The French invasion, Paella and New friends

Hey all! It's now been a week since I arrived in Mallorca so I thought I'd catch you up on what's been going on.

On Friday, we ditched the city slicking life of Palma and headed out for my first weekend at the house in Alcúdia on the north east side of the island.  It was a special weekend for the family not only because I was staying with them but cos their relatives from France had also come over for the week to see them.

I must admit first of all that Alcúdia is VERY beautiful. To think that it only takes a 35/45 minute drive out of Palma till you get to this paradise is something I find hard to believe.

We arrived at the house in the early evening and after meeting with the French rellies, Simó took me on a bike ride to show me around the area while the sun was setting with a kind of purple/pink/orange haze in the sky. I really wish I got a picture of it to show you all how incredible it was! maybe another time *touches wood*...

Dinner that night was a traditional Spanish paella cooked up in a massive pan (no idea what they're called yet, need to look that up) which continued to be the main dish at all the other lunches and tea times throughout the rest of the weekend. The whole weekend was particularly interesting from a linguistic perspective due to the sheer mix of cultures in the house in which a total of 4 different languages were spoken amongst us: Catalan, Spanish, French and English. This made communication at times confusing as I found I would be speaking to someone in one language then would have to quickly switch into another language to speak to someone else but overall I spoke a lot more French than Spanish in honour of the majority of our guests. I didn't mind this personally as I had worried before I came out to Mallorca thatI would forget all the French I'd learnt due to being in a Spanish speaking environment so it made for a nice change. Marta's mum (Lourdes) has picked up that I speak French and now when she comes around to the flat she'll speak to me in French. must say I wasn't expecting that!

Saturday started off lazily and I managed to lie-in till 11:30AM. I've found that due to their late nights the Spaniards live like teenagers tending to wake up a bit later than the average Brit which suits me perfectly. For those of you who know me, I'm not a morning person at all! Once we were all up we headed off to have lunch at a Sports centre (seems weird, I know!) in the nearby town of Sa Pobla  with some more family members. Another big paella was served up and I met Núria, Mireia and Marga, just a few of Marta's cousins who are around my age. Despite the fact the fact I don't speak any Catalan, we managed to get on well and Núria has agreed to meet with me again this weekend in Sa Pobla. I'd say the only negative to my current situation in Mallorca is that I don't know many people out here who are around the same age as me so I hope I can meet up with them again. After lunch in Sa Pobla, I headed out with Pau (Marta's brother), his girlfriend Silvia and Eleanor (the youngest of the French inquisition) to Pollenca, a small in-land town just north of Alcúdia. We met up once more with the French relatives and had  a walk around the town, appreciating the small arts and crafts shops and the aged buildings of the town which gave you the impression you'd leaped about 80 years back in time. As my brother Ethan would say it is a very 'classic' town and I'd recommend it to anyone wishing to visit Mallorca. That evening I went into the centre of Alcúdia with Marta, Josep, Pau, Silvia and Eleanor to an Irish pub to have a bit of drink and play a few games of table football-fussball to all the Americans out there- as well as darts. Can't say I've felt homesick so far but it all made me feel like I was back home as I was able to drink Guinness and Cider which is very rare across the whole of Spain.

FOOD OF THE WEEK: Paella for Saturday's lunch in Sa Pobla

Me with Silvia and Pau in the centre of Pollenca

wish we had the time to climb up this, would've been a great view!

Sunday started off with a coastal walk (led expertly by Lourdes) and trip to a beach on the other side of Alcúdia for a swim with the Frenchies. Then, after yet another paella, I left Alcúdia to return to the city with Pau, Silvia and Eleanor frantically checking live updates on the Manchester derby on my iPod as I went (4-1 to City, haha). Eleanor was leaving on a separate flight back to Paris that evening so to kill some time Pau took us on a guided tour around the La Seu Cathedral, Palacio Real, Plaza mayor and Old town in the centre of Palma. He knew a lot of information about the area and could easily be a tour guide in his spare time if he wished and he bombarded us with interesting facts about the various buildings before ending the tour where all good guided tours should end, a bar!

The beach we went to on Sunday, look how blue the water is!

La Seu Cathedral

Me with what Pau said is the oldest tree in the whole of Palma, apparently...

