"So this is the new year..."

Hey everyone!

England in the new year has been really great so far...so great in fact that I've hardly had a chance to blog. I'm realizing that the reason I was so consistent about writing in Ireland was, CLEARLY, because I had no job! Ha. And now that I have a job, I'm busy busy busy with no time to write. BUT here I am, on a SNOW DAY, all ready to catch up. Buttt....we'll get to that.

After I got home from Berlin two weeks ago, MAndrew and Alex came to visit. I, as most of you well know, had been sort of down on London, and having them here as soon as I returned was really good for me. I was able to see London with mates from home, and I was reminded, once again, that yes, I CAN live here and be happy.

Here's Juliet, Andrew, Alex, and I all smarted-up. We went out dancing with my Irish girls, Jill and Sadbh, and ended up at this really great indie-dance club. It's definitely going to be a regular dancing haunt of mine, now that it has been discovered. We also saw some amazing exhibits at a couple of museums (reminder--London has a GREAT museum scene...oh yes, it is a scene), ate great British food, drank great British beer at my local, and had an all around good time. (Thanks for coming to visit guys...I think it really set the bar for a spectacular year in England!)

After Andrew and Alex left, I promptly got really, really sick. In fact, I started getting sick sometime around Berlin, and I am still sick now (horrible cough that won't go away) but I actually missed work a bit during that week after the boys left because I was too sick to move. I went to the doctor and got antibiotics, but it didn't really do much good, to be honest. I completely lost my voice, but couldn't afford to take too many days off...so I taught with no voice for about a week. Imagine, me who never shuts up, with absolutely no voice, trying to manage a classroom of kids I don't know. You all wish you could have been a fly on the wall, I know :)

SPEAKING of "classrooms of kids I don't know," I have officially lost not one but TWO jobs in two weeks. (Don't worry, only ONE of them was a teaching job. ha.) I mentioned in my last blog that I was going to be doing a position in an elementary school near my house, so I was going to be in the same place four days a week...without a commute. Well, basically, it didn't work out. I went to the school for ONE day...and it SUCKED. It was definitely not the kind of school I would ideally like to be in (bad administration, crappy antiquated teachers...), but I thought hey, I'll give it a chance anyway. Well, I got sick the next day, and they fired me. I DIDN'T WANT TO WORK THERE ANYWAY :) I'm not for want of jobs though, so don't worry about me, not that you were.

The second lost job? How did you do THAT, you must be wondering? Well...I decided during a brief stint of insanity, that I should also wait tables in the evenings, to make some extra money...like I did back in my youthful heyday. HA. Well...I ended up getting a job at this AWESOME retro bowling alley, waiting tables/lanes. I went for my training day, and it was easy work, but, I told them I didn't want to give up my Friday AND Saturday nights...and basically, that was what they were looking for, so that was that. I absolutely am NOT in this country to work until 4am on my weekends....so...no second job for me!

Hmmmm....what else...also in terms of jobs (and my future), I don't know what I'm doing with my life. (How many times have you all heard THAT from me before? Luckily, I know lots of you also say that about your own lives quite often...and that makes me feel less insane.) I feel like I change my mind about where I want to be and what I want to do at least once a week these days. I am currently applying for jobs for September in London, BUT, I'm also in the process of starting my applications for teaching jobs in some undisclosed locations around the United States. (YES, undisclosed! A girl's got to have SOME secrets right?!) Really, though, I'd like the perfect job to fall into my lap without having to work at it. Lately I've been feeling like I just want to have a good REASON to stay somewhere. I'm getting tired of moving around...but I need a REALLY good excuse to just stay. Somewhere. Anywhere. And Ireland is out, by the way. The government released the rules about the new visa, and I'm not eligible. And I'm not getting married anytime soon. SO, if anybody wants to give me a reason to settle in somewhere for awhile, let me know ;)

My house FINALLY had a housewarming two weeks ago, and it was a blast. I was so nervous about the whole "throwing a first party" thing, but it worked out really well. A bunch of people I knew showed up...which was really nice, because to be honest, I don't even know that many people here! With the six of us, we ended up having a good amount of people, and everyone's friends meshed really well. The house was really well decorated with cool lighting and christmas lights, and it was the first time I thought to myself, "Wow. Our house is REALLY awesome." It helped that everyone else thought so too :)

Here's a picture of Xan and I at the party...this was towards the end of the night when things had cooled down a bit, and there weren't quite so many people.

Adam came back to London last week (thank goodness!!) and I FINALLY got to see him last night. He and his housemate (and lovely guy) Jev, just moved to Stoke Newington...which is the neighborhood that I want to live in next year. It's MUCH closer to Manor House, so we are practically neighbors now. Last night was, by far, my favorite night so far that I have lived in London. It SNOWED...and it STUCK! This NEVER happens in London, so we took advantage of it by having a snowball fight at midnight when it started snowing really hard...even though we all "had to work." Hopefully, I'll get some pictures from Adam of the snowy madness, and post them, because I think he got some pretty brilliant photographs. Turns out that I actually had a SNOW DAY today...definitely my first snow day since I was in high school!! I felt like a school kid again.

This is the view from my bedroom window, before sunrise this morning. Yay snow!

I went with Juliet to Finsbury Park, and we ended up having a snowball fight with some randomers...Irish of course. It's days like these and nights like last night that make me feel like London could be an alright place to be for awhile....we will see how I feel about it next week. (My thoughts change with the wind, apparently.)

Pretty much, that sums up what I've been up to these past two weeks. I haven't been keeping in touch with everyone as well as I'd like to lately, so if you want to drop me a proper email, I promise promise promise to respond right away. (COLIN, you are on the TOP of my list. I have been thinking about how you are an amazing email-er and I've been a sub-par correspondent. I'll get on it! You and my mom can get together and chat about how "I never write or call or anything." haha.)

Comment? :)

Love Sarah