Fighting Words

How do you channel so much passion and anger into a cause? How do you pick a cause when there a million things to be passionately angry about?

How do we focus on fighting for the things we believe in, when our world is so fucking expensive, and paying the bills is a battle on its own?

I need a venue for my talents that uses them fully, that develops them and moves me forward.

I need a venue for my passion and anger that channels it towards something constructive and powerful.

I want change. I want to learn and study and know. I want to know what the fuck I am talking about. And I want you to listen.

I want to connect with people that are subversive not for the sexiness of rebellion and the coolness of alternativeness, but because the engrained badness in the world needs subverting.

Can you help me? Can I help you?

We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?

My sister gave me 'The Handmaid's Tale' for my birthday. It's been ages since I've read Margaret Atwood. Her prose is inspirational. It makes me happy to read good Canadian fiction, like it does to listen to good Canadian music. It means something more, like eating nice food grown in your own backyard.

"I lie in bed, still trembling. You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone."

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

It's November - half way through November, actually! I completely missed October, due to the London Film Festival; missed the leaves falling and the autumn-y romance of London parks.

I turned 25 last week. It wasn't a big deal. I remember 24 seeming like such a THING: I was no longer in my early 20s; I no longer had the excuse of being so young; the years were getting away from me now, and I was no closer to being where I wanted to be.

24, on paper, was a year with more failures than successes. But in reality, it was a year filled with so much trying and fighting, and with coming to terms with what I want, what I need, and getting comfortable with myself in the process. I think I'm a lot more comfortable with everything, actually: more resigned to the ebb and flow of the universe, but increasingly aware of things that will and won't move me further ahead, and more committed to fighting my own personal battles.

I wrapped up my position at the 2010 BFI London Film Festival at the beginning of the month. It was one of the most emotionally and physically exhausting experiences of my life, but I can't begin to say how much I enjoyed it. I've met incredibly inspiring people from around the world, made many friends, and pushed my own personal limits. Hopefully some of the connections I've made will blossom into future opportunities. We'll see!

Last week I was marvelling over the fact that my plan for the autumn - getting an internship, and then going to Algeria to do my novel research - was actually going ahead perfectly. My plans never actually go ahead! Just a few days after being baffled by the realisation that things were working out, I found out my tourist visa for Algeria was not going to be completed in time for my flight this weekend - if it even goes through at all. So I won't be boarding that plane on Saturday.

I'm okay with that. It's thrown a kink in my plans, but the fact that I've actually booked tickets, made the preparations, and put things in motion, means so much on a personal level. I know I'm going - eventually - and that this project, which I believe in so strongly, will be completed.

All in good time, Trent. All in good time.

Now 25, let's do this thing.

Too Busy To Be Sad

First week of the London Film Festival is done. I've met a million interesting people, while working 16-hour days and running around like a crazy person. Two weeks to go!

I'm starting to feel, once again, like things are possible, like things aren't so grim and difficult. The good thing about being so busy is that I don't have time to think. I've been thinking for a year. Only thinking. And not acting. It's time for some action!

Royal Parks Half Marathon

Yesterday was the Royal Parks Half Marathon, which I've been training for for the past couple of months, to raise money for the MS Society. My friends Eric & James convinced me to sign up in June, and I did so hesitantly, seriously questioning whether I'd even be able to finish. But boy did I improve quickly.

In July, my goal was to finish. In August, my goal was a time of 2:30. When it came to race day, my goal time dropped down to 2:15 or under. In the end...?

2:04! I couldn't be more pleased. A special thanks to everyone who supported me and the MS Society in the race. If you haven't had the chance to donate, it's not too late to contribute. Contribute here.

Down & Out in London

I got back last week from an amazing visit home to Vancouver, which was incredibly rushed and stressful and busy, but also fantastic and rewarding and great. Being home made me realize how much better my quality of life would be if I moved back. Vancouver is such a beautiful, special place, and things would be a million times easier if I went home. But while I tremendously miss friends and family and the delights of the city, I know that Vancouver isn't going anywhere. And the only thing that got me on the plane back to London was knowing that I always have the opportunity to life in Vancouver. I won't always have the opportunity to be elsewhere.

And really, I think the last thing I need right now is the comfort and safety of home. As much as I want it, as much as I want to feel safe and secure, I know that continuing the struggle is probably going to reap the best rewards. I need to fight these battles. These are the adventures I need to learn from, this is how I'm going to fill my mind with characters and stories, ideas and inspiration.

