(Originally posted 05/10/2016)

I’m now two months into my ‘gap year’. I’d like to first note that I don’t regret not going to university. Despite everyone going on at me saying I’d regret it and that ‘no one is really ready to go to uni’, I’m glad I made the choice to take another year out because I knew myself I wouldn’t last a week alone in Liverpool, with only £30 in my bank account.

Although my intentions for this year were to find a job at a newspaper, learn to drive and save my money for university, I will say that I’m struggling with these.
Obviously it’s not going to be easy to find a job, but I should still be writing; either on this blog or just in a notepad and I’ve failed to do so because I’ve actually been more social that lately and I’ve been working a lot. So I really need to find time to write and really focus on it.

I’ve started to read about ‘how to write about music’ (I know) and I’ve written a review of The 1975, eight months after seeing them, which I’m debating publishing cause it’s awful. Most likely because I wrote it eight months after the gig.
My goal is to see more local bands, I would write about ones I already know but I’d say my approach would be ‘unprofessional’ as I’m close with a few of band mates, and also I can’t remember most of the gigs cause I was too drunk and was too busy dancing with my mates to pay attention to the actual band.

I might attempt my first live review as VANT are coming to Limelight this Sunday. I only know one song, that is ‘Karma Seeker’ and it’s pretty good so I might spend the next few days looking into the band and I’ll try to write about Sunday night if I go.

The plan for driving isn’t going well. I’m still too scared to attempt it and haven’t started revising for my theory.
Saving money is also an issue, as I mentioned before that I’ve been more social lately so I’ve spent all my money on buses, paying others for petrol, alcohol, food and tickets for cinemas and gigs. Oh, and a lot of books. I’ve actually spent around £200 on books in the past few months, some journalism related (‘The Panama Papers’, ‘The War on Women’ and ‘How to Write About Music’). I suppose with reading being the only thing I’ve done in the past month maybe that’s something I should write about, even though I’m dreadful at writing reviews.

Basically what I’m saying is my gap year is so far a disaster.