Pre-weekend update

15 Aug 2008

Last night was one of the best dance classes so far.  It was the only venue I hadn’t seen yet and it definitely one of the most popular.  It was a huge group for the lesson, and everyone ended up staying quite late to keep dancing, including myself which meant it was nearly midnight by the time I got home.

I first went to the class last week with my friend Sarah (who works at Spoonfed and whose bachlorette party I attended a few weekends ago) and her fiance Steven.  I had told Sarah back when I first started at Spoonfed that I liked jive and swing dancing (even though I’d never done it before) and she spent a month and a half telling me to come along to this class she did three times a week.  Finally, last week I made the time to go along and I’m so glad I did and that I’ve bought the 5-week pass (L30 for 5 weeks of unlimited classes).  It’s good exercise after my increasingly long days in the office, fun, and social.  Exactly what  I needed.

I’ve also joined a book group and need to hunt down a copy of Slaughterhouse Five as that’s the first book on the list.  I’ve never read it before and know it’s one of those books I have to read at somepoint so this should be a good excuse.

I took a bunch of pictures last week of my commute (it’s really not that exciting but I had a request) so I’ll be uploading those this weekend.  I didn’t take any pictures of the Tube… you are allowed to use camera on the underground, but generally it’s groups of tourists taking pictures of each other.  It might look a bit suspicious if I tried to just photograph the trains and stations.  I’m not sure the officer would buy my excuse of trying to document my commute for a group of people on average 4000 miles away!

Jump Jive and Wail

13 Aug 2008

One of the reasons I’ve been so bad about updating my journal lately is that I’ve started taking jive dancing classes.  It’s a program where I pay 30 quid for five weeks of classes (classes are every week night but at a different venue every day of the week, so even though it’s the same group and instructors, it moves around the city) and can go as many times as I like.  As it’s usually 8 pounds per class this is an excellent deal and now I’m working on getting my money’s worth.  The classes are great for exercise and just getting out from in front of the computer but it means that I get home about 10:30pm not having eaten, exhausted and ready for bed.  Thus, no LJ posting.

Speaking of which, I got teased today at work for having a LiveJournal account.  Henry and Alex (the coCEOs of Spoonfed) met with a guy who happens to be quite high up in the LiveJournal ranks (I’ll leave out his name) and when they came back, it turned out that I was the only person they knew who actually *had* a LiveJournal (guess it’s a lot bigger in the US).  Also, I suppose by this point I’m supposed to be hosting my blogs on my own domain (and by the way, http://www.londonmeg.com isn’t taken so if anyone wants to buy me the domain name I’ll switch over but for now I’m perfectly happy here).  It sounded like they had a good chat this morning.  It’s a very exciting time to be at Spoonfed and I’ve basically made the decision that I’m going to stay here until next summer working with them.  I just need to sign the paper work and make sure they can follow through on their offer to get a visa for me.

Well, it’s my first early night all week and so I’m going to take advantage of it by catching up on my sleep.  I’ll try to get a video up at some point of me at my dance class if I can swing it (get it? swing? at my jive class? I think I’m clearly lacking sleep here… I have to explain my own puns.  sheesh!).  I love the classes and I’m so glad I started going!

Tube Books

11 Aug 2008

You see all sorts of strange sites on the Tube but generally things are pretty boring, especially during the commute.  You get business men and woman, all half-awake, struggling to not look at or touch anyone else in the over-crowded train.  I generally amuse myself by trying to see what everyone else is reading and this leads to some not-so-subtle glances over shoulders or under bags to see the title, author and whether or not I should add it to my list of things to read judging by their expression and engagement (for example, if they miss their stop because they’re reading, I generally add it to the list).

I think what people read on the Tube says a lot about them.  It’s as much of a statement as your bag or shoes or the amount of makeup you’re wearing.

So I’m not sure what to think of the heavily made-up woman on the train across from me this morning who was dressed to the nines, off to her city bank job presumably, reading “The Spanish Lover” by Joanna Trollope.  Somehow I don’t think I’ll be adding that one to my list.

Random Musings after a Crazy Week

9 Aug 2008

Whew, what a week.

Well, first of my random musings – you know how you supposedly build your immune system in your first few years of life? Of course, you’re exposed to all these things that your body recognises as foreign so you build up antibodies and blah blah blah science happens and then when you’re an adult you don’t get sick every time someone in the room sneezes.  I’ve come to the conclusion that there are in fact two very important times in life that lead to the development of the adult immune system.  One, when you’re a newborn.  The other is when you first start cooking for yourself and living on a budget.  I’m pretty sure most of the things I’ve eaten in the last few months have been undercooked or overcooked or expired or unwashed or improperly stored or slightly moldy or just plan bad.  And this isn’t a comment on the quality of English food (I’ll do that later).  It’s just inexperience in preparing my meals day after day and not having the budget to have my life catered.  What this means, however, is that I am probably assaulting my immune system with lord-knows-what kinds of microscopic things that make people sick.  In fact I’m amazed I’ve lasted this long.  Of course, this must be a right of passage everyone goes through – and the real reason health declines in old age is that you’ve figured out how to cook properly and aren’t giving your immune system a complete workout three times a day.

