100 things: 100 photos - photo 4

I have fallen hopelessly behind on my 100 things. I have fallen hopelessly behind on many things. My to-do list is only getting bigger and bigger, and no matter how much I try I don't seem to be making even a small dent in it. I really don't know what is wrong with me, except for the fact I need a holiday. I have booked a flight to go to Greece in the middle of september for a bit of a rest, and hopefully some sea and sun. Until then my 100 photos will be a countdown of summery images of Greece. This photo wasn't actually taken in the summer, but the spring. But it makes no difference. It is the view from the beach under my greek grandmother's summer house in Dilesi. Dilesi is a village opposite Evia, which means the sea is closed in and there are no distant horizons. Where ever you look there is land near by. My grandmother got swindled and was persuaded that buying a plot of land in Dilesi to build a summer house would be a good idea. As a result we have ended up with a summer house that is slowly slipping down the cliff in a very boring part of Greece next to one of the worst seas in Greece. The house itself is nice and fits a lot of people. When I was young we would often go for weekends. More often that not together with a bunch of relatives and family friends. So I have a lot of memories from this place. The house in the photo isn't my grandmother's house, I am standing on the beach under her house looking to one side.

I have a confession

First things first. Guys I am sick! I have been since saturday, and I just want to sleep forever and forever. The doctor had no idea what I have (as usual) and all I can do is wait and hope it goes away. So I'm lying low at the moment and lurking around (in my breaks between dozing and feeling sorry for myself.) Anyway. My confession. I wanted to confess that yes, I do like some of Phil Collins songs. *hangs head in shame* There is one particular Phil Collins song that I really love. *blushes in embarrassment* Here it is as heard in one of my favourite scenes from a film. (You can so totally tell my age from this clip!)
*sigh* The Paris metro is so much more like the NY metro than London's one... There are days when I really miss Paris...I have a confession

I am a year older

...which is pretty much bleurgh. Can I stay 30 for ever? Or even better 22? Last weekend I went to LFA2011 again and this week I had training at work (which was a lot of condescending rubbish) and last Thursday my mother came for a visit. So now I am enjoying a lot of arguing going on between my mother and my grandmother. Fun, fun, fun. Yesterday was my birthday! For my birthday I went shopping down-town with my mother where I made her get me the loveliest waterproof mac from Hobbs.

It's gorgeous, isn't it? Afterwards I had booked a table at Rosso Pomondorro (an italian restaurant) in Covent Garden. It was a nice restaurant, with good food and they put up with me changing the number of people the reservation was for multiple times. But on the other hand, the service wasn't the best. Maybe because it was Saturday and they were too busy and harassed? In any case, not the best service. I had a small gathering of eight in the end: my sister and her boyfriend (who got me a lovely book from Dover books with Kay Nielsen's fairytale illustrations and some adorable postcards with ink drawings of anthropomorphised animals), Natasha and Theo (who got me a cute ethnic cushion) and my friend Amin from Paris - who had come over to present a paper at a conference in Cambridge - who brought two friends of his with him. We had fun and it was a laugh. Not a bad birthday gathering. My only wibble was that I was sort of hoping to share a birthday with Natasha's any minute to be born baby boy. But it was not be. He's still not ready to come out.

100 things: 100 photos - photo 3

I am really behind on my 100 things. I have got to step it up, or I will never finish! I am thinking that since it's summer and I am stuck in this miserably wet english weather they call summer here, I will just inundate you with photos from better climes and better times. So be prepared for lots of summer vacation holiday photos! Every summer I always used to spent at least a week on an island or somewhere by the sea in Greece. When I was a kid with my parents, and since I turned 16 with friends. Sometimes it was just a week, other summers I went for as long as a month. Prices used to be cheap, both boat fares - especially if you had a student card - and rented rooms. Then when prices went up, I started going camping. Sometimes organised camping and sometimes free camping. This will possibly be my first year of not going anywhere. Even last year, I pitched a tent in a forest on a small island for a week before coming to the UK. So yeah, summer with no sun and no sea is not really summer for me. This is a photo from August 2010, taken on the seafront promenade of the village of Panormos in Tinos. It is such a typically greek summer vista. It is evening, as you can see from the long shadows under the chairs. After a long day of sightseeing - we had rented a car to see the island - and swimming, we finally sat down on a seafront taverna to eat. I took this photo while sitting down at our table. The sky is typically cloudless and the sea dark blue. What you can see of the island is barren and arid, as the Cycladic islands are. And of course boats... Okay, now I'm getting maudlin and home-sick.

