Getting Restless

Over the last few weeks I’ve changed somewhat. Beforehand, I’d envisioned staying in Southampton my whole life, because I love this city and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But recently I realised that staying here is only holding me back – for me to make a better life for myself I need to get away, get out of my comfort zone. I also realised that I want to go into something to do with government or politics, and for that I need to look towards London. I just feel that my life is going nowhere stuck here, that I need to branch out, to move, to take charge of my own life, in order to progress. In pursuit of this I’ve applied for several jobs in London. I have no idea if I’ll get them. In fact, I’m feeling rather pessimistic about it.

All I know is, I have to do something and, if I can’t get a job there and move right away, I have to do it within the next few years. I just can’t stand staying at home, staying in this city of limited opportunities; it is holding me back.

Tiring Few Days…

I am absolutely shattered today. I went out for a drink or two with a friend on Tuesday that turned into a clubbing session, so I didn’t get back home until 1:30. Then on Wednesday (yesterday) I got up at 7 to go into uni to do work for a few hours, after which (at about 2pm) went to London to an LSE talk by Alex Salmond; but didn’t leave until 9:30 cos J-O persuaded me to go to hers for 30 mins or so afterwards. Then because I had to go via Portsmouth (since the uni Politics and Debating Society, who I went with, were paying for the train ticket from Portsmouth to London) I didn’t get to Southampton until 00:40am and didn’t get to sleep until about 1am). Then today I had to get up at 7am to go into uni for a 10am lecture. I’m also getting a bit fed up with trains, it feels like I spend half my life on trains.

I now I feel like I just want to go to sleep…

New Years

I am writing most of this on the train as I head back to Southampton, on the WordPress Android app, to ensure I don’t forget anything important. I have decided to do this post by topic rather than a story of how the time went, because otherwise this post would be so long nobody would read it. It’s long enough as it is! So, here goes:

Me vs roommate: J-O said that she has been living with her roommate for months, and in comparison “you are like a stranger to me.” Her roommate also seems to know, at the very least, that I like J-O. She said something along those lines on the first day, though I can’t remember now exactly what she said.

J-O vs roomate’s friend: J-O’s roommate had 2 friends, one of which stayed over in J-O’s room on Saturday night, while her roomate and other friend slept in a friend’s room. J-O complained that when the beds were put together (which was J-O’s idea) that the friend was too close to me. J-O said she was annoyed when her roommate’s friend hugged me when we were out on Westminster Bridge (when J-O was dancing with random guys!), because “she shouldn’t hug somebody she doesn’t know. Doesn’t she know that you are mine?” I asked J-O if I was only her’s when I got close to another girl. She replied that “you can do what you want. Just it did not make me feel good.” Hypocritical much?

Me and roommate’s friend: I somehow ended up telling the basics of me and J-O to her. She said she could relate to my problem and tried to give me advice. I thought she seemed nice, since she was interested in my problems with J-O, but J-O and J-O’s roommate’s other friend didn’t like her. When J-O said she didn’t like her I said thought she was nice. J-O immediately asked “do you like her?”, to which I replied, “I don’t like like her, I just think she seemed nice.” She seemed satisfied with this.

Me and J-O: she only let me kiss her on the lips a few times. When we were sleeping together I did most of the hugging and almost all of the (non-lip) kissing, though she always wanted to intwine her legs with mine whenever we moved. She was wearing just a t-shirt (my Christmas present to her) and (purple, sort of lacey) panties and I started off staying fully clothed. About halfway through the night she suggested I take my trousers off, and I did; later I decided to take my shirt off, too, leaving me wearing just pants. She got up a few times for various reasons, and it was so sexy watching her move in just that; especially when she had to bent over once or twice. She let me touch her though (not like her boobs or lady-parts but anywhere else) and once, when I had my hand on her bottom, she asked how it was. I said it was very nice, it was sexy. I asked if she minded me touching her there, and she said she didn’t mind. We did kiss on the lips at midnight, the first time I have done such a thing. We watched two films together and both times she was very content to snuggle up with me.  Once I put my finger on her lips and she sort of licked it, which was sexy. Her snuggling up to me, hugging me, closing her eyes as she did so, sometimes falling asleep, was cute, but I couldn’t help thinking it was a bit selfish; she could take advantage of me being there, could snuggle up with me, lean on me, not be lonely, yet I was not able, mostly, to kiss her on the lips, or do anything to please me; all I could do was to enjoy her presence, kiss her on the forehead or cheek, not dare, apart from once or twice, to kiss her on the lips. Again when we slept together I hardly got any sleep.

