Welcome to Spencer's Blog
I feel like I’ve lost my words, as trite as that sounds. I’ve never had much in the way of eloquent writing skills, but the transfer of thoughts from mind to paper (screen?) has always come easily enough. Lately I’ve been struggling, however. My mind feels jumbled and I’m unable to comprehend or articulate the thoughts. I’m easily confused and frustrated, and more irritable these days.
Anyway, the point is that following is a discombobulated mess…
As you may or may not know I’m back in Canada now as my UK visa was up this summer. It was really tough to leave, but c’est la vie. Anyway, knowing I’d be leaving for good I spent the last few weeks wandering the city, seeing friends, and eating delicious food!
*Not really.
How’s everybody doing? Good? Good.
Life has been topsy-turvy on my end for the past couple of months. Go figure! With the good comes the bad and all that, so at least I can say life is well balanced at the moment.
So, it appears that I haven’t updated my blog in over two months.
Oops… I guess we have a lot to catch up on!
How? Seriously, how is it December already?
There’s a lot of really positive things coming up, but being my anxiety ridden, lacking in confidence self, I’m finding it difficult to be happy about these things. I want to be thrilled, but there’s this voice in my head screaming a million reasons why I shouldn’t or can’t do things. It’s getting rather frustrating, to be honest.
Well, so to speak!
I’m feeling much better. While life hasn’t actually changed all that much, I’m feeling a bit more positive at the moment. Which is definitely something!
New Years is 7 short weeks away, and I’ve decided to make the most out of what is left of 2012. I have an interview for another temp job later this week, which *fingers crossed* will go well. And I’m spending Friday in central London with a friend to do some shopping and exploring.
At the end of the month Orla is coming to London, which I’m very excited about. I haven’t seen her since February, so it will be wonderful to see her! The next week Aideen, who I also haven’t seen since February, is coming to town. She’s spent the last 6 months or so on a rather epic backpacking trek around the world, and I could not be more excited to hear about her adventures in person!
The week following that I’m headed to Belfast for a few days. Orla has been raving about their Christmas markets for years, and I’m finally going to go and see some in person. I think getting out of town for a few days will do me a world of good, too. Plus, the flights were only £15. Can’t beat that!
That will bring me in to mid-December, and less than two weeks until my mom arrives to spend the holidays here. She’s never been out of North America, and I’m so excited for her to come and see London. We’ve booked a hotel right in the city centre, and have lots of fun things planned. It should be really nice time! Plus, I miss her. A lot!
Come the new year, I don’t know. If I get this temp job, it will be a 3 month contract, so hopefully I’ll have that to keep me busy. I also really need to find an internship. Yikes.
Anyways. That’s what the remainder of my year is looking like!
Also, it’s still autumn and gorgeous here. I’ve been taking the dog at the house I’m lodging at out for walks and am loving the ever changing colours of the city.
I think this blog is long overdue. As some of you may know I had an… eventful week. For everyone who sent me messages and texts and emails, thank you. And to those same people, I’m also very sorry! There’s a good chance I didn’t reply to you and I feel awful, but it’s been a tad hellish and I’ve fallen horribly behind on everything…
To catch everyone up on my week:
Sunday – Okay. Went to work. It was really busy, but good. I met a lot of nice people and got to people watch and explore a bit, so it was overall an okay kind of day.
Monday – Slightly less okay. I was homesick. I was off work that day, and it was uneventful, but I think left me with too much time to think!
Tuesday – Day.From.Hell. I mean, seriously. The day that wouldn’t end. I woke up in the morning and was feeling a bit off, and a bit panicked. Nothing too unusual about that. By the time I got showered and dressed and out the door I was at a moderate level of panic. And by the time I got the bus I was starting to lose it. I was on my way to work and just kept trying to breathe through it. It was working, for awhile. I sat on the tube for half an hour with my eyes closed just trying to stay calm. And then I stepped out at South Kensington and in to the museum and was surround by thousands of people. Still holding it in though! Not well, but enough! I got to the employee area and my manager, who I have now learned is an expert at detecting panic attacks, immediately approached me to see if I was okay. Very quickly I was not.
First Aid is called, and I’m sent home. So, after taking an hour of so to get myself together I get back on the train. Only, it turns out I hadn’t actually calmed down all that much. The panic attack hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m on the Picaddilly line, unable to breathe, surrounded my people, my face gets hot, and the bleeding from the face starts. Heavy and everywhere. The rest is a bit of blur. I collapsed, was pulled of the train, and taken away from the platform. There were a lot of TFL employees, still blood flowing everywhere, and then paramedics, an ambulance, and a hospital.
Not the best day. And to top it all off, when I was discharged from the hospital, I had no idea where I was or how to get home. Plus, when I got on a bus I was deducted almost all of my Oyster credit for not touching out when the paramedics came and got me from the station. Awesome!
So, 4 buses and a train later, I made it home. At which point I decided I wanted nothing more than to go home home.