Last weekend

Remember how I keep on telling you what a bad blogger I am? Here's some more proof. A whole week later I have decided to tell you about what I got up to last weekend. Maybe next week I will tell you about this weekend. So the London Festival of Architecture is on. It lasts about three weeks. I went to see some things the weekend before, and I went to see some more things last weekend, (and this weekend too). Exhibitions, actions and events in parks and squares, architectural practices letting you visit and showing you around. Last Saturday night I went to an indie concert in a little pub in Farrington. You know the sort of concert where it's you and the bands's closest friends. We went because the headliners, the Occasional Flicker's, are a greek indie band - based in Edinburgh - are kind of known in the greek indie circuit. Which isn't hard to do. There are so few bands, that we know them all. They aren't a bad little band, with some nice tunes. The singer has the strongest greek accent though!

Opening acts were John Collins that tried his best to make interesting and engaging banter, but wasn't really my thing, and another scottish band, Spaghetti Anywhere. No, unfortunately, there were no spaghetti western references in their music. I was very disappointed. They were a typical miserable scottish indie band. (There is only one Belle and Sebastian!) The singer had an interesting voice, if they just wrote some more interesting melodies...

Hear that accent? Because I can never resist a scottish accent (any scots on my flist?), I drank a pint of cider, screwed up my courage and chatted up the singer a bit after the gig. He was a very nice guy, we had the typical awkward conversation you have with a fellow indie person... I spent the night with my sister and her boyfriend in Wimbledon. I slept in their south-african room-mates empty bed - he was on holiday. And next day I went to an architectural walk organised by Atkins - a very big architectural and engineering company. The walk was led by one of their senior architects and was very enjoyable. One of the best things I've been on in this festival. That and the Developing City exhibition in the Walbrook Building (just opposite Cannon Street Station). If you live in London, are interested in the history of the City and like big well made models of buildings, you should check the exhibition out! It's free and open until the 9th of September, except Mondays.

Software excitement and inspirations

It's been a while. I get into phases where I'm not very talkative or social, just ask anyone who has ever lived with me how often I hole myself up in my own room and do my own thing completely ignoring other people. It doesn't help that I have been busy applying for jobs with a new found desperation, and reading up on InDesign. Guys! InDesign is a pretty awesome program! It's one of those programs that reading a book on how to use it actually makes me smile with excitement! Not because I'm a computer geek, because I'm not, but because I'm a design geek, and the possibilities it offers are exciting! How did I live so long with just Photoshop? It's an awesome layout program, all the nifty stuff you can do with text and graphics and layers! And you can create multipage files! And save as multipage pdfs! Yay! And if you're a seasoned photoshop user, the interface and the logic is very easy to learn. I actually made a new portfolio and other stuff with it before even reading the book! Back in the very very beginning when I first installed it a couple of months ago, and had only seen a couple of informative tutorials on the web, I made a little portfolio of inspirations for a job application. Sometimes when applying for architecture practices they can ask for the damnedest things. This particular practice had asked for five things that inspire us architecturally. This is what I came up with: > > > > >

I went shopping again

So anyway I didn't get the job, obviously, and the new manager is still driving us crazy at work. I can't wait for him to crash and burn so we can get a new one. I am considering writing a letter of complaint about him. A number of people would sign it, it's just that no one seems up to writing it. And as the most educated person there, maybe I should do it. I did a bit of retail therapy yesterday to cheer myself up. I got a pair of turquoise skinny jeans from urban outfitters (yes, I'm too old and fat for skinny jeans, but whatever).

I couldn't find a photo of the turquoise colour I got. And I got a black shirt from Mango for any prospective interviews or future office jobs (we got to keep on hoping against hope).

And worst of all I went to John Lewis and ended up buying a skirt from Hobbs. It was 60% off, but this is Hobbs... For non UK people, Hobbs is an upmarket shop for serious clothes. The skirt I bought was from their casual line, but my plan was to wear it to prospective interviews or future office jobs (yup, it goes with the shirt).

Question: would you match a pekan coloured skirt (yes, that's what colour it is) with a magenta jacket? How about with cinnamon tights and top as well? Also I have been busy wearing this cool scarf I got from Oasis a week ago:

For all you who didn't already realise, I have a bit of a thing for clothes... Next thing on my list: summer brogues. Any ideas?

100 things: 100 photos - photo 2

Today I chose something simpler and easier. A digital photo I took in 2008. I have long had quite an obsession with reflections. I love photographing reflections in mirrors, windows and puddles. I actually have a whole series of self-portraits taken in reflections. The more broken up and complex the more I like them. This particular photo was taken in one of the side streets in Monastiraki flea-market, one of the more colourful and interesting places in Athens. I always liked visiting Monastiraki, Thuseio and the environs for the shops, the atmosphere, the food, the antiques and the photographic opportunities. And the three years I lived in central Athens it was ridiculously easy for me to get there. On one side it's me - with my old discrete wire-framed glasses and before I cut a fringe - and on the other side there's my sister and two of my best friends. In the middle is a photo of the old king. I am rather proud of this picture, I think in captures the moment and the location quite well. I even submitted it (together with two others) in a photographic competition of city photography in Athens. I got shortlisted and my photos were exhibited, but of course I wasn't one of the finalists. >

Calling all Canadians

I am loosing all hope with the UK and Europe. If this Paris job doesn't pull through I will have to look at other options. The US is too hard - too much unemployment -, Australia is too far away, Asia is too scary. I'm thinking about Canada, even though I can't possibly see how a person can get a job offer before getting a work permit - that's what the embassy says you have to do. I know I have a couple of Canadians on my flist, or at least people who know people who have emigrated to Canada. So talk to me. How are things in Canada? Are there any jobs? Are European nationals employable over there? Will a company actually give you a job offer without you already being in the country?

