Went to college to meet Olga. I thought she wasn't coming at first, because she was about 10 minutes late, but thankfully she turned up, along with some guy named Rod.
We walked back down to Bold Street together, talking about my course and the fact that everyone's at a lower level than I am. I had forgotten that Olga herself has spent most of her life in advertising, before becoming part of Mainstream so she knows her way around all of the programs that I'll be using on my course.
We went to a place called Tabac to get something to eat. I've never been in there before, but I thought it looked very nice. I had a big urge to start taking pictures of all the cool lighting and shapes in there, but I didn't have my camera on me. Besides, I think I'd get very strange looks.
The main reason why Olga and I had arranged to meet up was because I would really like to leave home and get my own place. I had emailed Olga about this and she said that she'd help me go about it.
While we waited for our food to come, the three of us talked about how much it would cost for me to be able to manage to do it and it came to about �300 a month when Olga added everything up, such as rent, utilities and food. Currently, my income support gives me �270 a month, so on paper, i'm only �30 out. Seeing it on paper makes it look so easy. However, that's the bare minimum so it could easily be more than �300.
We stayed in Tabac for about an hour and a half talking about me, my course, and just general stuff. They asked me when I would like to start the ball rolling and I said that whenever would be good. They said that they could probably find me somewhere to live within just a few weeks! Impressive.
Olga said that I should be entitled to housing benefit, which would help me out with rent and stuff. It all sounded so daunting when she was telling me what had to be done, but I was also feeling quite excited at the prospect of having somewhere of my own, or rather, somewhere of my own with people living there too, since I think I'd actually quite like to share a place with a few people. I think it'd be nice to
They said that my first place to go should be Student Services in college. I was going to go there, but hadn't yet. So, we walked back up to college and enquired in there about whether there was any support for me with housing. The woman in Student Services said there wasn't that much help available for me.
After that, we went to enquire in the accomodation right next to the college. The place is run by a company called Unite. It's like a little enclosed area full of apartments. It would be SO good to live there, literally right next to college. Olga done all of the talking for me and she found out that you have to put a �250 deposit down before you move in and then you pay your rent in thirds over the course of a one year tenancy agreement. That is to say that it's not weekly or monthly, but simply three times in one year. She asked if the apartments were available to people at my college and the receptionist said yes. When asked if they take people who are getting housing benefit, she said yes too. However, after she looked at the availability of the rooms, she said that there was only one because they get booked up very quickly.
After that, we went literally thirty steps to another student accomodation place in the same complex called...well, I can't remember, but the receptionist there said they too had nothing to offer and that they don't really accept people who are on housing benefit. She said that also, currently, most of the rooms are being refurbished and that all rooms available are short term only. She said to check back in February.
After that we carried on down into town and we passed another student accomodation place, this time a lot less professional than the two that we'd just been to. Again, Olga done all the talking and I felt embarassed by this, but thankful. I really didn't have a clue what kind of things I needed to know and where to go so I was really glad Olga and Rod were with me. Sadly, when Olga asked if they take students with housing benefit, he said no. When asked why, he said that it takes ages for the benefit to come through so they don't like dealing with it.
The next place after that was YPAS (Young Person's Advice Service) to see if they could offer any help. Sadly they were closed though due to some sort of heating problem, but by now, it was nearly 3pm and I'd been with Olga and Rod since 12:10pm doing my best to look and feel enthusiastic and hopeful and whatnot and just wanted to go home. I felt quite disappointed that there didn't seem to be an awful lot of help going my way in terms of getting a place if i'm on benefits.
I do want to work, but if I do, then my income support would be stopped and since i'm in college, all I could do is a part time job at the best, which wouldn't give me enough money to make up for or be better than what i'm currently on now with income support. I think it's crap that the government don't offer some sort of scheme, whereby people are allowed to work, but have their benefits to fall back on incase they find working too stressful or problematic. Olga said this too.
So, to recap:
Olga thinks that I'd be able to cope financially in a shared accomodation with only my income support and a little bit of help from somewhere else.
Housing benefit would be available to me, but as we found out today, many places don't like accepting it.
I can a get council tax exemption certificate because i'm a full time student.
They're the key things that I learnt today.
Nothing actually got sorted today, as such, but Olga said that she'd follow up some routes of information and get back to me. She and Rod invited me to go and see some film with them about "What it means to be British", as Rod said. Some sort of documentary. It didn't sound like my kind of film at all.