This week was… ridiculous.  I’m not going to go into it but I managed to pull the most boneheaded stunt possible at work this week on Tuesday (to put it briefly, I was hired to do useful things with the analytics data.  Last I checked, accidentally deleting it entirely is generally considered less than useful).  I spent the next 24 hours in complete shock (and slight amazement I wasn’t fired) and it was fairly emotionally exhausting – and, to be fair, physically exhausting as I didn’t sleep much that night.  The next day I tried to get back into the swing of things quite literally by going to a jive dancing class with Sarah and her fiance after a long day at work where I got to see my glaring mistake of the day before every time I opened the internet.  The dance class was incredibly fun but it was another quite late night and then Thursday and Friday, not only was our intern out of the office so I was behind on a bunch of work, but I had seven interviews over the course of two days for some more interns for the team.  All in all, it was a crazy week and next week, we’ve managed to pick up four (!!) interns to start on Tuesday so things should continue to be a bit insane.

This weekend is definitely going to be about relaxing.  I’ve just be chilling out this morning and doing a bit of work to try to find someone to buy or help me manage DormWise (I’ve figured the best thing to do is sell it or let someone take over the site as it’s such a shame it’s sitting there and I can’t work on it at all).  I’ve got a bit of a cold which I’m fairly sure is from the lack of sleep and not undercooked food.  Next week will be a push, and then the week after I’m working four days, taking Friday off to get ready for a trip and then leaving Saturday for a three day bus trip through Wales.  Monday is the bank holiday so it’s another day off work.  It should be incredibly beautiful and fun and I’m looking forward to it!

Hopefully at some point this weekend I’ll leave the flat, but if not… hey, there’s nothing wrong with 48 hours of sleep.

Weekend Revelry and Big Decisions

4 Aug 2008

Another long stretch without a proper post. And I don’t even have a good excuse this weekend as I was fairly lazy.

Weekend Stuff!

Alright, starting with last Thursday night. I had press tickets to see The Waifs, an Australian folk band that I love, perform at a very cool venue right near my flat. I had two tickets so my flatmate Ann came along and she seemed to enjoy it alright (at least I wasn’t inflicting my country/folk tastes without letting her know what she was getting herself into – she had listened to their music before we went!). I got the tickets because I was going to write up the event afterwards and the article is here: The Waifs on Spoonfed.

Friday evening was incredibly low-key which was good as on Saturday, I got up early to head off to Portobello Market (which is known for its vintage offerings but also has a ton of produce as well) to get produce for the week. I got:
– 2 baskets of strawberries (which I actually had to throw out most of because they were moldy at the bottom  )
– About 30 Clementine oranges
– A pound of apples
– A pound of tomatos
– A head of broccoli
– A pound of mozzarella cheese
– A loaf of homemade whole grain bread
– A pound of onions
– Half a pound of cherries
– One fig (which was also slightly rotten – or I didn’t know how to eat it properly)
For £9. It was pretty unbelievable and I definitely plan of making more use of the farmers markets around London. I probably wouldn’t buy meat (although there was some tempting fresh fish) but for stuff that comes from the ground, I think it’s quite a deal!

Then, after the market, I went home to try to find something I could wear for the fancy dress bachelor/bachelorette (or as they call it here Stag and Hen) party of my friend from work. She (and her fiancé) are Australian and so are having their party together because they don’t know many people here and this was their main celebration in the UK. It was a pub crawl that began at 2pm and carried on until the wee hours of the morning (although I headed home around 10pm!). The theme was School Uniform and I was pretty hopeless (no skirts/shorts/knee-high socks/ties or anything!) and had to make do with grey trousers and a button down – so basically I just looked like I was going to work. It was a ton of fun, though, and I met some really nice friends of theirs. I think the entire afternoon/night could probably be summed up in these picture, though:

Let’s just say that people were all very generous about buying rounds of drinks for everyone else. Regardless it was a great day.

Sunday, in the morning I met with Mimi to talk about her business plan and in the afternoon I was going to play tennis but it ended up raining so unfortunately I was out of luck. Hopefully we’ll have some good weather over the next couple of weekends.

Relevant Important Stuff!

My big(-ish) news is that Spoonfed has offered me a longer-term job and is willing to sponsor my visa (a generous offer as that’s both a hassle and an expensive process) to stay with them until at least June of next year. I’ve been a little stressed out (in a good way! I don’t have any bad choices!) about trying to figure out what to do as I have three wonderful options:

1) Stay in London with Spoonfed
Pros: it’s London, I like the people at Spoonfed, it’s England, David Tennant’s Hamlet will be coming to London in December, everyone likes Doctor Who, it’s a central hub of travel, they’ll give me a pay increase, I’m getting settled and making friends here, I love my flat and flatmate, I’m working with an exciting startup in a good position, awesome accents
Cons: London is a big city (which I am not loving to death – I’m a suburb girl I think), it’s beyond expensive… which means travel is difficult/impossible until I get a pay raise, a year and a half is a long time to be away from home, I work long hours and the commute sucks

2) Move to Ireland for four months in December when my UK visa expires (this is an option provided through BUNAC – the group that sponsors my current visa)
Pros: it’s Ireland, I could work and write my novels, live in another country, really really awesome accents, I’ve always wanted to be in Ireland
Cons: I have to start this whole process (job, flat, social life) over again, it’ll be cold and dark all winter and then when it starts to get nice I have to leave

3) Go home and possibly get a job with IMVU
Pros: it’s California, it’s free housing for a while, I really like everyone at IMVU, family is there.
Cons: I’m not here, I miss out on possibly awesome and rewarding startup experience, I’m not near extra cool European travel, people don’t have awesome accents, it’s silly to go there now when I’m going to go back in less than a year regardless of what I decide

I think I’ll be able to make a decision that’s good for me, and Spoonfed has been very nice in giving me a couple of weeks to make up my mind. I do miss home sometimes but I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. Additional pros and cons for any of the three options are happily accepted in the comments section below.