Sweet Dreams My LAX (Nent).

I flew in from CA on Saturday afternoon, after saying another goodbye to Lyd and the lovely Brunelles. As I sniffed my way through security I thought about when would be my next chance to see Goose. Not soon enough, that's for sure.

With friends, family and weather like that, I'm not surprised Lyd found it so hard being away from home in a place like the Big Smoke.

I should have been born Californian, for real.

Come Saturday I'll have moved out again and will be getting on with life once more. Sigh.

E1 4 lyf.

Just Can't Wait to Get on the Road Again.

I officially finished in London about 2 weeks ago (and took up house with Jess for a week), but that hasn't stopped me making my way back. Last Saturday I went on a nice little trip with 23 5-11 year olds from my estate to Southend. Cricket in the sea, throwing crabs, shell collecting and giant hole digging went down.

Jumped on the tube home to Morden (I didn't go and eat my Chinese food), said "Yo" to Grandma and that evening me and Jess made cocktails for some posh kids in a field and ended up being awake 24 hours. It hurt.

After undertaking a week of lovely activities with Jess, she left for Nigeria. Bye, I love you. With a severe lack of the most interesting person in Surrey, my week has been only average to good. Come home soon.

I just can't wait to get my travelling shoes back on my itchy feet. Next stop: California.

Back by Popular Demand.

I have been without internet for about 3,000 days now.
But that's okay; My life has been far to interesting to be bothering with blogs.

The Dirtiest Type of Clean.

I walked around in the back garden all day with the best human ever - Jess Harris. We talked about boys and men and those in between. We talked about work and dogs and vomit. We talked about tummy to you and pregnant chuckle brothers. We talked about
swollen faces
York
bras
photos
the Isle of Wight
wees and poos
fetching toys
path finders
the Pope
how we are great
Pat Sharp
Pat Butcher
lies
mess
Major

and

ice lollies.

A very normal afternoon, but just what I needed.

A Certain Somebody Told Me...

That when I am in a bad mood, I am just like House.

Oh.

High and Dry.

As always, a lot has happened since my last blog; including a little trip to Africa. This time it was not the slums of Uganda or the jungle of Ghana, but a holiday in Morocco.

A lovely place, Aladdin meets Africa meets the East End of London. It felt strange being a tourist in amongst such poverty in places, but I was assured that tourism is the main source of income.

I was woken each morning with the Islamic call to prayer at 4:40am, starting from minarets on the other side of the Medina (المدينة القديمة‎), the cry to God (haunting to the unaccustomed ear) reaching the Mosque just next to where I am staying as if it has been passed along the rooftops by a lazy current.
The Sun burning fiercely until mid-morning, I hid inside the thick walls of the Riad (رياض)‎ reading.

Each of the three days I spent there followed a similar routine - reading, drinking, getting lost, eating, getting lost, reading, bed. It was perfect.

Thank you Morocco.

This is the First of July.

I have accepted a place at King's College to do psychiatric nursing in September. Hello. I was on a bus going past the Strand and they have photos and biographies of famous alumni. This means I too, am going to be great. See: 

"KCL have many notable Alumni. They range from the first Duke of Wellington (who fought a duel while Prime Minister in defence of his role in founding King’s), and Florence Nightingale (who founded the College’s School of Nursing), through to current PhD student and three-times Olympic rowing medallist Katherine Grainger, and medical student Lynsey Gawn who has skied to the South Pole.

Other King’s characters on the Strand include five of the College’s nine Nobel Prize winners (among them Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir James Black), together with librettist WS Gilbert; Lord Lister, the founder of antiseptic surgery; Romantic poet John Keats; Bloc Party musician Kele Okereke; satirist Rory Bremner; Sir Ivison Macadam who established the National Union of Students, and Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement."

I have already picked out which photo they will use for my biography on the window.

Today was busy and long, but very good. I also learnt all about fixed bike racing. I'm so hip it hurts.

Ouch.

The Grey in This City is too Much to Bear.

Jazz

wse are the beet

root

Jess

hahahahahah

that made me chuck

Jazz

up

jess i need a shower

there are lodas of mice in our house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well

theres like 1

Jess

ewwwwwwwwwwww still?

2

Jazz

but next door have an infestation

of like

200

im going to get nibbled to death if they come round

Jess

urgh.. that makes me GAG

get lots of traps

and KILL THEM ALL

Jazz

i had a dream one went onto my face

and did a poo in my mouth

Jess

haha thats hilarious. are you sure it didnt actually happened

Jazz

im not SURE YOU KNOW

RPL36.

