[blazey]

Well you always have to compete with yourself no matter what you do, otherwise you might as well lay down and die if you ask me. If people aren't interested in bettering themselves then they are wasting opportunities.

The reason I asked is because the tutors at university are keen to nurture my attitude as it is lacking in a lot of the other law students at Lancaster and as you would expect, employability figures are also low, whilst there is a keen activeness within the Management School at Lancaster, which is one of the best ranked in the country, and they achieve much higher and get the better jobs. As I am heavily involved in the student run careers society at university as secretary and internal publicity officer, I'm meant to to be the one who encourages this behaviour and competitiveness to be the best, but I'm wondering how many people at home have it because amongst my friends from school, I am one of the very few to go to university, and most of my female friends now have children.

There just seems to be a give up and accept what you are offered type of attitude at home and I always sense it when I come home. Fortunately I don't have to spend all summer here otherwise I think I'd have gone mad. I will likely be working with some local children though and it is always interesting to see the differences between them and other children a bit further afield and what sorts of attitudes you get from students from different types of schools and different kinds of backgrounds. It's just even more interesting to see how the local adults feel about competing too!