El Palacio Real

Overall, I had a very good first weekend out in Alcúdia and althought I feel like I've eaten enough paella to fill a small sea, I gained a lot from it all. Silvia, who is originally from Bilbao, expressed interest in having a language exchange with me which I've agreed to and I hope we can start up once she gets back from Bilbao where she has been throughout this week. As mentioned, I've made plans to meet up with Núria at the weekend and today I was presented with the possibility of another language exchange with Simó's school music teacher which I hope to organise soon. The schools strike that I talked about in my last post is still going on with the kids in and out of school this week but Marta has told me negotiations between the pressure group Plataforma Crida and the government have opened so hopefully it will end soon so I can establish some kind of routine. There is going to be another big protest on Sunday which most of the island will be attending including ourselves so I expect I'll have something to say about that. In the short term I am heading out tonight to another Irish pub in Palma tonight to celebrate Arthur Guinness day. I'M WINNING!

FP

#FraserOnTour

Found this on the Sunday walk to the beach. Gotta love Spanish graffiti

¡Estoy en Mallorca! First impressions and Green T-Shirts

Hey! I'm now officially on the island of Mallorca and I thought I'd tell you about the first few days.

So, I arrived in Mallorca on Tuesday evening at about 10:25PM local time after a two hour flight from Liverpool John Lennon Airport where I waved goodbye to my Mum and Brother (Ethan) who had escorted me there. The flight was fairly relaxing and non-eventful after the annoyance of having to pay excess baggage (I now owe my Mum an extra 40 quid which is something I didn't need!) and a 15 minute delay taking off although we still arrived early. From the airport, Marta (the Mum) picked me up and took me to the family flat in the suburbs of Palma de Mallorca, the main city on the island. After a brief meeting with husband Josep once we arrived it was straight to bed as by British standards it was late and I was tired from the flight.

I met all the kids (Simó,Júlia and Marina) the next day and since then we've got on like a house on fire. They're all very lively children and a pleasure to be with. Simó is very similar to me in that we both like Sports and Music and he is very eager to practice his English with me. Julia is a real joker like her brother and although her English isn't as good as Simó's she still tries and when we get really stuck with communicating we can always switch into Spanish which is fine by me. Marina is the youngest and cutest but as she is still a toddler I have found it hardest to communicate with her as the only words she knows are in Catalan and are very mumbled like most children of her age. I have found I can pull lots of funny faces at her and do the 'This little piggy went to market' song on her toes to make her laugh though. Hopefully she can teach me some Catalan while I'm here! The kids are very easy to amuse and we've already played a variety of games in the flat as well as going to the swimming pool in the apartment complex and the park. Simó and Júlia especially liked it when I got my guitar out for them and played a few English pop songs. Not surprisingly, they didn't know too many of the songs that I played at first, the likes of Alt-J ;Ed Sheeran and The Vaccines haven't really reached the Spanish people yet, however they did manage to join in with Little Talks by Of Monster And Men, Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, Baby by Justin Bieber and Hey Soul Sister by Train which was by far their favourite. They liked that particular song so much that they made me play it again when Marta came home and Simó was convinced that I was in fact the writer of the song! If only...

My initial impressions of Mallorca are very different from what I imagined it would be like as is the case with most things in life. Before I came, I was convinced that Mallorca was only a small island in the Mediterranean where you could see the sea pretty much all the time. I have now been in Palma for two days now and I haven't actually seen the sea yet since Tuesday night as I was flying into the airport. I also didn't realise how bigger presence Catalan has on the area. I was warned before arrival that the family only spoke in Catalan at home unless they were talking with their Valencian housekeeper Elena but it turns out that it's a major force on the island and seems to be the native tongue of most of the locals. I have a bit more on this later. I also used to have the impression that Mallorca was just simply this tourist destination for your average all-english speaking, British family looking for a cheap getaway in the sun lounging round the pool or the beach reading the latest copy of the Sun and telling Manuel to get them another Cerveza. This all seemed like the case at first seeing as my flight was pretty much full of said Brits abroad and the first thing I saw when I got off the plane and entered the airport in Palma was a British pub sponsored by Carling but since then I have only spoken to an English man working in a music shop (I snapped one of my guitar strings so I had to buy a new set,lol) and a couple whilst walking in the centre of the city. Here in Palma I am very much embedded in Spanish society. I guess most of the Brits will be hanging around the waterparks and the infamous 'lads holiday' destination Magaluf (Shagaluf for the ruder viewers). The city of Palma itself seems to be quite old in terms of the places I've visited in Spain with lots of trees,busy streets, amazing parks (I swear parks in Spain are 10x better than the ones in the UK) and Barcelona-esque architecture with dashes of the modernness I would associate more with Zaragoza.

