CV Woes.

I’m currently trying to write a CV, just in case I need one whilst I’m at university. I never realized how awkward they are to write before! We had lessons on writing a CV in secondary school, but I found it boring and messed around. I’m sure I wrote one for my Welsh Bacc work, but I have no idea where that might be and it probably wasn’t anything to write home about anyway.

It’s like writing a personal statement; how do you write it without sounding big-headed? I really struggled with that when writing my personal statements, and I’m struggling with it now as I try to write my CV. At least with the PS there was no real structure required – you basically had 4000 characters to showcase your best bits, so to speak, and convince the university that you’d be a good addition to the student body. I have no idea what skills my potential future employers might be looking for, nor do I know what jobs I’m hoping to apply for or anything like that. It’s all well and good saying what I want to do in the futures – to be a play therapist working with sick children – but that’s not going to help me to get a job behind a bar or at a checkout, is it? And for previous job experience I think I’m lacking too – I spent three months as a waitress and two years working in a fast food kiosk – nothing to shout about really.

How much detail is too much? How much is not enough? I think it’s time to give up for tonight, and return to it when I’m not feeling so mischievous, otherwise I’ll end up writing it in my new Disney font and putting silly things in all the sections.

My new blog!

Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean the end of this blog. I had an idea whilst I was browsing Amazon the other day – I found a book called Listography, where you basically document your life in lists. It sounds like a great idea, but I figured that why buy a book, when you can just make your own? That’s where 365 Days Of Maddy was created. I’m going to write one list every day for 365 days (and if I miss one day, I have to make it up by writing two lists the next day, and so on).

The reasons why I’m doing this? First and foremost, it’s something to do when I’m bored. Second, I think it’ll help me learn more about myself, and it might inspire other people to do the same. Thirdly, some of the lists I have ideas for – tattoos I want, things I want to do before I die – might be the inspiration to actually go ahead and do them. Some of the lists have been written in the past couple of weeks and I’m just waiting to post them up, others will be fairly spontaneous. If anyone has any ideas for list themes, please comment either on this blog or on the list blog!

I am going to post more on this blog, I promise – I used to update nearly every day, now the posts are getting more sporadic and so are the viewing figures. I appreciate everyone who continues to read this blog!

You can find my new blog at www.365daysofmaddy.wordpress.com

Hello, new followers!

Hope you’re enjoying my blog, thank you for following, reading, commenting, liking and everything else you’re doing, and I have one last massive favour to ask of you all – there is a new author called Christopher Maine, who has recently published his first novel, a science fiction set in the future, on Kindle. You can get it if you’ve got a Kindle, or download the free Kindle Reading App for your smartphone, laptop, iPad etc, and buy it on there. It’s less than £2, and it’s well worth it, I really like it and can’t wait to read more. You can buy the book at –

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Flight-Renegade-Tales-ebook/dp/B007B3CZF2/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329694430&sr=1-7

And the author also has a writing blog which he updates frequently with information on the novels and the characters in them, and it also has some great tips for other writers – check it out and follow it!

http://christophermaine.wordpress.com/

Thanks! x

Moom’s Views: Illiteracy

I was really shocked today to discover that in Wales, 40% of children enter secondary school with a reading age that is more than six months below their real age, and 3.8 million children in the UK do not own a single book, according to the National Literacy Trust. My first question was, “How?”. How can this happen? And also, is it any wonder that young people are struggling to get jobs these days, when they cannot read at the level they should be reading at?

I know that for some, it’s not through lack of trying – conditions such as dyslexia can seriously affect literacy. However, in many, it seems to just be that their parents never encouraged them to read when they were younger, and that indifference to literature has continued as they’ve aged. Personally, I can’t imagine a life without reading. Not being able to read would mean not being able to write, and for me – when I’m looking to pursue a degree with a high element of writing – the ability to read is absolutely vital. Regardless of that, I love reading – I always have been. My parents have always encouraged me to read from a young age, reading books to me before I could even read myself.

By the age of six, I was reading Harry Potter and by the age of eight or nine I was getting through books like there was no tomorrow – it only took me a few hours to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which wasn’t a small book by any means, at the age of nine. It really shocks me that there are some children who, even at the age of eleven or older, are unable to read – even simple magazines or small books.

I don’t quite understand why – there is the stigma that books aren’t cool, or that they’re for losers, but I’m pretty certain that when these people who say these things get to the age of about eighteen, when they’re stuck with no money, no job and no prospects of going to university/furthering their education – or probably older, depending on just how immature they are -, they’ll look back and they will regret not learning to read when it was much easier, when their minds soaked up information better and they had the aid of teachers.

When I have children, I will always encourage them to read from a young age and make sure they never encounter the problems children these days are facing – and I hope they will learn to love reading in the way that I did, and reap the benefits in the way that I am doing now.