Being A Student For Dummies

     When I was at school I didn't do very well. I left in 1998 with my highest GCSE grade of a D! There can be little excuse for this but if I had to give some kind of explanation for why I did so poorly then I'd lay the blame at the door of my Gender Dysphoria. That may seem the easy option and maybe it is. It can become so easy to blame ones failings in life on G.D. and that's something I hate doing because where do you stop? At what point do you accept that you failed because you simply weren't good enough? I know I wasn't good enough to get a C grade at GCSE level but it's no coincidence that when I was doing my exams I was also taking my gender exploration to another level. It was the summer of '98, during my study leave, that I dressed up in women's clothes for the first time. This just blew my mind off into places it'd never been before. Yes, I wasn't good enough at school but the fact that my mind was so consumed by other things, well it certainly didn't help matters!

The south Annex of
Chesterfield College

     So, I left school without a C grade at GCSE level which essentially left me with going the apprenticeship route. I tried 8 months at Painting and Decorating before I fell into the Catering industry. 14 years on and I suddenly decide that I want to better myself, improve my life and future. My G.D. is cured so why not, what's holding me back? I want to be a Primary School Teacher and because I didn't do well first time around I need to redo my Maths, English and Science GCSE's. Today I enrolled for the English and Science courses (awaiting on my screening results for my maths course) which meant a trip to my local college. Chesterfield College is huge with 2 or 3 different campus sites dotted around Chesterfield. I went there when I was doing my Painting and Decorating and it's not really changed much in 15 years! It really took me back, being there. On my way there I drove past the spot where I had my first kiss. It was with a girl called Sarah and just seeing that spot, I was transported back to the summer of '99! It's funny that, how certain places can trigger your memory into recalling something you'd all but forgotten about.

     I start my courses on the 10th September and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it. Doing these GCSE's are more than just about a future career though. It's about giving me a new target to aim for, a new project to concentrate on. Following surgery, one of the biggest battles I faced was the normality of reality. When you transition it dominates your life. When you get to a stage where surgery becomes a viable option, the thought of the surgery dominates your every thinking. It becomes the only thing on your horizon and when you reach it, when you get past it there's nothing else. It leaves a huge void and realising that, realising you have nothing else to aim for, that you've accomplished your dream, well it's not an easy thing to come to terms with. I guess that's one of the reasons I've decided in a career change. I need that new target, that new thing to accomplish. That's what doing these GCSE's are all about, giving me a reason to continue, a reason to look forward!