Introduction and Testimony

What is: The Entity? 

The definition of an entity is "a thing with distinct and independent existence." 

For anyone who was keeping up with The Exoskeleton story, the entity refers to the thing trapped inside the suit, or, for anyone who wasn't keeping up with the story, the real me. The Exoskeleton was a defence mechanism I built to protect myself from that which would harm me, all the barriers I put up to prevent anyone from ever seeing me for who I truly am. The problem was, I built those barriers to be impenetrable, and so they then became my prison. I was forced into a shape I was never meant to be in because I couldn't escape the suit. About a year ago now, I was able to break free, but the entity within the exoskeleton was still the same shape. Think of it a bit like jelly in a mould. I had set into the shape of the suit.

The Entity will follow me on my journey, for the next year or so, in trying to finally undo the damage and become my own person, no longer shaped by having to be something I'm not, but able to adapt to new challenges. On that note then, I figured the best way to open this blog would be with my "New Challenges" testimony from just over a week ago now, so here it is:

Honestly, if there's one thing I've learned this year it's that sometimes what God wants for you can be blindingly obvious, but other times it's not. Most of you probably know by now that in just under two weeks time now I'm heading off to study physics at Cardiff university, and if you'd told me that a year ago I wouldn't have believed you. It's been one seriously bumpy ride getting to this point, but then again, nobody said it was going to be easy.

I went into my second year of sixth form last september without a clue where I was headed, what I wanted to do, or even how on earth I was ever going to get there with grades far below what I was potentially going to need, with just two months to make a decision that was potentially going to define the rest of my life, so as you can imagine it was a pretty tense atmosphere. This inevitably led to no end of problems. I'm not going to go into specifics, because it's not my story to tell, but the short of it is essentially the friendship group I had fell apart. Not because we had an arguement or anything like that, but just because we weren't as close as we had once been, and like true introverts as soon as things got difficult socially we decided to isolate ourselves from each other.

Luckily for me though, spreadsheets exist! So in the midst of all this social turmoil I got to work. I figured that if I didn't know what I was going to do next year I'd shortlist a few potential subjects and then find out which universities did them, comparing universities using the statistics published online on various websites. I settled on physics because I figured it was something I'd be able to stick with, and went from there. Eventually I had narrowed down the list to 5 potential universities. Surrey, Sussex, Southampton, Queens Belfast and Cardiff. So I put in my UCAS application.

It might come as a surprise to you that Cardiff was never initially one of my top 2 choices, so when a month after I'd had offers from all the other universities and I'd still not heard from Cardiff I was pretty sure I was going to drop my application to them completely, and make a decision based on the four offers I had. I don't know what it was persuaded me to wait, but shortly after I got an invitation to a University applicant day, so I decided to hold off making a decision until I'd actually seen the university properly. The applicant day completely changed my opinion of the university, putting it second  on my preferences, so in hindsight I'm glad I waited.

A couple of weeks later, I went to see Queens University Belfast, and was seriously impressed. If I had been making a choice about university, and Queens had not been across the Irish sea, it would have easily ranked first on my preferences. As it was, it was good enough I was willing to make the crossing, so on the 27th February 2016, I replied to my offers. Southampton univeristy Firm choice. Queen's University Belfast insurance choice.

Two days later, I got the letter. Cardiff University. "Dear Jack, after meeting you at our applicant day, we were very impressed, so have decided to lower the conditions of your offer, from AAB to ABB at A level"

Commence full on panic. I had sent off my final decisions to UCAS, and declined Cardiff, and now they were changing my offer from something that was likely unattainable to something that was potentially realistic. Changing my final decision was unlikely to be a straightforward process, so I emailed the admissions tutor at Cardiff explaining my situation, and then we called up UCAS to see if it was possible to change it. Thankfully it was a lot simpler than I feared, and 10 minutes later I was looking at an application with Cardiff as an insurance choice, not Belfast.

Exam season came and went faster than I ever would have believed possible, and was pretty much the worst it could have been in terms of getting my offer grades. Before I knew it, results day was upon me. UCAS Track opened at 8 AM and I was staring at a screen that read "Congratulations!" rather than "Clearing" I genuinely couldn't quite believe I'd made it and still can't. I had prepared myself mentally for the worst, but somehow, by some miracle, everything had worked out. Opening my results I genuinely thought that Cardiff had made some mistake. The grades I was looking at were not ABB, or even ABC, they were ABD! Not only had I got into the university, I had got in 2 grades below an already lowered offer!

Looking back, I see now how God has been with me throughout the process, but at the time I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Waiting to respond to the offers until Cardiff had made a decision, the applicant day, actually declining Cardiff at first and then getting the letter lowering my offer grades, changing my insurance choice and finally getting in against all odds 3 grades below my initial offer. In a weird way, I was kind of hoping that I would not get into uni, that I'd miss my grades and have an excuse not to go, to postpone the change. I should have known that God doesn't work like that. He throws us right in the deep end. To get where he wants us to be is going to be hard, but the journey, although rough, leads us to something so much more than what we sacrifice to get there.

I don't know what my future holds, but what I do know is that if God didn't want me to go to Cardiff all he would have had to do would have been to convince me to press one button on a UCAS application, and that would have been that. No more Cardiff, and quite possibly no more university. The transition is likely to be incredibly difficult. But with God behind me I'm ready to face anything that comes my way.