They say you can tell a person’s personality through their sneakers. Well, obviously we don't use the term ‘sneaker.' I’m not going to lie, I have a shoe fetish. Supra, Nike, Zara and Puma are all the type of shoes I love and will never stop wearing, (if I can get them cheap). I don't spend more than £40 on trainers, a simple principle I have always kept. Firstly because EMA will not allow it and a normal pair of trainers would have been 2 weeks of EMA which if I still had it, I would rather spend on chicken. As much as I love my trainers, I have never let that define who I am.

‘Those who deny the past are doomed to repeat it’

I walked past an advert of a book called ‘Surge’ by Sofi Okanen , when I was on the underground one day and the above quote caught my eye as I'm sure that was its intention.

What is the past?

We all have our own piece of history, some people say it determines your future, others say what you do in your present determines your future.

Our past may be filled with people who have told us we can't achieve more than they say we can. It could be from our parents, our siblings or our teachers.

I recently started my first job. I mean I’ve had jobs before, like babysitting and washing my dad’s car, but this one’s different. I’m actually on the pay roll, I’ve had to fill out forms, and I have a formal time-table. This in itself is both an achievement and completely overwhelming. However, having this job has made me aware of those first impressions we give. Not just those we give when we start a job, but also when we meet someone new or meet people who could be extremely influential in our lives.

Change...it’s an inevitable part of life, and you can’t avoid it. You can try, but eventually it will find you. It happens to the best of us; sometimes it’s planned and other times it’s sprung upon us – totally out of the blue and it can impact our worlds forever, in one, split, second.

From streets to classrooms and back again
 
Recently I went back to a school where I taught two years ago. One of the days had to be just when I ran dry of tricks to get pupils’ attention. So I reached for my ultimate weapon: unexpectedly projecting on the white-board my aerosol creations off my website. It always works. Not every day did they see their school teacher messing about with a spray can, after all.
 

Slavery: The state of being under control of another person.

Slavery today is used for a variety of reasons including intense labour, debt bondage and, sex slavery.
sex slavery is the largest contributor to Human Trafficking, set to be one of the largest smuggling businesses of 2010.

You may be thinking from your history lessons that slavery has officially been abolished and is now outlawed in all countries and by the United Nations, but the fact is that SLAVERY still EXISTS in 2010.

Imagine a generation of young people rising up and becoming all that they are created to be.
Young people who stand up and make a difference in their day-to-day world,
changing their schools, impacting their communities, changing lives.

Imagine a generation of young people singing a new tune…
Its language is love.

Rejection replaced by Acceptance
No Way Out replaced by Hope
Blindness replaced by Faith
Brokenness replaced by Restoration
Hate replaced by Love . . .

Human rights – we all take it for granted. We can go around expressing our personal feelings and believe in anything we want. For others it isn’t as easy. Refugees and Asylum Seekers are people who have left their home country to seek a better life in another. But, when they come over to this country, their lives don’t get much better. These people have a silent voice in society. They can end up feeling like they are practically invisible. They aren’t listened to, and they’re not always accepted in the community.

So the people from ICareRevolution came in to speak to the entire Student Body at Hatch End High School today. It stirred the same inspiration in me that I get every time a charity comes to speak, and previously I’ve always joined up, signed up to help and passed email addresses on, but it’s never enough. Honestly, what good does £2 a month do for starving children in Africa?