Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel

February 27, 2007

Oops

Sorry I've not posted in a long eternity. It's unforgivable. In the meantime, I've been busy creating a monster, so when I get a moment's chance, I'll try and update this.

In the meantime, monster repellent suggestions would be most welcome!

Posted by chantal at 02:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 28, 2007

Freudian Slip

I'm trawling through room ads on Gumtree, and just saw one which says 'Emasculate condition!' - ouch!!! :)

Posted by chantal at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2006

??!?!!

What the - ?!! I'm offline for just one day, and then I log on to find that Pinochet's died?! Where is the damn justice in this world?!

It also reminds me uncannily of a few years ago when I came back to Guatemala, checked the news the next day, and Saddam Hussein'd been captured. What? Do I alert press agencies each time I book a flight back here?!

Now I'll go have a cigarette to try and wipe this dazed expression off my face, then start unpacking. It's good to be home.

Posted by chantal at 07:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 19, 2006

I Am Scum

Today being Wednesday, I had dance class and rehearsal after work. I can’t say I was much looking forward to rehearsal, but then again, I rarely am.

Normally after class, I stretch for about 15 minutes, chatting with Maria if she’s there. But as rehearsal now starts as soon as class finishes, I either stretch with Maria in the corridor (if she’s there), and chat with her and others at length, have a cigarette, and miss the first 20 mins or so of rehearsal.

Today, the plan was to have a quick cig, make a quick phone call, and dash back into the studio. Not including quick hellos with people from my dance group, I chatted with about seven people while I was outside, texting Laura a few times before she turned up out of the blue, and – cough – accompanied me to the pub (an hour and a half before the end of rehearsal, cough cough).

That in itself wouldn’t have been so bad, except that I was still at the pub at 10pm when one of the guys from rehearsal turned up.

Worse still, however, was when the dance teacher friend and I went to O’Neills after the pub closed, and standing outside the window… were another two people from rehearsal.

I smiled, waved, and raised my glass to them.

Posted by chantal at 02:42 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2006

My Brother Won't Like This

My mother forwarded me a Google Alert earlier, about a news story in which an American was rescued by the police from being lynched in 'a popular tourist town' in Guatemala.

After about half an hour of checking every news site I could think of to find out where this had happened... it turned out to be Jucanyá, the Indian barrio of Panajachel, which is where my mother has her lake house - and where she was at the time!!

Thankfully she didn't go out all day, and didn't hear a thing, but damn this world gets a little too small at times!!!

Posted by chantal at 12:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 15, 2006

Temporarily Offline

A quick few words while I wait for an email - we've been offline in the house for the last week or so, and I've been so ridiculously busy at work (and, cough ahem, in the evenings too) that I've barely had time to email. Profuse apologies to those of you I've neglected or ignored over the last few weeks, and I'll update this website soon and catch up on emails.

Preferably once I finally have a replacement laptop!

Posted by chantal at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2006

I Like Today

Today started abruptly. Despite my heavy-duty earplugs, I was woken by Friend rummaging around for clothes and his towel. Once I’d grunted my hellos, surprise, and general reaction to being awake, he asked, ‘Running late?’ – my alarm should have gone off an hour previously. Had I actually set it.

After about 15 minutes of racing around, I decided Sod This, and joined him outside for a cigarette. When I got to the station, I realised I’d forgotten to go to the toilet, so managed to miss a Tube that way.

Once I managed to get on the Tube, it was to find myself standing a couple of people from a previous boss’s doppelganger. Worse still, once I got a seat, it was right opposite him. (The photo I took as proof didn’t turn out too well). He got off at Hammersmith, and a woman sat down next to me and promptly nodded off. Thankfully she never noticed the large spider crawling down her leg.

I texted Gonzo once I got to the Tube platform, but within minutes of arriving (and cheerfully distributing the post), I received a meeting invite with both Gonzo and Daisy (line manager and boss, for those who don’t hear me call them that on a daily basis.)

I skipped my gym session, treated myself to a salad from Eat instead (but the chile oil salad dressing from the canteen really had never met a chile), and spent the last few minutes before The Meeting breathing deeply and trying to turn myself from a sarky git to a Meek Pleb.

The meeting was to inform me that if I arrived after 9am again, I would be issued with a Written Warning. Apparently I had alarm clock (user) malfunction a few weeks ago, but I have yet to send out my disclaimer which says, no, the Piccadilly Line was suspended en route to work. Still, it’s a plus; I’d expected to spend the meeting discussing whether I got one week’s or one month’s notice.

Had my salad from Eat for lunch – the chile oil salad dressing from canteen seemed to be missing chiles; mind you, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to make the short distance to Eat that I barely remembered how to prepare the salad. Also I had to buy some more tea, as I’d left all of mine back at the house. Bugger.

I’d just paid for my dance class and was heading off to the studio, when I saw an oddly familiar face – Maria. (She was a few people behind me in the queue).

Maria’d been one of my best friends 4-5 years ago, and I’ve not seen her since; I spent much of the class thinking about her and glowing about having seen her again after all this time; we caught up briefly in the pub afterwards, hopefully I’ll be doing her Monday class from now on, and her my Wednesday class.

I’ve been grinning like an idiot since.

Ach, hell, I’ve been grinning most of the day anyway….

Posted by chantal at 01:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 05, 2006

Bloody Knackered

I really really want to write about my colleagues. Hopefully soon I can describe them temporarily as my ex-colleagues, then never more afterwards.

This week has turned out to be an unexpectedly sociable week. When I’m home, I have websites to work on. When I’m out, I have websites to work on when I get home. I’ve been knackered for a week, and I’m starting to forget how it feels to be otherwise.

On the plus side, not only have I regained all my former flexibility from dance and yoga classes past, but surpassed it.

On which note, I need to find some bizarre stretches for my lower back so that I don’t spend tomorrow in agony. (If I could count on a seat on the Piccadilly Line, I could at least bring some ice with me to ice away the worst of the aches on my way into work).

Sleep well.

Posted by chantal at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)

Big Kid

I’m grinning like an idiot. I don’t plan to stop. Well, it’s almost 1am, Friend is asleep, so I should probably have a quick shower and get to bed soon… but I don’t want to stop grinning.

I shouldn’t grin, I should be sad – tonight was officially The End Of The End. The final official Project bash – it’s only weeks till it’s all over. I pretty much took my current job as it’s only a block from my old office, and maybe two blocks from where they’ve all moved to; much as I love being back in my old stomping ground, it will just be depressing when they’ve all gone, and the Rose & Crown no longer holds familiar faces on the nights I go there.

Myles was local IT back in FBC (my old office); we became good friends (and smoking buddies) while I worked there, and promptly lost touch as soon as my job ended. Just before Easter, Matt invited me to a Project birthday bash, and when I arrived at the pub, there was Myles standing at the bar. I’d known for a week or so about tonight’s party, but as Matt had made no mention of wrangling me an invite, I assumed none would be forthcoming. Myles texted me yesterday morning, I emailed back yesterday afternoon; he mentioned that he was going to tonight’s party, and by this morning, I was on the invite list. A very bizarre situation (for me): going to work in gym clothes, and bringing non-gym clothes to change into for after work.

Matt forwarded me the original invite email, including the URL for our venue – some kind of corporate entertainment centre, with hundreds of video games, ‘techno bowling’, dodgems, pool tables and so forth. It looked very snazzy in the photos. It looked very dated ‘90s (or late ‘80s) in real life.

First thought was: who on Earth booked this place, and why? If you could find a less inviting place, I don’t want to know. But going to the toilet, and seeing all the games on offer, it started to make sense. Maybe less sense while struggling through a few games of pool with Matt – thank god for Gary jumping in and substituting for me, but infinitely more so when we decided to go upstairs to play with the dodgems; I was wrestling with my straps when Steve Blakey jumped in next to me, asking me which of us should drive. He had four tokens; however long a token lasted, I spent four times that ‘trying to help’ (mostly shrieking and leaning hard, occasionally shoving other dodgems out of the way, but never managing to nick that damn water pistol) and pissing myself laughing; I wanted to signal Matt to take some photos which I could send back to my mother, but seeing him with the camera pointed, I assumed that that’s what he was doing. He wasn’t.

There was a sort of ‘80s disco dancing game. Michael Watson spent much of the night on it, however when I tried doing it with our former director, it made no sense whatsoever. Walking past the would-be horses was a risky situation – they were part of a video simulation, and the men on them (I never saw any women on that game) always came off dripping. I gave an Irish contractor a cigarette, in the hope of playing some game which vaguely resembled ice hockey but without the ice or the hockey, but I just ended up losing my lighter instead.

Actually, maybe it was only three rounds in the dodgem with Steve. Not only was I blinded by my hair each time we got crashed into, but my seatbelt had a nasty habit of snapping. I’d shriek at Steve who to aim for, but sadly he generally ignored me; maybe that was because I noticed that Matt and Gary were making a particular point of crashing into us during the first round, something I could only blame myself for.

There were no free dodgems after that; I stayed to watch another round, then started missing my drink. (I had several stashed around the bar area downstairs, true to form). Maybe I was going to the toilet, or only wandering around, but I noticed our Director and General Manager at a babyfoot table, along with our long-lost commercial guy and another former friend. While I watched, a game ended, someone bowed out, so it only seemed natural that I join in – on the General Manager’s side. Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time living and working in France, and spent much of that time playing babyfoot – but like pool, which I’ve not played in 8 years, 11 years without babyfoot is a similar handicap. Nonetheless, Ian and I creamed the Director. Twice. Oh what a happy feeling….

