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LothedInArchivesMayYou are on the archive wiki. The new wiki is here. Head back to LothedInTransition 30 May 2004 - 21h02 Tommorow is a bank holiday. Which means another day that no-one here checks emails (or looks at the CV's I sent them on Friday) and another day that I don't get time to send the CV's I didn't get to send on friday. Yes. I probably could send one or two more now, but I'm tired and not feeling up to it.
The amount of mental concentration it takes to write a really good cover letter is, well, painful. Every position I apply for has to have an individual letter, so every time I apply I check the relevant company's website and then try to tailor something that I hope will appeal. I'll admit I do have one and a half pages of text in a Word document which has some choice paragraphs and lines that I use again and again. I also keep refining those paragraphs, I have formal versions, informal versions, enthusiastic sounding stuff and professional sounding stuff. Ironically, it took me two weeks to notice that I'd used 'particularity' rather than 'particularly'. Hopefully, correcting that will help...
And yesterday night I was graphically (or is a better term 'experiencially' - although I doubt there's such a word) reminded of how much I dislike working in the service industry. It's bloody hard work, hence why I'm so tired now. I'm also just not used to spending that amount of time on my feet, and were it not for Uncle Peter's day long marches I'd probably have taken last night far worse. In fact, it's bloody hard work, for little gratitude and pathetic pay and after all the customers are gone, your job doesn't end, you've still got all the menial crap to do at the point when you're the most tired and least patient. It also doesn't still well with me because it's at that stage I really start thinking, "I'm better qualified, I shouldn't have to do this crap!"
Complaints aside, Saturday night was no worse than a number of shifts I worked back at the dear old News Cafe - in fact it was possibly better than many. Barwork is easier, well, as long as they expect me to just pull pints, none of this fancy cocktail stuff. You're serving one customer at one time, and have far shorter distances to walk. In waitressing you're juggling any number of customers and tables having to remember long lists of tasks - something I've never been good at. Admittedly, customers sitting at tables tend to be more patient than customers leaning against bars. Oh, well, we'll see how I cope on Thursday, which is student night and therefore cheap drinks and hordes of really really impatient people waving cash and sometimes hurling insults.
28 May 2004 - 10h47 Well, I got that job. Yeah, the bar one. (Hahaha Bar One! Arg.) Now they'll actually pay me to spend time at the Tramshed. My biggest concern is simply that they're not going to pay me enough - there is a fine line between positive cash flow and negative cash flow, and at the moment is seems to be dependent on whether I want to eat or not.
Meanwhile the search for a 'real' job goes on. At least the rejection notices (that I have received, not counting the CV's I've sent into silent voids) are getting more polite. I'm begining to suspect that I'm going to have to make my own way back to the design world since no-one in this country seems keen to look at me let alone employ me.
I've got a couple of idea knocking around upstairs. I'm going to start with trying to convince people that I can design stuff for them - do a bit of freelance stuff. Maybe investigate designing and printing T-shirts (except that requires investment capital...) We'll see. That or I'll just be a bargirl for a rather long time. I was getting sick of the crap I've been doing for the last while anyway. If I get back into that I think I'll just go crazy(er).
Oh, and I think I'm addicted to Rachel's Organic, Bio-live, Low fat, Blackcurrant yoguhurt. Mmmm... I could eat and entire 450ml tub in one sitting. I'm trying to restrict myself to finishing one every four days though. I get very upset when Tesco's runs out of stock. I've tried the strawberry and the raspberry, they're okay, but okay in a normal yoghurt fashion, not super-duper magnificantly delicious! Num num.
David - the plays called "The Black Rider", apparently this is the first time any English-speaking theater company has been nuts enough to put it on, despite the fact that it was written in English and quite a few years ago.
Much later that day... Arg, found the ultimate nerd test (or close as damn). It rocks! Bwahahaha!
27 May 2004 - 11h51 I have now been here, officially for one month. Think I'll have a drink at the Tram this eveing to celebrate - after I ask them for a job...
