My last offerings to this blog were as a disorientated returnee from afar one year ago. Here's a re-cap of 2008 in London as I experienced it:
The English language industry was booming and corrupt as ever. Lots of schools, lots of jobs, lots of tired looking Columbian, Chinese, Mongolian, Brazilian and Mexican students coming into my classes from early cleaning shifts or leaving to go to long supermarket shifts, car washing, waitering etc. I rarely met anyone getting paid as much as minimum wage or working as little as the home office insists foreign students are permitted to.
I myself worked cash in hand as a night-club photographer to supplement my meager teaching income. I also took on more teaching jobs than were strictly healthy, back-to backing different schools across central London, working from 9am to 8.30pm with my breaks devoted to commuting between schools or planning my next lesson.
Around April I noticed an odd phenomenon, which was that the bank manager really really wanted me to start investing in high risk stocks and shares. He promised "aggressive competitive rates of return" or something of the like. I decided not to put my money on the line, expecting I'd get sick of working and do something else and probably need my money available and not tied up in all sorts of risk.
Around the same time, all the people I knew working in finance started getting a bit jumpy about their jobs, and some got redundancy with gardening leave. Sounds like heaven: three months full pay as long as you don't sell on trade secrets.
They didn't give me gardening leave from my last teaching job. They barely gave me notice. I had eventually dropped the other schools I had been working for to do morning shifts at one, with the promise of more hours to come. I found myself teaching German in the afternoons at the same school. They seemed upset that I was working across two departments. After six months of having my two-week contract constantly renewed, suddenly one day it wasn't going to be renewed.
I continued to get odd bits of German teaching work with the same school, but my main source of income came to an abrupt halt. This coming just as I moved out of my rent-free accommodation, and into a shared flat in South London.
Then BBC Radio Africa gave me a call following an application I barely remembered having put in a few months previous, and I did a week's work experience with a call in show.
2008 was a year of continuing progress for Angola, who had continued Chinese investment in the oil industry, leading to building of infrastructure such as hospitals and schools. However, there is still a shortage of doctors and teachers.
Then a week in photographic for my local paper, which was followed by paid photographic work which I did along side a course in newspaper journalism.
Lehman Brothers collapsed. I had never heard of Lehman Brothers, but was happy I hadn't decided to invest my money on the stock market.
Five months of learning what makes news. Then blissful unemployment. One week in. Anything could happen.
For a more current slice of current journalism in London, go to http://sethkin.blogspot.com/
http://www.boozythursdays.blogspot.com/
