A ripple of clarity in a sea of nausea...

Welcome back. Well, that was aimed more at me than you, as I have been away a-visiting my boyfriend and picking up a very nasty bout of food poisoning from a Waitrose Tuna & Cucumber sandwich (How do I know it's the sandwich? Believe me, I know it's the sandwich... when I think about it I practically retch). Those bored by illness details or of a nervous disposition may want to skip to the next paragraph while I whinge. Have only eaten the plainest of foods such as rich tea biscuits and toast, since Sunday, and still have stabbing pains and alien faecal matter. I was up until about 3am last night shivering and enduring stabbing gut pains, and flopped downstairs this morning at 8am unwittingly walking into confrontation with my father, who was in what can only be described as 'rhinoceros mode', nostrils flaring, fists clenched, red-of-face and ready to charge. He proceeded to tell me all the usual parents bollocks, that I wasn't ill, that I was pathetic, blah blah blah. Stuff he said when I was 15. I wanted to point out that if he had been shitting unidentified disgusting objects for the last 48 hours and having to lie very still all night to prevent vomiting he'd probably have made the same decision. I wanted to say that, I really did, but I felt dizzy and sick so I just turned around and walked upstairs without saying anything. I'm hiding now. It's ridiculous, we're locked in this stalemate, because he's my father, so thinks he can still tell me what to do, like a child, and I'm an adult, but still occasionally fall into the trap of thinking my parents always know best, again, like a child.

Yesterday I caught the train from King's Cross whilst suffering the aforementioned bug. It was awful and scary, but then, just past Hyde Park Corner tube station, an idea popped into my brain, a brilliant and amazing idea. My train of thought went a bit like this:

"Gemma, you don't like your job, it doesn't pay you enough money. You don't like living with your parents, even though you love them to pieces, and you don't like being away from your boyfriend. The only job you want to do is teaching, it's the only job you've ever loved and found truly rewarding. So why the fuck don't you just go back to uni for a year and get your bloody PGCE?"

I was a bit shocked by this. I wasn't expecting to think it. But then I thought on:

"Once you've got the PGCE you'll find it so much easier to get a job in a college or school, and you'll be earning a lot more so you can really start making a dent in your debts. Why haven't you considered this before, you foolish wench?"

So, when I got home, I looked into finances. I reckon, with loan and grant and bursary I'll have about £300 a week coming in for the duration of my course. It's definitely do-able, even if I have to live off canned goods for the 9 months I'm a student. Then I also remembered that full-time students don't have to pay council tax, and that made me even more optimistic.

So I'm applying for 4 courses in London, with London Metropolitan right at the top. We shall see what happens...