Today was the induction for The Prince's Trust. First day ever, and with it came some pretty gutting news.

I won't be able to work at the ExtraCare shop like I used to. Normally I'd work there every day, Monday to Friday, even though I was only down for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I love it there that much. Dad's going in tomorrow to let them know that I'll be mostly absent for thirteen weeks. I may still be able to work on Saturdays, but that means there are a lot of people I won't see. Chris and Geraldine, Mary and the others whose names elude me. There are a lot of people there who I adore who only work during the week, and even then only limited days. This is the only reason I want my thirteen weeks of The Prince's Trust to zip past. Because the people in that shop are bloody marvellous.

But we'll put that topic to bed, now. Dad can do his thing tomorrow, and I'll go in on Saturday to chat with Dawn about it. I need to make it clear that I'm not abandoning them entirely and that once these thirteen weeks are up, I'm back in there like a shot, plus my Prince's Trust experience.

Anyway, how did it go? At first I thought it would be a disastrous start. Windlehurst Community Centre, our team base, is located in such a way that it can only be accessed by two buses - or one bus and a fairly long walk. The first bus isn't a problem. It's an Arriva route so the buses start as early as six in the morning. The second bus I have to get is a Cumfy Bus, and the one I need, I discovered while perusing the timetables in Stand 7 of St. Helens bus station, only starts running at 9:05 AM. I had to be there between 9:00 and 9:15.

Thankfully, I texted Tim - the assistant Team leader whose number was on the acceptance letter - to let him know. So I plugged my earphones in, sat listening to Wishbone Ash to occupy myself and drown out the sounds of chattering schoolgirls, freezing my arse off on the yellow sub-zero bench.

I was sat around for about half an hour, listening to 'Argus', ticking the time away. At 9:05, it arrived. Being wary, I asked if it went to Gamble Avenue, the driver said yes, I paid, sat and we were off.

The bus driver dropped me off right outside the Community Centre! There wasn't even a stop there! I couldn't believe what I was seeing - press the bell on a bus and most drivers keep going until the next stop. This guy slowed and called to me "where do you want to get off?" - not a shred of contempt or typical bus-driver grumpiness in his voice. That man is a credit to his field of employment.

The best part? I was there bang on time! I even had a little time to sit around, warm up and catch my breath before the day's official beginning.

How can I describe said beginning? Imagine your stereotypical classroom on the very first day of High School. Everyone's mixed up, no-one knows each-other, no real cliques have formed... it's a roomful of sullen teenagers. We all sat around a table being talked to by Vicky, the Team leader - being given our College Induction as technically we classify as St. Helens College students - only the brave making occasional, feeble contributions. We were then taken in groups on a guided tour of the facilities in Windlehurst Community Centre, and after that it was back to the classroom for the second part of our induction and the necessary paperwork.

We did a few ice-breaker activities today, as would be expected of the first day of such a lengthy course. And rightly so; it's crucial to the Team's integrity that we learn a bit about each-other and start to build friendships. The first task we did was hilarious; Tim taped a length of paper to the floor in the approximate dimensions of one of those wooden gym benches and asked us all to squeeze onto it - which was awkward enough. So there we were, crammed on in no particular order...

Then, the call went up: we were asked to rearrange ourselves in size order, without leaving the slender line of paper that we'd been allocated. Our first attempt was naff; people leaving the paper, picking people up, shoving past without warning... and in the end, I was the only one in the wrong place, stood between two much smaller people.

It was obvious what went wrong. People hadn't communicated, they'd acted independently of the team so nobody knew what was going on. People like me didn't speak up as much, preferring to go with the flow, and in all the chaos it just went a bit pear-shaped.

The second attempt, rearranging ourselves at the other end, went better. We learned from our mistakes and managed to do a complete and ordered rearrangement, thanks to proper communication. This lesson will be pretty valuable, I feel, when it comes to our residential next week...

The next task we had to do involved learning people's names. We each write our name on a sticker which was stuck on the back of someone else at random. The idea was to walk around the room looking for your name, without letting anyone else see what name you had on. You had to steal your own back, in other words, avoiding everyone else. At this I failed miserably. The girl who had my name was like a ninja! I didn't see her at all until the end when we'd congregated and she held it up!

Then there was the Crowning Awesome of the day. We were split into two groups, and each group was given a pack of balloons and two rolls of sellotape. The task was to work together and plan and create a balloon chair; one that wouldn't explode when sat on.

