One Month.

I have lived in England for one month.

I am constantly amazed that I am here, that this is my life, that I am a resident of a small seaside town  at the bottom of the UK. This experience is already helping me to grow into an even better version of myself. Slowly, but surely, without me even realising it.

This has a lot to do with the little and big people that surround me.

Qualities that I knew would be altered by my time here are.....

Patience.

Confidence.

Independence.

Maturity.

Problem solving.

And my ability to maintain and create new relationships.

Working with small children is the surest way to test someone's patience, they require a lot of attention, a lot of time, a lot of commitment and a lot of understanding. Children have an incredible knack of absorbing whatever they see or hear around them. Now, I constantly find myself acting in a way that sets a positive example and dealing with situations fairly but hard enough for them to actually get it. Sometimes you have children that are used to a lot of attention and other times you come across little people that are not receiving the attention they deserve. The trickiest part is dealing with children that crave this attention, they act out on purpose, they get emotional incredibly easily and they constantly try to put themselves in the limelight. Today I was tested for the first time. After following my instincts I received a note from the student saying 'Dear Miss Cragg, I'm very sorry for being naughty will you ever forgive me?' There is a very high chance that exactly the same situation will occur tomorrow, but the fact is, the student recognised that they were behaving in a way that was unacceptable. I replied by thanking the student for the beautiful note and telling them that next time if they played fairly and didn't get emotional they would have a much better lunch time and that all of the other students wanted them to join in.

When you have ten students a day running up to you to tell you that such and such called them a name, or was whispering about them, or was eating a sweet, or fell over, or wasn't playing with them your patience is pushed to the max..... I am getting really good at responding in a way that seems like I'm sympathetic.....but really I'm just telling them to build a bridge and get over it. Here is when your problem solving skills also get a good work out. Boo yeahhhh.

A good way of testing your confidence is to get yourself lost in the middle of town, a good forty minutes away from your house at night. Another good way is to serve 300 posh people drinks at a school function, or just move away from everything familiar with no friends and no family. I have fully embraced the fact that 80% of the time I make a fool out of myself by accident and I actually enjoy it.

All you women who are independent throw your hands up at meeeeeee.

Although I do have a Harry I have learnt to be more independent in a way that I would not of been able to do had I not moved away from home. It's testing when everyone is living their lives and doing new things and time is ticking along as if you hadn't even left, but it makes you realise that life doesn't stop, you have to keep doing what you're doing in the best way you know how, taking on new challenges and embracing life.

Making new friends has become one of my new favourite things to do, I don't even care who they are..... Because everyone I have met so far has something interesting to say. The best way to learn new things is to listen to other peoples stories, so I plan on doing a lot more listening over here.

This month has also made me realise who my real friends are, they are the ones that send me a message to see how I am or stop to ask my family in the street how I am doing. These are the special people and I am very grateful to have you in my life. I feel even more blessed to have someone that is there every morning when I wake up and is the last face I see every night before I go to sleep. I do not know what I did to ever get so lucky.

This week I haven't managed to do anything too humiliating.... For once.

Tomorrow night I hit up the vodka bar and the weekend should involve some more sightseeing and wandering around this beautiful place that I get to call my home. For now.