I hate living the life of a vagrant, which is what I've basically become as of late. I want my own room, my own safe quiet space. I don't want to be a burden to friends, and I don't want to continually feel uprooted, adrift. But this is just for a season, and I know that it is offering me opportunities that I would otherwise not gain. I'm starting an internship for the next few weeks at the BFI London Film Festival. November, I'm thinking seriously about arranging a research trip for a project I'm working on, which is something I could potentially only really do under these circumstances. A lot of good can come from this period, I just need to try and not be so disheartened. Things will pick up and carry on.

If I don't risk having my words misunderstood, I don't give myself the opportunity to be understood

Literature, music, film.

These are the things I believe in. These are the things that make sense to me, that help me make sense of the world around me, make sense of myself, and my struggle with the universe. It always comes back to these three things.

I don’t want a job. I don’t want your comforts. I don’t want your obligations and your markers of personal success.

I want to be alone. And I want to be in communion with people that are good, curious, different. People that understand. I want to be both alone and in fellowship. To love and be loved, but not conventionally.

I was born an outsider. I was born different. Perhaps to make it easier for me to choose to be different, in the ways one can choose.

Those who came before us, who were lost in the fight for nothing and everything, we take you into our hearts. We take you with us on our own journeys, not entirely aware of what your lessons mean, and how they will help us, but knowing they are important and lasting. We salute you, brave soldiers, sons and daughters of a nameless and timeless revolt.

I'm OK if you're OK, London.

I'm becoming more aware of the fact that I oscillate between times of clarity, direction, purpose and hope, and other times where I get lost in the fog of confusion, hopelessness, frustration, and despair.

I'm bored of the latter phase, because as much as I enjoy revelling in the sadness of an existential crisis, my despair has been focussed on the same battles and issues for such a long time. It's tired, and tiring.

I've come to terms with the fact that in order for 2011 to go my way, things are going to have to change dramatically, and so I'm concentrating my efforts on new battles within the same greater war. I'm optimistic and excited. Right now, anyway.

I know my emotional pendulum will swing backwards into darker territory eventually (probably soon), but I'm going to try and focus on a few specific projects and opportunities, and as long as I fight for those, I know I can shine my little flashlight and keep truging down the darkened path towards daybreak.

Melodramatic much? Always.

East

Sitting in Sarajevo airport, waiting for my departure back to London via Munich.

Jelena picked me up at Sarajevo airport on Friday to begin our road trip to Kalsdorf Castle, near Graz, Austria, for our friend Hannes’ party. We ended up spontaneously heading to Pecs, Hungary for the first night, wanting a bit of a detour and adventure and some time alone to catch up. Pecs is a pretty, elegant city, and we slept in a strange bohemian hostel/sheesha bar/vintage store/tea shop, and drank beers in an atmospheric lot, still covered in the bricks and remains of some former building, and now illuminated with projected images and full of music and laughter and picnic tables. I’m totally intrigued by Hungary, and I definitely want to go back.

We didn’t arrive at the castle in Austria until dinner time on Saturday night -- after discovering that there are two towns named Kalsdorf near Graz -- but we spent a lovely evening drinking prosecco and local schnapps and beer, and jumping around on a bouncy castle positioned somewhat ironically in the inner courtyard of the castle itself. It was a great party, and a nice time with new and old friends. At four in the morning we sprawled out and slept uncomfortably on expensive imported carpets, positioned under expensive works of art, but woke up happy and thankful, and shared a delicious brunch in the courtyard with all the partygoers before Jelena and I headed back out on the road, through Slovenia and Croatia, back to Sarajevo.

I barely survived last week, but I did survive. I had to take it hour by hour just to pull through, physically and emotionally. Wednesday and Thursday night I probably got a combined 3.5 hours of sleep. I was wrecked and sad and overwhelmed and pushed to my limits.

I’m now moved out of my flat, and feel heavy with the load of my possessions, which have grown exponentially after two years in London. I need to purge, and let go of things I don’t need. The homeless don’t have the luxury of keeping and storing. So that’s the priority for this week: purge, purge, purge. Lighten my load of possessions, and hopefully lighten my spirits in return. Being without a home is fine when you can comfortably fit your possessions in a backpack. But it took me half a dozen loads in the pouring rain to move my belongings. That’s not cool, in my current position. That’s not a mobile state, in a time that demands a great deal of personal mobility.