Day in London

Went down to central London today. First stop, John Lewis where I browsed furniture fabrics and tassels to see about making a new throw for my grandmother's dinning room table - since I destroyed the old one and all. Second stop, a walk around Soho with a friend and a visit to the Photography Gallery that's there. After we parted ways, I meandered around a bit more, had some cheap chinese and finally found the ice-cream shop in Soho I had been looking for for ages. It's in Old Compton Street, by the way, and the ice-cream is delicious. It also possibly has the cheapest italian espresso in Soho at £1.70. I ended up in art supply shop to get some coloured inks - I was out of emerald green -, a watercolour block and, at the spur of the moment, a fine sable brush. While waiting to be served, I spied the craziest thing out the window: Unfortunately my phone takes crap videos. When will I be able to afford an iphone? It's the first thing I'll buy once I get a proper job. By the way, that is Charing Cross Road they are all riding down in the buff. It was a huge, seemingly never-ending, procession. Very impressive really.

100 things: 100 photos - photo 1

I am going to be contrary and start off as I DON'T plan to continue. I mainly photograph cityscapes, landscapes and buildings. On occasion I try my hand at portraits, but I'm not really a portrait photographer. Also I am going to mainly post digital photos, and thus relatively recent ones. I used to be an ardent black white analogue photographer and I have a huge backlog of traditional photographs. Unfortunately I have hardly scanned any of them. The following photo is one of a huge series I took of my friend Dimitris in his home in Athens. It is rare that I find a model as obliging or as photogenic as Dimitris. His only demand was that I also take a couple of semi-nude photos as well for him to use on gaydar. (Yeah, as if you can score guys using arty b&w photographs! He quickly replaced them.) I used my father's Leica M6, which is an absolutely gorgeous camera. I used it for many many years and loved it to bits. If I remember correctly I had the 50mm lens on, which was my absolutely favourite lens. I will never enjoy photography again as much as I did with the Leica and b&w film... I even developed and printed my own photographs for a couple of years...

V&A

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum with my camera, dragging a poor friend with me. (Ha! Lets see if he ever agrees to an outing with me again!) It was a fun visit. The V&A is one of my favourites. It's just more proof of what a bad blogger I am, that I am only now getting round to sharing my photos with you.

Afterwards I met up with my sister and her boyfriend for a walk up Primrose Hill. I know I don't usually share photos of myself, but I thought I'd make an exception.

It's me on the colourful bridge on the way to Primrose Hill, what did you think I'd post?

#100 things: 100 photos - prologue

{Take the 100 Things challenge!} Yes, that means exactly what you think it does. I am jumping on the bandwagon and will be posting my own 100 things. Since you all know how sporadic and un-scheduled my posting is, as you can imagine it will take quite a while. But I have chosen a subject that I will definitely not run out of before I reach 100, so hopefully I will finish this long challenge. Enough about that. My subject is 100 photos I have taken, and the story behind them . It's not a very exciting and original subject - I'm not a very exciting and original person. But, hopefully, it should prove interesting enough for you lot - not to mention voyeuristic enough, you kinky buggers. I'm off to look through my giant photo archive and start choosing my 100. If I'm good I might even make my first post tomorrow!

Paris!

