Sometimes life is like standing on a stepping stone in the middle of a roaring river.

The good thing about stepping stones is there's never just one.
If you keep moving from one to the next, eventually you'll reach the other side.

Monday 16 May 2011

Poverty

I think I've had a brief glimpse of how Africa must feel when they look at the UK and America. 

There's me (Africa) eating toast for dinner, for the tenth day running, and dreaming of vegetables because I can't remember the last time I could afford to buy any. Then there's my landlady (UK+US) with so much food she can't physically eat it all and just leaves it stacked up in the fridge, rotting. It would be so easy for her to say, "I can't manage all of this, why don't you have some?" but she doesn't.  
They must be so cross with us.

On the plus side, this level of skint-ness is making me really look at how wasteful I am. I know that several times in my life I've bought too much food and let at least half of it just go off. I particularly remember looking at a bunch of bananas that had started to get brown spots on them and thinking 'I could make banana bread with those', then leaving them until they turned black and became completely inedible. If time travel were possible I would go back there and shake me, and tell her how much I would give to have a few bananas right now.  This feels like the kind of lesson that's gonna stay with me for the rest of my life; I guess that's at least one of the reasons for my being so poor right now.

In other news: I've worked out how to turn the heating on in the flat. 'Ecstatic' doesn't even begin to cover how I feel about this.
xXx

Friday 6 May 2011

If I get a job.

My entire life seems to be resting on this sentence.  I can stay in Glasgow if I get a job. I can bring my car up if I get a job. I'll be able to buy my own drinks and stop feeling guilty about scrounging off my boyfriend if I get a job. I'll be able to stay with my boyfriend if I get a job. And have my hair cut, and take the subway into town instead of walking for 45 minutes, and buy proper food, and start swing dance lessons, and get boots that won't wear through in two weeks, and stop worrying until I give myself heartburn.

I now have a grand total of £15 to last me til the 1st of July. I haven't yet built up the courage to work out how much that is per day.  The really worrying thing is that now my choice is between having food and going to salsa, and I think I know which one's going to win.