Halloween!

So, as all of you should know, Halloween is my favourite holiday of all time. ALL TIME.

It definitely goes back to when I was a little kid and my brother and I would go to my grandparents' house immediately after school every October 31st. There we would have pancakes, or something else that wasn't typically a supper food, and watch Halloween movies until it was finally time to get ready to go trick or treating. My cousin, my brother, and I would all get into our costumes while my grandmother would get into her's. She was always a clown, or a nun, or a witch, but she dressed up every, single year. She loved Halloween that much. We would leave my grandfather in charge of the candy bowl [he had a system that was, 'this candy I don't like for you, two of these candies I do like for me'] and we would go all over their neighbourhood. After exhaustion and sore feet set in, we'd go back to Nana's house and eat as much candy as possible before my parents arrived so we could all watch the fireworks the neighbours always set off. Of course, Grampy always helped us 'sort' the candy, which usually meant taking stuff we didn't like for himself.

I loved it so much that even after I stopped trick or treating I'd still go to my grandparents' and get ready and hang out until it was time to go to a party, or explore the local small pox hospital.

I still love Halloween. That's why I thought I'd be totally disappointed by London. Everyone I talked to said it wasn't a big deal, that no one really celebrated it. It's for kids, you'll never find a costume, you'll never find anything to do.

Pfft.

I wasn't not going to celebrate Halloween. Bonfire Night with its fireworks and creepy burning of Guy Fawkes: The Doll Version wasn't going to cut it. So, I did some searching and found that, yes, there were going to be bars celebrating Halloween. Excellent. Even if it was just me and a bunch of Americans, this was going to happen.

I wanted to go as Velma from Scooby Doo, but clothes in England are insanely expensive. I really didn't think I'd wear a red, £50 mini skirt enough to justify the price tag, so I decided to be a cheater and purchase a costume.

First I had to learn the lingo. For some reason, dressing up in costume is referred to as 'fancy dress'. Costume shops are fancy dress shops. The first couple of google map searches were pretty frustrating because I didn't want fancy dresses, which in my mind were things you'd wear on New Year's Eve. I wanted a costume.

Once I figured it out, I wrote down directions to the easiest one to get to [a tube station with one entrance/exit and a fancy dress shop on the same street as said tube station] I set off to Escapade. I admit, I did leave costume shopping to the last second. Everyone kept saying it wasn't a huge deal, so I left it until October 28th.

The shop had a queue that went down the street and into the road. I am not even joking.

It took 20 minutes to get into the shop.

The shop itself was packed, costumes were everywhere. They had three changing rooms. I grabbed a very inaccurate skeleton costume and got in line. I should have worn leggings and a tank top because then I could have changed in front of the mirror instead of waiting an hour for a changing room.

Escapade's website had a Freddie Mercury costume, but it was expensive so I was sort of relieved when I couldn't find it in the shop. I don't think I would have been able to resist it. I debated on getting a Star Trek costume, or maybe a superhero costume... The male versions. I super wasn't in the mood to be Daughter of Wolverine or Ironette [not even kidding, that was the name of the costume] when I could be the 'real' thing, except with boobs.

I put my male costumes back when I heard the shop employees discussing the sizing. It went by height. Apparently, a large was for someone over six feet. Smalls were in short supply, and the costumes were made so generously there was no way I'd find someone small enough for a five feet, two inches person. Especially at the last second.

But, back to the changing room situation. It was pretty ridiculous. You were allowed to take three costumes in with you. Two girls decided to take their friends into their dressing room so they could try on more costumes. Then, their friends would be their gophers and go grab more. These girls had dozens of costumes in the changing rooms and in the hallway outside. The whole time the changing room attendant sat there with a stunned, or stoned [or both], face on, pretending not to notice what was very clearly going on. After 45 minutes, an Italian guy, tired of waiting, leaned into the changing area and shouted, "Hurry it up bitches, it's a piece of fabric and a zipper. Move it!" Hilarious. The accent said 'Italian', but the phrasing said 'I watch a lot of American television'. He was my new best friend [confirmed when it was finally my turn to try on my costume and he went, 'Good luck, beautiful!'].