Yes, I know I haven't updated for a while. Guess I've just been a bit despondent. I think it's the sitting at home all day bored - it's bringing my mood down. Bizarrely, I got the moer in yesterday and did a lot of spring cleaning. Cleaned out the back of my gassheater, which had been installed infront of a fireplace, and they hadn't cleaned the chimmney first. Three plastic bags of soot later, it's clean. I also scrubbed the kitchen flood and defrosted one refridgerator and partially defrosted the other, did some ironing and vacumed (hoovered, as they call it here). And, you know, I felt a lot cheerier for it.
Last week Thursday's outing with Uncle Peter was good, better than expected really. I met his friend from Scotland, Colleen, who was very nice - in a non-insipid fashion. I had a bit of trouble finding the Barbican, and on top of that I'd though I'd got off the train already 5 minutes late rather than almost and hour early, so, in a panick, (bloody analogue watch) ignored where I'd thought the Barbican was and rushed up and down the streets of the Moorgate area, asking people for directions. Despite the fact the I knew I was less than a kilometer from the Barbican, no one seemed to have a clear idea how to get there, and some of the office-leavers had never even heard of the place. Finally, I landed up on the right side of Moorgate street to spot certain signage and from about a 100m on there was a painted yellow line (with Barbican logos, every few meters) which I followed. However, I'd ended up walking three times the distance I'd intended to in boots not suited to the task and so my feet were in utter agony. Arg. Uncle Peter tells me that when the Barbican was first build it had been impossible to find and for some time after that the term, "barbicanned" was coined to mean "utterly and totally lost while trying to find your destination".
The play itself was interesting. Fabulous lighting, curious sets, strange costumes, bizarre acting, non-sensical lines. They'd taken Faust as the plot line and then used it as a framework to hang performance art off. The lines came out like they're run them through a meat-grinder and them sprinkled them with 20th century idioms. There were two elderly gentlemen next to me who were William Burroughs fans, who had absolutely no clue what was going on - being totally unfamiliar with Faust - who were very grateful when I filed then in with as must as I had got (which was only about 50% of the plot, but then I've never actually read Faust, just familiar with stories inspired by it.)
The walk back the the tube station was it's own torture, and everytime I make the mistake of wearing the wrong shoes I imagine myself to be like the little mermaid (non-Disney version) when she got her legs, every step is sheerest agony. However, at least she had a handsome prince to keep her going. I just had the fact that I couldn't walk barefoot in the streets on a cold, wet, London night.
Oh, and I got my drugs. Three cheers for my parent's next-door neighbours!
19 May 2004 - 13h13 I have an eccentric British Uncle. Everyone should have one really. They add ‘flavour’ to the family tree. Although, then again, we have my brother, so maybe less ‘flavour’ would be a healthy option. Oh, well, my uncle, Peter, isn’t breeding so no worries there, and, really hopefully, neither is my brother… But I digress. As I have sort of mentioned, he is a bachelor – although by choice, not because of some English driven repression of the fact that he’s gay, he is, quite straight, although now into his 60’s so quite beyond worrying about that. He spend a lot of time on his own (or with equally ‘worldly’ people) doing ‘cultured things’ going to art exhibitions, watching plays, tromping all over London to appreciate the history, giving lectures on stuff… He’s technically an architectural writer, but with other interests and focuses and he seems to spend more of his time on lecture tours than writing (he actually spoke at UCT last year sometime, but they don’t pay him enough to really make coming out worth his while).
No-one has ever seen the inside of his apartment. Well, no-one we know, and that includes my gran, Peter’s mother. My aunt (the sister-in-law to my mom and uncle) is trying to egg my cousin, Phillipa (Pips - who happens to have moved to London a week before me), and I into wrangling our way in. I reckon that this is impossible, unless we perform some sort of illegal stealth manoeuvre.
However, it does mean that every so often my uncle invites Pips and I out for the day to show us some part of London. It’s so far all been mostly ‘parklands’ of some kind, and all kind of pretty, but not exactly exciting (well, except for the fact that Pips insists on wearing shorts and therefore has to keep dodging the nettles). Also, my city-bred, pampered legs who’ve had to deal with rush-hour traffic driving at worst and sitting behind a desk all day, just don’t have the stamina to keep me walking all day anymore. Oh, I can walk fast, and energetically, but after three hours on my feet I’m just begging to sit down, now, anywhere, for as long as possible!