Ian lives near where I’m staying, so we shared a cab back. He wanted to know about my current situation, which isn’t specific enough to really be able to talk about. It did occur to me at one point that I should be selling myself better, in the hope of a job with him, but actually it was a relief to be able to describe the overall situation with someone who knows nothing at all about it, and who isn’t connected to me in any particularly close way.

I’ve got a good idea of railways, and how the projects operate. I went to a JLE reunion, and it was just like a PSU bash, only the people looked a bit different. We talked for a bit about PSU and how well it worked, but I guess in reality, the only thing which really distinguished it from other railways projects were the personalities – but that will always be the case. I told Ian about the psychometrics package I tested years ago which told me I ‘oversocialise at work’ (Ian asked ‘what does that mean?’), and also that as a former archaeologist, working on the Project was like working on a very extended excavation – where your colleagues are a more vivid part of your everyday life than anyone else – and for far longer.

Maybe that’s just me. I joined the Project shortly after leaving Dublin, and right when I was trying to move to Paris. Ian was trying to establish how committed I am to settling down, yet for the years I worked on the Project, it was my entire life. My colleagues were my friends and my social life; anyone else was just detail. Although I’ve only once invited a friend (Friend, in fact) to a Project bash, another friend has accidentally met up with Project folk, and concluded that we’re basically cliquey and boring.

I can’t stay awake long enough to continue this train of thought. Maybe it is just me. I know I’m predisposed towards working environments which involve heavy socialising – voluntarily, not my current grunting in lieu of extreme violence towards my colleagues.

It’s been a bit over a year and a half since I left the Project. My favourite nights out are usually the ones when I meet up with Matt, Gary or any other Project faces. By contrast, the friend I’m staying with is from a later job, and my friend Martin is my predecessor from one job, and I never met him till long after.

I can’t stay awake long enough to reread ths – nor will my contacts let me – but I’m still grinning like an idiot, and I still don’t want to stop. I kept joking tonight that the average age of the Project dropped by about 40 years tonight – and how oh so true that was. Good clean fun and all that crap.

And with my favourite people.

And talking of which, I’m finally off to bed.

Posted by chantal at 02:03 AM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2006

Housemates, Inc.

I’m impersonating a ghost. Or rather, lurking in the bedroom, to be specific, and I seem to be waiting for the last of the housemates to go to bed so I can creep down for a cigarette and some tea. And reset the wireless router so that I can bloody get online.

I’d originally planned to write this yesterday, or maybe the day before, but couldn’t justify bringing a laptop with minimal memory to Cambridge; typically, the original idea’s become a bit fuzzy.

Meet the housemates: Andrea, part-Argentinian, part-Canadian, raised in Argentina and Shaftesbury. Currently fulfilling her lifelong ambition to be a Runner. She’s 24 with moderately scary Alpha Female and Homemaker instincts. Trevor (Zimbabwean), who I often refer to as Alpha Geek – primarily because, out of the geeks in the house, he’s supposedly the one in charge. He’s mostly tense and overly serious, but has his moments of silliness, usually with his bum sticking way out. His girlfriend is Jenny (German), a Qantas airline stewardess, which means she’s away for about three days at a time, and back for three days, which she mostly spends sleeping or arguing with Trevor. I like her a lot. Max, South African (by way of Italy), is the next geek – except I think he’s not – is currently away with his Woman, who’s come to visit him for a fortnight. Max is generally laidback and mellow, and entertaining most of the time – especially when he and Trevor are insulting each other in local slang, or whatever it is. Friend is the final geek – the eldest and rarely here, but gets teased a lot by the housemates when he is.

Generally, the house is smoothly-run. It’s in a part of London – suburban, I guess – where the front gardens are well-maintained, neighbours look non-threatening, and there’s parkland and the Grand Union Canal just behind the street. On the other hand, I only have a vague idea about where the nearest supermarket is, and I still have no idea where the nearest cashpoint is. On the other hand, I can easily point you to two Chinese takeaways, an Indian restaurant, a supposedly non-dodgy dodgy-looking pub, and an off-licence. And an osteopath.

Being used to relative – but affordable – squalor in Central London, and I suppose much the same in New Cross, the house is a pleasant surprise; the shower had been replaced the day before I arrived, but I have since alerted them (twice) to the fact that it mysteriously leaks. Five people (or rather, three people and two half-people) sharing a fridge was becoming ridiculous, so they bought another one off Ebay. The house is nice, in good condition, and it’s generally kept that way. The washing machine is regularly loaded then emptied, dishes washed then put away, things tidied away regularly – the kinds of things I wanted so badly from flatmates when I was in New Cross but never had. They also go to bed alarmingly early, although I far prefer it when they hit the wine and/or beer for hours, they’re great entertainment.

The arrangement seems to be that it’s a Trevor clique. Most of them lived together previously, a few blocks down the road, where two of the original ‘clique’ apparently still remain. Whether or not they actually lived here is in question; my understanding is that their not being here is the excuse for Andrea. Also in question is whether they would have been an improvement on her or not. (I’ve met the girlfriend once. Gagging her would probably have been the kindest of many things I was tempted to do). Possibly there was meant to be yet another South African, who was undecided between Northern Ireland and London, hence Friend being here, and now me. (A relative of Friend works with Trevor).

All the time I was in Guatemala, I was anxious to get a job so that I could get my own place, get settled, get started. I’d flatshared for quite long enough, and no longer held out the slightest hope that I’d find someone bearable to share with, much want to repeat the experience again with. Also, having lucked out with mostly-absent flatmates for a few years, followed by a couple who never went out or went offline (no network set up at the time), even living with my mother felt like one person too many at times.

I’d known before I arrived that there would be approximately five people in this house – something I was fiercely dreading. Returning to London was one ballpark; sharing with so many people was the thing I was actively not looking forward to, however.

Surprisingly, it turned out to be the one aspect of being back which was working out the best, quite quickly. It kind of feels like a modified version of being back in halls, except that there’s not as many people. There’s usually at least one person in the living room or the kitchen, usually some banter or conversation to join in on. (And in the living room, each of the guys and myself predictably have a laptop perched on each of our laps). I don’t know if it was them lot, or the tea I was trying out, ‘Bright Mood’, but one Sunday evening, when I was having one of my ‘bad days’, I gloomily joined them to watch Planet Earth, and was chatting and laughing away before the end. On St. Patrick’s Night, I was out with ex-colleagues and a friend, got home around 1am; they arrived soon after, with the three would-have-been housemates in tow, as well as large quantities of beer and other random bottles. Friend and I called it a night around 4.30am; when I came back downstairs around noon, Trevor was heading off for bed, and Andrea and Brian (the one in Northern Ireland) were increasingly horizontal in the living room.

The downside of the number of people, however, is when Friend and Jenny are away, and Max is off with his Woman, it’s down to just Trevor and Andrea – a combination which makes me instantly want to be absent. Or even, when it’s just Andrea (in the days before she was finally hired), or nobody at all. Though I prefer the nobody at all option to either of the other two.

As always, at first, it seems like there’s a large number of people, very different personalities, but always a certain amount of liveliness (and individual misery, to tell the truth) – until each person gets back to being busy with their own lives and is rarely around, and the novelty value wears off.

The main problem, however, is that I’m ‘just staying here.’ Although Friend had said on several occasions in the weeks leading up to my return that I could stay here (and that, no, I couldn’t have Andrea’s room), and repeated that when I pressed him to say that it was really okay if I did, he seems to have not discussed it a whole lot with his housemates. Trevor – who he gets on best with – seems to have known in advance, but I gather he only spoke with Andrea after I’d actually arrived.

The only real experience I’ve had of a chronic houseguest was years ago, when José, a friend from Guatemala (who’d let me stay with him a few years previously; I finally checked into a hotel when I was fed up of kitten shit on my sleeping bag, and being woken by kittens abseiling down me and/or my hair) decided to move to London, get a snazzy job, which would mean him renting my room while I slummed it in Hawaii for a few months.

At the time, I was sharing with a very good friend, Dan. José’s snazzy job never even made it to fiction, and, although his mother had given him £100, we found out quickly that there was ‘some problem with his card’, which meant he technically had no money at all. For about two months, Dan and I fed him, loaned him a mobile phone and kept him in cigarettes, had no time alone together, while José rarely moved away from the sofa – if he wasn’t watching TV, he was playing TV games. Finally I got him a job at a local pub (collecting glasses) through a colleague; unfortunately, it was a night job, which meant he was still glued to the sofa for most of the day and evening. One night, he headed out to one of the local pubs around midnight; Dan and I heaved a huge sigh of relief as the front door closed. He was back five minutes later – nobody was there. He finally managed to arrange some flatsitting; when we met up briefly about six months later for him to return my mobile phone (it wasn’t mine, but my brother’s, and he was back in the country), he was about to marry some friend’s girlfriend so that he could stay on in the country, and bring all his friends back to Guatemala for a holiday. Never heard from him since.

