In a couple of weeks I'll begin volunteering at a local school! I have a friend on Facebook who put me in contact with a school who are always keen to take on volunteers. Wait a minute, I'll start from the start.....
Way back in May when I first started thinking about going into teaching I mentioned it on Facebook. A woman I went to school with sent me a message saying that the school she worked at were always after volunteers. It's a school which deals predominantly with special needs. At the time I put it on the back burner because I was concentrating on getting a plan together for my future. To be honest I wasn't completely sure how far I'd get down the old career changing route. I did wonder if, at the age of 31, I had it in me to truly start again! So, in the intervening time I started college and got a full-time job at a care home. I started to believe that I could change career, that I could become a future Primary School teacher. Self belief is such an important thing and despite what I've had to do to get to this point in my life I still really struggle with it. It takes a lot for me to really believe in myself. I have had moments over the past six months where I've thought about returning to the safety of the kitchen. I know the kitchen, it's familiar, somewhere I feel safe and comfortable. It's not somewhere I want to return though because if I were to go back in, I'd never leave! Anyway, now I'm sorted at college, I've started thinking seriously about university and actually becoming a teacher. One of the things I'll need if I am to get into university is experience within a school so I got back in contact with my friend and on Thursday afternoon I popped to see the deputy head and I start in a couple of weeks! I'm really looking forward to it! I even told her I'm trans and she was fine with it.
In other news it was my grandmas funeral last week and we gave her a good send off. I read the ulogy along with my two sisters and my cousin and my brother read a poem. It was what my grandma would've wanted, her 5 grandchildren together talking about her life. Before the funeral we'd gotten together and written some notes and then I put it all together so it flowed. It was nice to spend time with the family because it's not often that we all get together these days.
It has been a crazy few weeks with lots of change and emotion. Change and emotion has kind of been the theme for the year though and I'm looking forward to doing my end of year posts. There's such a lot to look back on in 2013 and so much to talk about.
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Sunday, 10 November 2013
A GRS Update
A week or so ago I posted a link to my GRS diary on a support site for someone due to have her op next year and she asked if I'd post an update! Thinking about it I haven't really posted a GRS update and I guess I've just been too damn busy to even give a second thought about it. Since GRS I've completely changed career, started studying for three GCSE's at college and more recently I've had B.A. and experienced a family bereavement. It makes it hard to believe than I'm still only 7.5 months post-op! When life does take over though, as those going through GRS will agree, it does take on less of a significance in your life. It's really strange because you spend so long before the op preparing for it and yearning. It does really become very easy to forget that you actually had anything done down there! I honestly can not imagine having a penis for example. It really seems an alien concept to me and that's only half a year after the surgery!
Anyway, update time. It's healed really well, the scars down the side of my vagina are healing. I have a sensitive clitoris and I have a reasonable depth. I am fairly happy with the surgical results. It looks like what it should and is a hell of a lot nicer than what I had before so I can't really complain can I.
As for dilation, I tend to forget about doing it which is quite a bad habit to get into. When it was twice a day it was easy to keep track. When I woke up and when I went to bed. Now I'm on a couple of times a week and I really need to keep a proper schedule! I do have a fairly busy life (that will only get busier!) so it is difficult but I do need to be a bit more serious as far as dilation goes.
That's kinda all there is to update people with. I'm back to fitness as far as that surgery goes and it's still one of the best things I ever did.
Anyway, update time. It's healed really well, the scars down the side of my vagina are healing. I have a sensitive clitoris and I have a reasonable depth. I am fairly happy with the surgical results. It looks like what it should and is a hell of a lot nicer than what I had before so I can't really complain can I.
As for dilation, I tend to forget about doing it which is quite a bad habit to get into. When it was twice a day it was easy to keep track. When I woke up and when I went to bed. Now I'm on a couple of times a week and I really need to keep a proper schedule! I do have a fairly busy life (that will only get busier!) so it is difficult but I do need to be a bit more serious as far as dilation goes.
That's kinda all there is to update people with. I'm back to fitness as far as that surgery goes and it's still one of the best things I ever did.
Thursday, 7 November 2013
A Different Transition
It's only been two weeks since I had the second surgery of 2013, my Breast Augmentation although it feels like a lot longer! This past two weeks have seemed to last a lifetime, so many different emotions being thrown together. In terms of my recovery, it's going okay. I'm looking to go back to work in a couple of weeks and I am feeling better than I was. They do feel sore and I especially notice it after a busy day. I'm not able to lift anything too heavy yet and even things like pulling a pint behind the bar are hard! I'm okay though and I am extremely happy with the results. It feels strange having bigger breasts but in a nice way. No regrets at all!
We're starting to get ready for my grandmas funeral which is next week. I just need it done I guess. It still feels really surreal that she's not here anymore but we all have to come to terms with the fact she's not. I can still picture her, on the kitchen floor and although we now know that there was nothing we could've done it's still an image that's imprinted on my mind. It feels like something I watched rather than witnessed, like I wasn't really there. I guess it's the shock still or a way for my mind to make sense of it.