This weekend - particularly spending time with Jelena, Ana and Vlado in Sarejevo - has refreshed me, but also made me feel apprehensive and unsure, once again, about geography. There is life and love and inspiration and adventure outside of London. It’s hard to realise that when you’re fighting to stay in a place that makes you work for every inch of space, every inch of success. London is like a vortex, though, that sucks you in and makes you feel like there is no other place to be, even if you aren’t happy there. Few people are satisfied there, but most are convinced of their place in the city.

Leaving London doesn’t scare me, though, as much as it has in the past. I love so many people there, and I love things about it so much, but my life in London, in reality, is not much of a life. Take away the friends, and I have nothing but memories. No job, no home, nothing tangible, nothing keeping me rooted. There’s nothing holding me there, besides... perhaps love and hope and nostalgia? And perhaps, deep down, stubbornness.

I know I want to be in Europe, but this weekend has made me realise that London isn’t necessarily the only place to be, or the best place for me to be, just because I have friends and a visa. Berlin and Budapest are spinning through the folds of my imagination, and occupying higher and higher positions in the platforms of my mind. I’m going to explore the potential in these cities over my month of reestablishing myself. I’m ready for adventure, and possibly a change of scenery. Particularly if opportunities in London don’t materialise soon. And I’m ready to fight broadly for the future, not just specifically, for a single urban dream that might represent the past more than anything.

I don’t want to board this flight. I’ve never been more tempted to walk out of an airport and get back into a cab. London: I’ve been fighting for you for so long. If you want me to stay, you’re going to have to fight for me too, because I’ve never wanted you less. I’m done. I’m hurt and I’m tired and I”m angry. You are being, frankly, kind of a bitch.

Fuck you, London. No seriously. Fuck you, you piece of shit. You’ll be lucky if I take you back. I fucking hate you right now. If you had a face I would slap you until you bled. I would kick your teeth in and pull your hair and leave you in the gutter, like you’ve done to me. I’m not joking, London. Say you’re sorry, you fucking jerk.

I’m sure I’ll forgive you. I always do. And I'm a pacifist anyway. 

Adventures in Hard Decision-Making

I've been frozen in inaction for quite some time. With my lease and job coming to and end this month, though, it was time to make big decisions. And the decision I ended up making was one I didn't even realise was an option 10 days ago: homelessness.

I'm handing in my keys tomorrow morning, and I'm no longer looking for another flat. I'll be staying with friends for the next couple weeks, going back to Vancouver for a couple more weeks, then back to London early October. I feel like this is exactly the decision I need to make, the decision that will give me a bit of a financial and emotional reprieve, and allow me to garner some momentum, to concentrate on taking some big steps forward, professionally. That has to be my number one priority right now.

So I feel good about the decision, even if I feel bad about being without a home. I'm so thankful for the generosity of my friends in London, though, who have stepped forward to offer couches and storage and hugs. In that regard, I'm the richest boy in town.

Last night was my final sleep at Warwick Way, and the few hours I managed to squeeze in between packing and cleaning was interrupted by haunting, haunting dreams that left me tired and unsettled this morning, and sad about this transition. But there is opportunity and adventure in the months ahead, and the blessings of friends and of choice, and I need to cling onto the positivity of the situation, and concentrate on things I can productively work towards.

I'm committed to put love on the back burner for now, but the universe is cruel, and I'm not safe in my dreams. Waking up is hard when you get what you want - who you want - only when you're sleeping.

Tomorrow, Sarajevo. Saturday, Austria. Tuesday, back to London. And a couple weeks later, beautiful Vancouver: home. The waking hours are going to be good!

The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea

I'm homeless in two weeks.

I'm jobless in four weeks.

Worst of all: I've fallen - am falling - for someone.

Damn.

There's absolutely no certainty in my life right now. Everything after September is completely unclear, completely unknown. This is terrifying on so many levels -- where am I going to live? how am I going support myself? am I getting closer or further towards a break, towards success, my goals? But there's a lot to be said for this uncertainty. There's so much beauty in the unknown, so much to learn and be inspired by if you can throw yourself fully into that universal ebb-and-flow of change and transition.

Things are going to come to me, things are going to happen. I feel like I'm at the cusp of transition, after a year in limbo. I need to keep my chin up now, keeping searching and fighting and hoping. And we'll see where the cards fall, come September.

Regardless, I'll do the best I can at playing my hand.

Not this again.

Thinking about not thinking about you counts as not thinking about you, right? Kind of? No?

Balls.