I’ve asked several times about contributing to rent and bills. I want to pay rent and bills. This ongoing insecurity about my living arrangements has turned me into a domestic freak – I always seem to be emptying the dishwasher, washing up, putting dishes away, sweeping and mopping the kitchen and bathrooms, vacuuming the hallway and living room (I draw the line at the stairs. I’m not their cleaner). I generally try to help out where I can, and be absent as much of the time as I can as well. Perhaps I should see the cost of going out several times a week as a variation on rent – it certainly seems to be adding up to around that!

Probably, the problem is Andrea. I try not to spend too much time thinking about her, so I’m not too sure what to actually say about her. I grumbled about her one night, and Friend just replied, ‘She’s young.’ Maybe she’s just very blonde, despite being a brunette. Early on, I spent a day and a half working on her laptop, during which time I glanced at her CV (I needed her email address to register something I was installing), but didn’t read enough of it to find out what she’s done so far. In return for all my hard work, she nicked my laptop’s power cable.

I would say that Andrea To Date is: lived in Argentina till she was 14. Worked in Barcelona for a short, unspecified length of time, but probably far shorter than the time she’s spent talking about it. Probably saw this house as a chance to assert herself as Alpha Female Among Incorrigible Geeks (apparently one of the first things she did was rearrange the living room) – and then a few days later, I turned up. I’m on the side of the Geeks. We have a dining room table. We don’t need another one. Apart from a tumble dryer which should be shot, the house is fine the way it is, and it was fine for the few months before she moved in, too. The new fridge is nice, but due to the somewhat strained atmosphere which seems to hover around me, I don’t think I’ll buy anything to put in there. The new fridge also seems to have made zero impact on Friend, who seems to be exclusively fed by family and McDonalds.

Nevertheless, as the newest (paying) resident of this house, she feels herself to be the most senior. Given that my job is near Waterloo, she has twice asked me if I’ll look for somewhere in the area. If she had ever actually been there, she’d know the answer would be a very loud No!!! Her main problem, however, seems to be an overall absence of a life. Until she started her new job (making teas and coffees, basically) a few weeks ago, she was basically housebound. Now her life seems to be this job and the house – her friends are virtual. She goes overboard, however, on bonding with the guys. As Trevor’s officially the One In Charge, her bonding with him makes me nervous. And she really resents me being here.

Last Tuesday, she asked me for the second time what my plans were for moving out. Friend was grouchy when I mentioned it a few hours later, then assured me the next evening I had nothing to worry about. Evening after that – I’d left the pub early to get back to the house at a reasonable hour – I found my laptops, and everything else I’d had in the living room – now dumped on the foot of the bed. Since then, I’ve either been out, or away. I’m finally back, after a few days, and it’s looking suspiciously like the encryption key for the wireless connection has been changed – and a neighbour is getting fed up of my using his or her wireless instead.

Friend was due back tonight. I texted him late last night to grouch about the current situation – given he’d reassured me to point any hostile housemates at him (when he’s around), but I’ve not heard anything back, nor actually seen him this evening. I need to blow my nose, make some more bloody echinacea tea, have a cigarette, then pour myself a very stiff drink.

Tomorrow can only be better.

Posted by chantal at 12:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 06, 2006

Oh, Go Away

I have now passed the four-week mark, and am feeling very grouchy. Also, thanks to an old back injury, I’m debating whether or not I’ll have to sleep on the floor or sitting upright.

Okay, so I’m feeling grouchy for, hmm, probably four reasons. One of them I won’t talk about; the other three are being stuck in a job working with morons who think they’re geniuses; I’m desperately trying to cut back on the sarcasm as, not only is this a permanent job (i.e. I’m stuck with them), but one of them (Gonzo) is my line manager. Two: just because I’ve been in a third world country for most of a year, and fairly oblivious for a while before then does not make me an idiot. Three: I may not be paying rent or bills – because I don’t get to have a long enough conversation with the friend I’m supposedly staying with (instead of substituting for) to discuss my chipping in – but I do do obscene quantities of housework – so would the housemates kindly get off my back about minor indiscretions, such as accidentally leaking cigarette smoke into the house, leaving the kitchen door open while the tumble dryer is screaming – it’s getting to the point where I’m starting to expect complete strangers to start picking on me.

For God’s sake – I’d forgotten that the main reason I quit yoga a few years ago was because the back pain was excruciating afterwards; even though I stretched for a while before going to bed last night, rolling over at 6ish this morning was possibly the most painful experience I’ve had since taking out my contacts with chile juice still on my fingers.

I’m also not feeling very chatty. I’ll leave it at this.

Posted by chantal at 12:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 19, 2006

The Power of Google

I’m bored. It’s 2.43am in England, and even my English insomniac friends seem to all be asleep. No emails, nobody to chat with. So, I guess what one does at times like this is – turn to Google.

My mother’s just got back, so I need to keep this short. For some reason, I thought of a childhood friend, Ingrid, and looked her up. Then a high school friend. Then a few more. Then an ex-boyfriend – he’s playing at the 12 Bar Club on January 30th, and I’m horribly envious of anyone who can make it.

I then looked up his former bass player, who used to be my flatmate and closest friend, Dan – he got married in October – good for him!! I looked through all the wedding photos, and the unofficial photos – he looks exactly the same, maybe he’s filled out a bit more, and though I have no idea who Jen is, I’m so happy he’s finally found someone at last.

And maybe the bugger can finally get in touch with me.

Posted by chantal at 02:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

Kill Kill Kill

Finally installed Outlook on here, and after over five months of using Webmail, I've downloaded the 2008 emails that have accumulated over these months. Except for the ones Lycos nabbed a while back, about 600 emails or so. Haven't been able to check Lycos in months, as I haven't wanted my emails ending up stuck on there. Have been stuck with this Webmail etc. situation for so long as I stupidly believed some prat when he said he'd give me a laptop months ago.

And guess what? Because I've been waiting so bloody long, not only has Lycos deleted all of my home emails - but also everything else from four years of having had that account.

If I wasn't so tired, and there weren't so many clothes hanging on the punching bag, I'd punch the crap out of it. And wait to be able to do the same to the person in question...

Posted by chantal at 10:20 PM | TrackBack

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 04:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 09, 2005

Bugger

God only knows why it seemed a good idea to get up out of bed and fire up this piece-of-crap laptop. It's almost 5am, for god's sake.

Then again, it's not every day that one of your mother's closest friends dies, someone whose health you've been actively tracking for a year, wanting to fly over when the end seemed near.

It's also not every day that you get offered a job working for one of your dearest friends - who happens to be out of the country so she doesn't know about it - and alongside the other friends you miss so keenly, only to have it blocked by someone who still resents being challenged over a decision he made about you. (Professionalism my arse).

Actually, it's happened before, but under different circumstances - then, back in '95, when I was offered my job back, I just laughed; today, I phoned Matt, laughed a lot with him and then kept laughing for the rest of the hour. Then I felt light-headed and almost passed out. Sodding viral infections.

Also, not so often that you get to meet up with someone you've not seen for two and a half years, someone who knows you more through your writings than your emails, and still be surprised by how much you care for them as a friend.

All in all, it's a good day to be off work. Because I can tell you now, I won't be seeing too much of it.

Posted by chantal at 04:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jean

Jean, a close friend of the family (i.e. my mother and myself) finally died today, a week and a day after her 57th birthday.

She has wanted to die for so long - she was never meant to even get near double figures - she was determined to die by the end of last June, and when that failed, when I left Guatemala in early January, we were told that day that the end was imminent. When I had a few-hour layover in Costa Rica a few hours later, I wanted to phone home to see if she was still alive or not. She managed to hang on for another eight weeks.

Her body, barely functional as it was, managed to hold out for so much longer after she was so much more than willing to go; she told my mother that she'd know when she had finally died by the sound of her laughing as she passed by. We all knew how much she suffered, even before the end approached, that she wanted us all to celebrate and rejoice that her suffering was finally at an end.

She leaves a very large hole.

Posted by chantal at 02:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 04, 2005

Growl

It's such a shame. It's been a lovely evening. Any evening when ER is on is usually great, even though that's usually the evening when I also decide to blitz the flat, laundry, myself, and wind up with only about 3 hours' sleep. As it turned out, an evening with 'Supersize Me' on is even better. After that, I got an email from an Irish friend who recently moved to Berlin and even more recently visited Furstenwalde (charmap.exe being absent from this laptop) to take some photos for me and generally check it out, which has resulted in about two hours of trawling through various incarnations of Google and Yahoo to try and trace several cousins. Maybe an hour or so of reading German websites is enough to put anyone in a bad mood, I don't know.

Nevertheless, using Google.de to read Spanish-language websites about Latinos with the same name as two American cousins has easily been the most abstract event of my day.

It's now 2.30am. If I get to sleep at the same time as yesterday, I've only got another six hours of being awake. (It's definitely surreal texting Matt, Dave and Brendan after 8am knowing that all three are either getting ready for work or already there.) Thanks to a couple of people, however, I've got more than enough to do in that time.

