Guest post 1: I realised I wanted to be nurse by Rebecca

For the next few weeks I won’t have time to write anything because I have to study for my exams so I asked all of you to write something about studying for my guest post challenge. The challenge is still on, you can write about anything that comes to your mind and is related to studying/learning; it can be fictional or non-fictional. I don’t have anything special in mind but I’m sure that’s not a problem for you guys. I know how talented my readers are and how unlimited your imagination is. 

For any additional information you can contact me anytime - click the photo with the mailbox on the right side of my blog and send me an email. That's also how you can send me your guest posts.

Today’s guest is Rebecca:

Hi! I'm Rebecca. Nice to "meet" you. I live in the UK and I blog over at Making Memories :) I think this is such a cool topic to talk about so thank you Starlight for letting me share.

When I was a teenage I reached a plateau with school. I was done with it. I hated getting up for school, the homework was pointless and I had much better things to do with my time. My Mum says I had reached a stage of rebellion and looking back she was probably right. My Dad always used to say to me something his father (my grandfather) passed down to him. 

"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. B. F. Skinner"

When I was 15 it was a load of mumbo jumbo but now I am 22 and think it is so so true! Studying is boring and I bet the majority of what I learnt at school has been long forgotten. Yet, there are some things that have stayed with me. I would not be a nurse today without my education, without my relentless studying and hours put in.

We all have to do things we don't want to do and for me, studying was one of them. When I was 15/16 I realised I wanted to be nurse but I knew in order to get there I had to read books (thousands of books), sit exams and take practicals. In order to do that I had to sacrifice. I had to neglect my friends and family for a bit. I had to neglect my blog. I even neglected myself at times and made myself ill. I won't say it was completely worth it but it had to be done and it got me to where I am today. 

Since finishing university last year I have just been enjoying my job. I have not had to do any essays or big projects, it's been bliss. However, there is a small part of me that does sort of miss it. From the age of 15 to 21 all I ever knew was study this and study that. It became a part of my routine and essentially what helped pave the way for my career to start. Studying hard (but not necessarily enjoying it all the time) has made me a more determined person. It has made me work harder to reap the rewards. It's an amazing feeling when you get that grade or recognition for all your hard work! I am not just talking about studying books and literature. I am also talking about how it is important to study and analyse ourselves and our own behaviours. I have a friend who says "I haven't studied a day in my life" but he has. He just hasn't utilised what he has learnt in life so far to help him. 

Ultimately, my Dad and Grandfather were right. I hate to admit they were right sometimes but they are. Education is what survives. I wouldn't be a nurse without it. Women wouldn't be mothers without it. Some of the most influential people in the world wouldn't be famous without it. The list is literally endless. You wouldn't be you without it. It has made me realise that we can learn a thousand things but really educating ourselves in what we love or to gain a better understanding is vital to our soul.

It's never too late to study. Whatever we plough our heart and efforts into always makes reaching and crossing that finish line more worth it. It just took me 7 years to realise that...which is okay. 

Rebecca.

Photo taken from here.

Memories of Pern - Inspiration Monday guest post

It’s Inspiration Monday, something I really need these days and am looking forward to very much. I’ve made some changes in the concept – from now on Inspiration Monday is every first Monday of the month.

Today’s guest is Light208, a very nice lady who writes at Shadows. She just made some changes on her blog and you should all check it out. She is one of those excellent writers who don’t get all the attention they deserve. I love her writing and you’ll see why she should get more attention right after you read this:

They told me there were no heroes anymore. I was nine years old. I’d grown up with books that told stories of good and brave men who stood up for what they believed in. I’d read of warrior queens and kind hearted rebels. I knew the Drenai better than my peer group and I knew Pern better than the town I grew up in. And then they told me that there were no heroes.

I didn’t understand. Surely there must still be heroes, people who stand for what they believe in, stand for what they feel is right. Cynicism is not something a child should know. There should be wonder and hope and brightness in that child’s world. There should be no soil barren enough to let cynicism take root and grow. I still believe we need tales of heroes. We need to believe that people out there are still good. We need to believe that we have the potential to be great.

It took me a long time to learn that there were still heroes out there. They are often not champions that stories are told about. Songs are not sung in their honour and parades do not march through towns in their name. But these things don’t make heroes. My stepfather is one of my heroes. He accepts me as a daughter and as a friend. He is proud of my achievements and does not deny me my faults. He is tough enough to tell me I am wrong to denounce my father and gentle enough to push me to change. He is someone I want to be like.