Going back to the thing about Catalan influence, this week has by no means been a normal one for the residents of Mallorca. As of Monday this week, a mass strike started in all public schools on the island in response to new legislation on education policy (TIL) introduced by the Spanish government who are threatening to ban the teaching of lessons in the Catalan language in public schools. This is a big issue for many Catalans as they feel that if the language is not used in schools then it will soon become extinct, impinging on their rich heritage. Marta and Josep, like many Catalans, have been greatly incensed by this new legislation and Marta in particular has got involved with supporting the pressure group-Plataforma Crida that are protesting against the government. People who support the Catalan movement have been sporting Green T-shirts around the city with the slogan 'Crida! per una educació pública de qualitat' which I've loosely translated as 'Call! for a quality public education' printed on the front which the family have been wearing when they go out and when they go to school (when the teachers aren't on strike). The strike is indefinite but like many people Marta hopes it will end soon with a positive result so things can return to normal. Last night, all of us plus some of Marta's many cousins and her Mum went into the city centre to take part in a protest against the government over the education laws outside an art gallery that various important politicians were visiting for a special annual arts evening in the city. Now, I have been to my fair share of live music concerts/festivals and football matches in my short lifetime but I don't think I've ever heard such noise from a crowd of people! About 300 people crowded around Passeig Des Born whistling, clapping, screaming and shouting 'Manipulacció!' as loud as they could. Everyone (bar myself, the police and various other poor sods who'd clearly gotten lost) was wearing the green t-shirts and waving green balloons. It was like going to an Ireland rugby match or a Norwich City football game, minus the canary yellow obviously.

Overall, despite the kids getting into a bad habit of calling me Ollie (the name of their previous Au Pair) throughout the first day, I have really enjoyed myself in Mallorca so far. This weekend we're heading out to the house in Alcúdia on the north of the island so with the change of scene I expect I'll have something else to talk about soon.

I'll leave with you a short selection of photos from these first few days

Adeu!

FP

#FraserOnTour

In Liverpool John Lennon airport

Picture with the great man himself, the start of my journey!

Bienvenido a Palma de Mallorca

My room

Marta modelling one of the green t-shirts

Simó and the building we made

At the protest with one of the more animated members of the crowd 

On the Passeig Des Born, a sea of green

Mallorca Preparations, Goodbyes and HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Bon soir! Just thought I'd catch you up on what has gone on this past week.

First of all, I am writing this on the night before I go away to Mallorca (well technically the day I go cos it's past midnight) and I figured writing a post would be a nice little break from the psychological mind-game that is packing. I have managed to make packing to go away extra difficult for myself as I decided I wanted to bring my Guitar with me to Mallorca so I could keep up with my learning of it as well as maybe playing a few tunes for the family. As nice as the idea sounds it felt like a nightmare trying to get flights that would allow me to bring such a piece of luggage with me with some airlines threatening to charge me £100 just for the guitar which in some cases was more than the actual cost of the flights themselves! Luckily, I managed to find a deal with easyjet in which I am allowed to bring two bags in the hold as long as they have a combined weight of 20KG. The guitar + case weigh 8KG so that leaves me 12KG for all the rest of my stuff, if I don't overflow into excess baggage I will be so proud of myself :S

So this last week has been one of fond farewells for me. I have seen various friends for the last time before they head off in different directions to University or for a third year at college.  This softens the blow for me as I know I'm not the only one who's leaving home this week and there are many thousands of us all feeling very excited but nervous for what's to come. I also finished my part-time job as a Swimming Teacher/Coach at Marple Swimming Club on Friday. I have really enjoyed my two years worth of regular teaching there as I have learned a lot more about Swimming and how it works than I ever did while I was training 7 days a week and the idea of not having some form of steady,dependable income is quite daunting at the moment but I am sure I will return to teaching/coaching there on a cover basis when I'm home from my travels or Uni in the future. I'm sure the skills I have gained from such a job will put me in good stead for my future career.