I went to Paris over the weekend. I left Thursday morning and returned Sunday night. I had a good, laid back time. Thursday I finally got to meet a wonderful internet friend in the flesh. She was wonderful enough to put me up Thursday night. I spent Thursday walking around touristy places like St Michel, Odeon, St Germain de Pres, the Louvre gardens, the Tuilleries, Place de Concorde and all the lovely bridges in between, not to mention eating some of my favourite Italian ice-cream... Later on we went for Japanese with together and for a drink in the Marais where we met up with my old friend Amin. It was a lovely laid back night, walking around Paris talking about all things under the moon, from porn to politics. Friday was my interview. I didn't do much, I spent all the morning stressing and reading up or sitting in the park. My interview went well, I think, but not perfect. I got stuck at points, was a bit too nervous at points, and some of my answers could have been better. It seemed like a cool interesting place to work, so I will be very sad if I blew it. (Don't ask me if I got it, because I am still waiting to find out and the suspense is killing me!) Afterwards I took my stuff to my dear Amin's where we had a typical parisian dinner and lots wine before returning home to chat all night, because we are old and boring and hadn't met for years and Amin always has the best adventures - and love stories. Saturday I walked around Paris some more. Guys, London might be more happening and trendy than Paris, but Paris is just so classy! And then had a typical weird night out with Amin. First he took me to the party of a friend of his, who's a university professor. He warned me that the guy usually throws kinky parties with orgies and stuff. I asked if I would be the only straight woman there, which could be awkward, but was assured this party would be toned down and have some straights as well. It turned out to be super boring. All the straight people were colleagues of his partner, so were school teachers, and were married with kids. Many of them had actually brought their children with them! The youngest was nine months old! We got really bored and Amin persuaded me to leave the party to go to a club that was having a bears night. Why do I let him persuade me to do things like this? After paying the hefty entrance fee, we find the place rather empty, both of people and bears, and playing latin music! A little later -distinctly heterosexual- couples start dancing. Amin looks it up and realises he mixed his clubs up, instead of taking a taxi half across Paris, the right club was right next to his friends house! So, instead he says we should go to a gay bar he likes in the Marais, that he calls the bac+5 bar because everyone there is hopelessly highly educated and intellectual. We rented some velolibres and cycled through Paris in the dark on unfamiliar bikes on a saturday night full of traffic. It was scary and exhilarating. Like bike rides through busy night-time cities tend to be. The bar was a strange little place full of dreadfully serious and troubled gay men and the odd woman. It was fun though, because it was so small and it was kind of like a private party. Everyone seemed to do the round randomly talking to other people. I have never chatted to so many strangers in a bar before! Most of them were keen to get into Amin's pants of course, but were polite enough to talk to me too. Some said some awfully prejudiced and chauvinistic things, Amin being Iranian, me being Greek and them being European and tipsy. Isn't it odd that the worst stuff were said by Italians and Spanish, rather than the French? Amin got the hots for an Italian linguistics professor at one of the Paris universities, but - as is usual - he was one of the few who weren't in the least interested in him. I, on the other hand, chatted up a very cute corsican dancer with the name of Ninja Turtle - or a renaissance painter if you want to be all highbrow. When I asked what he did, and he said dancer, you should have seen me try to contain the drool! When he asked if I believed him, I said I would have to see him without his clothes to say, but he didn't oblige. He did some of that fancy footwork that ballet dancers do (he was a modern classical dancer) and showed me some of the differences between the various schools of dance. Very informative. Unfortunately, no matter how much I fluttered my eyelashes or flashed my cleavage I didn't get anywhere. I was hoping he might have been bi, but I guess he was gay. Or just didn't like me. *sigh* We left eventually, and had to walk home because Amin messed up our cards for the velolibres and didn't want to pay for more, and collapsed into bed at six in the morning. Only to be woken up at eight in the morning by someone incessantly banging on the front door and calling us on the phone. It turned out that there was a leak somewhere in our pipes and it was leaking into the guy underneath's flat. We turned the water off by the main and tried to go back to sleep. But our sunday was fucked. We woke up late. Lazed around for ages, then went for a nice french lunch, and then returned home to invite some of his friends over and laze about some more before I had to leave for my train. And that's what I did in Paris. I could have done more, I guess, but didn't really feel like it. I took some photos, but I'm hopelessly behind on downloading and fixing up my photos...

Short trip to Paris

So, I got through to the third round of interviews! My last interview is tomorrow in Paris. Wish me luck! Since going and returning on the same day is a bit silly, I rearranged the days I was working this week and am leaving later on today, to return Sunday night. I need a break - I feel like I'm going crazy - and I missed Paris. The lovely is going to put me up for a night or two (I wonder if she'll like me dragging her around Paris, I missed the river and the bridges so badly!) and I might sleep on the floor of a friend for another night, or I'll see if I can find a hotel that isn't too expensive or too awful. We'll see. I'm feeling so out of sorts, I'm having a hard time making arrangements and taking decisions. Anyway, off I go!

Hydra Photos

So I promised photos from Hydra, the greek island I visited in April for two days while I was in Greece. It's a lovely picturesque island, but rather expensive and chic. Be warned that the slideshow is very long. I took quite a few photos. (For some strange reason it's showing my photos from last to first and I can't find how to change it!)