A Danish Wedding

Amazing weekend in Denmark, attending Chloe & Casper's wedding, which was in this beautiful old equestrian centre/estate in the countryside, near Aarhus. It was a beautiful wedding, with great friends, amazing food, and copious amounts of alcohol. The perfect weekend, really. And the first time I've left London in 8 months, which is a ridiculous all-time record for me - the longest I've stayed in one place since I was 15, probably.

I've had so many mixed feelings about London, but coming back Sunday night was actually so nice. I love this place. I also hate it, but that's just the emotional tug-a-war of life in this city. It's not easy, but if it were, would we really appreciate it? Appreciate the things that keep us here?

"Who shall I blame for this sweet and heavy trouble, for every stupid struggle, I don't know".

I'm doing some more temp work, tiding myself over, trying to make ends meet, trying to keep afloat. This last month or two has been really rough. I'm still holding onto London, to being here and putting a life together here - for however long - but it's really becoming a battle to stay.

This temp job I'm doing right now is killing my soul, and also, just making it all-too-clear to me that I'm not cut out for office work, for ANY work-just-for-the-paycheck kind of jobs. I've known this my whole life. I've been working since I was 15-years-old, and I've always found 90% of the jobs I've done to be utterly spirit-crushing. For the longest time, I think I assumed that this was something I had to get over, something I had to get used to. It's part of being an adult, doing things you don't want to do. It's part of growing up, waking up early every morning and feeling profoundly sad about the day ahead.

But I know now, that it's not something I'll ever get used to. I'm not built like other people. I think my spirit is more sensitive to these things, because it was designed differently. And so I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I'll only be happy in life if I'm doing something that is creatively engaging. I need to tell stories, I need to write, I need to make things that are important and interesting and pure, that relate key aspects of the human experience, that somehow, for someone, make the world a better place. I need to believe 100% in the work I do. And the only thing I believe in 100% is storytelling.

I feel like every force in the world is wanting me to settle, wanting me to compromise and limit myself. Life is short. Don't take risks, you may never amount to anything. You may never be a success! But I want to risk everything for a chance of success on my own terms, for a chance to do only what I love. I will never be happy working in any sort of regular job, even if it affords me a posh flat full of Danish furniture and Icelandic electronics and a cellar full of fine French wine.

Maybe I should be thankful that most jobs make me absolutely miserable. It makes it easier not to settle for anything but that 1%. I just need to figure out, somehow, how to begin working towards that place that my soul, every minute of every day, wants to be.

Discipline! Confidence! Hope! Discipline.

May? How is it May?

Battersea Power Station on a spring evening

My entries for the last couple months have been mostly pictorial. I guess I just haven't had the words. I'm going to try and find them again.

Since rock bottom, I've managed to get some job interviews. Nothing yet, but I feel like the momentum I'm gathering is leading towards something. I just need to keep plugging away.

Adela moved back to the States a few weeks ago, which was a brutally hard transition. It felt like a break up. We had spent most of our days together for 8 months, and her presence in my life and flat had become so integral to my sense of grounding and balance. As always, life goes on, but this was the hardest goodbye I've had since Jelena moved back to Sarajevo last summer.

I've more consciously started dating again, as the cynicism and disinterest of winter slowly begins to melt away. But the fact is, that I haven't met a single person since the fall that has even remotely piqued my romantic interest. Everyone bores me, and makes me feel boring at the same time. I'm still hung up on November, I think. There's nothing worse than finally meeting someone who seems amazing, and then watching it fall apart before it even begins. And when nothing else of consequence presents itself, I guess you remain holding onto that idea of promise, of untold potential.

I don't want to be one of those people that pines after someone they barely know. I'm not that person, and I always tell those people to move on, to stop being stupid and sad and to get over it. I just find that whole situation unfortunate though, because it was my eagerness that fucked things up, and killed something before it had the opportunity to get good. I think it could've been really good.

But it wasn't, and it isn't, and I need to keep an open mind and try to have faith that there are still interesting, engaging people in this city that are worth the time and effort. But the last season has reaffirmed that regardless, I'm fine. And I could be fine forever, if that's how the cards are dealt.

So, this is what rock bottom feels like.

London, be good to me.

I'm running out of time, money, hope, and patience. I need a break, and I need it now.

Why did I drink so much and smoke so much?

And we talk about music and literature and the cinema, about people and places, foreign exploits, drug-benders and sexual misadventures. We talk about causes and lifestyles and the future, and about how open-minded we all must be to believe in both nothing and everything. And soon the booze runs out, and the cigs run out, and we go to bed feeling alone, no matter who is in our arms.