I know I'm going backwards chronologically-which is probably not the best way to do this-but Thursday night was something quite special. As I have mentioned in my previous post, my sister (Imogen) is going into her Third Year Abroad for her Modern Languages degree where she is studying all the way over at Xiamen University in China for 9 months. Thursday was her last night with all of us before she set off on the first of three flights at 9AM from Manchester the following morning so we all had a special family meal together, something that rarely happens nowadays as she is often either away at Uni in Southampton or travelling during the holidays to keep all her languages up to scratch. Because she is so far from home, Imogen won't be able to nip back and spend Christmas with the family, the first time this has ever happened, so Mum decided to cook a good old traditional English roast dinner (actually cooking Christmas dinner in September would be weird) in her honour as the meal Imo is likely to have on Christmas day will most probably be very different from what we consider the norm. This was also a special early birthday meal for me as well due to the fact that by the time my 19th birthday comes around on October 21st I will be in Mallorca having spent 1 month there so I was presented with a large chocolate cake to mark the occasion which I begrudgingly shared with everyone else... Mum had also gone to the liberty of doing a bit of present shopping and got both of us a new camera each as well as some small Christmas presents for Imo to open in Xiamen. I own my first ever camera! This is a great gift and I will use it to record the various shenanigans that occur during my gap year.

I stayed up with Imogen until about 1:30AM that night while she did her last minute packing and wrote a departing blog post as I knew there was no way in hell that I would drag myself out of bed at 5:30AM to see her off at the airport. I'd consider myself a good brother but I'm definitely not a morning person! It was good to spend a bit of quality time with her before she left as I won't be seeing her until at least the end of June next year whereas the rest of the family will be meeting up with her when they congregate for my cousin Morgan's wedding in Nepal this coming February. Like everyone else I will miss her but for me it feels just like she's gone back to Uni (except it's on the other side of the world) and I imagine it will be very similar to last summer when she spent 6 weeks doing an intensive language course in Nanjing. I sure hope we can find the time for a skype sesh though even with the time difference!

I must admit that I am glad to finally be going off to start my gap year. These last few weeks have really sucked being at home and seeing all my friends and other people on facebook and twitter getting all excited for freshers week and Uni when I know that I won't be doing that for another year yet. Thankfully for me, Southampton's freshers week isn't to start for another week so I'll be escaping the country before the REAL party kicks off however I'm sure I'll see plenty of the action on facebook from my friend Dyfan who is doing exactly the same course as me but starting this year as opposed to being a weirdo like me, I wish him all the best. Mum made another fine meal for my final night in blighty, a balcan stew with rice and apple crumble with CUSTARD for dessert-one of my favourite foods- plus some special French cider brought back from their recent trip to Brittany to wash it down. A great send off, I'm sure the house will seem much quieter once I'm gone! These next 3 months will be my biggest test yet as an individual as the most I've been away from home in my life has only ever been about 3 weeks but it is something that I'm up to doing and will give me some insight into what my Third Year may be like.

Good luck to everyone heading off to Uni.

Gap Year- Bring. It. On.

FP

PS. Here are some photos taken from Thursday night's celebration

#FraserOnTour

                                          The early birthday boy and the early birthday cake

                                                      Blowing the candles out in a blur

                                                           The three siblings together

                                                                                                                                                              I've actually stolen this picture from Imo (Sorry!). This is a collection of the presents Mum got her to take to Xiamen for Christmas

                                                                Me and my camera

Mallorca, TEFL and Gap Year planning

Aloha, here's the latest installment of my gap year blog.

Big question many of you may want to know is why did I choose to take a gap year? I initially decided to have a gap year before University while I was filling in my UCAS application and writing my personal statement in Autumn of last year (like most sensible people). Come end of August/early September last year I was giving myself headaches deciding what degree course to study and where to apply to. Going to University is a big life-changing decision so I wanted to make sure I got it right so I gained the services of my mother (always happy to help) and we went through the pros and cons of certain aspects and helped me formulate a general consensus of what I wanted to do. All of this Uni stuff plus the weight of A levels was stifling me and I felt that a gap year would first and foremost be a great excuse for a break from study and stress with many other positives along with it.