What I've been up to over the weekend

I have been busy being depressed and doing stuff. Let me tell you about my weekend. Saturday: Saturday was a friend's birthday, so a whole bunch of us met up in Covent Garden for lunch, and we had a lovely time. As usual I arrived a little late (I got detained in John Lewis trying to find a throw for my grandmother's dinning table to replace the one I destroyed the night before. I spilled brown ink all over it while making Darry a card. I am very last minute, I know). We sat at Navajo Joe's where we had spicy vaguely mexican food and cocktails (I had two delicious margarita's!). Afterwards we went to the Icecreamists for some delicious ice creams, yum. Despite having reserved a table for eleven, they had exiled us into a small dark corner upstairs. Armed with my two ingested margarita's I went to complain, and ended up talking to the manager. You know you're obsessed with Glee when a random shop manager reminds you of Glee's choreographer and that makes you go easy on him. I was distracted, ok! (What's more worrying about my level of obsession is that I know what Zach Woodlee looks like, let alone who he is.) Hmm. Okay, now that I'm looking again, Zach is way cuter than the manager was... Anyway! Even though I went easy on him, and though I was rather nice and reasonable too, I must have scared him (or else he was just taken with my low cut dress) because he apologised profusely, offered me a top up on my ice cream and then offered us all a lovely alcoholic ice cream cocktail on the house. Yum, yum. It was delicious! With green apple sorbet and lots of vodka. I left decidedly tipsy! Afterwards, those who still had energy, went to one of the group's beautiful new flat (wooden floors, guys! Large windows! Beautiful rooms! A cute french flatmate! And, who knows, maybe the other flatmate is even cuter!) where we ate sparkly birthday cake, giggled and talked and most emphatically didn't watch the Eurovision song contest. I got home just in time to see Sweden win, with rather a boring song. Sunday: Sunday I woke up with a fuzzy head from the heavy weather and the alcohol, but no rest for the wicked! I went all the way to Excel to meet up with a friend, my sister and her boyfriend to go to the Comic Expo. I felt decidedly underdressed in "civilian" clothes seeing as almost everyone was in costume. The expo was interesting. All those colourful cartoonish people! And the bright stalls. And so much stuff. My favourites of course were the artists' tables. Mangas aren't really my style, but I did see some comic styles that I did rather like. My favourite artist was Girl In The Rain As usual I couldn't resist the lure of buying stuff and got myself some more pretty chopsticks for my hair (I will eventually acquire the whole rainbow!) and some more badges (god knows where I will find to put them, I have too many already!). At half past three-ish I abandoned my poor friend to the mercy of her cosplaying friends and left with my sister and her boyfriend to enjoy the last of the sun. We met up with some friends in a very very crowded Primrose Hill to laze in the grass and drink cider (because my head wasn't fuzzy enough!) Afterwards we found the only pub with an empty table and ate the world's thinest pizza. And that was my weekend. I have more stuff to share, but later.

Update

I've been surprisingly busy these last days, and not so surprisingly stressed and depressed. Even now that I am typing, I would much rather be curled up under my duvet dozing or watching old Doctor Who episodes or reading fanfiction. But I have decided I should be sociable, so I am siting with my grandmother watching a documentary about meercats and updating my journal so you don't all start worrying something happened to me. And I have news. 1 On the Paris job front, I got accepted into the second round of interviews! I had it earlier today. I think it went very well, but on the other hand they are interviewing at least a dozen people so I think the competition is very stiff. Which doesn't bode well. I am good at talking and selling myself and coming across as capable and likeable. But I am not good at ruthlessly pushing myself forward and brazenly telling people that I am the best. Anyway. I have a week or maybe a bit longer to wait for them to finish up all the interviews and decide. I hope there won't be third interview! 2 As for my present job in retail, things are once more up in the air. We have yet another head manager. The last one started out all energetic and optimistic and in about two months he gave up and asked to be transferred to another store. And I still never found out what happened to our first head manager. He was pretty useless anyway. Managers! They all seem to be rather soft if you ask me. The new manager has started of very determined and serious. He really wants to shake things up. He's going to radically change the layout of the store and switch around everyone's jobs and timetables. Hm. He better not make me a salesperson! If he does, he'll be a complete idiot, and that doesn't bode well for the store. Lets see how long he lasts. 3 My sister and her boyfriend found a house! It's house-share with three other people in a cute house with a garden in Wimbledon. The house is nice. The room is very nice, and has its own bathroom. And Wimbledon is rather a nice place too. I am very happy for them. Now all my sister needs is to find a job. Lets hope things work out for us, because things are looking really really bad for Greece. There are days when I feel more afraid for my friends and family back in Greece than I do for my homeless semi-employed self.

