Young people and parties.

My brother had his 18th birthday party last night. I documented it through that most noble of modern mediums, the selfie.

Brother's 18th party, there are a bunch of teenagers in my house having fun.

Luckily for me and my older sister there is food.

Dunno who these teens are but they are clearly having fun.

I tried engaging (talking about "selfies") but they all left. Thanks go out to my friend who works with young people and suggested topics such as Nandos, flappy birds and being both sorry and not sorry at the same time. 

Some of them came back.

They started playing battle-shots. What fresh Hell is this?

Managed to co-opt the music.

Went to the toilet, a slight reprieve from these young people.

These two are "in love."

I'm taking a selfie with young people.

I've been roped into playing the box game.

Hoovering up.

Morning after.

Maybe I'll have to change the name of this blog....

I have been accepted by the music centre and will be signed onto the supply teaching books. Huzzah! I have no idea how many hours I will end up eventually getting but at least it is something. Something creative. I'll still be devoting time to more meaningful employment in terms of the career I ultimately want.

I also got offered the other job. I know I should just be grateful. I am grateful. But I rejected it. I really do not want to be working two part-time jobs when neither are necessarily beneficial to my main career plans, particularly when the library job was not very good pay and didn't have flexible hours. I even said in the interview when asked "where do you see yourself in five years?" that I wanted to be working full-time in a publishing house or media company. I was hardly going to be all "it's my dream to be a part-time assistant librarian in a private school" was I? Only they clearly saw something (well, let's not blame them there) and decided they wanted me. Imbeciles. Nah, they all seemed really lovely. And, as I've said elsewhere, it really wouldn't be hideous working there. There were some obvious pros to the job (at the very least a regular income and regular hours) but too many obvious cons. And I had already accepted to music job by the time I got this offer.

It is, however, going to motivate me to make sure I am actually doing stuff beneficial to my career. If I've turned down this job I really need to make it pay off. And so we come to the 40 days of creativity. I have been awful, but it was my brother's birthday and then my birthday but at least I'm not 24, unemployed and living with my mother. I'm just 24 and living with my mother.

I definitely haven't done something creative everyday for Lent but I have made more of an effort generally, but on Monday I had those two interviews, so I did very little apart from that. And then I was concerned with buying my brother's birthday presents. Then I had to go into town to sign on. But I did buy a diary and write an entry. I have this thing where I have loads of notebooks given as gifts or souvenirs but I never want to write in them because I'm afraid I'll just be wasting them. I know. Notebooks are supposed to be written in. So I bought a really cheap one to start another diary. I used to write and write and write as a teenager and I rediscovered these chronicles recently, and reread them with much mirth, and thought well, if I'm serious about really trying this writing thing I should actually get in the habit of writing. I obviously have this blog but I can take a diary anywhere and write any old crap without being afraid of what people think.

I've generally still been batting creative ideas around but I had to get ready for some guests who visited this weekend for my birthday. I did create a treasure hunt in the garden for them which culminated in them finding a sword and slaying my brother who was dressed up as a foul creature. I suppose that was quite creative.

40 days of creativity and 2 interviews.

I don't usually do Lent. I've never been into dieting so I've never given up chocolate or carbs or whatever. Even when I considered myself to be religious the only thing I did for Lent was consider my faith a lot. This year, however, I have decided to do something. Being unemployed really chips away at your confidence, motivation and self-esteem so in order to make sure I stay motivated and actually be productive I've decided to make sure I do something creative everyday throughout Lent. Like, actually create something. For a while now whenever I've picked up my guitar or sat down to create something I would just feel like I had lost all joy from it. Hopefully this project will get me back into a routine of being motivated and being creative.

Day one - I learnt a new blues riff on guitar and worked a bit more on a different blues song I've been kicking about for a while.

Day two - I was on a long train journey so didn't do that much, but I was listening to music and jotted down a few ideas for some lyrics for stuff.

Day three - Yeah, I did nothing this day. I've been pretty rubbish. I did go and see the OpSoc show though which was good, and creative. And I bought some clarinet reeds and some clarinet books.

