- Sarah Leave a comment

The Madness of March is Coming

I know it’s still February for another couple of days yet but the absurd busy-ness of my life for the next couple of months is starting to hit me. It starts tomorrow with a drive down to Blackpool where I am spending the next few days helping my mum shop for her mother-of-the-groom outfit for my brother’s impending nuptials (which isn’t until the middle of May but apparently we need to shop two and half months before the event!) My mum has decided that to avoid the slightest possibility of anyone having the same outfit as her we must go to ‘posh’ shops. I’m counting on a Pretty Woman experience where they give you champagne and pizza and have models showing you the clothes on offer….well, maybe a cup of tea at least? I, on the other hand, have no intention of buying my wedding outfit until a couple of weeks before the big day – in order to give me maximum time for pre-wedding weight loss. That is a whole other story, for another day.

So I’m coming home on Tuesday and will have to head straight to rehearsal for 42nd Street, my next foray into the world of amateur musical theatre. The show is on in the middle of April so between now and then I have rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday evenings and, starting in a couple of weeks, Sunday afternoons too. Oh, and about the same time Wednesday evenings will be Wizard of Oz rehearsals (for a show in September), And on Thursday evenings I go to two dance classes which pretty much leaves Friday and Saturday to do anything else I want to do!!

Which means a week on Saturday I am taking a day trip to Inverness (it’s only 3 and a half hours away – ideal for a day trip!). My friend Dave is running in a half marathon and I’m going along to offer moral support – and drive the car home. I’ll be meeting some other friends there too – one of whom I’ve not seen for a few years so I’m looking forward to that. And I’ve never been to Inverness.

The weekend after brings a trip to London to see Rock and Roll Nerd, a documentary about Tim Minchin, which is getting its only UK screening at the Barbican’s Australian Film Festival. Luckily my brother lives in London (well Essex really but it’s on the Central Line so near enough) so I can use him for free accomodation whenever required. I’m really looking forward to this weekend not only for the film but because I’m going to meet some of the fellow Tim fans I’ve become aquainted with through the previously mentioned Angry(Feet) official fan forum. And to top all that off I’m planning on going to the Natural History Museum . I can’t remember if I’ve ever actually been there – certainly not since I was child if I have. There’s a whole new Darwin Centre too which is excellent by all accounts.

In a spectacular act of poor organisation and planning I’m going to be in London again the weekend after. It’s my Dad’s 60th Birthday so we’re all going to our nation’s capital to stay in a hotel and see Hairspray, which I’ve seen before but there aren’t many musicals I would refuse to see again!

And after all that I think I actually have a couple of weekends at home before I’m away for Easter!! Honestly, I go months without doing anything interesting or going anywhere and then all this in one month. Then April is 42nd Street and a visit to Edinburgh to see Never Forget (the Take That musical – seriously!), May is the hen weekend, the wedding, my birthday (and another trip to Edinburgh, this time for Chicago), my brother’s birthday and my parents wedding anniversary. And after all that I’ll be so broke that I won’t be going anywhere or doing anything for the rest of the year.

It’s good to have lots of things planned and therefore to look forward to but it does feel a bit odd to know how little time I have just to do stuff/nothing. But then I guess I’ve got the rest of my life to do stuff.

- Sarah Leave a comment

The lesser known ‘I really wish I had a dream’ speech

So, I always wished I was one of those kids who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. Not so much the primary school ‘ I want to be a fireman/nurse/pilot/train driver’ dream but the kind of people who knew when it came to choosing A levels that they wanted to be a vet or a doctor or a lawyer or some such worthy career.

I never had any idea what I wanted to do with my life (and at the ripe old age of 30 I still don’t think I do). It’s not something I talk about that often (for want of sounding like an arse) but I guess I’m pretty intelligent. At school, I was good at everything. I never really had a favourite subject – I liked maths and sciencey type subjects but I liked languages and humanities and all the creative stuff too. So, I just kind of pottered through my education doing things I liked – I did French, Maths, English Lit and (completely by accident really) Economics at A level. I liked all those things and couldn’t decide what to carry on with so I did a degree in ‘Combined Studies’ at Manchester University which was a third French and two thirds Social Sciences – which could have ended up being pretty much anything but which evolved into mostly Development Economics (developing countries, tiger economies, newly industrialised countries and the like) and Economic Anthropology (social anthropology from an economic viewpoint). Which was all very interesting but unless you land a job in the World Bank or the IMF doesn’t really get you very far career wise. So with no career/life dream to follow I somehow ended up working on campsites in France for 6 years on and off!

I had to spend a month in France in between my 2nd and 3rd years at uni so I got a job working for a British camping holiday company and spent 10 weeks working hard, getting drunk and speaking very little French on a lovely campsite in Brittany. Suffice to say I had a great time so decided to go back out for one last summer after I graduated. Which then turned into going to the Alps for a ski season, then another summer on the Cote D’Azur, a winter as a waitress at home in Blackpool then back to France as an Area Manager. Then followed a winter in Nantes in an industrial laundry (horrible job, good money, great people), a summer working as a receptionist back on the Cote D’Azur (which was the summer my French actually improved to almost fluent level), then back home to Blackpool and a stint in HMV. Then in 2003 I did my last season as an Area Manager in the Dordogne. From there I got a job in recruitment for the company I worked for in France back in their head office in Dunfermline – but two and a half years of that and I’d really had enough of camping. I didn’t really know how I’d ended up where I was – I had 5 years experience as a manager but it didn’t seem to count for anything outside the camping world. But I really needed to leave, and seeing how I’d bought a flat in Dunfermline and virtually all my friends live here I decided I didn’t want to move, so I ended up getting a job in a call centre for one of the big 5 high street banks (which was horrible but seemed like it would be a really secure job at the time!! How little I knew!). I’m still at the bank now – in mortgage administration which is a much better job, mostly because I don’t have to speak to customers anymore, but in the current climate I don’t know how much longer my job will exist.

