructor (if my Uncle trusts me enough. Which he won't. Ha). So there's that. Karate on a Monday and/or a Wednesday (7.30-9). AND AND AND they do the gradings in Yeovil, which is obviously nice for me. :D
WEBSITE

Fifthly (what a strange word): Singing. More specifically joining a choir/choral society. Oddly enough I was thinking about this during the Royal Wedding. I found myself singing along with the choral music and really properly missing it. I researched choral societies in Cardiff and a lot of the really good ones required an audition - which is fine - comprising a prepared solo piece - also fine, I have confidence in my ability - but also a sight reading audition - not so fine. I know that I can sight read, but not having been in a choir for three years means I'm less than fully confident with my sight reading, which is what I'd really like to be before auditioning. So what I think I'm going to do is join one of the (probably shitter) choirs which don't require an audition, just to get my sight reading and performance back up to scratch and then arrange an audition. WATCH THIS SPACE. Excited about this one too.

Sixthly (hoo boy): writing. Yeah, I'm doing the Master's in Scriptwriting but I feel like I should actually be doing some extra-curricular writing too. So, that. I've already given an artist friend of mine character descriptions for a comic book which I plan to script. It is very exciting. She's a phenomenal artist, loves my concept and I'm pretty sure she'll draw something close to what I picture, or failing that, 100x better than I ever could have imagined. This is also very exciting.

Seventh...ly (getting a bit absurd now, right?), continuing on from the fourthly, more sports. I quite like my obscure sports and a little known fact about me is that I *LOVE* archery. Like, properly LOVE IT. I used to have a bow and a straw target, but they got sold and the only places I could arch were at my ex's house or my friend Louise's castle. I haven't done it properly in absolutely ages and this makes me do a sad. With research I found a pretty awesome club. HERE'S THE CLUB. They offer a beginners course of six hour-long sessions in safety and basic technique. And it's only £30. Six lessons for £30 is rather damn good if I say so myself. After the course you can then join the club. The website doesn't specify what the membership fee is and I know that I'd have to buy my own equipment but I could actually finally participate in tournaments which would be FUCKING. EPIC. That is all.

No seriously, that is all. For now. I'll probably come up with more hairbrained schemes and add to this later.