Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel: Fed-up Ramblings

April 29, 2005

Fed-up Ramblings

In true RCN style, I’ve just spent the last hour or so reading through the two months’ worth of jokes on Metro’s forum since I left there. In a week where I’ve got a technical test tomorrow for my old job at Lewisham (following Tuesday’s ‘interview’ – a hurried 10-minute chat as the agency never got around to setting up an actual interview) and where I should have also had an interview for a crappy job back on the Project, an agent asked me day before yesterday if I’d be interested in returning to RCN. After a few minutes of scraping for tact, I replied that I would be very very very happy if I never had to set foot back there again. When he asked what it would take for me to return, I said they’d have to sack my ex-boss, and why. I decided against saying anything about essentially sacking the rest of the IT department while whoever was at it.

So I’ve been out of contact for a while, and haven’t written in even longer. I’ve had several friends email me to say that they’ve had to resort to checking this website as it’s been so long since they last heard from me.

So I was sick for a while. A long while. I’ve decided to say I had glandular fever, as at least people have heard of it, and the symptoms aren’t that far off. And so long as I don’t spend an hour wandering around Islington after a crappy job interview (a week ago), or run around like a stressed-out headless chicken before another interview (a few days ago), I seem to be mostly fine these days. Also I seem to have a bulletproof excuse for not doing any exercise for the foreseeable future.

This is the longest I’ve ever been out of work, and the most skint I’ve ever been. I had decided at the end of last year that I’d plan to leave the country in March; when March finally came around, indeed I was no longer tied to a job, but the money I had figured on needing to set me up elsewhere turned out to be the money I’d need to borrow just to keep me afloat for the immediate future. I did spend two weeks temping back in railways, earning a third of what I normally earn, but enjoyed it far more than I ever enjoyed RCN (if you strip away the joke-spamming), and did far more database work than I’d ever done there either. I’ve spent the five weeks since then thumbing through a large pile of library books, despairing over how hard it apparently is to get a job. God knows I’d loathe to be a secretary again, but even that doesn’t seem to be on offer. I’m signed up with three temp agencies, and two of them specialise in railways. I’ve already had two phone calls about working back in my old team. Not entirely what I’d had in mind, admittedly.

For all I’d complained about the idiot student ex-flatmate, I often said that I didn’t want to kick him out simply because I didn’t want to have to face jobhunting and flatmatehunting simultaneously. He moved out. The day before rent was due. In the month since, I have apparently had four flatmates. I don’t seem to particularly get on with the most recent one, but at least he’s stopped snoring now. (That’s the problem with these thin walls; unfortunately it also means I have to turn the TV down now). The previous one, a good friend of his, also Tunisian, was manic and hyper, and we spent a week and a half talking in a mixture of French and English. For the last week and a half, I’ve been thinking in French and Spanish to the point where sentences start in one language and end in the other. I met the current one last night, and so far, I’ve been speaking more French than him.

The garden. Ah yes, the garden. The tulips are in bloom. So is my cherry tree, and – I think – two of my magnolia trees. A year ago, the tulips – planted at midnight the night before I flew back to Guatemala for Christmas – were all clustered in the front half of the garden; this year – planted more or less at the same time – they’re planted throughout the garden, which means the odd flash of colour among the weeds and whichever other plants are in the way. Don’t get me started on the weeds. I’ve got two large patches of nettles, which have sprung up around the tulips. So I can’t spray them outright. The strategy which I devised a few weeks ago consists of mixing up a fresh batch of max strength weedkiller, chopping the nettles, and spraying the stalks. After that I can get back to weeding by species. Unfortunately, between the thought of mixing a fresh batch of weedkiller and the likelihood of getting stung by the nettles, I can be safely relied upon to find a good book to read or something tolerable to watch on TV.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the last few months. Little of what I’ve thought about has given me any incentive to keep living in London. I think about how much things have changed, especially myself, over the six years that I’ve lived here, I’ve also thought about getting back to my old haunts. Dance classes are an obvious place to start. They now cost £9.50 a class. Ah. Normally I do three or four a week. Egyptian dance classes. The website has just frozen, but I assume they’re around £15. That adds up to an obscene amount of money – on a weekly basis, never mind monthly. Music scene then. I’ve tried, and given up on the acoustic and folk circuits. I’ve even tried the Old Crusty circuit. Unfortunately, I still can’t seem to be able to find a circuit open to an Arab-fusion harper. I’ve also thought a lot about a certain loose end which has made staying in London more appealing than otherwise, however I’ve not heard from it in three very long weeks. The same three weeks, incidentally, in which almost nobody has heard from me either. Admittedly a lot of those three weeks have been taken up with the fervent ups and downs of a current-day Romeo and Juliet.

I’m grouchy and fed up. Three mobile phone masts are down in the area, which means jobhunting has now been reduced to being woken by calls which get disconnected as soon as I answer them, and checking my voicemail periodically when I’m in a part of the flat which actually has reception.

Bloody hell it’s late. I’ll be wrecked tomorrow. I’ve barely done any programming since last Autumn, so god only knows how tomorrow’s technical test will go. Honestly, I’d rather return to the Project as a Team Organiser than return to my old job in Lewisham. Given what they pay anyway, it’s no surprise that they see me as a significant flight risk. And not just because of the money.

To bed, now, and to a book which I’ve already read two or three times in the last few months. ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’. Great book. Ah. Even Tiscali is telling me to get to bed now. It’s just logged out. Because I’m so grouchy and fed up, because the last two weeks have been so shit, hopefully I can end the day with not feeling any guilt over hoping that someone would give the loose end a huge slap around the head and get it to get in touch and have some bloody good excuse for its silence.

G’night.

Posted by chantal at April 29, 2005 04:08 AM

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