It's been an eventful couple of months, and just the kind of events I was hoping for. After a super-fun (if far too hectic) fortnight in india, I came back to an interview for a job up in london with a creative comms agency. Two knuckle-biting weeks later, they called back to say the post was mine. Cue much cartwheeling, shrieking, fistpumping and grinning madly - all in my head of course, cos i was seated at my desk in office then. Needless to say i said yesyesYES, so in a week from now, i'll be moving to a new flatshare in Archway (north london), and starting work bang in the atmospheric, lively centre of the city. finally! this is what i came to england for - to be in the thick of things where the action is.

It's taken a year and a half of small-town toodling to get it sorted, but better late than never. it was not a bad experience; i extended my residence permit till 2010, met some good people, learnt to adapt to a routine, got a chance to travel to Germany, Italy, Taiwan and America on work, found the time to watch 150 films and to take up kung fu... still, the last few months have been pretty drab at work, getting increasingly bored and frustrated; the last few weeks were downright agonising. worse, my soon-to-be-ex employer had some financial wobbles, and two bounced paycheques in 4 months does not a confident and eager employee make. so this move, to a well-known midsized company with a strong portfolio of work - and payment by bank credit on a regular fixed date, plus generous benefits, the way it bloody well should be!! - is long overdue. yes, london life will be much busier and more expensive, and a new job and new house/flatmates in a new city all at once could be as daunting as exciting, but this is what i want and need to do. so hurray, and fingers crossed.

my only worry is the effect said extra-busy-ness will have on the long-distance relationship i'm in. so far it's going well enough, i think, allowing for the basic fact that LDRs suck to start with; she's being great and we try to talk pretty much everyday.. but the undoubtedly longer workdays, combined with the time difference, means it will take some real solid extra effort to keep in the good zone and not gradually lose touch with each other's daily lives, which is the No.1 LDR No-No.

i finally got down to getting my UK learner's licence. hoping to do the CBT, or compulsory basic training (the second of four rather difficult and costly steps to getting a bike licence here) next month. it's too late in the summer to buy a bike now, but if i can pass the theory and practical tests and get my full licence say by the end of this year, i'll be ready and waiting when spring '08 rolls around. and i'll probably have had enough of the Tube by then (though map geek as i am, right now i'm such a sucker for all those cool coloured lines! :-)

tomorrow is my kung fu grade-4 test. the holiday to india sort of crapped on the regular attendance and (relative) mental discipline i'd managed to build up from Jan thru to April.. came back fatter, lazier and less enthusiastic about going to the classes.. but it's sort of gotten back up to speed now. anyhoo, i'm transferring to a london branch of the school as well, so that's another new routine ahead.. i just regret that the inch i'd sweated so much to trim off my waistline in 3 months sprang back in one bloody fortnight of eating like five times a day and despatching many a Kingfisher to the legendary place where all beers go to die.

well then, london ahoy! can't promise future posts will be any less sporadic, but hopefully they'll be spilling over with good shit!