J-O stuff: I learned she kissed random boys in clubs before. When we were on Westminster Bridge after the fireworks (we couldn’t get there before the fireworks, though we could sort of see them where we were) she danced with a lot of random guys and said happy new year to basically everyone she passed by. She wanted me to stay the night again on Sunday night, but I thought there would not be much point cos I wouldn’t get much sleep and have to do uni work the next day. After I texted her that I got home safely, she called me to see how I was. In the background I could hear her roommate shouting occasionally, and I heard that the three of them (the other friend had gone by then) had a bath together and that they had “seen her cooker”. J-O asked what it meant and it was her, ahem, ‘lady-parts’. On fb chat this morning I joked that when I heard that, ‘I wish I had stayed in the end’.

On her coming over on 21st: her roommate’s friend was from Southampton, it turned out. We started talking about J-O coming to Southampton and J-O told her about the fact she would be only there for 6 hours. J-O’s roommate’s friend then offered for J-O to stay the night at hers, since J-O wasn’t comfortable staying at mine (supposedly because she didn’t want the first time she met my parents to be when she was sleeping over, because they might not like her. I tried to say it was ok, but she wouldn’t concede on this). J-O said she had already booked the coach tickets. Today I found out that if J-O cancelled the tickets 72 hours before her coach was due, she would receive a full refund. I said about this on chat and she said: “mmmm okay. lets discuss it tonight okay. please remind me”. I said ok. I doubt she will go for it, and if she does I am sure she would still insist on staying at her roommate’s friend house not mine. At least she’s prepared to talk about it though.

The Solution That Isn’t A Solution (J-O)

Well, on the subject of my last post, there has been a conclusion of sorts. A very messy, uncertain conclusion.

I decided to say to J-O that unless I could sleep in her bed, I wouldn’t go. She didn’t quite concede on that point. What she said was that if bringing a sleeping bag was the problem then I didn’t have to bring one, and that they could push the beds together and we (that is, J-O, me, her roommate, and her roommate’s cousin, of whom I don’t know if it’s male or female, although I’m guessing female) could all sleep on there. She also suggested I could use the next room as the person who usually lives there gave J-O the keys for in case her mum wanted to sleep there. I said I wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping in another person’s bed, especially since that bed belongs to a man. (The thought of sleeping in another man’s bed is not good, you have no idea what kind of things they’ve got up to in there. If it was a woman’s that would be okay, because, well, it’s hard to explain, but you know what we guys are like). She said ok but I suspect she may yet suggest it again.

In amongst talking about all this, we ended up in another discussion about ‘us’. She basically said that she wants us just to be friends and when I said that all I want is for us to be able to do whatever we want when we meet, as we have done, she said that “just because it” (kissing and suchlike) “has happened before, doesn’t mean it will happen again”. I basically accepted that in a way. I told her that all I asked of her was to remember how I feel about her. She asked if that meant she had to do anything, and I said no, because that’s not fair on her. The reason I accepted this was because I figure that so far, every time we have met we have ended up, eventually, bring more than friendly. I know that there is a strong possibility that this won’t happen every time, but I am gambling that because tonight will be a night of drunken festivities, there is an increased likelihood that we will end up more than friendly; after all, the one time she texted me that she missed me was when she was drunk with her mum. I can only hope the theory is true, that if she is drinking she is more likely to reveal how she really thinks of me, remember how much she likes me, as more than a friend.

I feel terrible for not going to my friend’s New Year party and telling her at such short notice though. I know it’s not good, not something a good friend would do, but I just can’t resist the opportunity to see J-O. It’s an awful excuse, but I can’t help it. Especially since, as I’ve said, there is an opportunity that, again, in the heat of the moment, J-O will throw caution to the wind and, shall we say, ‘enjoy my company’.

Saturday Night / Sunday Morning

I don’t know if I mentioned it on here, but I certainly mentioned it on Twitter that I was going to a gig in London, without telling J-O. I was going with a friend I knew from school who is at a uni in London. I met him at Waterloo at 5pm and we went to a pub in Camden for a few hours before the gig, had a few drinks and dinner. While we were there we got talking about J-O and he convinced me that I should call her and ask if she wanted to come to the gig with us. I wasn’t sure but eventually I decided to call her.