First on the list is retype a CV. So that I can at least get a temping job while trying hard not to think what my next career change might involve. It's sitting on my Vaio, but after a month or more, my flatmate still hasn't managed to get his head around the concept of fixing what he breaks. As the hard drive for what used to be my other laptop is still AWOL - along with the email my brother sent me at about 4am before leaving the country - I am stuck shivering in front of a laptop which daily presents a sound business case for euthanasia. As it is, I doubt it'll live much longer, maybe another week or so. Drowning in email accounts as I am, I remember emailing my most up-to-date CV to some account. It turns out that that was Gmail. Gmail doesn't work on this laptop (this website barely works on this laptop as it is). All I want are the two sentences it took me most of a day to write about my last job, which is fairly crucial as my ever-trusty faulty memory has kicked in and I can barely remember my last job.

Sweeter still, in the process of trying to find my CV, Lycos decided to download all of the emails off my home account, which now brings the number of misplaced emails to somewhere just above 500. If you've emailed me in the last month and I've not yet replied, I'll apologise now as I'll never ever be able to find your email again. (Try picturing trawling through 500+ emails all from 'C Guevara' on dialup and a very ancient piece-of-crap laptop).

It's also bloody draughty and cold. (Moves laptop). And there's complete rubbish on TV at this time of night. I've given up on Love, Actually for the second time and have no intention of ever giving it a third shot; if I can survive the next 20 minutes of late-night crap, there'll be a profile of Pedro Almodovar. If I don't survive that long, there's a Charles de Lint book awaiting me about a woman having to overcome childhood traumas so that she can overcome the physical impracticalities of a recent hit-and-run. Surprisingly enjoyable.

There's also the joys of doing two loads of laundry and scrubbing the flat yet a-bloody-gain. My flatmate seems to take for granted that, in return for being heavily subsidised by his parents and myself to live here, he will wake up every Friday morning to a completely spotless flat. It's a bit unfortunate, I realise, that one of the spots that needs the most vacuuming is right outside his bedroom door, and he went to bed a few hours ago. I can't remember if he was planning an early start or not. A friend laughed a few months ago when I mentioned I was tempted to introduce him (flatmate) to the vacuum cleaner by hitting him over the head with it, but I'm fast realising that I may well have to do that after all, and soon. If this wasn't the only remaining computer out of four which has something vaguely resembling internet access, I'd hit him over the head with this too.

Okay, so it's now 4.05 am and I was about to say how much I enjoyed the profile - most of my friends know how little it takes to make me happy - and that mostly I'm just fed up of so rarely seeing the friends I'm fondest of, but then I've just found out that the idiot flatmate has let the gas run out, which means shivering under multiple layers, several of which will be thermal, till my body decides it's time to wake up.

Normally I want to dismember him anyway on Thursday evenings due to his lack of any contribution whatsoever around the flat, having spent several hours ensuring it's clean and tidy; now I think I'll just settle for dismemberment for being himself.

Roll on Charles de Lint. And a sledgehammer.

Posted by chantal at 02:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 02, 2005

Mysterious Stranger

That's me. Cool.

As an improvement on last night, it's only 4.15 am right now. Which means I've only been online for just over five hours, a lot of which has been spent checking Messenger to see if anyone logged in while I wasn't looking (no soundcard on this laptop). And each time I sit back down again on the floor, I'm that little bit closer to causing myself some injury. I really should move the lamps so that they actually do something. I've also only been drinking echinacea tea for the last three hours, which means that next time I sneeze, that's what I'll be mopping up.

Predictably, my first day of no social contact has been excruciatingly painful. I don't have enough furniture to chop up, but the way today's gone, tomorrow I'll either chop down the trees in the garden or splinter my guitars for handgrips so I can make a start on climbing the walls. (Looks up at ceiling and pictures clambering along that too).

More likely, I'll just be lying feebly on the sofa sneezing a lot. God I hope that's not the case.

At least the last time I was off work, the job market was healthy enough that, between daytime telly and jobhunting, I was pretty much busy all day. Now, with only about five jobs to apply for weekly, and not having yet checked out the daytime telly situation (see the bit below about dead laptops), I'm going to have to work hard instead at ways to spend the rest of the time - writing a novel is about the only idea I've had so far - it's way too cold to do another blitz on the garden - but that would mean less sleeping and less reading. It's early days, I guess...

For whatever reason, I seem to have decided that today would be the day that I expanded my circle of virtual friends, and so looked around for an interesting weblog to read. I've spent two hours reading http://www.xeney.com/badhairdays/, getting a happy amount of laughs from it, and from the FAQ on the associated forum, and still have most of December to read through. I like her. The reason I picked her weblog is because the Google summary mentioned Buffy, but mostly I've been reading about her honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta last month.

On the forum, as I've only just registered and need bed more than I need to read through the various threads, my status is Mysterious Stranger, hence the title up above. After fifty posts, I get to use the chat room - even though I've often decided that I'm happy enough with the one chat room I use, at least when anyone else bothers to as well - so that's also something to do tomorrow. Bashing my flatmate over the head with one of my dead laptops is something I'll try hard not to do, probably by sleeping and reading in bed.

And now, as it's almost 5am and it'll be a while before I get to sleep, probably tomorrow (again) I'll miss abducting Jules at lunchtime, and pretty much all my friends / ex-colleagues while they're at work. Ho hum. (Sneezes).

Posted by chantal at 04:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 01, 2005

Speak The Word

It’s my first day of being unemployed again. In the last five months since leaving the Project, I’ve spent three weeks working for Lewisham Council chatting all day with my colleagues, three months constantly swapping jokes with my one friend at work, then another month looking like I was about to burst into tears at any minute.

That one month did teach me to search hard for anything that would make me happy, be it trawling through sheet music, books, herbal tea, curled up in the non-smoking room at work reading a good book, chatting to ex-colleagues on Messenger, or generally hijacking the Forum, remembering how huge a part of my life it was before I left the Project. The reason I needed all that was that I was stuck in a job where I had no social interaction at all, no work to do; boredom and lack of social contact are probably the two things I’ve never been able to cope with.

Which means being out of work is going to be a very disturbing experience. I basically slept all weekend, was on Messenger till 4am this morning, struggled to appear human during this morning’s job interview, grunted at my flatmate when I got home and immediately collapsed in bed. I know that sounds like a cliché, but really, muscles really do cease to exist when you reach that state of suffering. Briefly chatted to flatmate when I resurfaced, briefly chatted on the phone to Hang at the Chinese takeaway, then for about an hour when I went to pick up my dinner – I offered to help her out, as it doesn’t seem like I’ll have anything else to do for a while – and have spent the last few hours chatting online with a Forum friend. And that’s my first day.

Normally I hear from ex-colleagues that they see me as loud, friendly, sociable – not to mention quite a few other adjectives – what I’m starting to hear now is that they also see me as needing a lot of social contact, which is not something I’ve expected to hear. Certainly my last job has more than taught me how true that is – being accustomed to knowing all the smokers within a week, and the non-smokers by the end of the second week, being dependent on only one friend for months has been a shock, not to mention having to adjust to him leaving a month before I did, and having to spend that whole month in silence.

So what my last job taught me is that that’s true – that I do crave and need human contact on a near-constant basis, but I don’t want to believe there’s anything bizarre about that. Just as I have never felt at home in England, back in Central America, life is lived externally, whether through carting your tables and chairs onto the pavement and spending the evening there, or simply maintaining a lifestyle where human contact plays a large part. Bartering is not about getting the best deal you can and ripping off a vendor, it’s about the social byplay involved, to make a transaction more than an impersonal event. When you walk down a street, you make eye contact and say hello to all that you pass. Many of the friends I’ve had are due to sitting next to them in random cafes or buses, and I’ve not questioned that, any more than the fact that many of my friends are people I’ve not actually met.

My mother maintains a very reclusive lifestyle back home, but she has repeatedly said that the key thing which distinguishes living in Guatemala from London or the States is the personal contact she has with the people she relies on – from bonding with her vet, receiving Christmas presents from her deli, the very sweet little man who is her tailor but botched repairing the pockets of my long leather jacket, her florists and all rest who help her maintain her lifestyle – and having that contact helps balance out the solitude of her lifestyle, just as my ex-colleagues do for me.

Unfortunately the Council of British Archaeology doesn’t archive its articles, at least not as far back as I’m looking; one of our lecturers, Gustav Milne, once wrote an article for them which discussed how little hominid life has evolved from caveman days, in that we are all designed to live in closeknit communities, and how we compensate when that is taken away from us, given modern society’s constraints. Curtain-twitching and soap operas were examples of how we attempt to bond with an external community in compensation, shopping and football were substitutes for the normal chores of hunting and gathering. Certainly each culture has evolved in its own way, apparently with England and the States the hastiest to shrug off any ties to the family unit, other cultures retaining their links and nurturing them regardless of actual closeness.

We all need a community, whether it’s composed of our family or people from a similar background. Gina, who I met in December, had only been in London a short while and had already formed a closeknit circle of fellow Latinos; Fil has his brothers and cousins who are based here; Sammi has her mix of extremely neurotic teenage schoolfriends and adult Forum members; my stepfather never got around to learning English properly, even after around 30 years of living in London, because his entire social network consisted of fellow Chilean exiles. In the short few years that he and my mother spent together, everyone’s English and Spanish deteriorated noticeably.

The reason I’ve spent so much time thinking about communities recently and what they mean is because I don’t have an obvious one. My family covers Germany, Poland, Russia, the Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala, America, Holland, Scotland and Ireland, which means that none of the relevant communities are going to be particularly open to me. Nor would I feel comfortable among the London-based Mexicans or other Latinos, knowing that I’m only with them as a favour. It also doesn’t help that half-Mexicans have a reputation for being particularly, um, weird.