Day four - Didn't really do anything today either, I'm terrible. I had a long journey back down to home, so that's my excuse.

Day five - Got out my clarinet and started playing for the first time in a long time. Whilst I was looking through my old clarinet music I found the sheet music for a piano/vocal song I thought I had lost ages ago and was quite gutted about. This creativity thing is paying off already. So I got my keyboard out and had a play through it again.

I probably wouldn't have gotten my clarinet out today if it wasn't for my interview tomorrow, which is a story in and of itself. So. My former singing teacher had mentioned  back in September when she found out I was going to be back home for the foreseeable future that I could join the Music Centre supply teaching books for voice and maybe clarinet and just generally doing supply work. So I handed in an application form and months later I finally get an email from someone at the office asking about my application and finally I have an interview SIX MONTHS AFTER HANDING IN AN APPLICATION. I emailed asking about the format of the interview and only on Thursday (whilst I was on the train) did I get an email saying that I will be tested on woodwind and should prepare a lesson. I haven't played clarinet in ages and voice is really my first instrument so I am completely confused. Maybe because my singing teacher is assistant head of Music Centre she could vouch for my vocal abilities and that's why they want to test woodwind? No idea. But it's annoying that they only mentioned this on Thursday, I could have taken some music with me on the train to prepare.

I also have another interview, which is good for me in a way, but it's for a job I don't particularly want. I only applied because I have to apply for a certain amount of jobs to be entitled to job seekers allowance and I deliberately submitted a crappy application. But some idiot has gone and offered me an interview. It's for part-time assistant librarian which wouldn't be hideous but it's not really what I want to do. The pay isn't great but a job's a job. But they want me to bring my birth certificate to an interview. And they expect me to be there at 11.15, have a tour of the school, do two clerical tasks, break for lunch, speak to students about library services then (and only then) does my interview commence at 2pm. And this was just sent in an email this past week, I had assumed I hadn't made it past the first stage as I had heard nothing but then I received this email. No phone call, no confirmations, just an email expecting me to be there in excess of 3 hours for a 16 hour a week job. Is this common practice? Can anyone confirm?

The music job would be good money, but really sporadic hours as it is supply so literally just covering sickness and other absences. I would also need to fork out for insurance on a car as I would be expected to go to a lot of schools as the music centre is a hub and sends peripatetic teachers out to local schools.

The librarian job is at a school that I could walk to every day, the hours would be regular so I could devote other time to searching for a job I do actually want but the pay is rubbish and I dunno if I can be bothered with snotty nosed private-school children (yeah it's at a private school).

But I know I'm lucky to have two interviews, I just wish they were two interviews for jobs that would start my career!

Swingin' Scotland

Last weekend I was at a swing dance workshop in Edinburgh called "The University of Swing" organised by Edinburgh University's very own swing dance society. It was great and I hadn't been to a weekend workshop since one in Aberdeen almost four years ago. The university gimmick worked quite well with the three streams for beginners, intermediates and advanced...s being renamed Bachelor of Swing (BSw), Masters of Swing (MSw) and Doctorate of Philosophy in Swing (PhDSw) respectively. They had wee paper degrees rolled up on string to decorate the hall for the Saturday night social and all in all it was very lovely.

I decided to do the whole weekend as a lead, traditionally women are follows and men are leads, as I felt I would get more out of the weekend as a lead. I had started leading as a necessity when I first established the society at Dundee because, quite simply, there weren't enough! It was really interesting to learn how to lead and I enjoyed working out the moves but after a while I did start to begrudge it just a bit. But then, I dunno, something clicked or switched or whatever and now I actually prefer leading to following (although I will still always love following particularly when a fabulous hunk of a dancer is leading me into swingy glory). I could have easily done the PhD stream as a follow (check me!) but I've been noticing on the social dance floor that I have a gap in knowledge of intermediate lead moves. I've done one or two advanced classes or workshops as a lead where the move there and then is broken down so I pick it up ok but generally speaking, on the social dance floor, you don't use advanced moves nearly half as much as you use beginners and intermediate ones; unless you know your partner really well and dance with them very regularly and as I often spend more time following than leading on the social floor I don't get the opportunity to practise those moves as much as I would like so I start to lose them. That was a long rambly sentence. So yeah, I have my basics and I know a few advanced moves (which aren't necessarily that useful in a social dance) but I had a dearth of knowledge regarding intermediate moves as a lead and I thought this weekend would be a really great opportunity to fill that gap and just learn all the tricks and nuances that come after a weekend of intense dancing.

