Saturday 19 March 2011

But she caught me on the counter

I feel like every time I start writing a new post I’m embarking on this mammoth journey that’s going to have sucked part of my soul out or something by the end of it (you probably feel the same way reading it due to my clunky English and dreadful overuse of brackets) but that’s kind of what life is like for me right now on a day-to-day basis. It’s like taking this big breath at the start of the day and revving myself up so that I have enough of something, I don’t even know what (enthusiasm maybe? Na wrong word. If I bothered to edit what I write I’d change it later, but no such luck so you’ll just have to put a fitting word in there for yourself) to get through it! Then at the end of the day I think back to the morning and it quite literally feels like days ago. It’s well, tiring, and rather frustrating at times.
It’s also really weird because I can’t make up my mind as to whether I’m enjoying myself or not? I think for the most part I am, mainly because of the fact that I’m on this big adventure (thinking broadly here hah) and I have no idea what is going to happen (oOo) NOT because I fill my days at present wasting copious amounts of money and time on unreliable forms of public transport where I end up having some form of bizarre social interaction with some idiot or another.  So with that I announce that I *am* going to be in London soon, very soon, like, a week to a week and a half soon (no more yo-yoing back and forth with decision making. Fuck you sensible brain the other 31/32 wins) I decided this the other night while having somewhat of a melt down (did not involve crying, just for the record) and came to the realisation that I really can’t handle another two months in backward ville, plus, I have no idea how long I’ll be in the UK for so why waste valuable time being here.  So with that I went on this big job applying frenzy. I’ve got three job interviews on Monday so that’s a good start I suppose. It’s really tempting to just pack up my shittt and leave for good, but that’s a bit unfair on my family here, so I’m going to come back on Monday night, see what happens in regards to the job interviews, other job applications and what not then go back to London, stay in a backpackers for the time being and bammm, no more Skem! And that thought alone makes me very, very happy indeed!
Trying to go back in time now to when I finished my last post (after being locked in the garage), but Wednesday must’ve been so dull that it doesn’t even register with me as having happened? What the ..
Ooh actually I do remember now. So Jan let me out of the garage then was going back to the gym (she loves her gym classes) so I went as well to sign up to this 3 sessions for 9 pounds thing. After my last horrific treadmill experience it had never felt better to run at 10kms an hour, nor had it ever felt better to sweat so profusely (disgusting yes, but ever so satisfying) And that profuse sweating was only to be topped off by a fantastic sauna (wasn’t the same without Trudy though, naww)
I have totally acclimatised by the way and am now back to being five degrees hotter than everyone else. It most certainly does not help that everyone around here cranks the central heating something chronic, the gym included. Due to my love of opening windows my room is now known as the ice box but at least I can think and function in here. I walk around the rest of the house like I’m in some kind of strange meditative state as the heat makes me feel like I’m floating and in general it’s like I’m just not quite all there.
So back to my recapping, the day had improved drastically it seemed but was soon to take a sour turn when I had a harsh reminder as to why I don’t do ‘family’, which in fact marked the beginning of my fuck this plaaace fo real revelation (so thank you family?) I’d go into deets but na, boring. So I basically spent the majority of the evening marooned in my room being ever so thankful that I’d learnt a long time ago to stay low on the family radar because I’m well aware that I can be inappropriate at the best of times.
So with the help of Spotify (music programme) to drown out the ‘goings on’/screaming and yelling from downstairs, I completed my CV after much procrastination and began sending it off places all while reliving the wonders of the late 90’s early 2000’s rap (hence the Shaggy facebook status)
Then I woke up and it was St Patrick’s Day! (I have no idea why I put an exclamation mark after that; I quite frankly couldn’t care less about it) But, but, but, St Patrick’s Day now marks the day I got my tattoo! I’m so glad I waited until I got here or I would’ve wasted a precious week of beach time before I left – definitely no risk of emerging myself in salt water during a moment of forgetfulness around here.
But ANYWAY, I love it! (Would be a bit of a bummer if I didn’t wouldn’t it?) It’s small, and thin, and they adhered to my “NO CURLS” instruction, most impressed. For those of you who don’t know what it is (which is almost everyone) you must be like whaaat? Haha. It only took about twenty minutes and Naomi kept me distracted by reading stories from fmylife off her phone. THIS one was almost the reason my tattoo was crooked as it certainly struck a funny chord with me:
Today, I emailed a potential boss a copy of my resume. However, I didn’t realise that I’d sent the fake one I’d created for my English class. Some of my former jobs include being a certified gangster and the former president of Canada. FML.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. Too funny.
So they glad wrapped it up etceteraaa and I was off on my merry way to get a nose stud put back in (it would appear I like pain?) and it quite genuinely hurt SO much more than my tattoo. BUT, it’s a “nose ring for clumsy people” (direct quote from man in shop) so hopefully I won’t have any more issues.
We then had a pint of Guinness (face was probably similar to that photo I posted. Definitely not my choice of beers) and watched hordes of drunken old men stumble around the streets of Southport in broad daylight and I considered myself lucky that I was making an escape to Manchester to attend a contemporary technique class.
Not so lucky after all, on the way to the dance studio I got told I have “juicy tits” by a male passerby. I have no tits to speak of let alone juicy ones, plus I was wearing a massive coat which would’ve masked any form of chest I may or may not have possessed anyway, jeepers, and people wonder why I have little faith in humanity.