A gap year is hugely beneficial to me because of the nature of my University degree course. In a year's time I will begin studying a BA Modern Languages degree at Southampton University in which I will be studying 3 languages: French, Spanish and a new language from scratch (ab initio) which I haven't yet decided on but at this point in time could be either Mandarin, Portuguese, Japanese or Arabic. My sister, Imogen, happens to already study the same degree at the same University as me so she has provided me a glimpse into what my future may look like and from what I can tell so far having experience of living/travelling/working abroad for an extended period of time as well as communicating with native speakers is highly regarded in order to improve the quality of my language learning as well as forming an open minded viewpoint of the world. It is also good for helping me get used to the idea of the third year of my degree which entails spending 9 months (an academic year) away from home studying/working in one of the countries whose language you study. In the case of Imogen, as of this Friday she will be setting off to spend 9 months studying at Xiamen University in the south of China so she is currently rushing around getting everything ready to go away and saying goodbye to various friends and family along the way who she won't be seeing (certainly not in person) for a while. If you wish to read her blog about her year abroad then please follow the link provided: http://whereonearthisimogen.blogspot.co.uk/. I imagine this gap year will also help me decide which language I will choose to study from scratch once I get to Uni. If not, then it will still buy me some valuable thinking time.

In terms of enjoyment, this gap year gives me the chance to travel to and cross off some of places I've longed to visit on my mental bucket list but not had the chance of yet. I realise that having the support and influence of my rather out-going parents that I have been incredibly lucky and been able to visit many incredible places over my short lifetime which include China, Malaysia, Australia, Morocco, Israel, UAE and most of Central and Southern Europe however it doesn't seem like quite enough. I'm greedy I know. There are still many places I would like to visit especially any of the Americas, New Zealand, Fiji, Thailand and Japan. If I can have both a linguistic experience in a francophone or hispanic country as well as going to at least one of the places mentioned above then I will view that as a very successful gap year.

Now many of you may be questioning why Mallorca is mentioned in the title of this post. Well, that's the first stop! Over the summer I looked at various different options of things to do on my gap year in terms of spending time abroad. They all looked really appealing, all sorts of projects helping impoverished children in third world countries plus extra touristy attractions but then you would see the price and find the cheapest ones would be about £5000, way out of my budget. Instead, I've gone down the alley of looking and applying for jobs and gaining qualifications. Whilst job searching a few weeks back before I went away to Leeds Festival, Imogen told me that her friend Ollie was advertising an au pair job with a family in Mallorca for 3 months during the Autumn. He'd been working for them for two months during summer and really enjoyed the whole experience so it seemed like a great opportunity to pursue. If you would like to read Ollie's blog which also includes his Third year abroad in Lille, France then follow this link: http://olliecraig15.wordpress.com/ .After a few e-mail exchanges and Skype conversation with the mother (Marta) we've arranged it all and I am going to be starting there this time next week! I'm really excited and looking forward to becoming an Au Pair in Mallorca. As a Swimming Teacher in my part-time job at home and having had previous work experience in a French primary school and a Spanish nursery I would say I enjoy working with kids because it allows you to rekindle the memory of those care-free days you used to have, blind and innocent to the world around us which having now grown up is a lot more cruel, difficult and in some cases miserable than it may seem (dark thoughts I know). I also find teaching really fulfilling so along with my interests in travelling and foreign languages, Au Pairing seemed like the next logical step. I've never been to Mallorca before and the only places I have been to in Spain (Bilbao, Salamanca and Zaragoza) are all mainland/northern cities so I will be expecting quite a different experience of Spanish culture during this trip.

As well as my upcoming job in Mallorca, I have recently started a TEFL qualification with TEFL England. For all of those not in the know, that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. To complete the qualification you have to do 100 hours worth of learning/assesment online which breaks down as 50 hours of learning how to teach TEFL, 30 hours of Grammar and a 20 hour video course which can all be done at your own pace over a 6 month period. Besides the online work, you also have to do an intense 20-hour course over a weekend to compliment your online learning which I did during the weekend Saturday 31st August-Sunday 1st September at the Manchester Conference Centre. Bar trying to get into Manchester at 9AM on a Sunday morning using public transport (a herculean task to say the least) I have actually found this aspect of the course the most enjoyable so far as I was able to meet other like-minded people going through the course at the same time as me from all walks of life. I expected to go and find it was full of language students (like myself) and language graduates however I was very much mistaken. Most people on the course were people looking for career changes from their dull 9-5s although there were a few language students as I expected as well as an international poker player, a drama student, 3 politics students and graduates, a teacher who'd come all the way from Germany to do the course and (most bizarrely) an older gentleman who wanted to do the course so he could meet up with a woman he'd been chatting with online from the Ukraine! the things people do for love ey?

