Eish! London 12 - 13 July

Sunday, 12 July
Actual diary entry:
Right, so I have found some time to write: I’m sitting at an outside table in the National Trust Café in Morden Park after wandering around the sites in the park. There’s a rose garden, where I took lots of cool photos; a nursery, where I bought a stained glass sign that says: “SMILE” and a zip-up picnic blanket. Thankfully their “Aquarium”/Fish shop hosts quite an impressive display of sea life, which outdid the Leyton High Street one without a doubt, I wonder if Chris ever came to this one... The sun is currently trying to shine through some looming dark grey clouds, which ominously look like they are trying to burst once again. A typical Sunday in London I guess…

In front of me I have a slice of coconut cake and a mug of hot chocolate; neither of which offer much to write about, but both are flavourful and enjoyable. I’m glad I’ve taken some ‘me time’ today, even if it was an hour tube ride to get here. Public transport is still not my favourite part of London. I don’t like the morning SQUEEZE, sit, or stand like a member of a herd of cattle squashed into the meat market’s delivery van. Neither do I like the exiting when it’s a rush through tunnels like rats in a laboratory, or cattle to the slaughter. You really could look at us all as pounds of cattle earning Pounds of currency, for pounds of flesh! What I thought; I do amuse myself. Admittedly though, the Pounds I will earn will pay for transport to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Fortunately I’m staying with a friend when I get there), and I’ve paid for flights to Hong Kong and my accommodation when I am there. My income has managed to stabilize in a blessing-filled way with my experience at the TC. Assisting with the planning and training phase of some new role plays and delivery methods is something I’m enjoying. My drama experience and new perspectives are apparently what they need right now.

The August summer holidays are around the corner, and I’m thinking I could learn the script for the next Pinner Players audition or get down to doing some writing on a new laptop (that I would have to buy…I’m doing the wishful thinking thing here), or I could get fit and get down to some more dancing. Economically God really has provided for me amazingly and I’m sure He will continue to do so… I wonder if I could order a laptop too…

I’m still battling to get close to people and ‘make friends’; but then I am following a decidedly recluse pattern of ways at the moment. Bizarrely I seem to be able to justify my behaviour. For example: The house I’m staying in. My housemates are just a different sort of people to me. They are decent people, but looking at the goings on and the company they keep I don’t want to get involved. One of their friends decided to tell me about her virginity and Christianity, then after yet another big, drunken party: Wham Bam, thank-you Ma’am! Admittedly she was devastated, and he thought he was all that, and I was blown away! For me it was one of those: ‘Did that really happen?’ moments. Seriously? Just not my style.

I know I’m the most complex person I’ve ever had to deal with, but there are moments when other members of the human race baffle me too, absolutely, speechlessly baffle me. I know from my experiences if my thoughts, words and actions are contradictory to each other, then I experience a lot of stress and unhappiness. I far prefer believing what I say, saying what I mean, and practicing what I preach; I find it a much more peaceful way to live than thinking one thing, saying a second and doing a contradictory third! I.e. 1) Her: You got drunk; you went ahead and made your choice, why are you upset? 2) Him: You made someone really unhappy, so why do you think you are all that and why are you surprised that no-one else agrees with what you did? I just don’t get it at all I’m afraid. What are people really motivated by? From the little attention I paid thereafter, but it never seemed like either of them were happy again. Why would anyone do that to themselves? To be honest, I’m happy sticking to my reclusive, different type of space thank-you.

Their one other ‘friend’ is possibly the rudest character I have ever encountered in my life, talk about thinking you are the most important person on the planet; AND he always puts the word ‘fokking’ (that’s how it sounds with the Afrikaans accent) in every sentence: “I’m fokking going to the toilet.” Or “That’s how you fokking do it.”
It drives me ‘fokking’ mental! So unnecessary and never mind the semantics, grammar and logic of using it. Infuriating! I’m sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to pretend and hypocritically ‘be friends’ with people who are so fundamentally different to me in thought, word and action. Sure I’ll be respectfully polite, and I know that it’s just who they are, and who they want to be; but I’m not about to sit and have a beer with them.