Class was good, a little on the simple and slow side but better than the horrible one in Liverpool! And I don’t care what I’m about to sound like but I was most definitely a good ten or so times better than everyone else there which meant I got approached to have another chat with the teacher afterwards. He asked why I was here etc and said that I was best to get to London to do classes because there’s not a lot on offer anywhere else so yes, yet another reason to leeeave nooow.
So because of that I missed my train, but made friends in the station with this Jamaican guy who was up from London to promote his ‘reggae rock band’. I felt terrible though as he had one ridiculously shiny gold tooth that I just could not take my eyes off. He was one of those intense eye contact type people though, so I was kind of thankful for the tooth otherwise I would’ve had to stare at the bridge of his nose which is my usual avoiding too much eye contact technique. But that typically only has about a 75% success rate so any other form of facial distraction is most convenient. Gold tooth aside he was really friendly and seemed genuinely interested in why I was here and what I planned on doing and basically it was just nice to have a conversation with someone who didn’t have a Skemified brain therefore could actually string an intelligent sounding sentence together. And I can’t say I’ve listened to a whole lot of reggae rock so when I’m in London I may just go and check them out.
Any hopes of coming across more intelligent life were well crushed when I (and the other people in the carriage) got abused on the train by this horrendously drunk woman who was well into her 60’s, for being “the most boring fucks on the planet” as we sat there and began to read our books and listen to our iPods and embark on fifty or so minutes of normal train behaviour which was unfortunately not to be in peace thanks to her.
Warning: Friday was NOT my day, so this next part is just a big, fat whinge basically.
Yesterday morning (Friday morning) I planned on going back to that initial studio I went to in Liverpool to do their professional level class at 9:30am. Sadly it was not meant to be. First of all the bus just did not come, the buses are good like that around here. The other night it did the same and I asked people around me if they were in fact waiting for the same bus as me and that I didn’t just miss it or something and they were like “Oh no, it just hasn’t come yet. At this time of night sometimes the bus drivers miss a route and things you see, you have to just wait for the next one instead (might I add they only come every half hour) it’ll get here eventually”.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 Eventually isn’t good enough for those of us around here (which may just be me?) who have somewhere to be at a particular time for fucks sake. So I waited, and waited and waited then had no choice but to spend 10 freaking pounds on a taxi to the train station. There was some massive hold up as well along the way and I asked the taxi driver what it was likely to be and he said “Oh around here at this time of morning the kids are crossing all along this road to go to school, they forget there’s a crossing right outside *chuckles*, but it’s ok, best to keep them safe”
NONO IT’S NOT.  Run the little fuckers over then they’ll start using the pedestrian crossing (my blood is once again boiling reflecting on this)
I just stared at him in disbelief and chose not to comment.
So I JUST made it to the train station and the lady behind the booth told me I’d have to buy my ticket at the other end (I thought that was strange but accepted it). Then, because public transport hates me, there was a fifteen minute hold up somewhere along the train line, so we didn’t arrive in Liverpool until 9:30, therefore I missed my class. Yay. And it gets better. I went up to the lady by the gates where you leave and said I had to buy a single ticket from Ormskirk and she said to me “You can’t do that. You have to buy a ticket before you get on the train”, to which I replied “Well I thought so too but I was told to buy one at this end?” She continued to inform me that that would be a twenty pound fine at which point I pulled the most horrified expression I could muster to buy me some time before launching into an angry protest, but my face must have been enough so she gave me the benefit of the doubt because I “obviously wasn’t from around here” (Being from New Zealand strikes again)
So I figured I may as well do something in Liverpool considering I’d taxi’d, trained and argued my way there, plus I had time to kill before catching the train (needless to say, the novelty of catching a train has more than worn of) to Preston to have my interview for a National Insurance number.
I felt like immersing myself in a bit of arts and culture so went for a wander up towards the museum and art gallery. I wished that I’d had battery left in my camera but unfortunately I’d taken too many damn photos of my keyring drinking beer the day before so it was dead.
First of all I called into the Metropolitan Cathedral which personally I think is a bit of an architectural eyesore given its surroundings (http://www.aboutliverpool.com/attractions/5.Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral.jpg) but it was pretty impressive on the inside. There’s a lot of blue lighting which makes it really eerie and I don’t mean to be religiously insensitive or anything, but the incredibly detailed paintings and sculptures that cathedrals always seem to have, have never failed to scare the shit out of me and this one was packed full of them. There were a lot of people in there just chilling in the pews looking like they did so all the time while I creeped around feeling like I had “certified sinner” stamped on my forehead.
So then I decided I needed coffee, and who knew it’d be so difficult to find somewhere that actually has soy milk. To all my lactose intolerant brothers and sisters, you too can be made to feel most unwelcome if you ever go to Liverpool.
I then reached my intended destination that was both the museum and art gallery in the same building. There was this buzzy room full of paintings by an artist whose name escapes me who felt ‘at one with nature’ for his entire life, but not in like a “wow isn’t everything so pretty” kind of a way, this was most certainly in the vibe of “nature is fucked up and so am I”. There was this HUGE painting of an otter with bloody teeth and really demonic looking eyes that was supposedly painted especially for his mother/aunt/sister/partner (can’t remember which) but she gave it back because it was just too disturbing, I am not surprised.
Then I went into a room in the museum that was full of animal skeletons and foetuses in jars (sixth form bio all over again), and my personal favourite, a cabinet containing “False teeth through the ages”.
This place is whack. After reading about the history of false teeth for a while I was just like, why, why, why, why am I here.

