You know those days that are totally kick arse and at the end of it you kind of still can’t believe it. Yeah that happened today. I’d mentioned before how I had been asked to speak at the Diversity conference and to be fair I was so nervous. Last night and this morning I was so worried, what if no one turned up? What if loads of people did but they disagreed with my points? Do I really know what I’m talking about?

Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. After speaking to our Chancellor, Bonnie Greer MBE, I felt at ease. I’d watched one of her speeches before and she was absolutely incredible, I was able to watch her again before my own speech and I was just so inspired by it all.

As for my speech? It was well recieved, I got the most questions of the morning and the best thing was that I was really helping people. I had so many people come up to me after, asking my advice and if I would be involved in certain things. It was overwhelming but everything I wanted to be. I’m hoping to write a blog based on the ideas that I spoke about today.

I was also ableto be a part of a Mental Health workshop and we could really discuss how it impacted our lives, how we could help the university etc. Overall a really positive day in terms of Mental Health and I will also hopefully be participating with a member of staff on a research project on students with MH issues. How exciting!

My wonderful tutor Sara giving her support. 

After catching up with my friend Joe, who was so supportive today and I can’t thank him enough. My next part of the day was to head to the Kingston Writing School and a talk that I had helped organise. If you haven’t read any of R.S Pateman’s novels go now! The Second Life of Amy Archer is out now and The Prophecy of Bees will be out later this month.

Rob gave a brilliant talk, honest, funny and humble. I was also pleased to find someone else who writes like me! Scattered and all over the place, not careful planning if I can help it. Hopefully I’ll be attending a book launch for The Prophecy of Bees soon which should be a lot of fun!

Rob Pateman (R.S Pateman) and I 

Other than that general smiles, good company and some exciting news about my academic future (possibly) overall a great day and still proving you can LIVE  with depression 🙂