Blogging Goodbye to Butterflies

Tag: graduation

  • Here Comes Chapter Two

    Hello Stranger!

    I’ve been sat in the same spot, full of food and drink, for so long that my eyes are heavy and my bum hurts. I’ve still no idea where to begin.

    I thought I was finding my way in the world when I moved back to Cardiff for my second year, but I was very wrong. When you’re at university you’re in a world of your own. The world outside of university is much bigger and in general, people are much meaner. As a graduate, stumbling through just doesn’t seem to cut it.

    Okay, it isn’t all as bad as it sounds. I’ve actually had a pretty good time since graduation and the move back in with my parents. I got a temporary job as an administrator and for a bit I had it all figured out. I went to Milan with friends. I saw Adele at the O2. As I’m back to living with the parents, the fridge is always full of food, my washing often disappears from the laundry basket before I even fill it and the heating actually comes on when it gets cold. I’m reunited with old friends. If I were good enough at living in the present I think life would seem pretty easy.

    I’ve just not really got the long-term career thing figured out yet… I think I know where I want to be, but I’m not quite sure how to get there. I kind of have a plan, but it keeps falling through. In fact, I think it’s looking to the future that makes being a graduate so hard. For many of us, the future is bleak. We’re in limbo. We’re feeling 22, except we’re not Taylor Swift, we don’t have a record deal and we aren’t as pretty either.

    One thing I do know is that I love to write. I always have done. So for now, this blog can be my saving grace. Hopefully it’ll keep me feeling positive whilst I figure this next chapter out. I promise I’ll keep the grumbling to a minimum from here on in. After all, it’s not the end of the world. Really, my time in this world is only just beginning.

  • Deciding what’s next after university

    One minute I’m ridiculously excited over a quote from a book on an interesting historical topic or I’m so engrossed in writing the opinionated conclusion to my essay that I forget it isn’t cool to be caught enjoying coursework. The next minute I’m stood in my room singing Mozart’s Agnus Dei, loving it and deciding that singing is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

    Since the age of 5 I’ve been telling people I want to be an author or as I get older, a journalist: Younger Bronwen stapled pieces of A5 paper together, designed front covers in felt-tip and crayon and then wrote numerous ‘Chapter Ones’ for what she planned would be hugely successful novels. She bought note pads and then ripped out half the pages just because she decided the story she’d written inside wasn’t worthy of publishing.

    When I discovered singing at the age of 9 suddenly, that was all I wanted to do. One performance on stage turned into two, which turned into three and before I knew it I was addicted. Performing on stage isn’t comparable to anything else I’ve done or I think, anything I will ever do. Nothing annoys me more than a frog in my throat or a cold that stops me singing. Nothing clears my head more than an hour spent at the piano singing and playing until I forget what on Earth I had to escape from in the first place. Or of course a few minutes in the spotlight scared out of my socks, but up on cloud nine.

    My first meeting with my tutor this year ended with a discussion about the future; about what I planned to do when I left University and ventured out into the big wide world. I could go on to study Journalism; review musical concerts, lead political debates, write agony aunt columns. I could study Post Graduate Music at a conservatoire in the hope of becoming a professional performer. I realised just how hard the decision is going to be. For one thing I still go through days when both singing and writing are stressing me out so much that I don’t want to face either of them. Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide I want to do something completely different.

    All I know is, it’s time for breakfast and I need food for thought. Hot Cross Buns it is.