And so we get to the ‘I really wish I had a dream’ part. I’ve thought, on and off over the years, about training to be a secondary school teacher. It was actually one of the only things I thought I might end up doing when I was at school. So I’ve been looking into doing a PGCE and the logistics of studying full time for a year and if I could afford it. The problem is I’m not sure if it’s something I really want or if I’m just drawn by the idea of a ‘career’ and good money, and all those holidays! Whilst pondering this on Twitter last week, Liza (a fellow Tim Minchin fan who lives in America) said I should follow my dream and not my maybe. Which is where the lack of dreams on my part came in.

But what Liza had said struck a chord. My real dream is to work in the theatre – I don’t really care what doing but I would love to work in that world. I just don’t know how to go about it…. I’ve been involved in dancing and theatre for as long as I can remember. I did nothing for years (what with all the living in France and that) but when I moved to Dunfermline I went back to dance classes and got involved with local amateur musical companies. I’ve been in quite a few shows over the last 3 or 4 years – and I have no delusions that I’m talented enough to perform for a living but to work in a theatre really is my dream. Unfortunately, it seems to be one of those areas where you can’t get a job without experience – but how do you get that experience? (Answers on a postcard please).

So anyway, I’ve decided to try and pursue this theatre thing with a bit more passion (and effort) rather than hoping something might just turn up. I’ve still not completely given up on the teaching idea but I’m going to give the theatre thing a proper go first.

I feel like I’ve just condensed the last 10 years of my life into this post and it doesn’t really amount to much. We haven’t even touched on the fact I’ve been single for the last 7 years and how I think I’m going to die sad and alone ‘spinster of this parish’ – but I think that can maybe wait for another day!

- Sarah Leave a comment

Can anyone tell me why I’m here?

Ok, so I’ve decided to bite the bullet and have a go at this blogging thing – everyone else seems to be doing it after all. And maybe no-one will ever read this – and at the moment I’m not sure that I’d want them to. I’ve kept a diary on and off since I was 12 (and I still have them all… really the early years are not worth re-reading, there’s only so much ‘I really fancy Ryan/Matt/Wesley/Mark (delete depending on day of the week) you need to know!) and this is just an extension of that really. Maybe with more ‘what I did today and what I think about it’ than ‘why don’t I have a boyfriend/good job/size 10 figure’ but knowing me there’ll be a fair bit of that too!

I think I’ve been finally prompted to put my arse out here in blog land due to the recent explosion of Twitter and my addiction to it. I’ve really enjoyed reading other people’s blogs and sometimes I feel the need to share something that can’t be squeezed into 140 characters. I’ve not really bothered with blogs that much before apart from The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl written by Shauna, this girl I know, about her mission to lose half her body weight. It’s inspiring – and she’s even had it published and has recently been on a publicity trip to New York no less.

I suppose I should get the other reason out there now, in the early days, too. I’m a fairly recent addition to the ever growing fan base of Australian musical comedian Tim Minchin. Some friends had seen Tim at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 and I’d seen a couple of YouTube clips but it wasn’t until I saw Tim performing ‘If I didn’t have you’ (an excellent maths based love song) on the Secret Policeman’s Ball that I truly began to appreciate his amazing wit, intelligence, musical talent and general all round awesomeness. So, I got my arse online and booked tickets to see this new found object of my admiration in Glasgow last November and I’ve been hooked ever since. I joined Mr Minchin’s official fan forum Angry (Feet) where, after a bit of a tentative start, I meant lots of lovely, like-minded, Tim fans. I even met a few of them when I went to my second Tim gig at the Roundhouse in Camden in January. It’s great to have an outlet for my (very slight) obsession because my friends and family just don’t really get it. I reckon I’ve just got one of those personalities that when I find something I like I have to be all encompassed by it for a while – I know it will burn out in a few months and I’ll be able to get back to some semblance of normality instead of getting withdrawal symtoms if I haven’t checked the various sources of Tim-related information for a few hours. It’s just like when I followed Joseph and his Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat round the country (8 times I saw it) when I was 14 because I fancied the boy playing Benjamin!

So, I think what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been spending more time online lately and I’ve made lots of new internet based friends and this has somehow inspired me to start a blog.I don’t really know what I’m going to write here – probably what I’ve been up to, how my latest diet is going (this time I’m really going to do it, damn it), the ongoing lack of anything resembling a love life and more than likely a lot of Tim Minchin related nonsense. I think I’ve done ok for a first post though so I’ll probably leave it here for tonight. And maybe I’ll come back tomorrow if I can think of something else to say. I may try and explain the ‘I really wish I had a dream’ significance.