Possible new beginnings

So I am still very very stressed. Actually I have made myself so stressed that I feel like I might fall into hysterical panic or extreme depression if I don't manage to keep a handle on myself. Yes, life is totally getting the better of me at the moment. It's been a year of being constantly rejected and there is only so much a person can take. Many you must have gone (or are going) through something similar and I'm sure you understand how there is a breaking point, no matter how strong willed and positive you try to be, and I'm rapidly reaching mine. On friday, as I mentioned, I had a skype interview for a rather interesting job in Paris. Something very different from what I've been doing the last years, and far closer to my university experiences. I was surprised that I was even considered since I don't really have the relevant experience and I might even be slightly under-qualified. (Especially after being turned down for so many jobs in London that I was actually over-qualified for.) And returning to Paris! It is something I had told myself I would never do, since despite loving the actual city to bits, I fell into the deepest depression I've ever been in while living there last time. But never say never. I can't help but feel that if I want to ever get anywhere I have to leave London, since its clear that the british will never give me a chance. I had been thinking of Amsterdam or Copenhagen, or even Oslo. But why not Paris? I know the language and I know how it works. That is why I am so afraid I will not get the job. My interview didn't go bad, but it didn't go great either. And he told me that he had a lot more interviews to do, so I won't learn for another week at least what their verdict is. I can't help but feel that being one of the first people they interviewed is a bad thing and will lessen my chances even more. And I can't help but be very disappointed with myself for being so stressed that I froze on certain questions and didn't make the best impression I could. Who am I kidding, I didn't get the job. And I was so looking forward to finally managing to regain a semblance of a life... And so we come to the second song I am considering as a soundtrack for my life at the moment (after the last post's song):

In which I tell you far more than you wanted to know about my job

I'm very nervous and edgy and anxious. I have a job interview tomorrow for a job that could prove a great chance. I'll tell you after the interview more details. I do realise I have promised photos from Hydra, but things have got on top of me and I left the job of arranging and fixing them up in the middle to be undertaken when I feel more relaxed. I even wanted to get a start at my own 100 things, but I just can't seem to find the energy and time. God, I'm the world's worst blogger! You see, my sister has returned from Argentina (where she went for two months with her boyfriend, supposedly to volunteer, but actually as an extended holiday). And now she's staying with me at our grandmother's and it's really cramped and difficult and stressful. She's trying hard with her boyfriend to find a flat, but with their budget, it's not easy in London. The whole business is stressing me too, because it's a constant reminder of what a total mess my life is at the moment. I am in a total limbo, without enough money and no way of making any sort of plans for the next month, let alone the future. Sometimes I think the only thing stopping me from going crazy is my crappy job. I was supposed to tell you about the crappy job I'm doing and the crazy interview I had to go through, but life got in the way and I never got round to it. Anyway, I'm working part time in retail. I wanted a simple easy no stress no responsibilities job to earn some money while searching for real work. But things never quite work out as you think they will. I applied for the position of sales assistant in Currys (a UK electrical appliance and electronic store). I didn't get the job. It seems like selling stuff is not easy in the UK, because I also got turned down by Boots, River Island, Next, John Lewis and a whole bunch of other shops. And all for part time temp sales jobs. They certainly are demanding! Anyway, I got a call out of the blue for an interview with Currys. So I dressed up as if I was going for an office job and went. It turned out they had decided to open a temporary clearance store over the Christmas holidays and needed a lot of people in a hurry. After the wackiest interview they ended up hiring almost everyone. They needed about 30 or so people at a short notice and minimum wage, which means they hired a lot of first timers and unexperienced youngsters. Which was great of them, because no one is hiring the unexperienced young any more. In the beginning we worked about a fortnight of 10 to 14 hour shifts with no days off, doing anything and everything to fix the shop up. At the same time we had managers and experienced people from other shops giving us some sort of minimal training all the while scoping out who would be best for which job. They needed mainly salespeople, but also warehouse people, merchandisers, people for the tills and some admins. I kind of stood out I guess because I was one of the oldest women they hired and I let it slip in the interview that am actually an architect (I peeked at the interviewer's notes and she had written it in capitals across the paper.) At one point one of the managers asked me what I would rather do, and I answered honestly that I like/am good at arranging and organising. I was hoping they would make me a merchandiser rather than a salesperson. They ended up making me a Product Inventory Counter. As in the person who counts the merchandise to find out what is missing (and what is extra) and then investigates it to find out why. It is obviously harder and more frustrating than it sounds, because the shop is rather big and we have loads of stock and everything is in such a mess you wouldn't believe. So yeah, so much for easy low stress job... I'm only working 20 hours a week, which means that to get what I have to done each week I am practically the only one in the whole shop who works non-stop with hardly any breaks. It's pretty exhausting. But on the other hand it looks better on my cv that a sales assistant position would. Obviously the job they gave me is far too hard and has far too high a level of responsibility for someone who has never done this sort of thing before and is only earning minimum wage (I am feeling decidedly fucked over by that aspect of the job.) Everyone who had ever visited from another store to help from time to time couldn't believe they had me all by myself. From the beginning I was told I would be an assistant PI counter and soon they would send round someone highly experienced to work with me. Only the weeks dragged on and this experienced person never showed up. I kept on asking and they kept on putting off the dates of his long expected arrival. I can only guess that they realised that this was only going to be a temporary store and I was doing a good enough job on my own and the experienced guy would cost too much. We ended up making record sales over the holidays so they put the closing date off till february. Then they put the date off till May. Now it's been put off again till July. In any case it might end up a permanent store. In which case they have to try and make it work like a proper shop. And a good first thing to do is do something about the ridiculous amount of stock loss we have - a very large amount of which is in-store theft. As the merchandise counter I know exactly how much stuff has been going missing from behind locked doors and locked cabinets, and I have pointed it out numerous times to the managers and the loss prevention officers that visit us. I also have repeatedly told co-workers who have tried to talk to me about it, that I don't care if they know who's stealing and how, I do not want to know. Since it's my job to find out what has gone missing, if I was to find out who had taken it, I could hardly keep quiet about it. So the less I know the better. To try and combat the whole messy business of making us work more smoothly, they have gotten rid of the old (rather useless) manager and sent a new guy, with good intentions and more organised, but also with a less flexible style. He has already fired a couple of people for no good reason (just because they asked for fixed hours and days rather than an ever changing schedule). They also finally send me another PI counter. Not the super experienced guy I was promised, but a guy my own age with a little bit of experience. He's a good guy and knows what he's doing, only he had a bit of heart attack when he saw what our shop is like (he used to work in a nice neat organised high street shop). Just yesterday when he was asked to count ipods (we had hundreds of them, half of which where mixed up and mislabeled as per usual), he had a total meltdown and I had to call the manager to talk to him and calm him down. Anyway, crappy as the job is, the good thing is that it gets me out the house and I get to talk to people (and I have stopped eating into my savings). I'm not too keen on the salespeople (mostly bitchy or dim) but I really do like the warehouse guys (I spend most of my down time hiding in the warehouse with them) and the some of the merchandisers and admins are cool too. All in all it's nice to work in a place with a lot of people. And it seems like I'm one of those people who gets on better with men than women. Who would have known? Most of my friends have always been women and gay men... It's also proving an interesting social experience. I had never done a minimum wage job before or hung out with working class people. Actually half my university friends always accused me of being too high-brow and having too intellectual interests. I'm talking to people I would never have met otherwise and that is quite interesting. I keep on thinking that the song that best describes this period of my life, could be nothing else but Pulp's britpop anthem from back when I was in my late teens: (tl;dr ?):

