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tealin"Keep us updated on your adventures!" they said.
"Read my blog," I said, "I'll post about them there!"
Ha ha ha.
I'm sorry ... I've been terribly remiss in updating this thing at all, nevermind with my ongoing adventures in The Rest of the World. Whenever I have some spare time I'm trying to catch up with the email that keeps backing up. I have a stack of photos to pick through and process before I can post them; whenever I think about doing this I remember how many there are and decide to do it another day, taking more photos in the meantime and making the stack even less approachable.
So here is an update sans photos, so that it can be an update at all.
I moved into semi-permanent lodgings in July, and spent the next two months laying the groundwork of a job hunt and trying to overcome my deeply-ingrained hermetic tendencies to take advantage of being in one of my favourite cities in the world, that has so much to do, like, everywhere, and stuff to look at, and life. On a good day this would mean taking the bus somewhere central and just soaking it in, sketching the occasional passer-by, once or twice even doing something radical like stepping into a museum. Most days, though, it was a sufficient accomplishment just to get to the church cafe down the street with my laptop and take notes on Scott's journals somewhere that wasn't my bedroom. Baby steps.
In late August, via the most wonderfully fortuitous friend-of-a-friend, I got the chance to do a test for a fairly well-known internet animated series and landed a gig. This has done wonders for getting me out of the house and resuscitating my animation confidence, which had been pretty sorely bruised and spent the last three years lying in the gutter with a plastic bottle of cheap cider. Unfortunately my cranky tendons can just about get through an 8-hour day and no more, so despite the confidence returning, the physical leeway to apply that confidence to my sketchbook is still a way off, hence the lack of more visually-oriented updates. It's as frustrating for me as it is for you, I can assure you – if not more so, because nearly every day I get impatient with myself, whereas what readers this blog still has have been remarkably patient – or at least silent – with my lack of output. You are too kind.
My days now follow roughly this routine:
- Wake up to early alarm
- Fall back into bed
- Wake up to second alarm
- Somehow manage to take an hour and a half to eat something and get dressed (seriously)
- Hop on the Tube and READ A BOOK (WTF???)
- Arrive at work
- Drink coffee from a CAFETIERE in a NON-PAPER CUP like a REAL PERSON
- Animate
- Late lunch
- Animate some more
- Leave for home after an EIGHT-HOUR DAY (WTF???)
- Be struck by how awesome it is to be in a)London b)Britain c)north of 40° d)not-USA e)some or all of a through d
- Arrive home lateish and not particularly hungry on account of late lunch so snack on something random
- Poke the internet for a while
- Give up
- Go to bed
So, you can see, not really much to write about. I wish I had the stamina for a night life on top of the day job, but considering the state I was in when I first got here, the fact I'm functioning in some sort of routine is pretty great, all things considered, and what would I do with a night life anyway? I really love London at night but can almost never think of a reason to stick around to see it, especially since sketching is off-limits after 6:30pm.
Regardless of the humdrum appearance of my days, though, I am happier here and now than I have been in recent memory ... I knew I was unhappy in California but I had no idea how much until I settled into things here. I was expecting the honeymoon to wear off after this became the new normal, but I think I like it more every day. By way of a sample, here are some things I love about Britain, in no particular order:
- the weather
- the fact that trains exist and go to most places (I know, I know, British rail, but at least you have trains)
- Pret a Manger
- Oxfam
- Barons Court Underground station
- Seven Dials
- the assorted cobblestones of Covent Garden
- hearing Radio 4 come out of other people's speakers
- St Mary's Church Garden, Islington
- unexpected greenery in quiet back streets
- unexpected greenery in walls and eaves
- the weather
- the birds
- people generally know the names of said birds
- overheard snippets of conversation
- conversations not about TV or movies
- the weather
- characters, everywhere
- watching planes come over the city into Heathrow
- crazy Victorians
- the weather
So far, the only two things I have found to dislike are:
- the unavailability of canned clams
- the poor quality of washing-up sponges
I'm still trying to weigh up the London/Cambridge conundrum, and long-term plans are something I haven't even thought about yet, but at this point the important thing is I never ever want to leave this place.