Nostalgia

And we remember the days when we believed that we would be happy and successful and in love, and moreover, that happiness, success and love would come quickly and easily, like we were led to believe.

Alright, London, alright... I still love you.

dépaysé

City Song

"The city called me so I came

It isn't mine to question what it said

I sleep until the point when I'm awake

I walk until there's nothing left to trek

And everyone is looking for an answer

And everyone is waiting for a break

I came and I was bored of it soon after

But I had nowhere to go and so I stayed

I dreamed a lifetime of this place

It seemed an awful thing to waste"

Emmy the Great

Over the past week, I've found myself missing Vancouver quite a bit. I think it's the first time I've actually really, really missed it since I moved to London in 2008. I always miss the forests and the ocean and the mountains and the accessibility of beautiful deep, dark wilderness. But Vancouver itself, not so much. So why now?

It may be because the city has been at the height of olympic fever for the last couple weeks, and that everyone seems to be having the time of their lives back at home. Or it may be because it's March and I'm still banging my head against the wall here in London. The city is waking up to spring, but I'm still frozen in the battles of the winter.

Now that I have my 2-year visa - now that I no longer have to fight to be in London - I don't even know if I want to be here anymore. I was convinced that I did, but maybe that was just because I had nowhere else I felt I wanted to go? Or because I was clinging onto something that is no longer here, or wasn't even here to begin with?

The last week is the first time in a long time that I've actually looked at Canada as being a possibility for the future; a place where I am relevant and wanted and loved. Lately I've felt really irrelevant and foreign in London, and like I'll always be an outsider. It's nice to know that somewhere in the world, I'm home, I'll always be home, and I don't have to fight for that right. I may never be a Londoner, but I'll always be a Vancouverite.

I've been listening incessantly to Emmy the Great over the last couple days, and it made me realize that some of the artists I have most fallen in love with over the last couple years have all been English, and tied to the London scene. The music that has resonated with me and kept me going is so entrenched in being young and lost and broken and in-and-out-of love in (and with) London.

I love London. And once I get my shit together, I know I'll be able to see that once again.

"I must've been drunk when we dated, 'cause nobody tells me what to do anymore."

After a month of visa-related anxiety, and a stupid hiccup that had me convinced I was going to be deported, I finally got my passport back from the UK Border Agency yesterday. I'm a LEGAL RESIDENT. I'm here. And I can be here until February 2012.

So I guess I can begin to feel grounded now, for a while. Which means I really need to get my shit together. I'm really bored with how things are right now. I'm bored with my patterns, I'm bored with my days, I'm bored with the people I'm meeting, etc. It's been a long time since something really inspired me. And this, of course, is all my fault.

The only thing that I'm really thrilled about right now, surprisingly, is the fact that I'm single. I think this is the first time in my life that I've actually really, really wanted to be single. Being with someone, for a while now, has just seemed so unnatural, so foreign. I get why it works for some people (though many of my friends that are with people, it's not working, it won't work), but I just can't envision myself in that position.

Maybe it's because I haven't met anyone I've found interesting in the longest time, maybe it's because I've just grown into my cynicism. I don't really know. The happiest I am right now, is alone: running in Battersea Park, walking on the Southbank, reading in bed, smoking an early-morning cigarette in the quiet solitude of our mews (not that I ever smoke).

I barely even have the stomach to socialise with anything but a select group of friends right now, how could I even begin to fall in love? Gross.

(Still, I guess a tiny part of me, somewhere, hopes everything I just wrote is a lie. I fear, however, that tiny part may be a voice from the past.)

Still crazy, after all these years...

Hana, Francois & Jean were in London the other weekend for a visit, coming in from Stockholm, Paris & Lyon, respectively. It was the first time I'd seen the Frenchmen since our visit in Paris back in autumn 2008.

Hard to believe it's coming up on five years this July since we all first met, back in the Singapore days. None of us have really changed. It's comforting, but also unsettling.

"I Just Wanted You, I Just Wanted You"

I was feeling a little bit ill today, after getting the flat all cleaned up for Hana, who is in for the weekend from Stockholm.

I lay down for a while, and my mind flashed back through recent weeks, and I so badly wanted you to be there--here--cuddling me. I needed those cuddles today.

And then I thought about my Grandmother, and about how she hasn't been cuddled or held since my Grandfather passed away when I was 12-years-old. I'm now 24.

She is so strong.