Wednesday – At the insistence of a friend I decided to go in to Mind UK. Well, attempted to. I got on the bus, only to have it stop halfway there, declare it was now out of service, kick us all off, and drive away. Not having enough credit to catch another bus there, and who-knows-how-many-more back, I went home. There was also some parental drama that I won’t get in to. But, it wasn’t fun either.
Thursday – I took a mental health day. Watched about a million episodes of Community and went for a nice, long, leisurely walk, and took a lot of pictures. I decided to give London another shot and not head home quite yet.
Friday – I moved. Again?! Yes, yes, I know. I’ve moved out of Sally’s house for the second time, but this new arrangement seems much more ideal than the previous one. The room is bigger, the rent is cheaper, and I’m about 5 steps away from Sally and Karen.
Saturday – Today was nice. Karen and I moved some furniture, which was quite the adventure! I did some unpacking, met a lot of the people around the neighbourhood, had a lovely dinner with Sally and Michelle, and joined in on some Guy Fawkes Day celebrations.
And tomorrow, I’m back to work! The job is great when I’m not having a panic-ridden day. It’s busy, the day goes by fast, and there’s lot of interesting people. It’s a fantastic place to people-watch. I tend to get there early, so there’s always some time to sit and listen.
Anyway. It’s late, and I’m tired. I decided to write because I couldn’t get to sleep with all the fireworks going off, but they seem to have stopped. Fingers crossed!
Not really. I just couldn’t think of a proper blog title!
It’s been a busy couple weeks ’round these parts! I started a(nother) new job. This one is far more interesting and exciting that the others though. I’m working at the Natural History Museum! It’s an incredible building, inside and out- Cathedral ceilings, towers, a 4 story escalator that ascends in to a planet. The museum houses 70 million or so artifacts in it’s massive collection. The job itself is nothing fancy- Typical guest services/retail stuff, but it’s not a call centre, which means it’s the first job to exceed my minimum expectations in London thus far!
It’s temporary work at the moment, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay. I’ll have to wait and see!
What else?
Sally and I have started a new endeavor of anxiety blogging. Well, kind of. We’ve decided to start doing projects to help with our anxieties. Both to lessen them, and work through some of them. The idea is still in the works! This week, having found ourselves without Internet for 4 days, we decided to start crafting in the evenings. On the first night we made bracelets, and on the second, pastel drawings. The creations themselves were nothing to write home about, but we had fun!
There’s not much else new. My big excitement of today was finding Pantene curl conditioner in the pound shop. It’s not sold in the UK, so I bought 4 bottles. Whoo!
I haven’t been posting on here much lately. It’s been a combination of my own laziness, as well as there not being much of anything worth posting about.
I left my last job after deciding it was weighing too heavily on my sanity. No, seriously. I was having panic attacks in the bathroom on my breaks. It was not a healthy place for me to be!
I also decided to leave the house I was lodging in. There were a lot of issues and I was starting to feel very uncomfortable there. Sally and her mum insisted I come back to stay with them until I find something new. And, what luck! Their neighbour has just decided to rent out a spare bedroom, and for 100 quid less a month than I was paying, with a room twice the size.
I also found a new job today with a company who sound really great to work for. The work itself is not ideal (7 years of uni got me a job answering phones), but it will do for now. I really just need to have some kind of income from a job that doesn’t make me hate my life!
It took longer than I would have liked, but things are slowly coming together. Now I just need to get my ass in gear and find an internship!
That might be best left until the new year though. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m thinking of heading back to North America for about a month or so in the new year. The job I got is contract until mid-January. Sally and I might have some cool opportunities in LA in Febryary, and I was hoping to go home for a visit around that time too. I’m thinking a week home, a week in LA, a week in Washington DC (tentative, depending on whether something goes through), and another week at home before heading back to London. My friends Amy and Tasha have been talking about visiting London at the end of February, so the timing might work out well for us all to come back together and me play tour guide for a week before getting back in to real life.
I hate that I can’t afford to travel here yet. It’s so cheap, unless you have no money whatsoever! I am thinking of doing a weekend in Belfast in November or December as I haven’t seen Orla since February. Again, we’ll see!
Aside from that life has been relatively uneventful. Sally had surgery a couple weeks ago so I’ve spent a lot of time just hanging out around the house with her. We got The Office Thank You Project up and running recently, which has been kind of exciting. I managed to put the website together myself, which caused me days of frustration, but turned out well in the end!
Oh, I also caved and got an iPhone again. Going from 3 years with one, to suddently having a terrible Samsung basic phone was just too difficult a feat for me!
I think that’s just about everything I’ve been up to! I’m well, London is well, and I finally got around to buying a jacket!
So, I haven’t posted here in about a month. Whoops!
I’m still puttering around London and am still trying to figure things out. I’ve been busy with website stuff, moving house, job hunting, etc.
It’s my favourite time of year though, and I can’t wait to explore London in the fall. The leaves are changing, there’s a nip in the air, and it always puts a smile on my face.
I wish I had something more exciting to update with, but unfortunately not! I want to get out and get some pictures in the next week or so, so I’ll try and get those posted.
Sloane Square | Being Alive 