I'm still enjoying college and, as I predicted, English is proving to be one of my stronger subjects. We did a controlled assessment a couple of weeks ago. It was an essay in which we had to analyse two different stories talking about the way emotions are portrayed in them and how the two stories are linked. The mark goes towards my final grade and I did very well. I got 12/15 which is equivalent to a B! My lecturer said that it was just a whisker away from an A! I'm so proud of myself and it's given me confidence that I can do well in all three GCSE's I'm doing. He said also that it was the highest grade in the year for the controlled assessment, just to make my head bigger! Afterwards, in my class, a few of my classmates started comparing results. I never told anyone mine but the general score was around the 7/15 mark which shows you how well I did!
In terms of my longer goal, I still want to teach and I'm already looking ahead to next years studies and beyond. When I pass my GCSE's in June I'm looking at doing an Access Level 3 course in Humanities and Social Science. This is basically a substitute for A-Levels designed for mature learners. After that I should be able to get into University to train as a Primary School Teacher! I'm really starting to feel confident about my future now although I know how stressful it's going to be. I know it's not going to be easy but I'm as determined as ever to succeed!
I have thought about renaming this blog because I do feel that I am no longer in transition. Saying that, although I'm not transitioning anymore in terms of my gender, my career is going through a transition from hardened Head Chef with temper issues (I used to shout and swear A LOT) to nice and gentle Primary School Teacher! Quite a transition don't ya think!
We're starting to get ready for my grandmas funeral which is next week. I just need it done I guess. It still feels really surreal that she's not here anymore but we all have to come to terms with the fact she's not. I can still picture her, on the kitchen floor and although we now know that there was nothing we could've done it's still an image that's imprinted on my mind. It feels like something I watched rather than witnessed, like I wasn't really there. I guess it's the shock still or a way for my mind to make sense of it.
I'm still enjoying college and, as I predicted, English is proving to be one of my stronger subjects. We did a controlled assessment a couple of weeks ago. It was an essay in which we had to analyse two different stories talking about the way emotions are portrayed in them and how the two stories are linked. The mark goes towards my final grade and I did very well. I got 12/15 which is equivalent to a B! My lecturer said that it was just a whisker away from an A! I'm so proud of myself and it's given me confidence that I can do well in all three GCSE's I'm doing. He said also that it was the highest grade in the year for the controlled assessment, just to make my head bigger! Afterwards, in my class, a few of my classmates started comparing results. I never told anyone mine but the general score was around the 7/15 mark which shows you how well I did!
In terms of my longer goal, I still want to teach and I'm already looking ahead to next years studies and beyond. When I pass my GCSE's in June I'm looking at doing an Access Level 3 course in Humanities and Social Science. This is basically a substitute for A-Levels designed for mature learners. After that I should be able to get into University to train as a Primary School Teacher! I'm really starting to feel confident about my future now although I know how stressful it's going to be. I know it's not going to be easy but I'm as determined as ever to succeed!
I have thought about renaming this blog because I do feel that I am no longer in transition. Saying that, although I'm not transitioning anymore in terms of my gender, my career is going through a transition from hardened Head Chef with temper issues (I used to shout and swear A LOT) to nice and gentle Primary School Teacher! Quite a transition don't ya think!
Friday, 1 November 2013
The Reminders
It's nearly been a week since I found my Grandma with my mum and I'm still attempting to get over the shock of it all. It still doesn't seem real. It is real though and we're all getting through it as a family. It's a shame that it's taken something like this but we are all closer now. I've seen a bit more of my cousin and her husband and daughter and I've also seen more of my younger sister. I really hope that we can remain in pretty close contact going forward, especially with my cousin.
One thing we've done recently is go through all of my grandmas old photos. There's her and my granddads wedding photo from the 1940's which is fascinating to see. There's also lots of photos of us all growing up, taken at various weddings. It did strike me that I don't like seeing old photos of me, as a little boy. My dad questioned that and I could see his point in a way. It is who I was and I'm not ashamed of it in anyway. I've never been ashamed of my childhood, it's a part of my life, my history. What it does do though, seeing myself as I once was, is bring back my dysphoria. All through my child hood I experienced feelings of wanting to be a girl, jealousy at my sisters because they were girls. Although, once I started to transition, now that I am a girl, those feelings dissipated they are still there because I never got to be a girl growing up. I missed out on a lot and when I get reminded of that I get depressed. I remember that I never got to be a little girl and so my dysphoria, my feelings of wanting to be a girl and those feelings of jealousy come rushing back.
One thing we've done recently is go through all of my grandmas old photos. There's her and my granddads wedding photo from the 1940's which is fascinating to see. There's also lots of photos of us all growing up, taken at various weddings. It did strike me that I don't like seeing old photos of me, as a little boy. My dad questioned that and I could see his point in a way. It is who I was and I'm not ashamed of it in anyway. I've never been ashamed of my childhood, it's a part of my life, my history. What it does do though, seeing myself as I once was, is bring back my dysphoria. All through my child hood I experienced feelings of wanting to be a girl, jealousy at my sisters because they were girls. Although, once I started to transition, now that I am a girl, those feelings dissipated they are still there because I never got to be a girl growing up. I missed out on a lot and when I get reminded of that I get depressed. I remember that I never got to be a little girl and so my dysphoria, my feelings of wanting to be a girl and those feelings of jealousy come rushing back.
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