Nothing sums up my first week better than a comment my housemate (though we are technically living in a hostel, but 'hostelmate' doesn't QUITE sound the same, does it?) made a few days into our induction week: "I wonder when this will start to feel less like a school trip". Since then, it feels like I have progressed to the stage of "Isn't this week of work experience just lovely, I wish I could stay". It hasn't quite sunk in that my weekly lectures start tomorrow, I have a full time occupation, I am one of those speedwalking, headphone-wearing commuters, and that I am indeed a missionary.
Last week was a day where we were pretty much pampered by the Mission team, with M&S platters being delivered to us every lunchtime, although they were the highlight in days that were full of fire training, risk assessment, and precautions against blood-borne diseases. By the time Friday rolled around, and we had spent the morning become more and more subdued while studying ways to spot possible child abuse and neglect, our previous reservations about taking too much cake to avoid bloating were gone in a flurry of comfort eating. We returned from those days quite tired - learning so many names of everybody in HQ, trying to find the toilets in what is a glorified, well-lit, rabbit warren, and spending all days bathed in the bore of necessary training while trying desperately to take it all in within the confines of the same four walls was draining to say the least. However, it is nothing compared to the tiredness which I feel after only three days actually on full-time placement. We woe-d last week over how tiring sitting down all day was, but today, I can barely feel my legs from the lack of sitting down I have done over the last three days. I work a 9-6 shift, and while I thankfully have a quick commute (beautiful view of the Shard and the Tower of London in the morning sunshine/evening mist included), it's not exactly rolling out of the hostel at 9am and straight into HQ, conveniently located next door, and then back again at 4 for some chatting, reading and leisure time.
Last week, they told us that it would be impossible not to bring our work home with us. I brushed it off, thinking that 9 hours of door-to-door, home visits, and washing up would be enough for me, thank you very much. Cue be being up until midnight last night washing up all the dishes and reflecting over every single person I had met as well as the tragic stories of the homeless and street workers which my housemate has been bombarded in her work at Webber street, plus a long list of domestic things that needed to be done before work the next morning, as well as a fright of spotting a mouse in the kitchen.
WELCOME TO INDEPENDENCE!
Warning: it is so much harder than A-Levels.
-Antonia
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