Eggs and Francis Bacon.

Hello Thursday, hello Friday.

Like every Thursday, it was totally grimey - in the Wiley kind of way. 

In the MTV Pimp my Van van we pushed 140 bpm all day, with the students at Harpley P.R.U working together to record a song one of the students had written called "Dream Girl",  and at George Greens our boys started work on spitting over a beat they had made and recording vocals for a song in memory of a friend.

I love them. If I could tell you their stories, you would too. 

Thursday evening?

 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. My darkest hour; with only 73 calories consumed and £3.10 to my name it was not looking good. Just in time, Lydia bought eggs and bacon, whisked up some pancakes and we had breakfast for dinner American style -  my favourite thing in the world. 

Whenever you do some cooking, a little bit always goes down the gap between the oven and the work surface. This time it was the eggs.

Another nice thing that happened on Thursday was that I got to sit next to the window on the bus, and I could put my feet on the little warm bit on the side near the bottom.

Friday is today. I had a nice lie in, and dreamt of champions. I got up, ran out of shampoo and the door thinking I was going to be late and ended up being 20 minutes early. So, I stood around near the gates of Sir John Cass  looking shifty for a bit, stirring the olds to come out of their houses and pretend to look at the plants in their front gardens.

We run a gospel choir here every Friday, as well as teaching RE and PSHE lessons in the sixth form. 

After a successful choir practice,  we made our way from Sir John Cass to Departure (our favourite cafe and second hand book shop)  and the wind was all up in our faces. We walked and talked, and it became apparent to me that a quality I admire in a person is the ability to correctly name a particular hue of any given colour. 

We had a meeting and I found some nice old books and ginger beer. After a cup of tea, some soup and a scone it was time to leave. When I reached Liverpool Street Station, I found myself once again going the opposite direction to everyone else. They were all looking at the departure boards and pulling the same face, I liked it. 

Tomorrow is Saturday, and I'm starting the day by taking lots of five year olds to see Bolt.

Don't Cry, Child.

On Sunday night we sat in Nando's for three hours, discussing the history of the ancient world. Mainly because Lydia started walking from Elephant when we were already sat there. Naughty. 

 

That afternoon a little thing call the Baishaki Mela festival happened, right next to our house. The area's 'up and coming' music acts might as well have been in my bedroom...I hope they get a bit better before they up and come. 

I had a meeting in another part of the world with some folks and some rice and then pushed my way back up my street against the swarm of hundreds, moving their way between the only two large patches of grass in E1. I wish I could say that the festival was a mega cultural experience and describe lots of lovely sights and smells and sounds, but I can't. By about 7 o' clock I'd had enough and headed to Southbank for the cultural experience of Nando's.

The day before that was Saturday. We baked banana muffins at the club we run for 11-17 year old girls, much to their disgust. A lot of fun has had though, despite the apparent hate for anything banana.

The Monday night bus project in Canning Town went well, we saw a few new faces through the door and there was a good atmosphere. Fun was had by all, and we got to eat sweets. 

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

I'm too tired for this right now. In short:

If it weren't for Sainbury's and his basics range, I would probably have died on Monday. 

Thank you, orange and white.

Thorange.

I cuddled a beautiful baby all afternoon, and indulged a child in believing some tall tales involving a trip to London Zoo, a cheetah and some orange tasting friends. 

I also met a mother who I don't want to forget.

This evening I told a complete stranger something I have only ever told three others. I'm not sure what came over me. I won't be doing it again. 

The end.

Smoothies a Nangman.

When Ice Cream hits  on  the mic, the haters  come up.

On Wednesday night I was supposed to be somewhere in Stepney Green for 7 o' clock. I left my house, locking the four locks behind me and a had little bit of Capital Gold Jazz Legends Disk 2 in my ear. I was enjoying myself far too much to be paying attention to where I was, and soon found myself lost. Instead of turning and re-tracing my steps, I did a Forrest Gump and just carried on walking and did some thinking. 

A number 25 bus went past, so I climbed on it and ended up in Oxford Circus. Now with the Lost in Translation sound track playing, I pretended to be in Tokyo for a bit. 

I thought about cities and how much I like them.

After trying on a few garms I couldn't afford, I got on the number 8 and came home to watch the last 20 minutes of the Apprentice. It was a bit boring, and Ruby Wax scares me.

Thursday was a good day.

