“My camera doesn’t work!”
“My internet’s slow!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“I can’t see you!”
“I don’t have a pen!”
“I need more paper!”
“I need to let the dog out!”
“My mic doesn’t work!”
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If you are reading this as someone who is considering retaking subjects or reapplying to university, I can relate! I did both on my gap year with Yipiyap. Last year, I was downhearted to find I had been rejected from my top choice university. I had never considered taking a gap year before this point. A year on, having resat a subject and submitted a new UCAS form, I am now holding the exact offer that eluded me last year: taking a gap year was justified from a university application standpoint alone, and never mind the many other perks which come as part and parcel of it too!
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A bleak, ash covered road…
The bleachers of an American football game...
Under a blue sky on a desert island...
Thrust into the black emptiness of space after failing to convince your so-called “friends” you aren’t actually an alien imposter...
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A question that has played on my mind ever since joining Yipiyap is; what’s with the logo?! As someone who is very interested in the history of art and how it shapes the world around us, I couldn’t help but wonder about the story behind the Yipiyap bird!
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Reading the book, I felt two types of dread; the dread of the man and the boy walking through a decaying world, starving while they narrowly survive encounters with those who have rejected any sense of humanity out of desperation to keep living; and the dread of realising I’d picked an extremely bleak book for a relaxing evening! As I entered the Zoom call, I expected a black screen of exhausted faces. What I didn’t expect was for the team to actually enjoy the book, even more than I did!
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I did not choose to transition. In the same way as no-one that suffers pain, chooses to take pain killers. I had to transition to alleviate my gender dysphoria. Transitioning being a need, rather than a want, strengthens our claim for medical transition, making it a necessary treatment and a right that should be protected, rather than something we want.
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Writing in a journal can improve your memory, boost your productivity, and help you process emotions healthily. Yipiyap Tutor Rebecca writes about how she came to journal, her preferred style of journaling, and why you should give it a try too.
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Happiness can be a choice, but it’s not as simple as just deciding to feel better. Yipiyap’s Continuous Improvement Director Michael Bauer writes about six simple changes to his life that helped him find happiness.
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I may not be the next Jimi Hendrix but there’s something about music which draws me in - something that causes me to get lost in albums and the rhythms - so I wanted to write a blog post exploring the reasons why music is so magical and powerful.
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Adequate self-care has, in my opinion, a huge impact on your mental and physical well-being. So, what is self-care?
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Not long before I started at Yipiyap I began volunteering at a charity shop of a local children’s charity. A month had passed since my final exam and I was equally as restless about my future as I was bored at home every day. So, I thought I’d spend a few hours a week helping others instead of watching TV all day.
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I know for some people art is the very last thing they’re thinking about right now but for me it’s how I’m staying happy. What’s difficult with drawing or painting is knowing where to start, much like when writing an essay for example so here’s plenty of arty things I’ve been enjoying to give you some ideas.
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Something I did not necessarily expect to be such a valuable element of my Yipiyap experience is being part of such wonderful teams. At the start of my Gap Year I underestimated the significance of having a team assuming working independently at a school would be the predominant dynamic of the role.
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The idea that despite how our biased minds perceive it, things can never be endlessly bad or good, eventually they have to come back to the middle - to each subjective norm.
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It’s now officially halfway through the school year and this also marks the halfway point in my Gap Year with Yipiyap. Since September it feels like I have been on a never-ending rollercoaster and as it’s the beginning of March and many of you in Year 13 will be preparing for your A Levels and considering options for next year, I wanted to reflect on my experience at Yipiyap so far with the aim of helping you decide if Yipiyap might be right for you.
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Earlier this month, I was given the incredible opportunity to take part in a conference in Poland to teach young people about the legacy of the Holocaust to ensure it doesn’t happen again. It is impossible to describe what it’s like to visit the Auschwitz network of concentration camps.
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All aspiring Medics can relate to, I’m sure, the pressure of MMI Interviews! They can be extremely daunting which is why I cannot recommend enough to the 2020/2021 cohort, Yipiyap’s practice MMI Interviews!
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In early November I attended the Battle of Ideas Conference at the Barbican in London for the sixth time and, as ever, I came away having gained new insights into many contemporary issues and dilemmas.
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The journey to University is a strange and complex one. You start hearing about it very early on; barely into your GCSEs, people are telling you what Universities will be looking for in applicants, how it’s so different from how it used to be, and how you will spend thousands on books (the latter is a true story; I heard this from a guest speaker at my school!)
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