Reading Part 6 3: What Comes Next?

Two years ago, my phone buzzed with a message from a number I didn't know: 'Happy birthday, Grandma! See you on Sunday.' [1] I replied politely to say that the sender had the wrong number, and expected that to be the end of it. [2] The sender, a student called Josh, apologised and wished me a lovely weekend anyway. A week later, he wrote again to tell me how the party had gone. [3] For instance, he sends me a photo of his exam results every summer, and I send him a card at New Year.

When I told my friends that I had signed up for a refereeing course, most of them laughed. [1] I was sixteen, I loved football, and I knew I would never be good enough to play it at a high level. Refereeing seemed the next best thing. The course itself lasted four weekends. [2] We did study the laws of the game, of course, but we spent just as much time practising how to stand, how to move around the pitch and, in particular, how to speak to angry players. At the end, there was a written test and a fitness test, and I passed both. My first match was between two teams of eleven-year-olds, and I was more nervous than any of the players. [3] On top of that, I forgot to start my watch, so I had to guess when it was half-time. Nobody seemed to notice, and the parents on the touchline were, to my surprise, kind and encouraging. Not every game has been so friendly. As I moved on to older age groups, the pressure grew, and so did the noise from the side of the pitch. [4] Once, a coach followed me to my car after a match to tell me exactly what he thought of my decisions. Two of the people on my course gave up before the end of their first season. So why did I keep going? [5] Refereeing has taught me to stay calm under pressure and to make decisions quickly, rather than worrying about them for hours. These are skills I use every day at school, and I suspect I'll need them in any job I do. I have now refereed more than two hundred matches, and next season I will take charge of my first adult game. [6] Besides, my friends have stopped laughing. Two of them have even asked me how to sign up.

Last summer, Priya Nair, a nineteen-year-old student from Birmingham, swapped her part-time job in a city coffee shop for six weeks on a sheep farm in mid-Wales. She worked in return for her food and a bed, rather than for money. [1] 'I'd watched lots of videos about farm life online,' she says. 'It all looked calm and peaceful, with beautiful sunsets.' The reality was rather different. [2] The day started at half past five, when the sheep had to be checked, and this meant that she was usually in bed by nine. On top of that, it rained on twenty-six of her first thirty days. The work itself was harder than she had imagined, too. [3] In her second week, she spent two whole days repairing a stone wall that the sheep kept climbing over, and by the end her hands were covered in cuts. There were moments when she thought about going home. [4] In the end, she stayed because of the family she was living with. The farmer, Gwen, and her two teenage sons treated her as one of them from the first day, and taught her everything with endless patience. By the end of the summer, Priya could drive a quad bike, help with the shearing and, to her own surprise, recognise many of the sheep by their faces. [5] 'At school, I was always the one who was good at exams but hopeless with my hands,' she says. 'Here, I was actually useful, and every new skill felt like a small victory.' She is now back at university, studying law, and has no plans to become a farmer. [6] She has already booked another four weeks on the farm for next spring, and this time, she says, she knows exactly what to pack.