Took the pimped out riot van to Harpley P.R.U. An oasis of calm and reflection. /. 

A Pupil Referral Unit is where students are sent if they have been kicked out of mainstream education. They stay there until they are found a place at another school or are ready to go back. Having taught a lesson there nearer the beginning of the year, we recognised a few faces. 

After getting over the disappointment that no, Tim Westwood is not still on the van,  the students were fun to talk to and get to know. One of their teachers seems to know nearly everyone in the music industry. Go Vader. 

There is also a very wonderful TA. Hello Shane from Ireland.

After laying down some grimee choonz and having lunch from a proper East End cafe, and after Lucy had dropped hers on the floor (with a little help from me, stupid Elle Woods) we drove to George Greens and worked with the van there. 

Here I am known as Ice Cream. Yeh. 

Saw Phoebe in the evening and then Friday happened as well. In the evening I was feeling all weird so I went and did some thinking and eating just outside St Paul's. It was nice and I cleared my head and went off to see Lyd. 

We sat quietly for a bit and didn't understand why people don't just sit quietly more often.

Something That Happened a Little While Ago.

Living just next to Bishopsgate, one of the City's financial centres and home of RBS, we were warned to stay away from the area during the week of the G20 Meltdown etc...but it was to much of a mega photo opp. The ones above are a few of my favourites that I took that day.

So I walked down Commercial Street and peeked (literally) round the corner onto Brushfield Street expecting to see mass rioting, bloodshed and a bomb in my face. Instead, I saw 5 million policemen standing around RBS looking at each other.

Assessing the situation with the model Jess Harris has taught me with her risk assessment skills, I came to the conclusion it would be completely safe to proceed down the street and onto Bishopsgate.  So I did.

It was so surreal - no suits anywhere, no traffic, no buses, just fairly amused looking people wandering around. I bump into someone I know, and he tells me that the temporarily undercover bankers have all left their buildings and are at the pub, drinking on their businesses money while 5,000 others protest against 5,000 different causes. 

The guy leaves, and I was swept up through the wall of police into the middle of the Climate Camp. There was an atmosphere, but an entirely peaceful one. People sharing food, face paint and a man and mega phone with people crowded around listening to what he had to say. 

Before I could fully process what was happening, I let a smiling hippy stick a large sticker on my back saying 'Capitalism means war'. 

I elect to keep my BlackBerry in my pocket.

News reaches me and my new environmentalist friends that the front of a branch of RBS has been smashed, and that protests at Bank have turned a little nasty. I decide to leave while everyone was still being nice to me and the Sun was still shining. 

I called Pa to let him know I survived and hopped on the tube to Elephant and Castle to go and see my favourite Californian, all the while receiving slightly nervous looks from commuters. 

In retrospect, it must have been the anti-capitalist war declaration stuck to my back. Oops. 

It was a good day, I like being where history is in the making.

E1derful.

Goodbye Grayshott.

Precisely 8 months and 16 days ago, I moved out of the only home I have ever known on the borders of leafy Surrey and into the heart of London's East End; mainly because I cared about something more than the Olsen twins and who was going to Guildford on Thursday night. 

Having heard about XLP (a youth work charity, that work with yoots in inner city Lond) just 2 weeks before, I packed my bags, said my goodbyes and set off to the big smoke to spend a year working with them. 

I left home to go to an induction/training week not knowing where I would be living at the end of the seven days. On the sixth day, after God created man, I found out that I would be working on XLP's Tower Hamlets team (aka Team TH, The Holy Trinity etc) and moving to Brick Lane, E1. 

Because I think I'm really cool and hip, this is a place I'd been a few times before - vintage shopping and nightlife. 

However, the 'indie' tourists and groupies that pass through this area of  London, rich with history and culture, do simply that - pass through. Having spent almost 9 months living in the area and working with the young people in the community, I have come to understand what it means to live in such a place - what really goes on in the tower blocks, what really happens after dark on the streets that the drinkers in the bars fail to notice.

Suddenly the grimey chic that I had once associated with the area is not quite so glamorous, just a gritty reality. 

This year I have met the most amazing families, young people, old people and middle aged ones too. I have cried with laughter, with frustration. I have learnt the beginnings of a language, a new culture. I have probably shared over 40 tubs of Ben & Jerry's with some weird Americans. I have had good days, crap days, life changing days. I have been cynical, I have been inspired. 

Most of all, I have been moved. 

I thought I'd better start writing it down because it's all quite interesting.