Normally I'm crap at tying balloons. Hell, most of them I can't even inflate to save my life. Note my use of the word 'normally'. Today was not a normal balloon preparation day. For today, chaps, I blew up and tied my first ever balloon. Huzzah!

Anyway, our chair. It didn't have to be a chair; it just had to be some kind of balloon structure that could support a person's weight. Our initial idea was a sort of balloon mattress thing. Then it became a balloon pyramid, mid-production. Then it kind of fell apart and became a strange balloon cluster which I suggested that we go with and pass off as modern art. Went with it we did, and we attacked it with sellotape. After the ten minutes, it still fell apart when Lewis applied his backside to it! Well, we gave it a good stab! At least ours didn't stick to the floor, and you could say it was easy to disassemble!

Back in the classroom, we were given another task. On stickers, we were asked to write all the labels people have ever given us (or as many as we can remember), both positive and negative. I believe I came up with the following...

Positive - Quirky, Eccentric, Hippy, Weird, Geek, Bohemian, Witty, Creative
Negative - Quiet, Awkward, Lazy, Naive

A lot of the negative things I've been called, I didn't feel much like sharing with everyone else. The above are the negative things I see in myself. The positive things are a bit of both - things I recognise in myself but mainly what other people have called me. The thing is, I've had quite a few people call me 'weird' or 'geek' in a negative way, but I've just taken it as positive because it's the way I am, I know it and I'm proud of it.

We discussed these labels for a while, about how we felt about them and whether we thought they were accurate to our true selves. I think mine were. Vicky asked us to write a letter to ourselves detailing what we would like to achieve during the course, so we could re-read it after thirteen weeks and see if we'd achieved those goals. Others in the group were a bit weirded out by the concept, I think - there was a chorus of 'can't be f**ked' from certain individuals and I believe that at this point one of them decided to quit there and then - but I think it's a pretty smashing idea.

It's like walking in a desert without landmarks. If you've got nothing to set your sights on and head towards, you'll just walk in circles and get nowhere. Stick an oasis in there, a clear goal, and you can give yourself direction; progress and eventually achieve. Plus I have a history of writing to myself when I need to get something done. I was in my element. We stuck the labels on the back of our letters and put them away. The next time we see them, it'll be the end of the course.

The last task, I must admit, I didn't quite get. We were given a booklet full of questions and asked to head to St. Helens College, presumably to fill it in. So off we trekked... and when we got there it was revealed that we should have filled it in before going. The questions were all about the College facilities; things like the sports facilities, library, student guidance centre, cafés and so on. The thing is, I have no idea where anything is in St. Helens College. I should probably learn quickly. We'll be finishing the questionnaire off tomorrow so if I get stuck, I can just ask Tim.

How were things at the end of the day? Well, like I said, it began with a classroom full of sullen teenagers. you could have heard a pin drop in there. But during the breaks and during the tasks I got talking to a few of the others and there are some really wonderful people in my group. There's Anna, with the AC/DC tattoo, the cool hat and the awesome motorbike, William who was doing a Russian dance (we briefly discussed adding a Matrix bullet time move to the dance) to stave off the cold, Anthony who came right up to me during the first task, shook my hand and everything, there's Laura the Smiley, Carla the Chatty, Alesha the Quiet (sp? There are so many variants on that name), Dave the Flirt, Perry the Perry (when counting how many were in our group at the College, William said "five... and Perry"), Ryan the Loud and Opinionated, Lewis of the Balloon Chair, Matty, Jane... our group's about fifteen in all after Mikey walked out, so there are quite a few names to recall. I don't think I've done so bad, memorising twelve! I'm normally crap with names...

So there you have it. My first day with the Prince's Trust. Apologies for the long entry; I didn't think I'd get it all down tonight but apparently I managed! Huzzah!

Before I go, I thought I'd point you all to a little community known as literaryurgency - based on Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way', a book which in simplest terms aims to help the reader unlock the creativity within them, shut up the doubts that say 'it isn't good enough!' and get some work done on creative pursuits. It's a twelve-week course, so when you think you have some time, scuttle over and download the PDF version of the book they have posted up there! In the meantime, I'll be keeping you all updated on my progress.

Today, I've only really written my Morning Pages. These are three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing that should ideally be done in the morning as a way of shifting all your worries before moving on to the actual creative stuff. Quality doesn't matter; it's all about exorcising your demons before the day begins. Today I did mine a tad late, I'll admit (around eight at night), but tomorrow I plan on taking full advantage of the hour-and-a-bit journey to Windlehurst Community Centre.

As for the pages? I might share them. Eventually. Depends on how personal the worries are, really.