I figured it was about time to go and catch my train to Preston where I got into another argument over whether I had or hadn’t asked for a return train ticket (I had.) with a stupid train station worker (and I won, because I just so happened to be right). I sat next to this German/American lady who had two massive rubbish bags jammed full with other empty rubbish bags. Why? I do not know. The mind boggles. She told me she used to be this crazy hippie who roamed Europe doing all sorts of random jobs until she met her husband in the south of France and moved back to England with him where she’s lived in a tiny little village ever since. Her moral of the story, you never know what’s going to happen. I do know I ain’t marrying no Pom or spending the rest of my days bored out of my tree and carrying plastic bags around with me on trains, but her heart was in the right place I guess.
So I got my national insurance number application all done etc and eventually arrived back at the house. I’ve never actually gone into just what getting into Liverpool/Manchester involves – A half hour walk to the bus stop (and that’s at my freaky fast pace), a half hour bus (if it shows up) and a half hour train ride (for Liverpool) or a fifty minute train ride (for Manchester). Not cool.
So Friday just sucked basically, until I got home and checked my emails to discover my prospective job interviews!
First one was for a job I never expected to hear back from. This place www.vanitystudios.co.uk needs a promotion and marketing person, and applying involved sending a few photos and writing about why you think you’d be the right person for the job (Can’t even remember what I wrote, something good apparently) Totally not hot enough for the job, but somehow I caught their eye with the only remotely glamorous photo of myself I could find (which happens to be me drunk in the foyer of my old apartment building haha) Maybe I should have a couple of shots for Dutch courage and to maintain that same glazed expression I have in the photo. Just kidding.
Second was for a front of house type role in a bar in Chelsea (super posh area of London)
And third was for another marketing job in Shoreditch (east London), which sounds almost a little too good to be true (call me a cynic, I call it being realistic). The lady rang me and was like “I just read the most AMAZING CV sent by you” (my CV really isn’t that amazing, right down to the slightly wonky formatting which I’m yet to fix up) and barely let me get a word in on the phone, but she loved that I was part of a Guinness World Record, and that I’ve been to China, and that I got straight to the point in my cover letter so yeah, we shall just have to wait and see on that one!
I must go and map out my day on Monday (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay London!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) The trickiest part is actually figuring out how I’m going to get to the train station in Ormskirk to get to the bus station in Liverpool tomorrow morning (because buses don’t run around here on a Sunday, useful)
So my apologies for such a miserable post, but when you come and visit me ( J J J ) we can make a special trip to Skem so I can show you what it’s all about!

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