As I write this, it has been exactly 9 months since my last post, but it seems like a lot less time than that, even though a lot has happened. I go through phases of writing and tweeting, and as much as I enjoy it, I sometimes question why I do this when I could be interacting with people in real-life (especially when very good friends go through terrible things).
Now, there are two things I said I wouldn’t do after uni. 1. Work in London. 2. Live in London.
I quickly accepted that I’d have to work in London. There was no way around it, unless you consider Salford Quays in Manchester, and that’s no option, it’s a punishment (obviously nothing to do with my football affiliation). So, as I mentioned 9 months ago, I accepted a position at the Moving Picture Comany in Soho, and although I enjoyed it, I was there for only 3 months before starting a freelance role at Sky News. Again, this was great, I enjoyed the work (I really did. A lot of people hear the word ‘ingest’ and run away screaming, but I liked it), and the people were great, but 4 months after starting, I was off again, to start a far more technical role as a Broadcast Engineer.
The first couple of months passed in a blur of dark 5am starts and depressing commuter trains, and before I knew it, I was on the night shift rotation. This isn’t so bad, because as a freelancer at Sky, I tended to end up with more than my fair share of nights, weekends, and weekend nights, but adjusting to the first of a run of shifts is always the hardest.
Knowing that I had these (longer, 12 hour) night shifts coming up, I considered breaking rule number 2, and started looking for a flat in London. Initially, I was looking for a 1 bed flat, but this quickly stopped after seeing 3 flats which, although were ok (‘compact’ describes them well), were not ok enough to justify £1000 per month in rent alone. I put it out of my mind, and prepared myself for 3 and a half hours of travelling on top of a 12 hour shift, but it wasn’t long before a guy at work asked if I was still looking for somewhere, as he needed to replace a current flatmate.
There was barely a cursory look at the place, before I was moving boxes in, and as of yesterday, I now live and work in London. Rules one and two broken, but I’m much happier for it.
After a spell of posting fairly regularly, I seem to have gone through a bit of a dry spell. As much as I’d like to promise more posts, I can’t.
I’ve just started my final year of University, and the workload is pretty intense at the moment, but I have a few things I want to post about (like some of my favourite apps), so will hopefully get that done soon.