Long long ago (well, a few years now), the end of January would tick round, and I would start to receive lots of application forms. My notion for this series was learning from books: but why not other written words?
My intention, as I write this, is to honour the people whose forms I read. Sitting and reading the forms, meeting some of the individuals at interview, I felt like a sociologist, taking a snapshot of UK culture through the hopes and ambitions of a generation wanting to go abroad.
One of my former colleagues spoke of interviewing as a privilege. Some of the interviewers who came from other countries did the same. There was also a privilege in ‘meeting’ the applicants on paper – partly because there was so much to learn from those forms.
I found out what were popular names. Some whole names would repeat, year by year (those being probably the more typically Scottish ones). Others seemed to be unique, never seen again over the period of a decade.
I discovered variant spellings, trends for middle names, and usually learned how to pronounce one new (to me) Gaelic-origin name a year.
Every year, there seemed to be a hobby or pastime I’d never heard of before. Or voluntary organisations. I saw a rise in certain activities (snowsports and riskier outdoor activities).
Some of the applicants seemed seasoned travellers at 20, having been to more continents than I could dream of. Others were yet to go abroad. Some were used to living far from family, others were still in their original house.
I learned how much more these applicants had to juggle studies with paid work than I had done as a student. Some experienced challenges, bereavements and were unable to take up the opportunity they sought. Some came back later, and made it second time round.
Some people exuded confidence. Some sought one level of challenge, but showed promise to go a stage further. Some wanted the chance, but were daunted at the prospect of so much change.
There is something magnetic about reading these desires in others’ words. We discover how any of us can use words to frame our dreams, our ambitions, our abilities. How, from a body of words, we experience the sense of a person, walking about, having intentions in their life.
It’s a truism that a text doesn’t stay the same when it’s read – it changes as it’s explored by the reader. It changes between readers. In application forms, we also read the person – and the changing person, the person they aspire to become.
What do any of us aspire to? To discover who we are. To stretch that definition, maybe a little, maybe some more. Perhaps to find tasks for our hands, things that we hope we can do well, where we want the chance to try.
Societies change. Backgrounds, life experiences, life opportunities change. I could read that for myself, year by year. But I also consistently read a desire to help, to make a difference, to embrace an opportunity to change.
While the year is still young, while there are resolutions still to remember, or to rekindle, it feels good to remember what I learned from those forms. To find ways to discover where I am myself, where I might be going. To celebrate achievements, even where they are familiar to many, as well as those that are special to me.
And perhaps, as I write, even if it is not an application form, I can look later and read: myself now, and the self I am becoming. Sometimes all we need is the chance to chart our course through life – and perhaps an audience to look on, and witness both selves.