A gesture that I didn't expect

I arrived a bit late because I got lost. It was Tuesday 31st March. Five days ago I had come to England. The day before I had received an email saying that I was invited to a conversational meeting at a bar called Appleby's. I was alone and didn't know anyone. I was a little nervous but determined. I went into the bar through the back door, which leads directly to the pool hall. I wasn't sure that the guys who were playing billiards were members of that event or just local people. I wanted to make sure which were the people in that meeting, so I asked the barman, but he didn't know.

I walk about the bar and I looked at the faces of the customers. I saw a guy who looked like he was from my country, so I got close to his group and I said: "Hi!". One of the girls in the group immediately began to talk to me. I looked around the bar and brought a seat at her side. The girl I was talking to told me she worked for TTPL. Indeed, she was Laura Osman. I felt comfortable right away and start a pleasant conversation among people who were sitting at that table: Miquel, Klara, Mariona and two German girls who went back to their country that week. 

After a while three guys came: Nico, Philip and Marc. Three smiling faces asking me about my life. As there were no more seats, they sat on the floor. It seems a bit silly, but those guys willing to sit on the floor to meet me rather than choosing another more comfortable place in the bar, for me it was a welcome I expected not receive at all.

This post is to thank TTPL for organizing these conversational meetings. Your stay in England is always nicer if you make friends. I especially want to thank the work of Laura for hosting the new people coming for the first time to Appleby's Bar. But I also want to thank those three guys who sat on the floor and welcomed me as a member of their group of friends. Thanks to all the people I've met through TTPL meetings. I felt very well among you. Without you all this wouldn't have been the same.

For all new people coming this week (over 90!) and for all who will come in the future, I hope you feel so welcome in your first meeting as I did. Welcome, guys! 

Marta

Threat or Opportunity?

In life everything depends on the prism that we look by. People sometimes do not realize the importance of having a correct attitude towards different situations presented to them. In Spain we say: “If a problem does not have solution, it is not a problem (it’s a fact!)”.

In this way, when you STAY for some time in a foreign country, your perception of everything is inevitably changed. Being in an unknown environment, in a strange place with a different culture, can make an easy activity, as it is to take the bus to home, turn into a real deal. Daily things that you used to do are deleted from your normal life.

You are obliged to restart and reinvent yourself, and this can be scary for a young man/woman that does not even know what he wants to do in his/her life. And it is then, when someone is alone and in danger, when the attitude makes the difference between success and fail.

Getting out of your host home can mean a threat of getting lost, or just an opportunity to explore! The same way, speaking in other language than yours can be a threat of being wrong and misunderstood, or an opportunity to learn more!

So on, the staying experience can be seen as a THREAT for the world that we are used to live and understand, or an OPPORTUNITY to expand the horizons of our mind.

Personally, I prefer the second one ;)

Manuel Sanchez

Make Ideas Happen - Marta's Blog.

Only three words: Make Ideas Happen. It's amazing how words can change things. Only three words written in a picture that I hung in the dining room of my flat. And six months after hanging that picture, I landed in England. One-way ticket, no return. 

Now I look at it in perspective, almost four months after arriving in Torbay, and I am aware that my life is a chain of challenges. Every time I pass a challenge, every time I show myself that I am strong enough to overcome it, I have to chain the following link, the next challenge. To do this, you need to believe in yourself. Only then you can turn wishes into challenges, into links in the chain. Make Ideas Happen. Make wishes are challenges.

Those three words caused me to take a decision in early January: living in England. In two months I sold all my furniture, lamps, cutlery, dishes, everything. There were so many things that I no longer needed! I sold everything except that picture, which I left at my mother's home. I left my flat in Barcelona and asked for an unpaid leave at work. Finally everything was ready.  

I still remember that feeling when I get off at the train station in Paignton for the first time, where I stayed the early days. I walked down the main street and I said to myself: "Marta, this is where you will live from now on. This is not one of your trips. This is your home."

If I'm honest, I miss that picture. It is important to have around what inspires us more.

Do not forget to chain your next link, your new challenge. There is a link that I think all of us, all those who came to Devon, share: improving our English. Just work to get it. As Audrey Hepburn said: "Nothing is impossible, the word Itself says 'I'm possible'!"

 Marta

Two is better than one!

 Hi everybody! My name is Giulia De Vendictis and I’m one of the TTPL Student Ambassador. I’m graduated in Economics and Management and I’m attending the Master’s course in Business Consultancy at the LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome.

With this short blog, I would like to tell you something about my two (yes, two!) summer internships in Torquay

Two years ago I have already been to Torquay for three weeks to do my first work experience ever: I’ve worked for Essential 6 as Administration Assistant. The reason why I’ve chosen to come here was that I wanted to improve my English and to start experiencing a real business environment at the same time. Nowadays it is really important - for being competitive in the job market - to have fluent English and a good Curriculum Vitae, and I think that doing an internship abroad is the best way to reach these goals.

Actually, I’m working at the Southwest Polymer Supplies as Business Assistant and this time I will stay here longer: two months! I like this job because I often go to meetings with my boss and I’m doing business planning. The worst part is doing market research on the web, but I’m happy to because I didn’t know the Plastic Industries field so, even if I repeat the same task a lot of times, I can understand everytime a little more than before.

What is changed during this two years in Torquay? On Friday and Saturday nights people don’t meet anymore at the little beach near the Living Coast Zoo & Aquarium (unfortunately - because I had a lot of fun there) before going to Park Lane and Mambo’s, now they prefer to meet up under the big wheel. Furthermore, there weren’t Student Ambassadors to help students.

What has remained the same? The Green Ginger is always the favourite place to have a drink with friends and the student meetings are the best way to meet new friends.

Thanks to the first experience, I was able to meet a lot of new friends from all over the word and I’m continuing to keep in touch with some of them (even after two years!!). I’m sure that this time will be the same.

Enjoy your stay! I definitely will!!

Giulia De Vendictis