So my community is primarily based of ex-colleagues – who I ardently wish were still colleagues – but that makes full sense to me, given I’ve spent forty hours a week with them, which is far more than can be said for my other friends. Even in my dancing days, I’d only spend about 15 hours weekly in the studio, and even then it would erratic who’d be able to make it. (Not to mention about four hours a week in the pub with them, although that mostly depended on John and whenever he decided to leave). God only knows what they made of me on the Project – with my overactive humour, my desktop rainforest, my pharmacy of herbal teas and tendency towards bizarre error messages – the only feedback I’ve had since is from my new ex-colleague, who I’ve gone out of my way not to help, is that I’m a stroppy cow. I still chat to Zak from Lewisham pretty much every day, so I can’t imagine they thought too badly of me there.

But I’m digressing. It’s after 3.30 am, I’m tired, and my bed and Discman are calling me. Point: we all need a community to call our own. Whether it’s of friends like us, or friends we want to be like, we still hunt them out regardless until we have them, till they complement us or maybe offer us something to aspire to. Because we all need both - companionship and pointers where to head next, otherwise we’d be no better than proverbial cavemen, sealing up the entrances and living out our lifetimes dwelling inside our own heads. For me, my happiest times have been when I’ve had circles of friends around me, and my inspirations have come from passing friends and authors, and having memories to chuckle over mean most of all. People are all fundamentally the same, which no doubt means that the same matters to everyone else too. Yes, some people do seek out solitude, but being alone is unnatural, just as being unloved is painful.

It’s 4.15am now. God I’m tired, and I still need to wrestle my sleeping bag (wrapped around me for most of the evening as it’s been so cold) back onto my bed. I try not to question that most of my social contact is virtual – email, Messenger, texting, Forum; similarly, I try hard not to think of the financial issue which would let me maintain those friendships from elsewhere. Much as I need constant contact with all of them, none of them particularly need me to be based in London, or England, any more than I myself need to be based here any longer. And yet, I can never stop thinking – today – that it’s not enough. Messenger, Forum, email, friendly shopkeepers – I’ve had two conversations and one argument today, and what those people said is true, I really am someone who needs so much more than that, be it random conversations with complete strangers or quality conversations with good friends. It just took four months of a job I loathed almost every second of to teach me exactly how out of step my social needs are with what I can expect whilst living here. And yet, six years ago, I chose to stay here for the friends I had; and even now, I’ll still choose to do the same.

Posted by chantal at 04:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 28, 2005

Evolution

Look everyone - a new URL for this site! I'm fond of studios, but press is probably far more appropriate anyway.

Apologies for the complete absence of recent updates. Possible excuses include:
- loathing my job with a passion I didn't know I was capable of.
- losing said job.
- discovering that the hot chocolates were actually making me sick.
- dealing with random crises (not my own, I keep those to myself).
- spamming the friends who let me spam them.
- spamming the Forum and getting away with it.
- instead of a leaving party, going to an ex-colleague's with my predecessor.
- spending way too much time on Messenger.
- trying very hard not to read through mountains of VBA code in preparation for tomorrow's job interview and technical test.
- trying very hard not to pack everything up to work in an archaeological lab in Panama.
- mostly because I'm completely skint.
- reading way too much. 'The Time Traveller's Wife' is an excellent book, by the way - I've already read it twice. Having reread the Inca trilogy by A B Daniel, I've been trying to find an Aztec equivalent. I'd far rather read it than write it.
- but reached the conclusion that I should read far more Charles de Lint.
- staring at the garden waiting for my few hundred tulips to appear.
- well, not really.
- largely because it's so bloody cold, I'd far rather stare at a radiator.
- or one of my duvets.
- not taking the laundry out of the washing machine. I hope it doesn't start to rot soon.
- trying very hard not be abducted to Turkey.
- trying very hard to be abducted to Fuerteventura or anywhere between the Rio Grande and the Darien Gap.
- listening to enormous quantities of Queensryche, after a 12-year absence.
- it's lovely listening to music where I actually understand the words. My Arabic is still pretty limited.
- establishing that I have no idea whatsoever where to buy helium, least of all in Fuerteventura.
- planning to return to dance classes but then having to postpone them on the grounds of being skint. Also one of the classes clashes with another, another clashes with ER.
- reading lots of lovely comments on the Forum wishing me all the best with unemployment. I'd expect to be lynched instead for how I've been hijacking it.
- Oh, a few of them are musicians. My Mexican guitar finally has a 6th string and a pick, and when I'm employed again, a bucket of sheet music for it. I've been staring at it quite long enough without playing it, I've decided.
- still no progress with the harp recordings though.
- shame the database market in Paris isn't healthier.
- those last two were connected, by the way.
- still trying to exorcise Gary Jules's 'Mad World' from my head. Maybe I should just buy a DVD player and a copy of Donnie Darko.
- but happily singing along to Shakira and Queensryche.
- except that being woken by Shakira on my stereo tends to put me in a silly mood.
- not that it takes much anyway....
- I really need to get to Virgin to do something about those record tokens in my bag.
- being bullied into spending Friday evenings with the Project crowd
- and being similarly bullied (but in two languages) into spending more time at the Rose and Crown.
- oh, not-celebrating six years in this misbegotten country. It wasn't a happy day, but being given my notice at work did help improve it.
- basically milking any chance I can get to laugh and be silly.
- still not reading through any VBA code or getting the laundry any further out of the washing machine.

Will that do?

Posted by chantal at 01:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 12, 2005

Bloody Hell

Not only is this my 50th entry on here, but I've just Googled this site and found 74 hits (I didn't bother to check the 'similar yet hidden' ones). One website gave me 149 votes.

I'm beyond flabbergasted.

Shit!

Posted by chantal at 11:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 08, 2005

Hmm

Four jobs, three countries. Two in Guatemala, both part-time: one is being paid to talk to people, and then write up the conversations; the other is to look after other people’s gardens. I’m not so sure about the job in Fuerteventura, but it’d be working for a good friend in his new hotel/apartment complex in a tourist resort, good weather guaranteed. I’d rather be in Corralejo than Caleta, but then again, I’d probably rather be in either than in London. The fourth job is the one I currently have, which involves no work, no social interaction, no illusions, obscene quantities of hot chocolate, and an office clique which I continue to despise after over three months.

It’s a miracle I’ve survived three months there, though perhaps a godsend, given the current state of the job market; nonetheless, out of those three months, I’ve not yet worked a complete month, and probably that, the large quantities of hot chocolate and jokes are the only things which enable me to return every morning. Since Fil, my only friend, left a week ago, presumably it’s just force of habit which gets me up and out each morning.

I’ve temped for six years now, and can wholeheartedly say that this is the only job I’ve had where I’ve not had a single friend, not since Fil left. I’m learning that I can expect a conversation with a single random stranger every day – for example, the Big Issue Manager outside the office is leaving on Friday to work for David Beckham as his nanny – but no more than that. On Wednesday, I spent an hour stranded at Waterloo East station waiting for my train, but justified it as I spent most of that time chatting with a woman called Donna. She was rushing home to take her cat to the vet, but given the time needed to get the cat into the sodding cage, she had to cancel the appointment.

Today I had to give my new colleague an introduction to his job, which was extremely hard work given I had to pretend not to be as jaded, disillusioned, bitter, fed up, desperate to leave, prone to violent tendencies, sick of the place as I actually am. All the more so as our boss was sitting opposite him for most of the time. Later, when we met alone at the coffee machine by the other office, I gave him a franker summary of the job, in that there isn’t one, and if he can’t find ways of keeping himself busy till he quits, he’ll go mad.I’d hoped he was a smoker; if he was, I’d planned to have forced him to give in his notice by the end of yesterday, his first day.

What keeps me going are my ex-colleagues. I know it’s probably not healthy to be so dependent on them, especially after several months of no longer working with them, but it’s those who email, chat, text daily who I’m the most grateful for. Those who don’t are those I can’t be bothered with, for the most part. I have zero interest in being taken for granted, and a sufficiently bad memory that friends are deleted on a fairly regular basis. Martin’s often said that, according to his memory, any office with me in it will be a loud office; I’m fairly certain that one of the main reasons for Paul kicking me out of the other office was that I was too much of a distraction for Jay and Fil (ND being best avoided at all times, whatever Fil says in his defence). I loathe the idea of me being clingy or needy, but god I wouldn’t have survived the last few months without Matt, Jenny, Ian, Martin, Paul, Rahat, Zak, and the other occasional Project contacts. I had a phone call a week ago about a job in Woking, and my first thought was of proximity to Steve and Mike. Being near them would be reason enough to take the job.

Perhaps if I actually had a job, if I actually had something to do with my days besides read through the helpdesk database, the HR database (illicitly), look up yet more photos for Zak’s website, anxiously check Msn Messenger for certain contacts, the Project would fast become a distant memory. I’ve known for a while, however, that I won’t have any such job until I leave RCN, which means the most crucial question now is: do I linger on, depressed on more or less a daily basis, holding out for a replacement job, or do I get the hell out and take one of the other three job offers currently up for grabs? Almost a stupid question to ask, almost as stupid a question to ask what’s stopping me….