Because the TEFL course is all online I plan to complete it whilst in Mallorca and that should unlock the next chapter in my gap year plan. TEFL teachers are in demand in various countries across the world and I hope to get myself a short term teaching contract with my qualification that will allow me to do a bit more travelling (hopefully in South America) and enrich my teaching and overall gap year experience. Although I'm not guaranteed to get a job immediately from this qualification, the TEFL programme will be useful for me if I want to find some work over the summer holidays between Uni terms and I have already learnt a lot about my own language which will be very beneficial to my linguistic ability in foreign languages. At Uni in Southampton, I know they offer modules in TEFL so it is a highly regarded skill and career path should I wish to pursue it more in the future.

My back-up plan if the TEFL doesn't work out this year is to go and volunteer with the International Citizen Service (ICS) for 3 months, a government funded initiative which runs various community projects in third-world countries across the world. My initial application has been accepted and I have been referred to one of the ICS partner companies called Progressio who organise projects in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Malawi and Zimbabwe. If I pass their selection day which I should be having once I've returned from Mallorca then I will be expected to fundraise £1,500 before potentially heading off in March/April next year. Besides the ideas and plans I've got down so far the rest of the year is up for grabs, full of possibility and hopefully full of adventure!

FP

#FraserOnTour

Hello, Hola, Bonjour! Introduction, A level results and Leeds Festival

Hey Everyone, welcome to my Gap Year Blog! If you're reading this right now you have taken the time to read it so thanks for your interest. This opening post is just to update you all on the activity of these past final weeks of summer.

So, let's start off where last year ended. Thursday August 15th 2013, A Level Results Day, my final day as an A Level student at Aquinas College. From  14th June, the day I finished my final exam, up until the Monday before the big day I hadn't really thought about the outcome of my results. For most of the summer I really just wanted to know but once the time was upon me I decided I quite liked the whole situation of being in limbo, unaware of where my future would be. My first choice: Southampton my insurance: Birmingham or neither! Doubts started to develop in mind during the nights leading up to Results Day and my brain kept me up for most of them asking me questions ("Do you really think you did well in that French exam?", "will those 4 questions you didn't answer in the Spanish written paper come back to haunt you?" "Did you revise enough for that Politics retake?" etc.). I started playing through different scenarios in my head whilst trying to sleep and some of them seemed so realistic I thought they'd actually happened. I'd wake up from another unsuccessful attempt at sleeping thinking that I'd got straight A*s only to find it was still the middle of the night and I was still in bed. Other times I would get a series of E and U's and have to deal with the disappointment of my parents and worst of all myself. All the self-fabricated panic got to such an extent that on the night before Results the only thing that could keep me sane was playing Fifa on my iPod and listening to Bob Marley records like Three Little Birds (Don't worry about a thing), Smile Jamaica and Is This Love? until my body eventually forced me to sleep due the sheer exhaustion of being up for so long.

When the day arrived, I woke up nervous, no amount of Fifa or Bob Marley could make me forget what day it was. I decided to drive into College to collect my results in person with my Mum beside me for support instead of getting my results online like most normal teenagers. The year before when receiving my AS results I was on holiday in Holland with the family where it took me the best part of 6 hours to eventually get my results online. Very nerve-wracking. So it was safe to say I wasn't trusting technology this time. College was much emptier than I'd expected, only a select few had made the trip in which was a shame as I was hoping to have a chat with those I hadn't been able to see over the summer and to say goodbye to my teachers for the last time. I made my way to the LRC where results were being handed out and upon entering I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes, "This is it" I told myself. I tell one of the Women from reception my name and she hands me a brown envelope that matches, I open it, reading from bottom to top for some unexplained reason:

Spanish-A? French-B!? Government & Politics-B General Studies-B.

All of a sudden, my heart sank. I'd missed my AAB offer for Southampton by just 4 marks on my French and it seemed as if I'd be going to Birmingham. The night before I would've happily taken any place at any University however now it appeared that my chance to go to Southampton had vanished, the idea of going to Birmingham seemed much less appealing. Heartbroken, I went to see my French teacher (Patrick) about getting a re-mark on one of my French exams (a D in my final exam) and after a few minutes of conversation he convinced me to look at UCAS Track to see what the actual outcome of my results was. I opened my account to find the message: "Congratulations! Your place at University of Southampton SJ7 for Modern Languages R990 has been confirmed" I did it! Southampton accepted me regardless of missing my offer by 4 marks. The relief was overwhelming, so much so that I spent the rest of the day with a smile right across my face before going out in the evening to celebrate with literally the whole of Aquinas at Tiger Tiger. Turns out all those months of hard work, revising, and speaking in foreign languages about just about every subject on the planet had been worth it. I earned the right to be a Southampton student and I can't wait to start studying there in 2014.

