Chasing the blues away

I'm cheating here, because it's past midnight and therefore no longer September 8th... but since I haven't gone to bed yet, I feel entitled to say that I moved to London precisely one year ago. A lot has happened and changed in that time, but one thing is the same as this time last year: the stress of not having a job.

Finding work at the beginning of the school year is a challenge. Schools are still sorting out what they need in terms of long-term positions and daily supply roles are few. I have hope that because I have more experience now, I'll have an easier time landing something long-term. But in the meantime, it is rather stressful. Add to that a few other personal issues, including the fact that I have outgrown my shoebox of a room, and you get a Bryn who is not sleeping properly, not eating properly, experiencing headaches and physical tension, and suffering from miniature panic attacks. Not fun.

I'm doing my best to counteract this by getting out, meeting people, and doing things. Last night, for example, I went out to two dance venues (one WCS, one lindy hop). Had a great time and felt significantly better afterward. Fantastic, so long as I don't think about the money I spent.

My friend Desirée has been great about getting me out, too. I've already met two of her friends (both really interesting people) on two separate occasions this week. On Sunday, we tried to go to a free outdoor theatre thing on the south bank, but it turned out to be children's theatre... and pretty weird children's theatre, at that.


I think they were singing a Lady Gaga song at this point. Anyway, we didn't last long and hightailed it to a pub, where we got to make fun of the terrible trumpet player. Perhaps I should pursue a performance career here if it's that easy to get gigs.

Also on my radar is capoeira. I've been meaning to get back into it for ages but have been kind of afraid. My capoeira sessions at Carleton University were really intense. I was in good shape at the time and still had difficulty walking for days afterward. In any case, I've decided I'm finally going to lay my fears to rest and return to capoeira tomorrow. I'm quite excited, but once again, I will have to ignore the money being spent. Though it is not much, it adds up quickly when you have a budget of roughly £0 (or actually, negative hundreds of pounds).

But you see, last year, I let my lack of disposable income stand in the way of me doing fun active things. Contrary to most people's experiences, I actually put on a whole bunch of weight after moving to Europe. Not to mention the general feeling of malaise that goes along with dropping your activity level. No. I will not let it happen again, no matter the costs.

Of course, being active doesn't always have to cost money. I'm also doing the two hundred sit-ups challenge. I naturally have pretty good core strength and the programme isn't actually that difficult for me, but it is useful for making me do regular core workouts. I just finished 184 crunches and it feels good. I will eventually do the 100 push-ups programme too... but that one intimidates me. I cannot do push-ups. At all. Hopefully a few weeks of capoeira will help prime my upper body strength, though, and make it more manageable.

As for more free things that get me doing stuff, this coming weekend is The Thames Festival (one of the big highlights of last year for me). It's totally awesome and doesn't cost a thing! So far nobody has expressed any interest in joining me, so if you're out there and interested, please let me know! Festivals are always much better with company. Here's last year's blog post about it and here are some more pictures (mainly from the fire garden, as it was my favourite part).

South Bank

Free running/parkour

Fire garden




Now that I have a better camera and I'm working on my photography skills (more on that soon), I'm hoping this year's photos will be even better!