Furthermore, Uncle Peter keeps throwing names at us; names of famous artists, architects, playwrights, directors etc. He somehow expects Pips, an accountant, and myself, a graphic designer, to know who he’s talking about. He even tries to talk to me about the graphic design scene in London (since some of this cultured friends are affiliated to it). Unfortunately, my ignorance shines through.
I think he despairs of Pips and I. We’re practically barbarians from his point of view. He doesn’t quite grasp that we might rather be spending time with friends than digging around museums or reading the day’s paper. Or if he does he thinks it a rather foolish way of spending time. I reckon it would probably take me years of concerted study to have half the understanding of ‘culture’ that he has.
I’m going to watch a play with him on Thursday, since he has a spare ticket. He gives the impression of thinking it is deplorable that I haven’t spent every ounce of my spare time since I’ve got here in the art museums or out watching plays in the evening. Never mind the cost of these things and the fact that the money I have, I need to survive on. Sigh. Peter rattled off who wrote the play’s lines, who composed the music and who directed it (expecting some sort of recognition from me). I don’t even know that he told me what it was called and what it was about. I can only wonder if it’s even all that important to him?
Oh, and apparently I need to read the Guardian to 'improve my writing skills' and because British politics and the European economy are fascinating topics to a broke unemployed 24 year old (with little chance of finding a decent design job in London because my education sucks - to paraphrase my uncle). Family...
17 May 2004 - 12h30 It's a bloody stunning day. Blue sky (not as blue as South Africa's), hot sun, nary a cloud to be seen. And to cap it all off, I'm still sick. In fact, I'm probably sicker than I was last week. My cold has not diminished, but has rather got worse and turned into more of a throat and chest infection. I'm coughing like the rest of the smokers in my house, and it hurts! Arg. So not fair.
In fact I only got up an half hour ago. Thought I'd be better off getting more sleep, but it means that I'm feeling a bit woozy from sleeping more than 12 hours! I need to go out and buy myself some fruit and vitamins. Unfortunately though, fruit is not cheap in this country. I also need to organise a few other things in connection with 'that goal that will not longer be mentioned'. Mostly buying papers and relevant magazines. However, the sleeping late thing has wasted so much time that I'm just getting myself stressed thinking about it. You can't win can you?
13 May 2004 - 16h48 I think I'll cease mentioning jobs. I'll let you know when I get one, for I'll just add myself to the PreviouslyEmployedClub. It's probably one of those Murphy things that the more I talk about it the longer I'm going to be without cashflow (or bi-directional cashflow at least...)
I am gradually coming to the conclusion that the British are crap drivers. Every morning I wake up to a list of all the freeways that are having 'traffic flow problem' on Capital Radio, usually due to overturned trucks or the like. Walking (which as you all know by now, I do a lot of) around I'd say that at least a third of all the cars around my area have some sort of bash or ding in them, usually of the 'self inflicted' type. Admittedly, I'm a fine one to talk with my l33t driving-into-stationary-objects 5k1llz. However, it's a wee bit disturbing - but then I guess cars cost so little here, who cares! They'll just buy a new one when the current one gets to bashed up to go anywhere!
Anyway, gotta run, meeting someone at a train station in 50 min and I have no idea how long it'll take me to get there.
12 May 2004 - 10h57 Well, I'm not going have a job by the end of the week unless I kick my lazy butt out the house and got an do something about it. Sigh. I haven't got as far with things as I had hoped. A lot of this has to do with the fact that it's near impossible to get time on the computer on weekends and on Monday and Tuesday Ian's girlfriend slept over and hell can she sleep late.
See, the problem is that Ian's computer (being the one I'm sitting on front of at the moment) is in Ian's room. Which is fair enough. However, when Ian's girlfriend lies sleeping in Ian's bed until 3pm in the afternoon, I can't get into Ian's room to use Ian's computer. Monday, I gave up waiting and went shopping for groceries. Yesterday I ironed some clothes and bedding (Yes, Mom, I ironed!!!) and hemmed up the curtains that Alex had kindly got for my room - they come with this iron on glue strip - hence the need to do ironing. Then I read. A lot.