Anyway, the skeleton costume lights up. The heart isn't shaped like a real heart, sadly, it's a romantic heart. It's not protected by the chest plate, they made the chest plate smaller and sort moved it between the ribs. Otherwise you wouldn't see it flash. I already broke it once because my boobs attacked the lighting system when I put it on. Luckily, I fixed it. The costume itself makes me look a little pregnant because I needed a small but they didn't have any more.

But none of that matters. Because I have a costume, and tomorrow night is Halloween!

I can't wait.

<3 Jade

The new job: Part unemployed

Call centres suck.

I lasted the three days of training and then one day on the phones, so, at least I tried? I guess?

...

It was awful. I hated it so much. The training was okay, but the reality of getting on the phones was just too much.

First of all, I couldn't understand a lot of people since we called all over the UK. Some accents are like the equivalent of very old people in the woods of Cape Breton who mostly speak Gaelic. Some of them couldn't understand my accent, some just couldn't hear at all.

Why couldn't they hear? Because, typically, the people who don't have broadband are the people who are very old. About 75% of the calls were to people who were at least 80. They didn't own computers, they didn't know broadband.

Sometimes you talked to people who said the account holder had died, usually the widow. That was terrible. Imagine a telemarketer intruding into your grief. I'd be a million times ruder than these poor people were.

Usually they were old and didn't have computers, so you had to try to sell them computers, too. It was beyond rude.

"I'm too old for computers."
"Ah, you're never too old for computers, sir."
"I said I'm too old!"
"Are you sure? Do you have any children or grandchildren you'd like to keep in touch with?"

The man said no! Respect that and move on. But, you had to keep the people on the phone as long as possible.

Every so often you'd talk to someone young, who had their telephone and broadband with separate companies. That was alright. I had a fantastic conversation with one lady about Canada. She had relatives emigrate a zillion years ago and she liked to keep up with Canadian news because of that. I'm sure I would have been yelled at for wasting time and having a conversation with someone, but I didn't go back the second day, soooo. Whatever.

It got to the point where I was counting down seconds until breaks, then until I could go home. One person quit after listening in on the phones, she hated the cold calling aspect. I gave it the one day and decided I couldn't forget my morals for eight hours every day, which was actually was several people said I'd have to do. So, I quit. A guy quit.

Three people quit by day 1 on the job. We had 12 in our training group, so 1/4 decided they hated it.


Basically, the moral of this story is cold calling old people is awful and I'd rather be unemployed and homeless I guess.

...I am the woman who 200 years ago would be starving in the streets because I couldn't bring myself to become a prostitute and I can read so clearly I'm off the marriage market.

Sigh. :(

Well, I've submitted my CV to loads of agencies, and after I move tomorrow I can direct all of that energy to job hunting. Hopefully it works out.

Of course, it has to work out. I have 1 year and 10 months left on this visa, so going home is not an option.

<3 Jade

Flat hunting is...

Frustrating? Nearly impossible? Ridiculous?

...All of the above.

I really didn't know what I was getting into when I moved here. The UK is deep in a recession. It was hit way harder than Canada, and basically every day, all day the news talks about three things:

1. The war in Afghanistan
2. How awful the stocks are doing
3. The zillion pending government cuts

This affects every aspect of everything. Jobs are impossible to find, and this in turn makes apartments hard to find. Rent has increased in what is probably an attempt to make up for lost income, though rent is always high in cities, especially one as large as London. Most ads on Gumtree [the UK version of Kijiji] specify that one must be a working professional or a student to even be considered for rooms. And these rooms are not even that great, honestly. But whatever. Your classism is showing, London.

If you weed out the places that are too expensive, want you to be a professional, want you to be Christian, want you to be gay [not gay friendly, actually gay], and finally the people that want their home to be 'meat free zones' [because having to see meat gives vegetarians and vegans seizures, didn't you know?] you're left with... not a lot.

