Rant Inevitable

It's not like it should be any surprise to me, but this year I've really realised how there is absolutely nothing in my hometown for me any more.

I left Mallow with great hopes when I was 19, bound for Trinity College, in Dublin. For reasons that are too long to go into right now, that exit didn't go well, and rather than cut ties with the auld dump, I kind of stayed in touch. I was in limbo for my early twenties. I had left Mallow, but had never really settled anywhere else. That changed when, after a two-year break from Dublin, I returned at the beginning of this decade, and that was it. Things went well, I settled, and knew then that I would never come back to live in Mallow for any length of time. In spite of the odd spell on the dole, which saw me return home as I was broke, I stuck to that plan, though I maintained contact with a few people I had gotten to know in the area since I left secondary school.

I got a great send-off from both my Mallow friends and Dublin friends when I went to Brighton, and while I've seen the latter group consistently over the years since I left, it's been a different story with the former. I can't complain too much, I've moved on, and only see them when I'm back in Mallow. Deep down, I know that we're not an important feature of each other's lives any more and that's fine.

What's frustrating is that when I'm back in Mallow, I'm more reliant on them than they are on me, or so it seems. Most of them don't go out any more, having either got sick of the social scene down here (fair enough) or because they've found long-term partners and now seem to be preparing for a life at home (eye-roll!). Then there are people who I simply have nothing to say to anymore.

I saw all of this coming this year, but circumstances worked against me. My parents asked me to come back the day after university finished for christmas because they were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and wanted me there for it. That was fair enough, especially as they paid for my flight home. I was given some leeway with the flight bookings, but very stupidly chose to return on Friday 4th, rather than booking to come back before New Year's Eve. I'm regretting that in no small way now: I went online about a week ago to see how much it would cost to change them, but by then it would have been about £150.

Most of this is stuff that I'm used to, more or less, but what's sparked off this moan is that I've just rung around to see if anyone I know is going out tonight for New Year's Eve, and no-one can actually be bothered to do anything. I'm ranting because I'm in a situation I don't have much control over, and it sucks.

I was thinking about making sure that Christmas is spent abroad in future, to avoid this kind of thing happening again, but that's a bit like cutting off my nose to spite my face. Unless you're attached, your family are probably the best people to spend Christmas with. From now on, I vow simply to spend at most one week at home for Christmas itself, and make sure to spend New Year's Eve somewhere else.

Back to Brighton on Friday. Bring it on...

A reflection.

Recently, whenever I bring back to my house a man hot'n'beefy, I always feel that I have to warn them in advance about the state of my bedroom. My place of sleep is quite exasperating. No matter how often I tidy it - at least once every six months, for christ's sake - it always seems to revert back to its ground state: that of a complete and utter pigsty. A San Franciscan who I had (back) recently commented 'Ooh, this is glamorous' when I invited him into my boudoir.

This time around, the guy I had back didn't really care. I was in the Bulldog, having met Mizz 'Flee, and I was ogling as usual. We had paid £1 to go upstairs to the sex party organised by Brighton Orgies, but it was shit, what with the two of us being the only ones there.

As an aside, brighton-orgy.co.uk is the most amateurishly-run operation I have seen in a long time. The weekly e-mails are amongst the most poorly written I've ever seen ('cut hear' instead of 'cut here', when you want to detach a coupon, for example), and the London excursions that the bloke tries to organise every week end up being cancelled due to lack of interest. So far the private house parties have been titled 'Subs for top', 'Under 30s' and 'Over 40s'. What happens if you're active/versatile and in your 30s, like me? The organiser seems possessed of a bit of neck, but without the brains to match.

Eventually, my eyes settled on a rather fit beefy cub. Unfortunately, an ex-fling of mine had fixed his eyes rather unnervingly on me. I escaped outside for a smoke only to find FBC outside as well. We got entangled, I departed Mizz 'Flee (awfully sorry, Dahling) and headed home.

It was decent enough, though I found out soon enough that I wouldn't really ever be falling for his mind, and when he left the next morning, we said our goodbyes without any plans to meet up again. Still, the rough and tumble wasn't bad, though I could have done without spilling poppers all over myself while we were in bed. Yuk!

Home saturday. Sex life on hold for 3 weeks.

Operation Soho

...appears to have gone tits up.

It has not been a particulary inspiring few months on the employment front. As I mentioned previously, the application process for hospital vacancies began a while back, and neither of the two interviews I had yielded any fruit. West Middlesex Hospital told me that for the four vacances they had, I was ranked fifth amongst all the applicants. I can't decide if that makes me feel better or worse. Then began the clearing round a month ago for vacancies unfilled. It would be reasonable to assume that because I missed out by only a hair's breadth on the first round, that I would be a safe bet on the second round.

That has turned out not to be the case. I got turned down for all four without an interview. I can't work it out. The only thing I can think of that could be wrong is that one of the references I gave on my application isn't coming through for me, and once I get the contact details of the hospital pharmacists, I'm going to e-mail them and ask them for feedback on my application form.

So, no hospital in London. Most likely no hospital anywhere. Now and again, hospital vacancies pop up during the year as new posts become available, or people fail to take up ones that they originally committed to, but hoping for one of those is a gamble. If I hang on too long, and I get nothing there, then god knows what will be left on the community pharmacy front when I start applying there. It's like playing a game of chicken, in a way. I'll wait until after Christmas before deciding on a plan of action, I think.

I'm not too despondent. Everyone who graduates from pharmacy walks into gainful employment of some sort. The question is, will it be the kind I'm hoping for? In the long run, it doesn't matter. Once I'm licensed, a year after I graduate, I can pretty much get work wherever I want. The only thing that could limit me is if I only scrape my degree (shit shit shit!). It would have been nice to do my pre-reg in a hospital all the same, and seeing quite a few people in my class get one isn't exactly doing wonders for me right now.

I'll definitely be making a beeline to London at some point. My night out last weekend in a central boozer near - ahem - Soho bolstered my resolve.