Friday, December 22, 2006

Last day of work this year

So here it is etc etc. I'm heading home to Cardiff tomorrow morning, on a 6 a.m. train so that I can travel by £9 ticket (it was either that or pay £50!). I'm really looking forward to spending a few days with my family, as it's been several months since I was last at home. I have firm plans to get a good number of hours in on the new Wii with my brothers (Dom has an HDTV, as well), and to watch as much quality comedy as possible. I'm also nearing that time when I'll need to start job hunting quite heavily again, so will have to make a few applications while I'm at home.

The last few weeks have been interesting. I'm now properly settled in to my new flat, and for once I've nearly put everything away tidily. Naomi's pretty pleased that I have a decent kitchen of my own, which means that she can cook the way she'd like to when she comes over to see me. When I'm on my own, I generally tend not to do anything too complex - pizza's on the menu once or twice a week, let's put it that way. I have my record player and my old Aiwa hi-fi* hooked up on top of a chest of drawers, much like I did throughout my time as a student, funnily enough, and so I listen to my records quite often while cooking or while sitting at my breakfast bar. In the last couple of days I've been enjoying Music for Egon Schiele by Rachel's. It was a Science of Yabra LP before that.

*this hi-fi occupies an almost-talismanic position in my life. I may get rid of it at some point, but I've now owned it for over 10 years. It was something I looked at longingly before buying it, being the most powerful all-in-one hi-fi you could buy at that time (400 wpc RMS). The way I found to buy it was to purchase it on interest-free credit under my mum's name, and then go in an make payments every few weeks with the money that I was earning by waiting tables at Harry Ramsden's in Cardiff Bay. I hated that waiting job that much that the purchase of this hi-fi came to signify more than the item itself. It's what I have to show for doing that job, and therefore I suppose quite valuable as a life lesson, as well as being a piece of kit that I've enjoyed owning and has served me well. Read into that what you will.

Back to the present - I haven't forgotten about the acrimonious transition out of my old flat, but I'm not really in a frame of mind to write about that right now. Since then (the last three weeks or so) I've been playing the fantastic Nintendo Wii - new games as well as downloading a few of the classic Virtual Console titles I've never before experienced, like Mario64 (N64) and Donkey Kong Country (SNES). This little white box has certainly lived up to the hype so far. I just hope they have a string of strong new releases over the next few months.

Last weekend was eventful. After playing a set of Cursive covers for Punk Rock Stars in Their Eyes in High Wycombe, I slept over on the sofa at Luigi's house. I was woken up at 5:30 a.m. by Adam who was on one of the other sofas in their lounge, who'd slit his wrists, and had to make my first ever 999 call. The ambulance took so long to arrive that if he'd cut an artery he certainly would have been dead by their arrival. I'm hoping that I get to see him tonight to have a chat about things - he's had a hell of a time over the last few months so needs friends to reign him in, even if it's not in his nature. I hope he doesn't mind me writing this up, but it's been a fairly significant event in my December.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Headbanging

The last few days have been pretty tough - I moved flat on Saturday (which took us from 10:30am until 10:30pm), then went to church, then work, then Naomi's house, all on Sunday, then work until lunchtime followed by checkout of my old flat then off to London last night to help out at the CCF Southwark Snowball. The culmination of all of this was that I had 4hrs sleep last night, then had to appear at work at 7:30 this morning for perhaps the most important day of my job at the council so far.

I know that I cram too much into my life, but I always justify it by the fact that I'm still in my twenties, and before long I'll have a whole set of different responsibilities. Living fast (sic) while I'm still young ranks quite high among my priorities, actually.

Anyway, the move (and the aftermath) were the most stressful part. I will go into this is some detail once things are properly resolved. For now, it suffices to say that all has not been well in the state of Denmark, and my prejudices have been reinforced. Naomi was a saint throughout the move and helped me a great deal, but other players in the process were less helpful than they might have been (oh boy is this an understatement - as I say, more later).

Apart from the dislocation of moving in the last few days, everything's going okay. I've been working pretty hard in general recently, but will have to get a move on with finding something else really quite soon.

For tonight, I'm not thinking about that. I'm going to play some Gamecube instead. This Friday, I'm getting a Nintendo Wii as my birthday/Christmas present from Naomi. Get in.