In January, on June: The Transient Beauty of a London Summer

I was reading a book tonight as I lay in bed, about to go to sleep; a book about London and change and love and growing up. Not a very good book, actually, but somehow its sentiments and geography aroused in me this irrepressible fantasy of Bloomsbury in early June: last June.

It was an interesting time, for me and for my city. London was beautiful and balmy, its streets filling up with throngs of Londoners, who were awakening to the promises of summer, and all that the coming season entailed.

Jelena and I spent the days hunched over coffees and tea, pouring over lecture notes and course readings to prepare for our upcoming exams. We sprawled out on the grass in the pretty courtyard of Goodenough College, or set-up a work station in what became our own little corner at Freddie's. When we needed a break, we'd picnic in Brunswick Square, surrounded by students reading in the grass, shaded by wise old trees, and workers taking their lunches on park benches.

In the restless evenings, which stretched out painfully and beautifully-long before darkness inevitably fell, we'd stroll through Bloomsbury, meandering our way through quiet streets and leafy squares. Everything was in bloom, and London was perfumed with the smell of flowers, accented with the lingering freshness of cut grass.

And there was no better place to be than where we were everyday: right there in the centre of it all, in the bustling heart of London, but where quiet corners of Bloomsbury kept us safely incubated in our own hopes and dreams. After a good day's work, we'd meet Katie for a couple drinks on her rooftop terrace and talk about life, surrounded by the rooftops of Russell Square to the west, and Grey's Inn Road to the east.

Katie and I had both started seeing people at the same time back in April, and over the summer, we were both, slowly, falling in love. Over whiskeys and pints of ale, we'd hash through our pasts and debrief on our present situations. We were both happy and optimistic, but increasingly aware that however beautiful it seemed, however happy we were, nothing was perfect.

Those days exist so clearly in my memory: I can smell them, hear them, taste them, run my mental fingers over the textured intricacies of every moment. I think the intense beauty of our surroundings - of Bloomsbury in June - coupled with the magical sense of promise and possibility that really is a 'London summer', are some of the reasons I remember it all so well, and that it tantalizes me still, tonight.

But it's more than that.

I was so attuned to the finality of it all, that I saw the painful beauty in the transience of those weeks. Jelena, my best friend in London, would be moving back to Sarajevo the next month, a thought so saddening it made me drink in every moment with her, with thankfulness and quiet grieving. In a few weeks I myself would be getting kicked out of my residence hall, and would no longer be perched happily on the edge of the city, in my home on the Southbank, staring north beyond the shadow of the Tate Modern, toward the skyline of Central London. Exams would soon be over, and my year at the LSE completed. Other close friends would soon be leaving, and not long after them I'd be heading back to Canada for the summer to do my field study research. This knowledge of my own departure cast a shadow of doubt on my relationship: a relationship which made me happy in the moment, and in the naive embrace of new love, but that I still knew was probably all wrong, and would, inevitably, end soon.

I remember those days so clearly. It was all so beautiful and sensual, fulfilling and engaging; I was full of love and thankfulness and optimism, but also, simultaneous, cast under this heavy shadow of loss and change and transition: "this moment is so beautiful, but it's dying as I live it."

This is life, though. I know that. Whether stuck in the gloom of a disappointing November, or floating in the bliss of a blossoming spring, life is always changing, moving forward; there's always potential and there's always loss.

I'm so thankful for the memories of last June, for the lessons those weeks continue to teach me about the past, the present and the future. And for how they make me feel, tonight, as I lay in bed and listen to the rain, and wonder if I'm happy or sad, and why.

"Lick your lips and f*ck suicide"

New Years Eve (and the last party ever) at the Designersblock in Shoreditch = fun, fun fun!

I had an amazing holidays, with my parents and sister in town. They came to London for my Master's graduation ceremony and stayed for Christmas. We spent the time seeing pretty things, eating delicious things, and talking about important things. It was so nice, and the two weeks off from regular life and job hunting really rejuvenated me after the bleakness of my autumn. I feel like I have very little to show for the last few months; nothing really, except some new friendships, some good runs, a completed PhD application, and a general settling-in to the new flat: progress that should represent a month or two, not a whole season.

In the days after my family's sad departure, I found myself slowly regressing back toward the unhealthy emotional/expectational rut of the autumn. But I can't let myself go back there, and I won't. I have to look forward, be productive, and make the year ahead as good as it can possibly be. I have to maintain a healthy mindset and foster a positive outlook. I will get a job, I will get my work visa, I will figure out what I want to do and where I want to be, and I won't be miserable.

Alright, 2010 - surprise me! I'm ready.