Here's a picture of the victory steak I had at The Hare And Hounds on Werneth Low to celebrate with my Mum, Brother and Sister on Results Day

Now Results Day had been and gone and I'd relinquished the identity of a student (well, for a year at least) my gap year had  officially begun and it was off to the annual exam results/end of summer party that is Leeds Festival where I took on my first job as a 'Gapper' working as a  CAT volunteer for Hotbox Events. In between seeing some great live music acts and drinking copious amounts of Cider I had to work on the campsites during Wednesday (9AM-5PM), Thursday evening(5PM-1AM) and Monday morning (1AM-9AM). My job as a CAT required me to help people carry their stuff, put up tents, ensure the emergency/fire lanes were free, keep an eye out for thieves, regulate fires and on the Monday shift put them out. I found the shifts hard work because in my normal job as a Swimming Teacher I have never worked more than 3 hours at one given time but the actual work itself was fairly easy except putting out fires after 7AM on Monday morning when we received the staff order over the radio to put out all fires on site. This led to me being called various unspeakable names, threatened with violence and having various things chucked at me like cans and candles most bizarrely (seriously who brings candles to a festival???) . I'd say the overall deal of getting a free weekend ticket and staff camping all for a returnable deposit of £200 was an absolute bargain which I would definitely be happy to do again. Whilst volunteering I had the chance to meet so many different people be it volunteers, security or general festival goers as well as spending times with my friends before they all head off to University and although I didn't party as hard or drink quite as much as I did the previous year as a punter, I do believe I had a better experience altogether. Music-wise there were so many acts that blew me away including Biffy Clyro, Alex Clare, San Cisco, HAIM, Dog Is Dead, Spector, Dry The River, Frank Turner, Bastille, Green Day, Theme Park, Foals, Jake Bugg and Alt-J but my personal highlight was Lucy Rose. If you're not familiar with her and her work, she is a singer/songwriter/guitarist ,better known for her involvement with Indie band Bombay Bicycle Club (one of my favourite bands), who has an angelic voice and is very attractive. In short, she is my ideal woman. I had the pleasure of meeting her at the NME Signing Tent and she was a real delight. As she wasn't one of the better known artists at the festival I had plenty of time to have a chat with her as she signed my copy of her debut album 'Like I Used To' as well as another autograph (which is now hung up on my bedroom wall). She gave me a hug and I got a picture which you can see below. I left the tent with a huge grin on my face and butterflies dancing around my stomach. She is such a genuine, understated, nice person which is not always the case with musicians who often feel they have to try and act cool which was most certainly true of when I met Jake Bugg only a few minutes before at the Signing Tent and unlike other famous/semi-famous musicians I've previously met, she actually smiled in the picture I had with her! It was just such a lovely moment. Her set later that evening was equally impressive in an almost packed Festival Republic tent where she played the hits from her album as well as some new songs alongside her band which I saw all from right on the barrier at the front of the tent singing along to every song I knew. The crowd was immense and you could really tell that having this kind of support really meant something to her, I swear I saw her tearing up towards the end. Truly special.

I apologise if I've rambled on a bit, wasn't exactly the short post I'd originally planned! In my next post which will be arriving in the next few days I will inform you of my upcoming plans as well as what I've been doing most recently to truly get my gap year blog started up. To finish, I've left a shortened collection of photos taken from my time at Leeds Festival for your pleasure. 

Au revoir for now! FP #FraserOnTour

 This is me with Lucy Rose. If you haven't already listened to any of her music I suggest you head to her Soundcloud page on this link: https://soundcloud.com/lucy-rose

                                 Says it all really. Traditional Yorkshire banter on Red camp

                             I can now cross having a picture with this sign off my bucket list :)

                         Alex Clare, taken from right at the very front of the NME/Radio 1 tent

                                                   Biffy Clyro headlining on Friday night

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                                    Alt-J headlining the NME/Radio 1 stage on Sunday night

  Memorabilia gained from this year's Leeds Festival: Line-up poster, Alt-J T-Shirt, Signed autographs from Peace, Tribes and Lucy Rose, confetti from Biffy Clyro, a set list from Theme Park, a set list from Tim Burgess (I didn't even see him but I asked security to get me a Lucy Rose set list from the stage only to find that I'd been given a Tim Burgess one! oh well) and a muddy/wet staff handbook