I'd bought the first book of Robin Hobb's 'Fool' Trilogy (having ready all her other books - under the Robin Hobb name - and being a bit of a fan) to read on the plane. Upon arriving Alex announced that he has the rest. I only really found time to do much reading since well laaast weekend. I am now half-way through the third book. I am getting weird back-aches from sitting funny while reading. I'm certain that spending this much time with my face in a book can't be good for me.
These last two weeks have reminded me sooo much of my move to Johannesburg it's scary. I'm almost following an identical pattern. Of course, I had a few more things set in place before I left for Joburg i.e. I'd finished my professional CV and had even been to interviews at a couple of JHB recruitment agencies already over Icon. I also had a car. But otherwise it's exactly the same. Even the way I'm feeling; bored, slightly lonely, unsettled, disturbed over money. For this reason I can say with certainty that it does get better. It's just that I made it all up to be some great adventure in my mind, and well, it's just another mundane move. New city, new people, same problems, same me.
10 May 2004 - 16h00 I was warned that when I move here I was going to come down ill. I had prayed that this was not so and that the fact that I'd already come down ill twice in the last two months would mean that my immune system was sufficiently active to boot any nasty lurgies that might attempt to invade it. Alas, this is not the case and I'm sitting here feeling like my sinus are in a state of active war. It's not helping my mood.
Well, at least the sun is shining a bit. It's pretty insipid, but at least it's enough that I've been able to hang some washing out to dry.
I've already turned down one interview - not for a professional position. Working in a photographic and printing shop, but well, they wanted someone who intended to stay, and unfortunately, that's no me. My honest nature got the better of me and I told them that I didn't think I was what they were looking for.
Besides, I had a good think about it and have decided that I'd rather waitress again. The money can be pretty decent, plus there's the added benefit of meeting people. Although, I'll admit the last person I befriended though waitressing turned out to be a paraniod-schitzo thins-addict, so maybe it's not a good plan... Oh well. And there's also the whole shift thing - it'll be easier to find appropriate times to go for interviews if I'm doing shift work.
Oh, and ToothpasteDealer: No role-playing next Sunday either - GM's busy, so we're only going to start the Sunday after that. Yes, I've already found a role-playing game...
7 May 2004 - 15h28 I just looked at YetiBe's latest offering and wondered to myself why the stated time was after 4pm and not 3pm? Some times I can be sooo blonde.
I'm starting to get used to the late, long evenings. I now know that when the sun looks like it's about to set if I haven't eaten, it's getting past time I found some food. Cooking, much like most of the chores in this house-hold, seems to be something that just happens. 80% of the time everyone fends for themselves, and then every-so-often someone will decided to cook for the whole house, who then takes it or leaves it as they so choose. Hmmm... wonder if I should cook tonight.
Cleaning chores happen much the same way. This means that the house is never in a state that comes anywhere close to pristine. In fact I'm contemplating cleaning the kitchen floor at the moment since it's awful. Poor Roberta - the itallian student - has turned into (or perhaps has always been) the dishwashing fairy, since she has a habit of just washing the dirty dishes every day at about lunch-time. Well, this is only if there is a small quantity. Which is never the case if one of the boys has cooked.
Still no job. But that's because, I still haven't organised myself properly. I can pretty much guarantee that I'll have one by next weekend or at least the starts to one. There are sooo many jobs going in the service industry. I just haven't decided if I want to waitress again or go back into doing retail.
5 May 2004 - 09h59 Shh!! I went shopping yesterday. I promised myself I wouldn't do that until I was earning pounds, but well... it was too tempting to resist.
In my defence I spent a grand total of £9, and walked home with a cute little gothy summer/party top and a green zip-up jersey/jumper thingy. Kait was moderately horrified (and envious). Told her that if she insited in living up in the north then she'd land up paying their prices - come and slum it in the south and she can bargain hunt to her hearts content. Hmm... I'm fighting the temptation to go back and buy a few more jerseys, they were only 2 or 3 quid (pounds) each! The joy of sales!
