'City life and lessons' PRACTICE ARTICLE EXTRACT

I 'grew up' in the rolling red bricks of England. The busy streets were never a place i was allowed to play unless it was either snowing, where no cars dared to venture, or a sweltering hot afternoon where all the sensible individuals had retreated into the cool shade of their homes. Not me. I much preferred making myself dizzy by swinging around the washing line pole until the sheer heat of the metal burned my hands and left me with 'boyish' blisters- an ever occurring phrase that regularly swung round the washing pole of my life for the good part of eleven years. Of course when you're this age, hardly anything is boring and everything that is supposed to make no sense, never matters. Because when you're this age what would you worry about more; The fact that the economy is crumbling or whether you could fit in seeing three of your friends all in one day?

The day we moved from the terrace house in the busy streets of Bristol to a quiet home on the outskirts of North Somerset, I had just turned eight. My little sister was a new born and my younger brother was around five. He cried horrendously when we left the house for the last time. Forever the attention seeker he would cry at anything-not so much anymore but he always finds a way to get some kind of attention nevertheless. I, however bragged to my friends about the "huge" new house we were moving into and how the garden was "one-hundred feet with a swing and loads of trees". Moving to the countryside wasn't a big deal for me at this time. I wasn't a bored child, I was simply unoccupied from time to time. Before i could fully imagine the endless possibility of the city and what it beholds in its grey hands, from the people i would meet in my teenage years to all the situations I would face later on, the countryside was open and an endless opportunity. My dad and I had a patch of garden that we tended to sporadically. A muddy patch of ground, set aside from my parents' adult garden and all just for me and dad. I have no recollection of tending to my muddy patch I was ever so proud of. It probably survived through a stroke of Somerset luck or, more likely, the unseen hand of my dad.

When i reached the ever so tender age of fifteen, my teenage years piled on fast and thick. I was still only a young adult but the need to escape the countryside was growing. By the time I had reached sixteen (almost reaching seventeen) and had left school I was gagging to escape the green grasp of the country. My mind was begging me to leave the quiet, the uneventful blanket of rolling hills and grazing cattle that seemed to be suffocating me. I chose a college that was as far away as acceptable and back in the bustling city that held me so tenderly as a child. Here is where i encountered my very first taste of life as a whole. With this new found freedom I learnt more lessons than I could count on my two hands. All the people encountered, all the relationships, all the dates, all the places I visited, taught me something. They allowed me to grasp reality faster than I believe i would've staying in the comfort of my parents' humble abode. Which brings me onto my first lesson that was an essential part of my development as a person: "If your dreams are bigger than the town you live in, you've got to get out of there" (-Brian Fallon)

The beginning of college for me was overwhelming. I struggled intensely with the work load that my previous teachers had not prepared me for prior to starting. I tried my very hardest to juggle both my social life as well as my education, this, I just about managed with but only by the tightest schedule I've ever encountered. Looking back on it now I made such rash decisions about what came first, which was almost always my social life. Regrettably, this left me with a reputation as someone who didn't always hand in the perfect essay homework, that arrived late because I'd stayed up late the night before and as the one who always left things to the last minute. However, don't get me wrong, I always tried my hardest in class and in the time I'd freed up for study. My teachers never saw the hardest I ever worked because I was never one to raise my hand in class. But i listened intently to every single detail that was ever written, spoken or discussed. I picked up on all the little improvements that were needed to achieve the highest grades and I made sure that i never fell behind in class work. But homework has always been my pitfall. Unfortunately, this is what you're judged on.  At the end of my two years, a personal statement was required to each of your subject teachers. I remember very clearly what i wrote to all my AS and A-level teachers. Lesson number two, a statement that quoted Tiger Woods and one that I'd been trying to get across to them throughout the entirety of my stay; "I'm trying as hard as I can, and sometimes things don't go your way and that's the way things go."