I asked her if she wanted to come to the gig but she said she was going to watch a movie with some friends of hers and asked me if I wanted to come. Bearing in mind my previous thoughts on the subject of her controlling nature, I decided (rightly) to say that I was going to the gig with my friend, so I couldn’t go. Then she asked if I wanted to come over to her halls after the gig and maybe stay the night(!). I wasn’t sure, so we agreed I’d call her after the gig.

The gig was great, I’d already had a few drinks by the time we got there so I was pretty merry. We chatted to the band a bit (we know them from college) and then went in to see what the other bands were like. They were pretty good but nothing on the band we were wanting to see, so I was getting pretty impatient by the time they got on (they were headlining). They were great as always. When they finished my friend wanted to catch-up properly with one of the band, but I kinda dragged him away because I was eager to phone J-O and see what was going to happen. I’d bought condoms from a machine in the pub earlier just in case, though I wasn’t expecting anything to ‘happen’.

I said I would come over to hers and that I might stay. She asked what my friend was doing and I said I didn’t know; I was waiting to see the outcome of this conversation before deciding. She said he could come to, but not to stay; I said that was fine. So we headed over there and he said he would step aside if it was going well, and maybe see if one of her friends were about (if you catch his meaning). We met up and she said we could go grab a beer from an off-license, as we did. We had a bit of a problem with the hall’s security guard as we didn’t arrange it beforehand but he did eventually let us through. We sat in her room talking, with me often having to repeat what J-O was saying for my friend’s benefit (it didn’t help that he was pretty pissed, more than I was). We were there a while but everybody else was in bed, none of her friends were around, yet it seemed like my friend wasn’t going to go. I managed to hint at him about our deal and so he did leave.

So, there I was, in J-O’s room, with her, alone (her roommate was away for the weekend), staying the night. She got ready for bed, telling me to turn away as she got into her pyjamas, which consisted of a sort of nightie thing (which only just covered down to her waist) and panties. She looked so hot. She asked what I was going to do and we agreed that I could sleep just in my briefs (I’m not a boxer shorts guy). She was already in bed as I took off my shirt and trousers; I was very nervous.

Nothing ‘happened’ as such but we did a lot of kissing and hugging and sort of, got close together once or twice with some… similar movements to, you know what, going on (with our clothes still on). I didn’t get any sleep and woke her up a few times by moving but it was so nice to just lay there and cuddle with her. We didn’t get up until about 11am and even then we didn’t really want to, but had too. She had a shower (after which she didn’t tell me to look away as she was getting dressed but I did anyway) and then we went out for a bit, walking around London, helping her with shopping, having lunch in Trafalgar Square. Finally at 2:30 we went to Waterloo where I bought my ticket home. We stayed together until my train was about to leave. She said she had a good time and I agreed, saying that I hoped we could see each other again soon, a sentiment she then echoed.

So, I went from decided that I she didn’t want anything to do with me and me not wanting anything to do with her to sleeping with her in 8 hours. I have no idea if that’s a terrible flip-flop or just me realising how I truly feel about it, as opposed to what everybody else thinks (no offence). God knows what’ll happen now. I might be staying at her halls for a few days over Christmas or she might come here (she said yesterday that she wants to meet my family); we’ll seen if anything comes of that. I just hope I’m doing the right thing.

Thinking About Jobs

Recently I realised that my time at uni is swiftly drawing to a close and I will need to being looking and thinking about jobs right now. One thing I’ve been thinking about in the last few years is entering the Civil Service. The only trouble is that currently there is a recruitment freeze, with the only way to get in to the Civil Service being the Fast Track scheme for graduates. Looking at it a few days ago I was shocked to discover that the deadline for applying for next year is at the end of November. I began looking on the internet to see what it was all about and discovered that in 2008 there were 22,000 applications for the 500 places on the scheme. I’d dread to think what that number is now.

It’s also quite daunting to read about. As it’s a scheme for “future leaders of the civil service”, you are posted to several different departments over a number of years then thrown fairly quickly (by most standards, by govt standards especially) into management. Thinking about me, somebody who is just coming out of university, with no relevant experience, to be thrown headfirst into something like that is crazy. Not that I’d get onto it at this stage. The only thing working in my favour (well, in only one sense) is that the tests for the opportunity for an interview (which is basically what the initial online tests are) is based on competency rather than experience. I say in only one sense because I have no experience, but at the same time I don’t know if I’m going to be any good at the competency tests. If there are any that involve maths, I’m screwed.

