…And welcome to the last week in October! Yes, as of tomorrow it’s officially 2 months until Christmas – yes you did hear me correctly – yes it is terrifying isn’t it.
PANIC!
Cleanliness and other things
I think you’ll all be pleased to hear that our shower is FINISHED!! This means that no longer shall we remain smelly beasts in this house. No longer shall the stench of yesteryear prevail! However I am still sitting in my pajamas and it is midday…
Unemployment prospects
Yesterday (Sunday) I went to our local shops with my friend Rachel (just one more plug, promise it will be quick! – Rachel is an excellent maker of pretty celebration cakes and cupcakes, check her out at www.cakesfromrachelxx.com). We mooched, drank tea and coffee, and the great news is that I spontaneously decided to go for a part-time job in our local Body Shop. So it looks like I’ll be doing this part-time from now until Christmas! Now, I’ve still classed this as unemployment prospects because it’s not a career. That’s the whole point of this blog, it’s a move away from a traditional career. Besides, if I only work under 15 hours a week, I think I’m still eligible for job seekers allowance? Maybe? One can hope…
Musicianshit
Something I’ve probably not mentioned before, I am a bit of a typical struggling musician. I got my music degree in the summer of 2006 and since then have pretty much done absolutely nothing of worth with it. Having tried teaching, a regular office job, marketing, being an independent Avon representative and shop jobs, I have finally after 5 years of trying to make it in a traditional job in the big bad world, ended up right back where I started. It was this time 5 years ago that I remember facing a crisis of unemployment, knowing that the pressure was on from all sides to select a career and make enough money to settle down, knowing that I’d just come out of a turbulent relationship and I needed to calm down and move on, and not really wanting to hurt anyone in the process of doing what I knew was right. Consequently I ended up not moving at all. That’s the funny thing about having too many ideas, someone very wise once told me that the worst thing is to have too many ideas, because it’s paralysing! You can’t pick one over the other because you don’t know if one is more right than the other.
Do I stay or do I go now?..
The right thing at the time sounds ridiculous to other people, but it was right for me. I wanted to get as far away from everyone I had known before as I could and start completely fresh in new place with all new people, somewhere fun I could pursue my dreams. Now, doesn’t that sound like a mighty pipe dream! I wanted to move to California. I was all set to do it. Then through certain circumstances that arose at that time, I ended up having to face a choice, do I stay or do I go now?
California
I ended up staying, thinking that surely this is the right thing to do, unfortunately my gut kept on telling me otherwise, I stupidly ignored it. 5 years on from that moment in time, and that feeling has not gone, it’s just gotten stronger and more frustrating.
Annoyingly it is in fact ni on impossible to move to or work in America if you are a UK citizen. There appears to be very few options:
1) Camp America – now this looks really fun, if you like kids… It also seems to be aimed at people a lot younger than me, maybe that’s just me being picky though, I’m aware that I am a raving perfectionist!
2) Bunac volunteer – this way you’re on a scheme, although you’re not earning any money…
3) Travelling with no agenda – at the moment, this seems like the best option, because you’re free to make your own decisions and choices once you’re out there, you can meet anyone you want and if your trip takes certain twists and turns you can just ride the current. This is the option that will take the most convincing other people (i.e. my family) as they will no doubt want to know my exact location at any one time and know when I’m coming home and what’s happening next. Unfortuntely this is exactly what I’m trying to escape from. Is it really so selfish to want my freedom? The freedom to decide what I really want to do, who I really want to be? I only want to try my best, is that selfish? It feels as if it shouldn’t be, but my family will see it that way. I don’t know how to get around this, any advice would be welcome guys…
4) Become insanely good at something and become invaluable to the American economy (ha!)
Have you ever put off doing something you know you have to do, and tried to cover it up and ignore it with lots of other things? If you have, then you’ll know that anything you try to do in denial ends up failing. Hence my life over the past 5 years. The longer you postpone something inevitable, the worse the fall out when it happens. Because it WILL happen eventually, if it was meant to be it was meant to be, and nothing will be able to stop it. You catch my drift?
Gig success!
So back to Sunday’s mooching trip…
Whilst at our local shopping village on Sunday I also spontaneously popped into Thorntons and asked them if they’d have me play covers of cheesy pop songs for an hour or so in their cafe area. SUCCESS! I exchanged contact details with the manager of the shop with a view to arranging a suitable slot sometime this week!
Cheese
I promise to let you know how it goes. I haven’t performed in public in years and I’m actually quite scared, I’m sure it will be fine though.
Tell you what, I’ll record it and upload it onto YouTube so you can see for yourselves, watch this space!
Due South
This show is brilliant – enough said.
Due South
Love! xx
Diary of the Unemployed 