Okay, so I know what’s stopping me, I just don’t know if it’s worth my while.

Posted by chantal at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 05, 2004

Insomnia

Actually, not so much a case of insomnia as the combination of a very early night, and then finding myself very wide awake four hours later.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking so hard about Central America and Mexico lately, especially today when I’ve spent most of the day mulling over the reasons and practicalities of moving back, but I’ve been finding myself putting my book to one side over the last hour, and stepping back to the nights where, around this time at night, I’d find myself standing outside some truck stop on an overnight bus journey.

The roads are so bad over there, few buses dare to travel at night. The only two routes I’ve taken where they’ll take their chances are in Mexico, and travelling between San José in Costa Rica to Panamá City. Nearly four years ago, the typical half-hour (most of which would be spent waiting for the border crossing to open, and chatting with the money changers) of crossing from Nicaragua into Costa Rica ended up taking the whole day, and my mother and I managed to get seats on what was probably the last bus of the day down to the capital.

Because of my archaeology work, because of being a compulsive wanderer, because of whatever reasons I’m too sleepy to think of right now, my trips back to Central America always involved numerous lengthy bus rides up and down the continent. These are the kinds of journeys where it can take half a day to travel less than a finger’s width on my large-scale map in my hallway. Where, if you religiously take the first bus of the day and keep travelling till the last, it might only take you a day and a half to cross a country. The local buses stop frequently, with vendors surrounding both sides of the bus, selling randomly-coloured liquid in plastic bags and various edibles. The larger buses – the long-distance, or international buses – have their allotted scheduled stops, however, and that’s what I’m thinking of now.

Normally I try to avoid taking the Pullman buses, as they reliably make me feel violently ill, however they’re the only buses which leave you standing outside cafés in some unknown stretch of road for about half an hour while the driver works his way through a three-course meal.

Also, normally I love cities by night, as their character and feel change so completely. I’ve spent countless hours standing by roadsides waiting for the driver to finish eating, but something about this time of night reminds me of those nights spent doing much the same at roughly the same time as now. Though Central American culture is very external, by now, the streets would be deserted, the wicker chairs and tables brought back inside off the pavement, the doors shut and bolted against the night. Standing outside in the muggy warmth, maybe seeing only one or two lorries rush past in that half-hour, time seems to take a fag break; the emptiness of the space I’m standing in and looking at feeling so peaceful despite the sleepy cheerfulness of my fellow passengers in the café behind me. During the day, time resumes its work, there are more buses queued up, more passengers standing beside me, more things clamouring for attention, and it’s hard to regain that absorption of the view.

In my mind, it’s four years ago, and I’m on that late bus down from the border. I’m travelling with my mother, my harp, and a family of three who don’t speak any Spanish. Next door to the café, there’s a vegetable shop. Looking over the Pan-American Highway, known as the Interamericana in Costa Rica, but otherwise a country lane by English standards, I feel a peace, a relaxation, a groundedness I rarely get elsewhere. I could stand there for hours, knowing that that’s where I want to be, where I need to be, especially to accumulate what I need to make sense of my life in England away from there, but I know that the bus will be leaving soon, that there are those who need me.

There are so many reasons I love and miss Central America so very much. Because of my habit of cross-country travelling, I’ve seen most towns and cities by late night and early morning. But, as the bus terminal described in ‘San Pedro Sula Dreams’ is one of my enduring daytime memories, by whichever twist of fate, standing outside a bus stop-off is one of my strongest nighttime memories of all the places I’ve been to or lived in, and one of the very few which give me the greatest sense of belonging.

Posted by chantal at 05:14 AM | TrackBack

November 30, 2004

Shoulder

Why should there be anything wrong in caring deeply for those in need? For choosing to empathise with those forgotten by others, or simply those who need someone to turn to?

I’ve spent most of my life caring for and helping people in need; a few years ago I made a conscious decision to do something concrete about it, and chose to do what I could to help women in abusive relationships. I’ve done a huge amount of research, I have a comprehensive library; the more I read, the more adamant I have been to do all I can to stop women in those situations from going it alone.

I gave it up a few years ago, when I got too burnt out, although from time to time, friends of mine still turn out to be in similar situations, and I can’t help but get involved, any less than I can stop caring for them. Very few friends of mine know about these women I help, apart from my mentioning them in the context of friendship; very rarely do I get so affected I need to talk more openly about what’s going on.

Maybe it’s something to do with my leaving Network Rail and still trying to adjust to being away from my friends there, and adjust to working somewhere where nobody in my office talks, except for one woman whose mouth I long to stuff with teabags so I never have to hear her voice again. My closest friends are invariably those I see and hear from on a daily basis, completely independent of the fact that none of them are particularly close friends in the normal sense. That doesn’t make me care any less for them, and by their presence, makes them far more important to me than those I only hear from sporadically.

I’ve not heard from Ana since I left work today – about 45 minutes late, as I couldn’t stop sending ridiculously silly jokes to Fill, the systems admin guy, or receiving yet more from him – I’ve texted her twice, and tried to phone her once, largely out of concern, but also out of generally missing her. The flat seems so quiet and empty without her, leaving me to mull over the various reactions I’ve had from friends over the years about my counselling work. I specifically chose emotional abuse because of the grey and largely ignored area that it is, but what I don’t expect from my friends is their complete aversion to the subject. Surely what matters is not the illogic behind what these friends are suffering, but simply the fact that they are suffering, and largely doing so in isolation because their friends are so uncomfortable with their situation. Ana doesn’t need to be told to leave her boyfriend; what she needs is a friend who will stand by her till she gathers the strength to finally make a stand for herself, who will be patient with her throughout. Yes, it’s a complicated situation, but not one which necessarily condemns Ana to struggle through this alone because those around her aren’t able to be openminded enough.

I’m fairly sure she knows that she’s the youngest woman I’ve ever helped, also the one in the most extreme relationship I’ve come across. I spent last weekend, while she was here, remembering the other women I helped over the years, all of them older, most of them with children, but most importantly, how much their contact enriched my life.

This isn’t nearly as long as I’d like it to be, but I’m so very tired. Caring for people is what I do, regardless of what they’re going through, regardless of who they are. I may not be a traditionally trained counsellor, but it’s still one of the things I do best. The downside, if that’s what it can be called, is that the only way I can be of any use is if I invest myself completely in the other person’s situation, leaving me entirely drained and upset when things go wrong, but all the same, I couldn’t imagine, much less justify doing anything less for those who are so important to me, or even simply those who could do with my help. Maybe those who are my friends can justify ignoring friends of theirs in pain or in difficulty, but if that’s the case, those are probably not people I want or need to be friends with.

Posted by chantal at 11:41 PM | TrackBack

November 29, 2004

Family

Family

Galway, August 1994. One night in particular – a night which was determined not to end. Family holidays are probably always difficult at the best of times, but all the more so when you don’t particularly know the family in question, where the mother is determined to be unhappy, and ensures that her sons are too. As soon as we arrived in Galway, Jacob disappeared and his mother promptly disowned him; Joel took up with a travelling musician, and I joined in too.

Out of the pastiche of my memories, I’d probably spent the day looking for Jacob, following his wanderings through the town, and returned to the hostel to find a huge crowd nearby surrounding Eric, with Joel at his side. It’s possible we all congregated in the lounge late at night – I remember that happening, but not when, suffering from collective insomnia, more likely that we went from the street corner to a disco, then pub, then wandered from there. I have a photo of an inocuous shop front, with an old lady bending down in the shelter of the roof, but the night before, we decided to camp out there, listening to the Pink Floyd CD I’d picked out, and talking. Some time later, a homeless man joined us, and joined in on the conversation; as I suppose anyone does when meeting three people like myself, Eric and Joel, he asked if Joel was Eric’s brother. Eric was thrown by that question, not knowing how to answer; the homeless guy settled it for him by saying, ‘Oh, a brother by another mother.’

Sammi started texting me about a week ago, and since then, it’s been in my head every night before I go to sleep.

Sammi’s 16. I barely remember 16, but through our emails and texts, she’s sort of become a younger sister to me, and I’ve been trying to remember what it was like to be that age. Given I’ve not yet met her, I often feel embarrassed by acting like an older sister, but what I feel, above all else, is the desire to give her some guidance and help her to live the best life she can. I never spent much time bothering to be a teenager at the time, so maybe I’m the last person to be advising her, but I want her to know that there’s so much more out there awaiting her in a few years’ time.

I remember having a choice between two high schools, one which was nearby, but where they piled the pressure on excessively, and another, further away, where the reputation was higher and the pressure was more subtle. Having attended a primary school where they’d had to scratch around for extracurricular projects to keep me occupied, and let me skip as many year groups as needed, all I felt at the latter school was a profound lack of interest in my classmates. During my A-levels, I eventually chose my subjects based on the relevant teachers, and spent the rest of my time teaching photography, or working. As soon as I finished my exams, I flew to Holland for a few days, then on to France to work.

It’s two and a half weeks later now, and 2 o’clock in the morning. I spent nearly an hour on the phone to Sammi earlier, and chatted to her a few times earlier in the week. I’ve suggested she put herself up for auction on the Fuerteventura Forum, as I get concerned about her home and school situation, but maybe it’s simply that she’s a different type of teenager from when I was her age, and that the generation gap is simply too large. I’ve often discussed with friends over the years about the differences between what was available when we were growing up and with present-day kids and teenagers, and she truly brings it home to me.

