Just before I finished exams I saw that The Student Room was offering an internship to help upgrade the website to the newer version of their software. Considering I was applying for anything I could I thought that I might as well go for it, even though it was advertised as a graduate job. I got rejected by KFC, Subway, Next, so naturally I got this internship after being told I sounded really promising and that my interview was fantastic. It required me to move down immediately. This is where the trouble started.
I loaded myself with as much luggage as a Beverly Hills rock star and started the journey down south. The train was diverted via Leeds, where I had to sit about before being allowed to approach London. By the time I got there I was already late, and the tube journey under the capital was fairly eventful. On the Victoria Line, some loon started running up the carriage, blessing everyone, before collapsing into a heap on the floor. At the next stop he legged it, and then between Warren Street and Oxford Circus everyone began to smell the acrid burning of crude oil. By the time we got to Green Park, we were all evacuated without reason given, and allowed on the next train to Victoria. Can't help thinking something was being covered up.
Anyway, fastforward a week and I'm doing the same journey again. This time I get dropped off in Sheffield by the train without much explanation and have to sit there for an hour or so. Nice city, hadn't been before.
Then all goes well for two beautiful weeks, I enjoy the job, I love living by the sea, and generally everything is good. Couple of mates come and stay and then Ray makes his way down to Brighton. This really does spell the beginning of the end. We have a good couple of days, betting on a lot of the football, losing a lot of money, playing each other at Pro Evo and so on. But on his final day I get up to go to work and he says he'll leave soon after me. Turns out the landlady finds him, goes a bit over the top, and kicks him and me out immediately. I can't persuade her otherwise and I'm out on the street. No fun. But Warren (my immediate superior at work) lets me crash at his place whilst I search for somewhere new.
On Monday I move into a posh little apartment in Kemp Town, owned by a really angry gay Irishman with a playboy bunny-logo'd necklace and playboy bunny-themed phone. There's nothing in the flat in terms of possessions though, which is taking minimalism far too literally. I pay him money and he goes out on a 27 hour bender. Odd. On his return, he brings a toy boy. Then the next night he brings two toy boys. This is all getting rather queer. Anyway, I decide to sit and watch football with him when he eventually has a night off, and win some money, yay. I mention this and he asks to borrow £40. "Sorry, as your tenant I don't feel comfortable lending my landlord money, and considering I pay the rent next week anyway, is it completely urgent?" comes out as "Urm, you can have £20?" Ffs Michael.
The next day I return to London for a weekend of debauchery and football. I get back on Sunday night and find that the landlord's done a runner and someone else has moved into his room. I get chatting to this guy, who is under the impression that he was moving into an empty room in a house owned by a live-out landlord. I get really suspicious and chat to the guys at work about this the next day. General consensus is that he's a sub-letting crack addict with loads of personal debt. Wahey. Asking for £40 = buying a gram of coke? No possessions = pawning them? God knows, anyway, I decide to move out, so I go back that lunchtime to collect my things, and find him there asleep on the sofa! He'd been out all night and came back to sleep while the other guy and I were at work.
I spend the next few weeks on various peoples sofas and floors, living out of my suitcase and generally having no luck finding a place to live. The landlords are all absolutely off their faces mental. I get one bloke who wants me to chop wood for him in his back garden as he's away all Summer. Another woman wants me to look after the nine kids in the house. A third wants to sleep on the floor of the room he'll be letting me. A Chinese dude says he'll bring me takeaway in bed each morning. None of these are acceptable examples of humanity I trust myself to be in ther presence of for three months. I have to keep rejecting people and as time passes it only gets more difficult as no landlord wants a super short term tenant.
I stay in Warren's place for a week while he's on holiday and one of the most horrendously slapstick events of my life occurs. I pop out for some chips, walk under some scaffolding, and at that precise moment a bag of cement powder/mix/whatever the fuck it is overbalances, splits, and cascades all over my head. Fuccccccck offffff.
A trip up to Lichfield beckons for Liz's birthday that weekend. I'm so pleased to get away from Brighton! But on the train there Coventry station catches fire and we're delayed 30 seconds away from it watching the fire brigade not put it out. Doesn't help that I'm sat next to some neurotic spastic who keeps running away to vomit out of fear. Eventually we reach Lichfield where I get utterly hammered and lose my railcard, meaning the trip back costs £65.
Anyway, long story short, I didn't find anywhere to live for the two weeks after that and had to move back home in the end. I'm in London now for a few weeks and I'll see what fate befalls me next. I've almost definitely left some disgusting portion of bad luck out of this story, but I reckon my mind's censoring itself so I don't explode in a spontaneous ball of self-pity and hatred.
Life goes on. I'm looking forward to Belgium even if Laurie can no longer make it, and I've got a trip to Italy booked with Mohamed and Jess. I'll be spending my 21st birthday in Milan, which is incredibly awesome.
