First steps in my Project Trust journey

Project Trust is a well known and fairly prestigious organisation. This means they are very careful when picking their volunteers. Because of this I had to write a personal statement on why PT should chose me. Like most self evaluation scripts, this came hand in hand with a instant loss of self esteem as I struggled to think of my strengths. So, again I turned to my biggest fan, my mother. She reminded me that I had in fact done some things with the 16 years of my life and gradually my self esteem rose to a high level of confidence. The form was sent!

A few weeks later PT had sent a reply - I was in! "Great, that was easy" or so I thought. The next letter I received was a slight shock. PT told me that I must attend a "selection course on the Isle of Coll".. It is a chance for the people who run PT to get an a true idea of the volunteers they have picked out. They use it to see whether they are cut out for a year abroad by observing a number of things such as their level of maturity, emotional strength and people skills. Essentially it's a 5 day long job interview. When I first read about it I thought, "GREAT! bring it on!" However, as time went on and the selection course neared my confidence started to lower and doubts entered my mind:

"What if I don't make any friends?

What if i'm not smart enough to be a teacher?

What if I get ill while i'm there?

What if someone else gets ill near me?

Wait if I can't cope with 5 days on Coll, how can I possibly cope with 8 months abroad?"

*INSERT PANIC*

So... yes, a little dramatic but once I had gone through a hundred silly scenarios like this in my head, I was able to put them to bed. It was only 5 days after all.

Next came the second hurdle

​The selection course was based on the Isle of Coll in the inner hebberdians. A.K.A FLIPPING MILES AWAY! In fact that is approximately 514.1 miles from Bristol (my home town).

How an Earth can I get there? It was time to make a plan:

Flight to Glasgow

Coach from Glasgow airport to Oban

Stay the night in Oban in youth hostel

3 hour boat journey to Coll Island.

Simple enough.

NICE! Starting with the top of my list I booked my flight. After I looked for coaches to take me to Oban. To my horror I found that all the coaches from Glasgow to Oban stop by the time my flight lands! Shoot my mum is going to kill me.

*INSERT SECOND PANIC*

Frantically I started trying to think of other ways to get to Oban.

It went something like this:

Taxi? - for 4 hours .. yeah as if I have that kind of money.

Mini flight - okay sure do I have a private plane?

FLIP - BEGGING A RANDOM ER?! -hitch hiking hmmm not very smart or mature.

After hours of racking my brain and surfing the internet I knew it was time to brace myself and break it to my mum.

Within a day she had come up with a solution. I was to change my flight to the day before and stay the night with some very old family friends in Glasgow. From there I would catch the coach and continue with my original plan. Don't get me wrong I was very grateful to her for sorting me out once again. However... I had not seen these family friends since I was about 4! All I knew about them was that they were a family of four a mum a dad and two twin girls and that apparently I used to mistake the mum (Susan) for my own. This was to be an issue - If you know much about me you will know I can either be an extrovert or an introvert. Meeting people who are older than me and I perceive to be cooler triggers the introvert mode. I become shy and this weird kind of awkward where it seems as though I hate everything. This can be rather challenging when trying to give off a good impression. So you could say I was absolutely dreading this one night. But once again I put my worries to bed. It was only one night after all.

#Thepanic #New #ProjectTrust