I am coming out as a Disabled Student.

Inspired by others its about time I told people about the real me.

Like others at school I was bullied. I only had an interest in lessons where I didn't have to read much or write. I was bullied about my learning difficulties and weight. But hardly anyone took the time to find out what was wrong with me.

In year 2 I was tested for dyslexia and was considered bad enough to receive help which I got up to my GCSE's. My school at the time had backed me until two teachers said I wasn't that bad. However this wasn't to stay. I had another test and was found to have more then just dyslexia. I was diagnosed with pretty much no phonological memory, a short attention span and a low verbal IQ. This is when it hit home that I wasn't the same. I ended up re-sitting exams while at school because of my dyslexia, slow reading skills and no phonological memory to process information.

It was obvious after I left school that when I went for interviews or had to do written tasks as soon as I said I was dyslexic it was almost like I said I have two heads. people started treating me differently. One problem that has followed me around for years.

I've had help over the years to make me more comfortable while doing English tasks. I came to university and the only help I was given was a memory stick with programs that might help me and a dyslexia stick to put at the front of my work so they used a different marking scheme with my work. Until I hit my third year I then received some proper help. I received a woman who would help me with my spelling and grammar issues in work. In all my years of being in education the one thing I needed more then most was for someone to help proof check my work and help me to correct it. No one had really taken the time to help as they wanted the easy way out. But unfortunately there's no easy way out of being disabled. 

But just because I'm disabled doesn't mean people should treat me differently because of it. It doesn't mean I'll be on the TV show undatebles just so it bring pleasure to views who have know idea what its like to be disabled, and compared to others maybe I'm not severely disabled but a disability is a disability.

What you treat Tom Cruise differently?

What you treat Winston Churchill differently?

What about Albert Einstein?

or Richard Branson, Cher, Jamie Oliver, Orlando Bloom, Agatha Christie, Whoopi Goldberg or Muhammad Ali.

All the above people has dyslexia and funny enough look where they are now.

So consider this, would you want to be treated differently if YOU were disabled?

Future, University, God and The Bible

So far this year I've tried to do things differently, instead of relying on myself to do things I've relied more on God. After getting baptised and turning 21 last year it is about time I took a mature outlook on life.

This stage last year with my future as many of you know. The main problem was would I still be coming back to UCLAN or even Longton Community Church. This felt like home to me and I didn't want to leave. If anything I would of camped in a cardboard box to stay in Preston. Looking back I don't think I was in too much danger of not getting in to university for a third year however, this year is the main problem. I finish my degree and hopefully will graduate (again) with a 2:1 behind me in to the big bad world. But my dream for the past couple of years has been to be a teacher or lecturer and for that I need to spend at least another year at university. So with all the energy and prayer I had I attended an interview at the university which would of kept me at home in Preston only to find out after Christmas that Edgehill and Loughborough had rejected me. Edgehill didn't like me and the next one I wanted their course was full. So I'm not relying on derby and Sheffield so any prayers ill be accepted with open arms.

This year I decided I was going to read the bible in a year which so far is going good. I've found it amazing when people mention Genesis people can only tell you the main stories, Creation, Noah, Joseph. But just from reading it over the past months I've learned so much that will add to my walk with God. I've now moved on to Job which id never read before and it helps to create the message below.

I've found through reading Job and the rest of the bible that God doesn't give us more then we can handle even though sometimes it feels different, and in the past I've found it hard to praise God when times have been really bad but Job had a worse time then me. Being covered in sores from head to toe he stilled worshipped and praised God. I've found its amazing how someone can do that even through all their troubles. These a Christian speaker who talks about his troubles and through his childhood he life was turned upside down and he inspired me to write an earlier blog (John 20 verse 1-15) check it out it gets you thinking.

Along with the bible I read a book called the purpose driven life that I'd recommend to anyone I found it helped me a lot. But one sentence from the book still sticks with me "God only puts worry in our life to tell us that we are drifting from him". When we recognise this to be true we go back to god and realise that the worry disappears.

So my advice to you is not to worry which can seem harder then it sounds and just pray to God. He's got the answers for you.

God has time, a place and answer for you so just keep praying.

2013 and First's

So happy new year to all that read this. I've been starting to write blogs but after a while struggled for topic areas so I thought this would be a good one to start on.

Since it is a new year there's a lot of people saying that this is their year and I'm no different. This is my year.

This is my year to graduate from university again. This is my first year in captaincy,  This is my year to seriously think about my career. This is my year to think about where I want to live (Preston or Nottingham).

This year I've created another bucket list for this year with some of the things being more specific to the first 5 months of the year. This year is my random year of stuff. So as an audience you could have some influence on some things I do with in this year.

So far the things were have come up with is:
Lose two and a half stone,
Having a McDonalds on Christmas day,
Get a 2:1 at university,
Read the bible everyday.

While I write this I've figured out I need to do something for lent this year. So any suggestions are welcome and I'll see what people say.

As you can tell my list is short at the moment but adding this with some of the things on my bucket list blog then I have a few more but any suggestions are welcome