Chinese New Year

I know I promised photos of Hydra. I'm working on it. But a long long time ago I promised photos from when I went down town to see Chinese New Year celebrated in central London. So here's a little slideshow, far too late. I'm a horrid blogger, I know!

Easter update

I haven't updated in a while because I've been blue and not really in the mood. Not to worry though, I still lurk around. For Catholic/Protestant Easter my uncle and aunt came down to visit from Manchester for three days. They brought a lot of hyper chaos with them, as they always do. As soon as they left I took a two-week holiday from work to visit home, just in time for Orthodox Easter. (I took all my holiday time of the business year that is ending all at once.) So for the past week and a couple of days I've been in Athens; seeing friends and family, going on bicycle rides with my father, doing a bit of shopping, getting some stuff done. I even went for a short two-day trip to the island of Hydra. As soon as I get round to fixing them up, I'll share some photos with you. It is a beautiful island (but then again the countryside in Greece is generally very photogenic.) *Sigh* I am remembering the things that irritate me about Greece - and Athens in particular - but also the things I miss. Mainly I miss the weather, the sea, the more easygoing people, the food. That's enough for now. I'm still in rather an uncommunicative mood.

Lying low

I have been rather quiet lately. I have been feeling depressed and uncommunicative. I have been lurking around (mainly in the Klaine fandom) but haven't been up to actually updating. A friend (the only friend I have in London that I see with any frequency) who has also come over from Greece to look for work is having a bit of a meltdown these days and it's affecting me too. Work is as disorganised and tiring as ever, and I'm still not getting any positive responses from any architecture practices. Anyway, I am considering trying to sell some of my artwork as greeting cards on the internet, either through etsy or a more card specific site like cafepress. I'm not sure yet if it will actually be worth the effort, especially considering I'm not all that prolific. What do you say? Do people order cards from the internet? Yes No No Idea

Let it burn

A drive by post to say that tonight I want to cry.

I know, like the rest of you, that politicians are all a backstabbing corrupt lot that you should never never trust, but some things are so big and so important, that you believe that even they can find enough common decency within themselves to do the right thing from time to time.

But no. Last night my country's parliament, yet again, sold off yet another piece of our liberty and our hard-earnered rights as workers and citizens as ransom to the IMF and World Bank. And for what? For a shitty little bailout that will not even cover the whole fucking debt, that can never ever be covered. No matter how much we sell off of our country, our rights, our dignity, our soul. And you know the fucking IMF will demand every last thing from us until they leave us broken and destitute. Isn't that what they did to Argentina? And Poland? And Russia?

They know exactly what the people want. Let's default, let's go bankrupt, let's go back to the drachma. Let's be poor and hungry, but on our own terms. With our rights, and our soul and our country intact. I would rather be poor and free, than poor and enslaved (to the banks, the "free market", the corporations). Damn it, I would rather be poor and free, that well off and enslaved.