So I’ve become her surrogate big sister. She’s the age I was when I met Katie, who took over a lot of the mothering my mother wasn’t around to do. I remember asking Katie a few years ago what I was like when she first met me, as I no longer remembered; though I don’t remember what I said, I have a vague memory that I was busy rediscovering the world and London in particular, whereas Sammi is stuck in a village outside Sherborne and hating it.

I’ve been thinking over the last few weeks how I’d develop this piece, and I figured it’d be advice to the teenager that Sammi is, to the teenager I was who is still somewhere out there.

Anybody who knows me knows I dislike my grandmother – for who she is, for how she treated my mother, and lastly, for her feelings towards me – but when I was 14, I heard some valuable advice from her, not that I particularly appreciated it at the time, only now: ‘Don’t be in such a rush to grow up. You’ll be grownup for so long, enjoy being young while you can.’

Over the years, I’ve reminisced over my school and university years, kicking myself violently for not appreciating them more at the time. I’ve chatted with Sammi that, yes, I disliked most of the girls at my high school, but rather than get involved with their petty obsessions, I ignored them. I had so many friends in the years above me that nobody was that sure which year I was actually in. But as my family knows all too well, I’d happily blank anyone I disliked. It may have meant that I left with few ties, but at least I was able to give myself the freedom to be friends with those I chose, as and when I wanted. I was also lucky to have a near-full-time job outside of school, and I fast built up friendships with my colleagues and the customers there, to offset the daily teenage angst I never had any time or patience for. Sammi’s assured me that there aren’t any ‘outsiders’ to hang out with at school, but I’m hoping that, in time, they’ll emerge, and she can find healthier friends to spend her time with, those less obsessed with the petty minutiae that constitute the teenage world, and those too involved with their pain.

She’s bored with me nagging her about considering university, but I accept that that’s part of where she is now, and that not going to university in 2 years doesn’t necessary mean that she’ll never go. She’s so disillusioned with her life as it is now, and what it has to offer her, that I want her to understand that two years of working hard, really trying, opens up options for her and would give her a shot at leading the life she wants to lead, as opposed to an extension of the life she’s living now, and is clearly dissatisfied with. Not only that, but university is a wonderful experience, something that she would fully deserve after 18 years in Thornford, or whatever her village is called. The world consists of more diverse people than the ones in her high school, village, Sherborne and Yeovil, and it’s overly shortsighted to assume that that constitutes the entire world. Maybe university does represent an enormous amount of hard work to attain the necessary grades, but as she knows, I don’t believe that any excuse is acceptable in selling oneself short just to save themselves the extra effort and work involved. We all have dreams; I find it hard to believe that anyone could dream to end up a receptionist in Yeovil, at best.

I think what I miss about high school and university, besides not having to worry about rent and bills, was the freedom I had to explore anything I wanted for free, the opportunities which were on offer which I ignored, always expecting I’d take them up the following year or once I’d finished studying. Not all schools or universities are as well-funded as mine, I accept, but at least there you could get a head-start on what you enjoyed the most, so that you could continue after graduation with a hefty background behind you, if not an advantage over other candidates, at least a wealth of positive memories. Whether it was photography, acting, journalism, music, dance, (or extreme sports), they were there for the taking – as was an open-handed ‘Yes’, as opposed to the ever-present ‘No’ that London specialises in. It’s too easy to take those opportunities for granted at the time, if only because we believe that they’ll always be there. I’m old enough to not expect a world where rent, bills, catfood, cat litter and unexpected debts don’t exist, but, for all the holes in my memory, I won’t forget the days when none of those mattered, that the money I earned was my own, and that the endless stalls at Freshers’ Week seemed superfluous.

Finally. Sammi’s read my piece ‘Wallflowers’, so she knows how I feel about people experiencing the world they create. There is no need to hate the world you are in, unless you genuinely want to; the only thing or person to be affected is yourself. If there are elements which hurt you or which you dislike, then discard them. If that’s not an option, then reconcile yourself to them in whichever manner it takes to leave you at peace and somewhat happier. If it’s the overall situation, then do what you can to make the most of it, to take from it what you can, and to prevent it from hurting yourself too much. Nothing is forever, not living at home, bitchy friends, problems at school, crappy jobs – it’s up to you to decide what you want and how you want to achieve it. But when you get bogged down by the little things, you reduce yourself to the only options available to you at that level. If that’s what you want, then so be it, but it’s a shame, as life is too short as it is to waste it by selling yourself short. Apart from crappy recruitment agents, the main thing holding us back is ourselves.

Okay, so that wasn’t quite ‘finally’. Eckhart Tolle wrote that most of human dysfunction is based on too much focus on the past or future, and not enough of appreciating the present for what it is. I’ve never managed to read too much of his book – some tasty fiction luring me away every time – but there’s also a danger of becoming too immersed in the present to the extent that you can’t envisage any future. Or allow yourself to dream of a future other than the one you’re currently building for yourself. The days of job-for-life are over; everything is short-term – school, friendships, plans, dreams. So put your energy into that which matters, that which makes you happy, and avoid the toxic elements which are there for temptation. Think about what’s good in your life, and about what you want, and don’t let anything tell you you can’t do it.

Posted by chantal at 12:50 AM

November 21, 2004

Another Week

Managua, July 1996. Or maybe I should backtrack beyond that, to when I worked in Catacamas, Eastern Honduras before I got the job in Managua.

Catacamas is about three and a half hours north-east of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and is literally the end of the road – beyond Catacamas, there is only a dirt track leading to the town of Danlí, after which there’s the expanse of the Mosquitía jungle reaching across to the Caribbean coast. We had set up camp in a hotel on the outskirts of town; we would head into the mountains in the mornings for work, in the late afternoons, after returning and showering, I would head to the nearby Texaco station or to the town centre for chocolate etc, sometimes with Cindy or Chris, or to the Hondutel office to make our phone calls home; in the evenings, we would head to the As de Oro, a restaurant which seemed to have few customers besides our team which gradually reached about 30. I was a vegetarian at the time; it wasn’t very vegetarian-friendly.

A few weeks later, I was in Managua, thanks to a conversation I’d had with someone in an Honduran border town, specifically in a warehouse selling pseudo-pre-Colombian ceramics, several of which are sitting on my windowsill to my right. Managua may be a completely bizarre capital city, but also about the only one I have any fondness for. I was promptly installed in a house in Barrio Centroamerica, one of the more prestigious areas, in the south of the city. Besides the main roads, which were paved or tiled, depending on their location, most if not all of the residential streets were unpaved dirt and bumpy. A friend, Amanda, lived a few doors down from me, so we’d wait together in the mornings, along with our other colleagues, on the other side of the main road, to be taken to somebody’s garden in which we were busily excavating an ever-larger trench, having discovered a large number of burial urns over the weeks. Children would play in our spoil pits; locals would set up chairs around the edges in the afternoons and watch us while the houseowner offered them lemonade.

Saturday mornings, I would rise before dawn and cross the rubbish dump to catch the first bus of the day to the Costa Rican border, to visit my friends in San José, returning late on Sunday nights, again via the rubbish dump.

I was summoned back to London rather abruptly while working there, and ever since then, I’ve had large difficulties with being around crowds. This hasn’t been helped at all by spending two years or more working and living in relatively unpopulated areas, taking half-empty buses or trains to work every day until two weeks ago. When I met up with Martin and his friends on Friday, I’d assumed that the bar would be somewhere to hang out until the rush hour dissipated, never anticipating that the bar could supercede public transport in its complete crowdedness. I’ve probably never appreciated my flat as much as I have done in these last two days for its complete absence of other people. I’m also enormously grateful for my boss having finally relented and agreeing to me working 8am – 4pm again, meaning that although the commute will still be painful, it won’t be nearly as traumatic as it has been for the last two weeks.

Whatever else I could say, at least my new job is not looking as bleak as it did a week ago; though I may still have an extremely low opinion of it, at least I have a clearer idea of what to expect, even if it’s Nothing. I now have a partial colleague, Filipe, even if his replacement starts next week, and his boss, Paul, who at least provides me with moral support if not much else. The only real contact I’ve had with my boss over the last two weeks has been him asking me every few days what I’ve been working on so far, only pausing to say, ‘Good’ before he walks off; a few times before I started, he elaborated on the Master Plan of where he sees this project going, but apparently I’ll never get any further clarification as to my role, much less of how I fit into the said Master Plan. I missed out on meeting up with my predecessor on Thursday, Martin; just as Sophie contacted me last summer to ask how I’d survived working at Red Cross in the role she then held, I’d dearly love to know what Martin has to say on his eight months here. I know he was unhappy about the absence of management, the ban on doing any programming work despite being hired as a programmer, and the lack of training opportunities. On Monday, I asked Filipe and Paul what Martin had worked on, in the hope that that might give me some clue as to what I should be doing, but apparently, Martin never found out either.