Yeah, anyway. We have the most aptly named cat I have ever met, Beast. Beast is a huge, fluffy, chocolate/black, beefcake of a cat. He's a bit moody, relatively intelligent and hates his 'cat-flap' since it's actually too small for him and he has trouble squeezing through, he tends to sit infront of the door and paw it until one of us humans comes to open it for him. We love Beastie-poo.
Oh, and he bites. Grin
4 May 2004 - 13h49 There is an English saying which goes "April showers bring May flowers". Well, the flowers are out, it's no longer April, but it's still pissing with rain. Welcome to the United Kingdom.
London is a walking city. It's one of the side effects of a good public transport system and a government that makes cars difficult to own. Did you know that between 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the petrol price here is government taxes? It's absurd. However, buying a car is stupid cheap - it's just keeping it going and affording to drive it that's a nightmare.
The result of this is that I believe I have officially walked further in this last week than I have in the last 6 months of my stay in Joburg put together. The only time you ever walk in Joburg is if you're mall shopping and you're fussy.
Malls are another thing I'm going to miss. I've found one, and it's a bit small, quite a way away, but remarkably, more convenient to get to than any of my 'nearby' shops in Tooting. This is because the 'overland' train station is an easy five minutes from me and our 'shopping district' is a very long, very brisk 15 minutes from me. More ironically; if I don't buy a day pass (for the entire London transport system, nifty things but bloody expensive if you're still spending Rands), a bus trip into Tooting will cost me £2, £1 there and £1 back. However a return ticket to Wimbledon on the train (where the the aformentioned mall is 10 meters from the exit of the station) will cost me £1. This means that it's cheaper, easier (and if I time things right, quicker) to go shopping a long way from home than close to home. Well, unless I walk. Which I do. Which is why my legs are not happy campers at the moment. Oh, well, guess they'll mend.
1 May 2004 - 20h46 The sky does an odd thing this time of year when it's cloudy. Being rather north - the sun's only setting at about 8:30pm. But, at around 6:30pm the clouds start to thin, the result being that it starts to get lighter for a while until about eight o'clock, when it then gets darker again. It's really odd and has managed to throw off my time sense completely for the last few days since to my bodies perception, the light quality means that 5pm to 6pm lasts an extra two hours.
I'm actually writing this fom Duncan's Sellar's computer at the moment. We walked much of London flat today, had lunch in China Town, took all sorts of weird dodges to get where we were goiing since one of the main tube lines was closed for repairs/renovations. Finished at the V&A Museum where Austin is working staff and he 'guested' us into the Vivienne Westwood exhibition (thereby saving me 8 quid) which was really cool.
I am sooo going back to South Kensington - they've got the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V&A, all in line of sight from one another and you could spend a day lost in just one of them alone. We spent about 2 hours in the V&A today and barely saw anything.
Other than the museums I haven't been a very good tourist - in regards to excitement levels. Been to quite a few places, seen the Jubillee(sp?) bridge, Waterloo Station, Trafalgar Square (with the May Day protests going on), Covent Garden, Oxford Street and a few other places. When you get down to it though, they're just facades to a very old, rather attractive city. I guess to me they're not the meat of what this place is about. People and cultures are what really make a place different, and that's what I'm really here to explore. Everything else is just window dressing.
30 April 2004 - 14h08 Well, I'm going to keep this short. I'm residing in the UK on the boarders of London and Surrey. It's not to bad, I'm 4 minutes from the tram (over-land train) and 20 minutes from the Tube (or 5 if I take a bus). The room I'm living in was, until Tuesday, the dining room. Do not take this to mean that it is a large room. It's damn small, but no worse than I'm used to... okay, maybe a bit worse, but only because it is full of stuff. Oneday, maybe, some of it will be cleared out and I can quit living out of my suitcases.
Culture Shock No. 1
I left the largest piece of my luggage at the ticket station at the Tube unattended for 10 minutes and it was still there when I went back. Culture Shock No. 2
Alex gave me my house key. Singular Culture Shock No. 3
If you ever though that South African cellular companies rip you off, come live in London. Culture Shock No. 4
The strongest painkiller the British will sell without a perscription is Paracetemol. Asprin is only prescribed for heart / circulation problems and if you want codiene you'd better be dying. Anyone heading this way anytime soon? Let me know, I need some painkillers smuggled into the country.
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