Even if I do pass these online tests, I doubt I’d get any further. They’d take one look at me, a fresh-faced uni graduate with no experience, not even involvement in running a uni society on my CV, and say “next!”. So, I am thinking about doing some unpaid internship work with a local MP. Sure, it’s not exactly great work, in a constituency office (since I doubt there’s any chance of getting anywhere near Westminster) with no idea what work you’ll be trusted with, outside making tea and stuffing envelopes, but it’s a start.

Although, saying that (the not-getting-anywhere-near-Westminster bit), my mum’s friend’s son has said that he knows a Lord that is in need of an intern. I’ve said that I’m interested but would like to know what sort of work I’ll be doing. The thing is, I can’t imagine that Lords need many staff. Most of them only turn up a few times a year, vote on something, maybe debate a bit, then leave. They certainly don’t have constituencies, or being a minister (usually; there are one or two Lords that have govt jobs I believe) to worry about. He could be a Lord that sits on a Committee, which would need some extra work and so maybe a few staff, but surly those would be permanent staff, paid by the House? I can’t see Lords needing their own staff to do that work. Anyway, who knows. It might actually be interesting, useful. Certainly it would be nice to get a taste of the real Houses of Parliament, even if I would be dealing with Lords, the less interesting people (certainly compared to MPs).

Who knows what will happen. Certainly if nothing comes of these things I will have no idea what the hell I’m going to do for a job that would actually give me the sort of experience that might help me get into the Civil Service another year (the Fast Stream scheme not just being for graduates straight out of uni). Certainly if nothing comes of it then I will have no reason, I should think, to move to London  and have another shot with J-O…

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Awesome Next Few Days

The next few days are going to be great. I’m going over to a friend’s house tonight, a few of us are going to have a few beers and sleep over, then we’re getting up and going to London to the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park. J-O has moved on from the second family but is not yet with a third, so she may meet me at the station and have lunch with us (unfortunately she doesn’t have the money to go to it with us, even though I offered to pay half the money), which would be great considering I didn’t see her on her day off yesterday.

We’re coming back from London that night, and then on Saturday I’m having my 20th birthday party at a local pub, which is always good fun. Given recent events though, I don’t think I’ll be doing much drinking. But we’ll see. Have a good weekend readers, I know I will

Current Situation Part II

Today me and J-O had a talk, I’m not really sure how it went. I was crying through most of it. I am typing this out quite quickly because I don’t want to dwell on it too much just at this moment.

We both aired our views on our relationship. She partly conceded (only as a throwaway comment) that she may have expected too much of me. She got upset at one point, again on the subject on not being able to meet her when she first arrived in the UK and not calling her for the first few days (though I only did that because she got upset with me before and I wanted to give her breathing room. When I said this to her she said that for the future, I should no that that was the exact wrong thing to do, I should have called and tried to patch it up). She said it made it look like I didn’t care about her. She hasn’t dumped me but she doesn’t know how she really feels. She complained about the problems with us finding each other on the day we finally did meet.

She did say though that she wasn’t just concentrating on the negatives, she admitted that she did mostly have a good time on the day we met. That was the major positive for me. That and she says we might be able to meet on Wednesday (and I really do hope so given the next paragraph).

The worst thing though was that she said she was really tired of the current family she is with (the agency still hasn’t found her another family, she’s still with the second family) and she is seriously thinking of going back to Bulgaria. She tried to imply that I tried to persuade her to stay when she wasn’t happy, even though I did nothing of the sort. Yes, I tried to say that maybe she should stick with the second family because it was better than the first and might be better than the third, but I didn’t say that she should stay in the UK at all costs, even if she’s unhappy.

I have no idea what’s going to happen.

My First Meeting With J-O

Right, yesterday I promised that I would finally write about how my first meeting with J-O went on Thursday. In my love-crazed state a few days ago, I wrote every little detail I could recall about the trip in a Word document. However, it mostly talks about kissing e.t.c so I’ll heavily edit it and add other bits to made it more of a general, rather than more personal, account of the day. Here goes.