As I’ve probably said before, I know which environments I work best in, and in no way does this one meet any of my basic criteria. I have been given two and a half weeks to produce one set of basic statistics. Nobody seems to know anything about the existing databases, much less how to extract necessary data from them, nor does anybody seem to mind that I’ve wasted one week so far looking through everything of potential relevance on the network, having been given nothing else to do or work on otherwise, and another week of scouting around the available databases – which I’ve only had access to since the end of last Monday – trying to identify how on earth the data pieces together, much less meets our needs. I find it hard to believe that despite owning several key databases – logging internet, email, phone, mobile and helpdesk usage – there is absolutely nobody who knows anything about any of them, nor that there is not even any basic documentation or explanation of how any of them work.

The only other thing I’ve found out is that, although I’m the only London-based member of my team, the other Cardiff-based members – who I’ve had no contact with at all – are frantically trying to arrange transfers into other teams. I’ve yet to hear a single positive comment about my boss. On Thursday – on my way to the pub, as I wouldn’t survive the day otherwise – I again had my weekly chat with the administrator, asking if I was settling in well and if I was enjoying myself. She may not have asked this time if I’d be returning next week, but I could still only offer evasive and neutral replies. I’ve taken to referring to my office as the morgue, and to the people in it as corpses. When pressed, I admit that they’re starting to smell a bit.

Away from my office, the people aren’t so bad. The main bonding point seems to be the lift, a guaranteed subject of spontaneous conversation. Six floors, about 350 staff, one lift. Glass on three sides, one side of which has only an unbroken glass-panelled wall between it and the foul weather outside. The women unanimously stand with their backs to it, the men take the other wall. Managing to grab the lift before it decides to relocate to another floor instead is considered to be a huge prize. Most people grumble that they need to set aside ten minutes in the evenings just to get out of the building, but although there are two flights of stairs somewhere, and another lift hidden deeply away, nobody seems to know the location of any of them. I rarely recognise anyone I’ve chatted to in the lift, and the extent of my human contact seems to be when Filipe phones me over something or when we share a cigarette outside the building. Although my current task is to compile statistics on email usage per division and region, I only finally started working on Friday around lunchtime when I eventually checked the daily stats and found that I’d both sent and received the most emails all day (Martin, who I was meeting up with that evening, was number 5 on both lists). I fully justify it by the complete lack of conversation in the office I’m stuck in. I can manage about half an hour without music in the mornings, but already, I’m rapidly getting bored of my favourite CDs of the last few years – whereas normally it would take me all day to get through anywhere near two whole CDs, now I’m listening to around five. Filipe and Paul suggested I move into their office – there’s a spare desk, after all – as my predecessor did, but my boss’s boss has said no, I need to be in the same office as my boss for contact with him. When I told them that my office was driving me mad, they laughed and said they’d heard that plenty of times before.

So my birthday is on Tuesday, my deadline is for Wednesday, rent is due on Thursday. Although I was not warned beforehand, this job requires highly sophisticated psychic skills, which leaves me two days to figure out Access’s aversion to calculating averages, given that my boss’s boss has completely failed to let me know which format he wants the stats in on Wednesday. After that, I have the joy of playing with either of the two other databases I have access to (internet usage and helpdesk logs). If any of the SQL Server databases were actually of any use, I’d like to be able to produce the full set of stats by Wednesday, if only to show that I really don’t like not having anything to do, and that I don’t cope very well without being busy. The only problem with that is that it took me a day and a half to realise that the main email logging database is completely worthless and unusable, and I don’t know if I can get enough information from the other two to produce the stats needed. It doesn’t help that I’m expected to be satisfied with sample data extracts and templates in lieu of actual live data.

This job is turning me into a hot chocolate junkie. Until two weeks ago, I’d not drunk hot chocolate for years – I probably last drank it the last time I met up with Helena in the Charing Cross Borders several years ago, happily slurping away the whipped cream and marshmallows. I gave up my sweet teas at the start of the year, and since then, apart from the odd Cola when I’m feeling rougher than usual, I’ve not drunk anything sweet which didn’t involve rum. I had five hot chocolates on Thursday and two on Friday morning, after which I felt ill. But they’re all I can think of to keep my mood even vaguely sweet, to stop me from grabbing my bag and jacket and wandering back to the tube station, back to my flat.

My supposedly hands-on agent is anxious to resolve this situation, to arrange meetings with her boss, me and my boss to clarify my job description and his expectations, so that I’m not left dangling between one task and the next, with no real overview as to what I’m likely to be doing for as long as I last there. I’m starting to get the impression that all I’ll ever be expected to do is run Access and SQL Server queries to interrogate the existing data, and continue to work in isolation, especially after Filipe leaves, taking with him anything even vaguely resembling relevant knowledge or support.

This was meant to be an Oracle job, the job I’d been hunting for over two years. The closest I’ve got to it was spending two and a half days working my way through an Oracle Discoverer tutorial, bored to the point where I was bordering on homicidal. I had been booked in on a ‘SQL for Morons’ course last Thursday and an ‘Oracle Discoverer for Complete Morons’ course last Friday, both held in Cardiff, but I turned both down as I didn’t gauge myself to be a moron, much less view either course as sufficient reason to be away from my flat for any length of time. Yeah, I could have met up with Mat, but given I’ve not yet contacted him, I’m sure that can wait.

The week ahead. Getting through another week at work will be challenge in itself, as will be trying to find a flatmate before rent is due, despite six weeks of advertising the room. After last Friday, I think I’d far rather hold my birthday drinks at home, however I know that the main way I’m going to get anyone to turn up is if it’s on their way to their commute home, somewhere nearby so they can stop for a quick drink and catch the next train home; failing that, somewhere easily reachable. I don’t want my Lewisham and non-work-related friends to be put off by the sheer numbers of ex-Network Rail colleagues I’ve invited, much less by the travelling involved to get to Network Rail home ground. I don’t think I’ve ever invited mostly work friends to share my birthday, so I can only hope that it works out, that those I care the most about can make it on the day.

The longer I spend in London, the more painfully I am aware of being away from my family, and of how important each passing birthday is in terms of who I spend it with. Even if those I’m fondest of can only make it for one drink or two, I’d far rather settle for that than yet another quiet, anticlimatic evening at home.

And talking of things working out, I tried to cadge a job off Martin’s boss on Friday night. Fingers crossed he likes the idea. First email would be to Chris Bentley to sign up for more healing and Indian Head massage sessions, second email would be a group one to all my ex-colleagues to say ‘Hey again!’ Ideal situation and all that…

Posted by chantal at 11:23 PM | TrackBack

November 20, 2004

Sahra

I've only just realised that when I resurrected this site earlier this year, I lost all the ad hoc postings which never made it to Angelfire. So maybe there weren't so many, but given how I spend all my time at work now desperately listening to music, as two years ago, I've got a particular song in my head. And like two years ago, I've just done a websearch on them, as well as for a version without random numbers dotted about:

Hadi hobbab il leela rani andihom waah
Nebghi adoo yaay adma wedali gowwedeh waah
Nebghi adoo yaay yama weedoor fizzeneq waah
Willi gharou minna eedirou keefna waah

Sahra bled irramla, sahra bled il temra
Sobri sobri ya layli taay farraj rabbi

Ma tebki matshafeeni konti tkhemmi waah
Aayit feek nsa3ef hatta raayeetinif waah
La3bou beek oo biya issil3a inneksa waah
Ki ma bekeeteeni lyoum gla3ti li lihmoun waah

Sahra bled innakhla, sahra bled il tamra
Sobri sobri ya layle taay farraj rabbi

Posted by chantal at 10:50 PM

November 11, 2004

Arafat

I only found out 45 mins ago that he has died. I'm devastated and heartbroken - though I knew it was imminent, I held out hope that he'd somehow recover; he is such an integral part of Palestine and its struggle, how could anyone possibly replace him, or take over.

I've spent the last 45 mins reading through BBC News, so I should probably start working, or at least find something to do which resembles work. I've got Prensa Libre, the Guardian, Al Jazeera and the Jerusalem Post open for now to read during odd moments; I'll try to write something longer this evening.

But for now, I'm in shock and mourning...

Posted by chantal at 09:51 AM

A Few Days Later

So it’s meant to be my dream job. The one that made being out of work for 2 weeks worthwhile, the one which I’d been waiting for for two and a half years. An Oracle job, despite my barely being able to remember a thing about Oracle, and paying what I’d been getting at Network Rail. Behind Oxford Circus, so right in the heart of the West End, and only a block away from the other side of Regent Street and my old stomping ground. The people I’ve spoken to there couldn’t imagine working elsewhere; the perks (32 days’ leave) and people are wonderful. An email buddy downstairs has been there for two and a half years; the only person in my office I’ve had anything resembling a conversation with has been there approximately 15 years. Each time she thinks of leaving, she gets pregnant. Her third child is due in 4 months.

I’ve now been there for three days. Yesterday I was painfully tired, still recovering from an extremely long leaving party on Friday, so was more despondent than usual; though I was still tired today, the job seems harder to bear when I’m more awake. My mother emails me to remind me that this job is a godsend and to treat it as such; she’s aware that the personalities of my brother and I are a little too strong, and she doesn’t want to see me jeapordise this job in any way, or to repeat patterns of past jobs, generally involving pissing off certain women and losing my job soon after.

Yes, especially after over a year of fighting with the Furball constantly, it’s been gratifying to hear that my last boss liked me – enough to overlook the fact that I spent more time chatting than actually working – and that my current one hired me on the strength of liking me, regardless of my actual skills. But liking me, and then plonking me at a desk surrounded by empty desks, in an office with pe