If I won the lottery...

Have you ever sat down after buying a lottery ticket and thought, what would I actually do if I won the lottery? Over the last couple of months, there have been several Euromillions lottery draws, with jackpots ranging from 1 million pounds, to 22 million pounds. After each of these lottery draws, normal people became millionaires overnight, and their lives changed drastically, for good and for bad.

Its always amazed me why certain people who won lottery jackpots, decided to tell everyone, and have their names shown on t.v and in the papers. How bad must it be afterwards when all of a sudden people start to be overly nice to you, people you havent spoken to in ages start to come out of the woodwork, and certain people around you start to ask for favors. This is clearly a bad side of having so much money, of course there will be people you trust, that wouldn't treat you bad because they'd like to be apart of your new wealth, but unfortunatly there are those people who will appear, looking for ways to get part of that wealth out of you. If I was ever to win the lottery I'd immediatly want it to be kept anonymous, and once I had the money, I would only tell people who I knew I could trust.

During the week running up to the last Euromillions draw, some friends from work and myself were talking about what we'd do if we won the jackpot. At the time, the jackpot was roughly £10 million, so we kept with this figure and planned out what we'd do from there. Overall we decided that, due to getting such a large amount of money in such a small period of time, we would initially need to take a small amount of the money, and go on a shopping spree, this way we would get it out of our system, we'd get a few luxury items that we've been wanting, and it would stop us from slowly digging away at the money later on, buying random things. We also decided that having gotten such a large sum of money it would be selfish not to give a percentage of it to charity.

Several months before having this talk at work, mainly because I was very bored on the bus one day, I thought I would actually write down what I would do with £10 million. On this piece of paper, I wrote down a list of people I would like to give money too, and then I actually assigned specific amounts of money to these people. I found that when it came to my siblings and friends, I wrote that I would impose restrictions, saying that a certain percentage should go towards university loans, or ways to further their education. Although I still had some mony left over, my list at this point mainly consisted of people who I'd give money, instead of things I would buy. I didn;t want to dwell to much on the things I would like to buy like holidays or a car.

If you ever get the time, please take some time out, and try to think about what you'd do with money like this. When you actually understand how big amount of money it is, and what it buys, you then realise just how many lifes you could affect.

Becoming Adults

Just as a quick warning, I may rant a little in this blog.

Have I missed something this year? Have I somehow missed a memo, and fallen behind somewhere?

Throughout these blogs I've touched on the subject of how people I know and myself have felt we're now moving out of childhood and becoming adults, but today I feel that that is an understatement.

Since last September loads of my friends have either gone straight into jobs, or headed off to university, to move further along that transition to becoming more independent, to entering 'the real world', however that was only 8ish months ago. Last year when we were still in college we were still considered kids, we had our parents telling us to clean our rooms, do chores, to be home at certain times etc... Look at things now.

Since september I've seen friends start dating and within a few months decide to go abroad for a few weeks alone together, also more recently I've seen a friend of mine again start dating someone and within 3/4 months, having never lived on their own before, just one day decide to get a flat together. I've also seen a close friend of mine, through no fault of his own, have to go through similar things to how I have with my parents, but with even more added problems on top of it.

What happened last year?
I know the things like being able to go on holiday with someone is great, but there have been negative things that have happened too. Although I'm now at the age of becoming an adult, there are people like my brother and sister who are still young, how are they meant to deal with these things? Why should they at that age be put through things like this?
Out of everything, my main question I'd like to ask is: why is it that because of people do the wrong thing, and making bad judgments, that innocent people are affected?

Even since beginning these blogs a couple of months ago, I've also felt as though the world has sped up. From the images of adulthood, from things like books, t.v, and what I've seen myself, don't normal adults take time with things usually, especially when it comes to things like choosing jobs, buying new cars, with things like moving in with other people, and moving house. Again my main question for this really is: Are people moving too fast now a days, or is it just the way things are, and I haven't yet gotten to that speed of things?

I know that I probably won't have a either of these questions I've asked in this blog be answered, its just one of those things. However I do just hope that in years to come, if I hear one of my friends or someone I know ask me any of these questions, I'll be able to answer them, to help them through what it is they're going through, and show them a path to follow.
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Routines...Who needs them

Isn't it strange, that no matter how hard you try, people always seem to fall into routines?

Lately I've noticed people I know, wanting more from life, especially when it comes to their jobs. These people have been looking and applying for jobs because at the moment they kind of feel like 'they are in a rut', for a better phrase, and that they want to do more.

People are creatures of habit, its normal, the strangest thing about routines and habits I've found though, is that sometimes you barely even notice you are doing it.
For example, if you drive to work everyday, you tend to go the exact same route each time, because it'll either be the quickest route, or the route with the least traffic. By falling into this routine it means each day you will drive to and from work the same way, pass the same buildings, the same streets, and you won't notice your doing it, you'll just drive the way you do everyday .

Staying on with the theme of work, I thought just this morning how every time I walk to work, I go the same way, so to mix it up a bit, I chose a different path today. Now I'm sure your thinking A) I've lost it and am talking crazy, and B) how is walking a different path to work going to effect anything, but in fact it did. In the whole time I've lived in scarborough and walked its streets, I've never walked that way into town before. Even though it was only a little difference, it was a change, I'd done something new I hadn't done before.

I know I've rambled on a lot in this blog, all I'm trying to say though, is that everyone gets into these routines, some may call them ruts, but its normal, it helps people feel comfortable. All you have to do is just once and a while, be spontaneous, or do something out of the ordinary, and you'll feel better for it. Whenever you can, take a chance and do something new, as they say 'Carpe Diem'.
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University.... Not long now!

Its now only 3 months time till I begin to pack up all of my room again, and make the transition from living at home, to uni life in Sheffield. In preparation for going off to university next september, there were some necessary things that I had to complete, all of which I'm now finally glad to say i've done. These things, that really should be completed ASAP, were to book my accommodation, so that I'd have somewhere to live, and also to complete and send off my student finance application forms, so that I'd have money to live off of when I'm there. Although both of these things are quite time consuming, if they're done early on, they'll give you great peace of mind when it comes to september and you've got the chaos of packing, moving house, buying new books and the endless list of things that crop up.

This time round, I'm looking forward to going to university so so much more, it feels like a long time coming, and I'm really glad that its only three months away now. The only worry on my mind at this point is the initial moving into halls, and who my room mates will be. Just this week I was having a discussion with my friend Matty about who my ideal room mates would be, and although it may sound slightly weird, I think sharing a flat with nerds, would be awesome. Just to clarify, people I think of as nerds, are people who do things like watching Dr Who, who read Harry Potter, people who say random facts that would never come up in normal conversations, just because they can, think I'd fit in quite well with people like that.

After settling in to my new accommodation, my mind would then turn to starting my History course. I really cant wait to see the full break down of all the modules we will be learning that year, hopefully they'll be really good choices. I'm sure that when it comes to all the note taking and work during lessons I'll be able to get back into things quite quickly, however when it comes to writing essay's, because of my year out from school, i think I'll have to have a few practise goes, to get back up to scratch.

Last but not least, as any student will tell you, the uni experiance must always include atleast a few nights out during freshers week, and specifically for Sheffield, going out to some of the Carnage nights. Now usually I dont drink much, but I'm sure that freshers will be amazing, so will definatly have to go out to some of the events at the student union, and get to know more of the people I'm living with. Once i'm there, hopefully I'll still have enough time to be able to blog quite regularly. I'm sure being there will give me loads of new and amazing things to talk about.