I was supposed to meet her at Waterloo station. Unfortunatly, she came out of one of the many Waterloo Underground entrances and didn’t bother looking for the station, so I had to go find her. That took about 15 minutes. As I came around the corner to an entrance I see her, for a few seconds not quite recognising her because of her hair. I then said as much to her. She says hello, comes up to me and hugs me. It feels so nice. I notice her height, that she just comes up to my chin. We ask each other how we are, and then decide to go through the barrier to the underground, to go see Buckingham Palace. After we go through, she holds my hand. It’s the first time I’ve held hands with a girl. While we are walking along the tunnel to get to the tube platform, I keep smiling and looking at her. She keeps asking if I am ok. I can hardly believe what is happening.

When we are on the tube, I lean on a wall, she stands in front of me and hugs me. I hold her tightly , so much that she doesn’t need to hold on to the bar. I say as much to her when I see her reaching for the bar when the train stops at the next station. It felt so nice.

Unfortunately, due to the time it took to find her, we missed the first 10 minutes of the Changing of the Guard and couldn’t see anyway because of the amount of people. Then it started to rain and we took shelter in Green Park. We then made our way towards Trafalgar Square, where we went into Cafe Nero to have lunch. After this, we walk along Whitehall, to Parliament then go to Westminster Bridge. She wants to see Tower Bridge, but it cannot be seen from there.

Just before we move towards the tube station, I suddenly, without much thought, in a spontaneous, natural moment, lean my head in to kiss her on the lips. I see her close her eyes and we kiss. I close my eyes too. I can smell her; it is a lovely, sweet smell. I don’t even notice we are in a public place. This is my first kiss. We stop, smile, then move on, not saying anything about what just happened.

We got and visit Westminster University, as she needs to sort out some things. Then we head to PC World, where I help her buy a laptop. It’s an ordeal that lasts about 45 mins. Luckily I manage to prevent them from selling her Microsoft Office and security software, telling her she could get software just as good on the internet for free (OpenOffice and AVG in conjunction with Windows Defender). We then go sit in Pizza Hut for a bit. Unfortunately this is when I begin to feel ill. ‘Great, just what I need, on this day of all days’, I thought to myself.

After that we walk down to Earl’s Court, and at one point we cross a road with an island in the middle. We had to stop at the island, and when we did, something unexpected and nice happened.

She pulls me around to her, we hug and she reaches up and we kiss for a minute or so; at one point she tries using her tongue, but I don’t know what to do, so we just kiss normally. Then I realise we can cross, we stop and as we are walking across I say ‘you were distracting me’  and we both smile to each other. Eventually we get to Earl’s Court. From there we decide to go to the pub I had been recommended to by a friend.

When we are there, my stomach keeps acting up but we still have a nice meal. We were sitting at a table for four, opposite each other, but once we’ve finished eating, J-O moves around and sits next to me. We kiss several times more, and she tries using her tongue again, and the first time it almost works; but after one almost-successful attempt at putting my tongue in her mouth, I stop and just kiss normally. A few minutes later, we try again, and this time I am able to use my tongue, and we begin making out. It’s such a good feeling, especially when the other person initiates the kissing. A few times I opened my eyes while doing it, and I just thought that it is so sweet how she looks when kissing me; the closed eyes suggesting she is really enjoying it. Even though I know closing your eyes is what you must do, I still think about it in that way.

We eventually realise it is later than we thought, and decide to go out of the pub and go our separate ways. We get off the train at Leicester Square. I think we might have to go our separate ways then, but then I realise we will both be travelling on the same line in opposite directions. We find the platforms, which are directly opposite each other. I lean against the wall adjacent to the platforms and we hug. I lean in and we make out again. She pokes her finger into a hole in my shirt between the buttons, touching my skin. I move my hand up from her waist and feel one of her boobs for a few seconds. Both trains arrive at the same time and we stop kissing. She says (referring to the touching) “just a few seconds” and smiles. I kiss her again. I say to her “I could do that all day”. She says, “our trains are here, we better go. Goodbye”. I reply “goodbye” and as I do so, the train doors open and she pushes me towards them. I reluctantly get on the train. She gets on hers. I watch as the doors close on both trains. She is looking at me, smiling. I smile too. Suddenly, the train pulls away, and she is gone.

It is not until the next day, when I am at work, that I remember the way we parted. I almost begin to cry as I realise I will not see her for about a week; I will not be able to hug her, to kiss her, to be with her. But I don’t. I just hope that I see her again and am thankful that she made us part in a way that kept me feeling happy, not thinking any sad thoughts.