Then you have to do further weeding out. You want to live within walking distance to an underground station. At least, I do. Why? Well, for loads of reasons. Trains on the underground leave every 3 to 6 minutes. Overground trains might leave two to three times an hour, during peak times. Buses insist they leave every 5 to 10 minutes during peak times, but they're lying. London doesn't have power lines above ground, they're under the concrete. This means that somewhere in London there is a road being dug up at all times. To add to that, the population of London is bigger than all of Nova Scotia combined. So, that's Nova Scotia shoved into a small county. These things contribute to congested roads where it takes over an hour to drive the distance between Pictou and New Glasgow. Basically, buses suck, and trains are a disaster to try to plan around. Trains can add up to an hour to your travel time if you're unlucky enough to miss one, or if you have to leave early because it's either that or catching the train that will make you late.

Seriously, every, other mode of transportation sucks so much that when the underground goes on strike people just take a sick day.

Anyway, I followed the housing market on Gumtree all summer. Then, two weeks into my stay I decided it was time to spread my wings and leave my cousin's home. So, I made an ad. It said I was new to the country, wanted to live with people around my age, maybe people who were also travellers. I said I didn't want to have to share a room, and that I wanted to live somewhere relatively clean.

I also included a picture because that's what everyone else was doing, and really, pictures help. I don't even open ads that don't have a photo of the room, so I figure most people are probably with me on this one. Naturally, I picked some nicer pictures because no one wants to look crazy and 'crazy' describes ninety per cent of my Facebook photos.

This photo says, "I am only slightly crazy and I love elephants!"

This photo says, "You probably shouldn't leave me unattended in your house."

Unfortunately, a side effect of 'not crazy' photos is every bored moron feels they can hit on you through Gumtree. ...Because clearly the quickest way to my heart is to flood my e-mail with requests to be my boyfriend when all I really want is a flat. Watch me swoon RIGHT NOW.

It's sad because these guys are clearly delusional and probably don't even get that they're creepy as hell. I didn't bother to respond to any of them because I didn't want these sketchbags to have my e-mail address, but if I had of it would have been something along the lines of, "Where do you get off using my housing ad to hit on me? It's creepy and gross and totally unacceptable." I'm fairly certain these creeps would have been shocked! "What do you mean it makes me look like I was raised by Joe Francis? You're just an ungrateful bitch!"


...Right.

Anyway, here comes the parade of loser.

My very first response:

are you looking for a boyfriend by any chance?

No. No I am not.

My second response:

Hi, im 28 years old and verey friendly man and i live in a one cozy beroom flat on my own and just need some one like you in my flat because its boring to be alone meybe your the same, if you interesed you can email me then i dont care about any bills from you i can offer you a free living and cool life.
Thanks,
NAME REMOVED

Uh, what? I clearly said I didn't want to share a room, so nice reading comprehension. Also, ew. I have a sneaking suspicion that 'cool life' is very literal. As in, "It's awfully cool in this basement you have me chained up in."

At this point I actually changed the photos, hoping the creepy responses would stop. There was another guy who wanted to look at flats with me, promising to "make our house a home." The rest were alright. Then there was the guy that turned creepy as we e-mailed back and forth.

He originally e-mailed me with a description of his flat and some photos that made it seem really nice. So, I e-mailed back and told him that I’d love to take a look and meet the people.

He responded with:

hi, i have ogt a room for a week only. and its £80. u think it sounds suitable?

bye

Uh, no. Not suitable. It said in my ad that I was looking for something long term. I e-mailed him back and told him exactly that.

His response said:

u can hav it for longterm


only if yur hot lololol

I didn’t even bother to reply because clearly it was just another sketchbag.


Anyway, this rather long story has a happy ending. After a couple of failed responses, failing to get one of the rooms I looked at [because competition here is huge, tons of people look at every room no matter how crap it is], I finally found a place to live! I’m going to move in next Friday, which gives me just enough time to go to IKEA [SQUEE!] and pick up some things I need!

<3 Jade