Happiness is a mood, not a destination.

I chose to have a gap year at the beginning of year 13. I felt suffocated by the heavy work load and stress so I opted to take a year for myself. To learn the things I wanted to learn, not because a specification told me I had to; to work and save money to avoid feeling like I had to live on bread and water at university and above all, to relax and have fun and just feel young and carefree while I still could.

Now I'm reading about all my friends and their new friends and their new lives. And I'm a little jealous. I want to experience freshers week and live away from my parents and I most definitely do not want to have to go through the entire UCAS application process again. Which I suppose is where all this is coming from. The stress of the application process. I'm spending my only day off this week researching courses and universities and feeling at a total loss. Living outside of the UK, away from the help of my school only makes matters worse. I want to talk to somebody and be advised and I want to visit each potential campus to find out if I get that yes-I-could-live-here feeling.

I'm aware that I sound like I'm regretting living here. I'm not. The more time that passes, the more I feel settled here. Especially with my new job at a hotel where everyone makes you feel like you belong. The circle of friends situation still isn't the best it could be but I guess when you move to a new country, these things take time. I wouldn't even mind just one best friend. I work so much that I hardly have time to go out anyway but I've had an idea which would require one friend minimum. In January and February the hotel that I work at closes for winter and this morning I read a fantastic article about why you should travel when you're young. So I had the epiphany of going travelling during those two months off. I don't know where but the thought is exciting. So we'll see.