I have other heroes; people who for one reason of other have inspired me. When I had my first interview for a job, I was asked to name someone that inspired me and to explain why. The two men interviewing me seemed nonplussed when I replied with “a man named Kevin”. I had met Kevin while doing some work for the National Trust. Even with gaps of a year or so between visits, he remembered my name and conversations we’d had. He took great joy in his job and was truly happy with what he was doing with his life.

By my own adult terms, the money he made was minimal and yet for him, the money didn’t seem to matter. He lived on a houseboat in the middle of a National Trust site and saw things that some people only dream about. And yet he loved sharing his joy with others. I never saw him have a bad day no matter how hard people tried his patience. He never denied sadness; he just believed that it had its own place, in his heart, where the joy he lived with could help to heal it. Sometimes I wonder about going back there to see if he is still about. I wonder if my often jaded adult eyes would see the same passionate free spirit and whether there would still be that sense of kinship. Perhaps such stories and memories are best left whole so that their warming glow does not fade, but continues to inspire as time continues to tick round.

I am inspired by a friend’s bravery at leaving behind everything she knew to pursue a dream in a foreign country. No matter how tough things got, she didn’t quit. And she was honest about the difficulties. She didn’t gloss over them and suggest that everything had gone smoothly. She told of her trials with honesty and integrity and left me with the belief that perhaps one day I would be as bold as she is.

And I am inspired by other bloggers; people I don’t even know that encourage me with their positivity, their honesty and their courage. These people share their words and their dreams and forge connections across all boundaries.

I don’t always find the stories that I read those years ago as moving as I once did; like many adults before me, I have learnt to see the shades of grey between the definites of black and white. My heroes, like the rest of us, are flawed. But they are heroes because of their flaws. They fight for what they believe in, sometimes against their own natures. They breathe and they bleed and they inspire me because they try. They show me that trying counts; that the first step towards being someone better is being prepared to try and be someone better. There are so few easy answers anymore and I need examples in my life to emulate. I need, sometimes, to see my potential in others because there are times that I do not see it in myself.

A note, an apology and a guest post challenge

First of all I would like to apologise to all of you, dear readers, fellow bloggers and friends. I’ve been a bad blogger and follower lately but I do have a good reason for it. I’m very busy with my studies; I have exams from this week on until 8^th of July. That’s why I didn’t write much in the last couple of weeks and probably won’t have the time, energy and inspiration to write in the coming weeks either. I’m really sorry, but right now I have to focus on my studies which is my priority and that’s why I won’t be able to be here as much as I would like to. Please, don’t be angry if I won’t read and comment on your posts, I’m sure you understand how exhausting studying is.

I have a challenge for all of you because I don’t want my blog to be lonely in the coming weeks. I would like to publish a series of guest posts on the topic of studying. You can write about anything that comes to your mind and is related to this topic; it can be fictional or non-fictional. I don’t have anything special in mind but I’m sure that’s not a problem for you guys. I know how talented my readers are and how unlimited your imagination is. 

For any additional information you can contact me anytime - click the photo with the mailbox on the right side of my blog and send me an email. That's also where you can send me your guest posts.

Photo taken from here

A place called home

Karen sat on her bike and looked back. There were about two dozen people on the marketplace and she knew most of them. They were all very nice and kind people and over the past two years she started to feel like she’s one of them. She met most of them on that exact spot where they spent their Saturday mornings buying ingredients for lunch and drinking coffee in a café next to the market place. They were all typical Italians, kind, cheerful and loud. She smiled and waved to the butcher. 

Ciao bella, see you tomorrow, I have meat for you prepared in morning he yelled in his broken English with an Italian accent. She smiled and nodded.  

Karen always felt like a foreigner anywhere she came. Her dad was an officer in the military and they moved a lot when she was a child. She knew he loved her with all his heart but they weren’t a real family. She didn’t fit in at home. Her mum died when Karen was seven years old and after her death dad was never the same. He missed her mum very much and a part of him died with her. He was absent even when he was at home.

He once asked her if she didn’t want to move anymore but she told him that she didn’t mind it. She was searching for her home, a place where she belonged. She never found a place like this as a child. She felt welcome everywhere they lived, she easily found friends in every town, but she never found what she could call home. 