I'm a great believer in giving and receiving plenty of feedback in a workshop environment, on a social floor it's considered bad etiquette to give unsolicited feedback, so I would often ask my follows questions after we'd tried a move such as "how was that connection" and "how did that feel, could you tell the change?" One of the follows said "it's so great that you talk about the move and ask for feedback, not a lot of others in this group are" which took me aback slightly but I know how, sometimes, even a workshop environment can be intimidating. I just happen to have an over-inflated ego and massive lady balls. I am, though, one of those really annoying people that asks the teacher loads of questions too. But I had a nice moment where I put my hand up to ask a question and the teacher said "is it ok if we just get to you in a minute?" but by the time they came round and asked if I was ok my partner and I had answered it ourselves. A little bit of personal problem solving. It felt good.

The social dances were great, although I felt like I was in a bit of a no woman's land in a way. On the social dance floor I lead and follow but as I had lead in the workshops I didn't really meet any of the other leads (this happens a lot, you tend to meet everybody in the opposite role but not that many in your role, as you don't dance with them) so I didn't really get asked at all by leads outwith the Dundee group. I obviously could have gone and asked them but I was more interested in asking the follows as I wanted to practice what I had learnt, but then I got weirdly nervous. And not many of the follows (outwith Dundee) really asked me as I suppose they only really thought of the leads as the men, which is fair enough as that is the traditional role. One or two of the follows that I had met in the workshop, though, did come up and ask me to dance as a lead and it really made my night. One of the best dances I had on the Saturday was with a woman from the intermediate stream who asked me to dance. I got asked again by a follow from my workshop at the blues after-party, even though I know very little blues - and I told her this, which was really great too, a confidence boost. I went ahead and asked one of the follow teachers to dance too and she complimented me on my leading which was nice although I am aware she was at the weekend in a teaching capacity and is encouraging to everyone, but it was still nice to be told I lead well.

There are some cool little moves though, I just dunno if I'll ever get. There is just a (and I may well lose some people here) masculine energy from the male leads (I don't necessarily think that leading and following is or needs to be gendered, it's just that tradition has fallen that way, what I'm talking about is when men are dancing whichever role) that I must be trying to emulate when I lead on a subconscious level (as I most often see men leading) but I can never get quite right. Maybe it's just a confidence thing? Who knows. And I always feel more confident leading when wearing trousers and more pretty and graceful following when I'm wearing a dress or a skirt. And I know that that is just social conditioning. But it's a strange one.

In other news I submitted some comedy sketches to a BBC Radio 4 show. I have no expectations (even though I have them a bit) but I have no expectations on what will happen. I think I read that for their last submissions something like 800 sketches were sent in. Maybe more. Maybe it was over 1000. Both those numbers ring a bell. I also booked a ticket to a comedy writing speaker thing at MediaCity so it would be great to get some tips and meet people. I feel so silly saying that I want to be a writer and particularly write jokes, I suppose it's because I know other people who want to be writers but who just aren't very good and I'm afraid that people will think that about me when I say it. Please do not use this blog as a measuring stick, it is waffle, drivel and just word vomit. It's just that I've tried to get sensible publishing/media jobs and I'm aware that creator jobs are hard to come by, extraordinarily competitive and have little money until you really make it, but I've been applying for sensible office type jobs in the sector and I'm getting nowhere so I'm actually going to give this a jolly good go and start writing properly.

Tomorrow.