"Read my blog," I said, "I'll post about them there!"
Ha ha ha.
I'm sorry ... I've been terribly remiss in updating this thing at all, nevermind with my ongoing adventures in The Rest of the World. Whenever I have some spare time I'm trying to catch up with the email that keeps backing up. I have a stack of photos to pick through and process before I can post them; whenever I think about doing this I remember how many there are and decide to do it another day, taking more photos in the meantime and making the stack even less approachable.
So here is an update sans photos, so that it can be an update at all.
I moved into semi-permanent lodgings in July, and spent the next two months laying the groundwork of a job hunt and trying to overcome my deeply-ingrained hermetic tendencies to take advantage of being in one of my favourite cities in the world, that has so much to do, like, everywhere, and stuff to look at, and life. On a good day this would mean taking the bus somewhere central and just soaking it in, sketching the occasional passer-by, once or twice even doing something radical like stepping into a museum. Most days, though, it was a sufficient accomplishment just to get to the church cafe down the street with my laptop and take notes on Scott's journals somewhere that wasn't my bedroom. Baby steps.
In late August, via the most wonderfully fortuitous friend-of-a-friend, I got the chance to do a test for a fairly well-known internet animated series and landed a gig. This has done wonders for getting me out of the house and resuscitating my animation confidence, which had been pretty sorely bruised and spent the last three years lying in the gutter with a plastic bottle of cheap cider. Unfortunately my cranky tendons can just about get through an 8-hour day and no more, so despite the confidence returning, the physical leeway to apply that confidence to my sketchbook is still a way off, hence the lack of more visually-oriented updates. It's as frustrating for me as it is for you, I can assure you – if not more so, because nearly every day I get impatient with myself, whereas what readers this blog still has have been remarkably patient – or at least silent – with my lack of output. You are too kind.
My days now follow roughly this routine:
- Wake up to early alarm
- Fall back into bed
- Wake up to second alarm
- Somehow manage to take an hour and a half to eat something and get dressed (seriously)
- Hop on the Tube and READ A BOOK (WTF???)
- Arrive at work
- Drink coffee from a CAFETIERE in a NON-PAPER CUP like a REAL PERSON
- Animate
- Late lunch
- Animate some more
- Leave for home after an EIGHT-HOUR DAY (WTF???)
- Be struck by how awesome it is to be in a)London b)Britain c)north of 40° d)not-USA e)some or all of a through d
- Arrive home lateish and not particularly hungry on account of late lunch so snack on something random
- Poke the internet for a while
- Give up
- Go to bed
So, you can see, not really much to write about. I wish I had the stamina for a night life on top of the day job, but considering the state I was in when I first got here, the fact I'm functioning in some sort of routine is pretty great, all things considered, and what would I do with a night life anyway? I really love London at night but can almost never think of a reason to stick around to see it, especially since sketching is off-limits after 6:30pm.
Regardless of the humdrum appearance of my days, though, I am happier here and now than I have been in recent memory ... I knew I was unhappy in California but I had no idea how much until I settled into things here. I was expecting the honeymoon to wear off after this became the new normal, but I think I like it more every day. By way of a sample, here are some things I love about Britain, in no particular order:
- the weather
- the fact that trains exist and go to most places (I know, I know, British rail, but at least you have trains)
- Pret a Manger
- Oxfam
- Barons Court Underground station
- Seven Dials
- the assorted cobblestones of Covent Garden
- hearing Radio 4 come out of other people's speakers
- St Mary's Church Garden, Islington
- unexpected greenery in quiet back streets
- unexpected greenery in walls and eaves
- the weather
- the birds
- people generally know the names of said birds
- overheard snippets of conversation
- conversations not about TV or movies
- the weather
- characters, everywhere
- watching planes come over the city into Heathrow
- crazy Victorians
- the weather
So far, the only two things I have found to dislike are:
- the unavailability of canned clams
- the poor quality of washing-up sponges
I'm still trying to weigh up the London/Cambridge conundrum, and long-term plans are something I haven't even thought about yet, but at this point the important thing is I never ever want to leave this place.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-14 02:19 pm (UTC)