She always thought that she would discover her true self in college but that wasn’t the case. She studied sociology at The university of Texas but soon after she moved she realised that she made the wrong decision and she decided she wanted to travel. Travelling was the only constant thing in her life.

For the next three years she travelled all over the world; she spent some time in Australia and New Zealand and then backpacked in China, Japan, India and Thailand. Then she discovered her passion for old European cities.

She was exploring small villages and big cities in Europe for over a year when she met Fabio in Milan. Karen was working as a model and her agency had a party in a night club Fabio worked with. She noticed him the moment he walked in the room because he wasn’t a typical Italian. She liked his short curly light brown hair and blue eyes but what she liked even more was his smile. A smile that made her feel special.

They talked all evening and spent the night together. She thought she would never see him again when she woke up the next morning in the empty bed in her hotel room. But she was wrong; he came back soon and invited her to go to Sicily with him, because he lived there. 

I’m in love he said and gave her a dark red rose. 

Karen was in love too so she went with him and never left Sicily again. She felt she finally found her home. She felt like she belonged there. 

Photo taken from here.

A humble word - Inspiration Monday guest post

It’s been three weeks since the last Inspiration Monday and I hope you missed it as much as I did. I’m planning on doing some small changes about Inspiration Monday in the near future but I can’t tell you everything just yet.

Today I’m very honoured to host the amazing Caterpillar who writes at Musings And Confessions of a Wandering Mind. She is a brilliant writer and a lovely lady and I’m really lucky to know her (I truly hope I’ll meet her in person some day). Those of you who don’t know her yet should visit her blog right after you read this splendid piece she wrote for my blog:

Starlight here had asked me to write an article about inspiration…and I sat down thinking that this was going to be one easy thing…ha! Couldn’t have been any more mistaken! I thought long and hard about it…I tried repeating the word over and over in my head in the hope that The letters would spring to life and tell me what they wanted me to write…I-N-S-P-I-R-A-T-I-O-N…the word looked simple enough…a little too simple, actually…because it’s this humble word which brought about the big inventions…the lights that blinked to life at the click of a switch, the voice of a loved one close to your ears though they are located miles away when you answered that telephone, the wheels that turned and turned some more to make sure that you could travel anywhere you wanted to without tiring your legs out, the face to face conversations you can have with your Mom when you miss her, even when both of you are in two different continents. 

And does it stop at that? No…it’s this word which inspired all those amazing books out there which allowed us to fly on the magic carpet into the mystical lands, to go on an investigative journey to find that murderer on loose, to sigh at the romantic words uttered by the hero of our dreams, to laugh out loud at the blunder of the well-meaning but naïve girl in the story, to reflect on the complexities of relationships the characters seem to be burdened with. It’s this one word which made Wordsworth muse about the beauty of daffodils, Michelangelo carve the exquisite Pieta, Leonardo paint the enigmatic Mona Lisa and Beethoven create soulful symphonies. 

What can this word do for you, you wonder? The opportunities are uncountable…this word, single handedly allows you to take the empty canvas of a day and fill it with bright, beautiful pictures, to look beyond the obvious and come up with some brilliant ideas which might mean a lot, to look at a problem and come up with an opportunity to overcome it rather than worrying about it, a word which brings out the creator, the inventor, the designer in you… 

Inspiration for me, is a friend, who shows me something and whispers to me “Why not”…a friend who shows me “the path less travelled by” as Robert Frost rightly put it. Inspiration, for me is the invisible someone who helps me look at a problem nagging me and tell me “we’ll find a way around it, trust me”, inspiration is the jester who colors my world when it becomes a little shabby. Inspiration, for me, is someone who allows me to have fun and laugh out loud even when life looks like an uphill struggle…Inspiration, more importantly, is who allows me to be myself through words, scribbles and paints spilled.  Inspiration, my friends, is the invisible friend who will always be by my side, ready to help and lend me a smile. And so, my request to you is this; go find that invisible friend called Inspiration, wake him up, give him a little shake and you will find that pot of gold hidden within you... 

100 words: Dew

She woke up early and went to the kitchen, put the kettle on for the coffee and looked out of the window. She had one of her favourite scenes in front of her eyes. Morning dew on a field behind the house. 

She smiled and remembered how she spent every summer at her grandparents farm as a child. She loved waking up early and walking barefoot through the high wet grass around the house and watching the sun rise.

She took the kettle off the stove and ran out barefoot. The grass was soft and wet just as she remembered.

 

Photo taken from here.