Been a busy few weeks. The upshot is, we’ve now got a flat in Edinburgh and are moving up at the end of this month. Yay?
It’s more difficult that I expected, leaving London. I’m tired and claustrophobic in this city, more than ready to go somewhere it isn’t a major undertaking to pick up a pint of milk, but all the same…we’ve been here three years. It’s familiar. Like a long depression, after which smiling is scary.
Still, there’s bright spots I’ll miss.
The University
I’m back to working with the big arts university through the end of the semester (and serendipitously, my move date), where I’ve floated through a few contracts. There’s a few aspects that drop me into a vat of spicy boiling rage once or twice a week (primarily, the huge mess the last person left me to mop up, and my supervisors’ determined innocence of this fact), but the benefits far outweigh the hassle.
My coworkers are nice. This is simple, but huge. Most of them pitch in when there’s a big task or a crisis. And nearly all of them have some artistic hobbies, so their conversations are interesting and no one stares at you for scribbling in a sketchbook or reading over your lunch break. Also – lunch break! You’re expected to take one, instead of getting the skunk eye for eating away from your desk.
Also, there’s free publications of varied quality lying about. Most are displaying student work, but others include random how-to’s…what open-source software can be used and what still required professional stuff, the important laws regarding squatting and the local squat-arts scene, etc. I like leaving these on the bus when I’m done and watching people’s fascination when they pick them up, expecting a Metro or London Lite. The best was when I dropped the Student Union magazine, ‘Less Common, More Sense,’ with its bizarre cover of a sausage in a banana peel, on the seat in front of me, and a young guy picked it up, flipped through with a growing grin, and pulled out a Polish-English Dictionary to begin working through the first article.
It’s also, several times a week, a satisfying job. Most of my job involves scheduling and maintaining records of the advisors and counsellors, which as I’m partially an anal retentive picky pain, works for me. I spend a lot of the day on the phone with students, which is entertaining in itself, and sometimes they’re really in a bad way. It can be exhausting, on days you’ve heard too many sad stories and haven’t been able to help, but then in another day or two, you’ve gotten them a time to meet with a counsellor and they are happier. I haven’t done the hard work, but I have gotten A and B together, so I feel like I’ve had a positive effect on my corner of the world.