Moving on from one not so pretty picture to another: Swine Flu. It’s huge news in London at the moment as it’s apparently claiming lives and the government are trying to prevent panic. It seems to me that the majority of the public are just getting on with their lives and letting what will be, be.

As for other London news: of course Michael Jackson is still in there and they are playing his songs on most radio stations. One DJ played an awesome medley mix and I turned it right up and danced my heart out in the kitchen (that’s where the radio is), I also went out and bought one of his CDs myself for the sake of the moment. Then there’s the Post Office strike, and, of course we had the tube strikes too. The recession is still going on along with loads of job cuts. Yet, amongst all this, life carries on and time keeps ticking away. At the moment my trip to London literally feels exactly like that: Like I’m only filling time…something I never expected to feel five months ago, that’s for sure.

I often find myself welling up with tears as I miss someone back home, it makes me grateful for the experiences I have had and it makes me appreciate moments that other people seem to miss as they rush past. When I’m missing someone or something I try and think of the positive around it: like the fact that someone has had such a positive effect on my life that I am brought to tears when I think of them. That’s really special, and I’m grateful that they left some of their love with me. If I don’t think of good things, then I know that I’ll probably go into depression and that wouldn’t achieve anything, help anyone or be respectful to the wonderful people I have met during my life so far; so I’m choosing to find the good, I’m much happier that way.

Oh dear, the waiter just told me the park gates are closing in a few minutes. Just as the grey clouds have won the battle and it started drizzling. I’m literally going to have to run; so very quickly:
• I’m spending too much money on clothes and trinkets and little things that I don’t have the cupboard space for, I need to stop that.
• I still haven’t decided if I’m going to take a permanent post for the upcoming year, or carry on with supply, I need to make some decisions.
• The housemates are chatting about all moving out of the house, so I have to consider that, but nothing seems set in stone yet. As I don’t really talk to them much, I’ll have to keep an ear to the walls!
• I’m still wanting to do more writing, dancing and performing, but that’s not quite happening, I must work on sorting that out.

I think that’s it, Lord please bless me with the focus You know I need to get and please send me some solutions to the situations I am in. Thanks Lord 

I didn’t get locked into the park and I did end up going home in the rain without an umbrella. Eish! London.

Monday, 13 July
Today was quite exciting for me, I did my first In-School Presentation (ISP) whilst being observed; and the feedback was brilliant. Even though the learners were difficult and there were a couple of technical hitches, everything went off well and I happily ended off the day having a quick hot chocolate with Jonn and a brilliant Spanish and Hip Hop Dance class. Loving it!

Tuesday, 14 July
Looking at the schedule on the chaotic TC office wall, there were clashes with presenters and times. My desk was next to the wall and my boss looked at me: “Shannan, how many ISPs have you observed?” she asked.
“I’ve observed 3 normal ones and 2 PRU ones, and then I did one yesterday.”
“That’s plenty! Would you be interested in going out on your own?” she said as she worked her eraser and pencil around the schedules.
Would I? “Absolutely! That would be great.” I could feel the enthusiasm welling up in me, but logistically I feared it might be a problem: “The only thing is I don’t have a pack with the projector and equipment in it.”
She scrutinized the wall, chewing the inside of her cheek and pointing her pencil at various points on the wall.
“Ok, we need you tomorrow and Thursday, and you can take my pack. Are you ok with that?”
“Definitely. Where am I going?” I couldn’t wait!
She started scribbling next to my name whilst thinking and talking at the same time: “Get the details from the booking file. You can take my pack before you leave tonight, and then you’ll need to bring it back on Thursday afternoon so I can have it for Friday. Yes?” She looked at me expectantly with her pencil frozen in mid-thought, mid-scribble.
“Yes. Got it.” I was over the moon, they trusted me to go out with their equipment, represent them and do an ISP. Awesome! I was trying not to get my hopes up that they would extend my contract further, but you never know. I did know that I was going to thoroughly enjoy the next two days. Things were looking good.