Posts

Showing posts from March, 2023

2008: Crash, Bank, Wallop

Image
We often associate banks with strength, rigidity and control. Images of money, Roman architecture and unintelligible line graphs (which claim to represent the stock exchange) inundate the mind. But even institutions as robust as banks aren't invincible, a reality we ended up learning the hard way in the years of 2007 to 2008. It's common fact that these were the years in which most banks found themselves barely managing to stay afloat, and the word "Recession" appearing on the front page of pretty much every newspaper. But what really happened? More importantly, however, why? Before we dive into the intricacies of this complexity, let's talk about houses. Most of the times, people borrow money from the bank or lending firms in vast amounts to secure the purchase and ownership of a new house, otherwise known as a mortgage. Naturally, the new homeowner is required to pay back the loan over a several year fixture, repaying small deposits on a monthly basis with added

Young Carer's Project Kingston: The Support That Changed My Life

Image
  "You can't achieve anything entirely by yourself . There's a support system that is a basic requirement of human existence. To be happy and successful on earth, you just have to have people that you rely on." - Michael Schur I've spoken a lot about my experience as a Young Carer, and how having a younger brother with Special Needs has made my life, well, different. From feeling agonizingly lonely as a result of not having a brother to make memories with to getting my arms tied together and head smashed in what seems to be his way of "play": I've gone through all of it. I usually describe how I changed my view on my relation with my non-verbal sibling by stepping out of my problem and, with a lot of resilience, treating it as a unique, amusing reality.  However, to say that my self-revolutionising (in the humblest way possible), stemmed from me and only me would be far from the truth. In fact, it's nowhere near the truth. True, I did learn my wa