I thanked them for their help and like I said, Olga said she'd be in touch with me when she finds out more information and we said goodbye.
From there, I went to the station to go home, but then decided to go back into town to have a look for some black jeans and some new trainers as the ones I currently have are at least two years old and need binning as soon as possible. I have the money to go and buy myself a nice new pair, but since I don't know town that well at all, have no idea where to go and look for them.
I went to look at trousers first, but even though I liked them, realised they weren't particularly practical and comfortable. I thought they looked good on me, but wouldn't spend money on them if I couldn't just lounge about in them in the house. They weren't those kind of trousers.
After that, I did quickly look in one shop that had some trainers, but I didn't like any. My currently ones are white, but I think I'd like a black pair this time and like I said, I also want some black jeans.
It's strange, my top half, I feel looks better than my bottom half in terms of dress sense. I mean, for example, today I was wearing a black long sleeve top, dark blue jeans and white trainers, with a black jacket. I feel that the black top and jacket look smart but the blue jeans and trainers look casual. I think I want to look more smart than casual. It's taken a long, long time for me to be able to do it, but sometimes, I think I look good now. My confidence in myself in how I look is growing at last and at least sometimes, I can look in the mirror and feel that there's someone at least a little attractive to...someone out there. It's better than say, four years ago when I hated the look of myself.
So yeah, went looking for jeans, went looking for trainers. Got no jeans, got no trainers. I came home.
I spent some time drawing once I got in, in my reallyexpensivesketchbookwhichisn'tworththemoney sketch book. I decided I might as well use it now that I'd bought it, because I didn't have the courage to take it back and ask for a refund. Too scared incase they think i'm stupid or something for asking for such a thing. I just sketched out some ID card designs that I was working on two weeks ago. I had sketched them out on a loose piece of A4 in class, but it was nothing special. No time was spent making them look tidy. The ones that I done in the sketch book though do.
In addition to these, my next task will be to design these 'Unconventional Christmas cards', for which I already have a few ideas and i'm looking forward to making them into a reality. I'm quite excited about doing it actually, because it's a project that I have free reign over, so it means I can challenge myself and it's for college, which means it'll get marked as coursework.
Oh yeah, I talked to Brian while waiting for Olga and Rod in college.
"Hi Brian"
"Alright mate, you weren't in last week"
"Yeah, sorry about that"
"Are you ok and stuff yeah?"
"Yeah i'm fine"
"Listen, I don't know if you know but I give the group a task to.."
"Yeah, Tony told me about it. Gave me the brief for it. I'll get onto it."
"Oh right, nice one mate. I knew you would. See the thing is Neil, I know you can do all this stuff we're doing with them right now. And I know that you must find it really boring. That's why you're the guy who is gonna set the bar for everyone else. Set the standard mate. What you do is what everyone else should be achieving."
I smiled, flattered.
"I mean none of them have a clue, really, about this stuff do they mate?", he said to me.
"Nope, they don't", I replied.
You see, this is why Brian is most definitely my favourite tutor and has been for the past year. He asks of me nothing more than he knows I can do and he is not afraid to tell me himself that he thinks none of them are any good, because sadly, none of them are. Actually, no, I take that back. The jury is still out on Sean. He showed me a car he had redesigned using an image found on eBay and I was impressed by it. As i'm sure you know, me being impressed when dealing with things regarding my multimedia class is a bloody big deal. So yeah, Sean may prove to be the best hope that class has of anyone actually producing quality work. Aside from me of course, because i'm great.
That's sarcasm, if you didn't recognise it.
I may not be great, but, I do know that i'm better than anyone in my class. It was and is great to know that Brian, someone who I greatly respect thinks so too. I'll be seeing him tomorrow for my morning lesson.
The wasps are STILL alive and getting into my room and Laura's. None of us know why or how. There is no sign of a nest on the roof no more and yet they're still appearing, every morning on my window. Sometimes as many as 6 or 7 crawling on it. Same for Laura. My mum said she's going to call a company to come and do it instead of the council tomorrow. I don't know why though, the council should do just as good a job as a private company. But regardless of who comes out, there's now no visible source of where the wasps are living so now what? I'm sick of having to see and kill wasp after wasp.
On a brighter note, my incentive to go to college tomorrow is going to be seeing Holly. Eye candy is a great incentive for when your course is boring as hell.