So yeah, much as it pains me to say this, because I dearly love my dirty, dingy, ugly Athens, let it burn! I would rather we burn our cities down than let them believe we will take it lying down. If they want to do this, let them do in the old-fashioned way. With terror and torture and murder. Rather than pretend that this is for the good of the people, or that this is in any way democratic or acceptable.

And as I say this, I sincerely hope that our police force and our army eventually side with the people. It's a long shot. It never seems to happen. But one can only hope that this one time can prove to be the exception to the rule.

A birthday girl

It was my cousin's three-year old daughter's birthday the other day (the one with the strange fixation with me) and I drew her a little cartoonish card. Wanna see it?

Weekend Adventures

As you might, or might not, have noticed, I skipped my art post yesterday. That's because I have had a tiring overwhelming weekend and I needed a break!

My uncle and aunt descended on us from Manchester Friday evening and stayed till Sunday. I love them dearly, and they are possibly the most fun of my living relatives, but they are also very very loud, talkative and tiring. I couldn't take them in large doses!

Friday evening, after they turned us upside down and got my grandmother all flustered, we went out. My crazy uncle decided he wanted to see Fulham Football stadium, just because. He couldn't remember where it was, and his car was knew and he had learned how to properly use his sat-nav yet. You can imagine how it went... We did eventually find it. So we saw it. Closed. At night. In the dark. *sigh* Then we went to eat. At a spur of the moment impulse, we went for persian, which I quite liked - I had eaten persian before - but my grandmother and aunt complained no end about because it wasn't spicy enough for them. (Read: it wasn't indian.)

Saturday after eating a large breakfast and getting a late start, we roamed around the north of Greater London aimlessly. We passed by Wade, St Margaret's, Much Hadham, Harlow and various other places. We tried getting out for a walk by the canal in St Margaret's, but my grandmother complained of the cold and made us give up. We tried to go to the Henry Moore Foundation Sculpture Garden, but obviously found in closed because it was winter. Then we went shopping, because my grandmother insisted we take her to Boots and the supermarket.

In the evening we booked a table at a pub where we met my other aunt (my uncle's - and my mother's - sister) and my cousin's eldest daughter for dinner. My grandmother downed a whiskey mac in one large gulp before dinner, got drunk and proceeded to be very loud, difficult and embarrassing the whole night. She made them take her prawn cocktail back because it was on a plate and not a glass. (I begged the waitress to just plop what was on the plate in a random glass and bring it back for us.) She insisted her roast dinner was awful - and loudly proclaimed it repeatedly to the whole pub - and refused to eat it.

Possibly the most cringeworthy moment, though, was when my uncle, aunt and grandmother started talking loudly about all the mischief the first two got up to as children and teenagers. My uncle and aunt insisted my mother was the goody-two-shoes of the family (which I can totally believe), but my grandmother said she was just as much trouble. And as proof, she said that my mother had once brought home a black boyfriend! And that my grandfather got so angry he drove the boy home! You should have seen the rest of us cringe and look around the pub furtively... On the other hand, I am feeling rather proud of my mother. It was the late sixties, after all, and she lived in the conservative middle-class suburbs.

Sunday we left my grandmother home to get some peace and quiet and went for a long walk through the mud and the countryside by Hilly Fields and Forty Hill. It was a lovely walk, I took plenty of photos, but never got round to downloading them from my camera.

Once we got home, my grandmother was all rejuvenated and was ready to rearrange the dinning room - the room I'm sleeping in -, so I spent all evening going through tons of stuff she has accumulated trying to get rid of rubbish and moving furniture. The room is more spacious now, but we still have some stuff to give away or get rid of. On the other hand, I still don't have anywhere to put my stuff, and it still is in boxes on the floor.

Oof! What a boring long ramble!

Katy's Angel

This is a piece I drew on Friday for my cousin. She asked me to draw her an angel, and gave very very specific details of how she envisioned her angel. So this is my rendering of her vision. Unfortunately I didn't have time to scan it before I gave it to her and had to take a photo. With dim lighting. Of a watercolour painting. So the colours have turned out much drabber than they were, and no amount of photoshop (and lightroom, yes I pulled out the big guns!) twiddling is helping.

Shopping and Cats

I went shopping today. I was supposed to meet a friend but was blown off, so I ended up walking around London by myself. This is becoming the norm actually. Once you reach my age most of your friends have boyfriends and girlfriends and stop spending time with their single friends opting to do coupley things most of the time.

Anyway. I got two cardigans (I'm getting quite the cardigan fetish) and a t-shirt I didn't really need. I also tried getting myself some new Levis only to find out they have discontinued their old lines - and I loved their 570s! - and their new cuts are rather rubbish. They have fancy names and they measure you for them using some really weird system that I guess is supposed to impress you, but when you get down to it, the cuts are bad.

This morning I realised that I have one last piece of original art that got misplaced. So for today here's a swanky christmas cat in a hat.