A New Chapter

Previously on Dan 2.0: I had enjoyed my long Summer holiday before the start of my new job, which I was extremely anxious about.

I now write as a man who is working full-time and is enjoying his weekend. Weekends suddenly become very valuable to you once you start full-time work. So, you ask, how is the job going? I despise broad questions like this with no obvious answer and usually come up with a broad response like a celebrity when answering questions about something they don’t want to talk about. My broad response is “Good, I’m really enjoying it”. I think said response sums up my feelings fairly well. Plus working with children and all I can’t really say much more than that. But basically, it’s pretty awesome.

For the first time in a long while I feel properly happy. The job is quite hard work and some days are not so good, as with any job. But I am enjoying working with children without much pressure on me. In a parallel world where I scraped through my teaching practice I am a full-time teacher right now and I am glad that didn’t happen. Suddenly the Facebook posts from my university colleagues have dwindled as they work their socks off. As a teaching assistant I leave at the end of the school day and have pretty much no responsibility for the class. I’ve essentially got all the good bits of what I was doing without all the bits I struggled with. It’s virtually perfect.

One think I had been frustrated about was the fact I have to rely on my parents and public transport to get me to and from work. Fortunately it hasn’t really inconvenienced by parents an awful lot so far and the bus journey isn’t too horrendous. I’ve got enough time to get between the school and the bus stop without having to rush and although the bus journey is considerably longer than the journey by car I find it quite relaxing to sit there listening to my iPod and enjoying the view from the top deck. You see some interesting people on this bus too:

People on the bus who have amused me

1. An old women with proper whiskers, an actual and natural bearded woman.
2. An old woman carrying a potted plant on the bus. Plants need walking too you know.
3. A man waiting for the bus who sighed every minute it was late. That day it was twenty minutes late, by which point the sighs had evolved into mutterings about how terrible the world is.
4. An old man who addressed his unhappiness at a rowdy group of youths at the back of the bus playing rap music through their phones. He was my hero.
5. The teenager on crutches who nearly misses his stop every day because he decides to sit right at the back of the bus.

I really thought I would hate the bus journey but it is not too bad at all. Whilst I would still like to pass my driving test in a few weeks time failure is not quite the unpleasant prospect it once was.

I like to imagine my journey on the bus are like this. Kudos if you know what this is from.

Last weekend was not the most relaxing weekend after my my first few days of work as I managed to fill it all. I accompanied my father on a visit to my grandmother, who lives on the North Somerset coast. Whilst not that far away from us, it takes a long time because there are few major roads and lots of traffic. My grandmother has changed very little since the last encounter, displaying traits common to her generation from a dislike of the modern trend for frothy coffee to casual racism.

Part of the day involved a trip to a local headland. To get up to the top of the cliff you have to climb a load of wooden steps and by the time we reached the top my grandmother was quite tired. She sat down and we were instructed that there was a fort just along the headland and expecting it to be just over the hill we set off. It was over an hour later when we returned, discovering the fort was some distance away over challenging terrain. Still, Brean Down Fort turned out to be pretty good as small forts go:

I also visited the Dorset County Show, which consists of lots of country people getting excited about tractors, farm animals and farm produce. Fortunately I am all for the latter of those, being, as most of my social media profiles announce, something of a cheese connoisseur. Inevitably there were numerous cheese stalls there and my policy at such events is to go round them all trying as many different cheeses as is possible. The good thing is many of the stall-holders encourage you to take samples and it takes a lot of free samples before they even give you a stern look. The winner for best tasting cheese went to a goat’s cheese which is absolutely gorgeous and has been the delicious filling to my sandwiches this week.

Today I have decided to bake a cake. Every now and then I like to do some baking, decide my distinct lack of culinary skills. Here is my Ultimate Chocolate Cake* and as you can see it is a bit of a mess but it tastes amazing.

So this is my new life, beginning to settle into an awesome new job and being the sort of guy who visits county shows and bakes cakes at the weekends. I worry what impression this gives but hey, I’m my own man. I still have a sense of oddness in my life though. This weekend is national return to university weekend and for the first time in five years I’m not part of that. I am so used to time at home being an interlude from my time at university but it is now a permanent interlude.

Considering how miserable 2014 has been for the most part I am really pleased that things have finally turned around. I still have no idea where my future lies in the long-term but for the short-term, I’m happy. Finally.