The last time I took an extended break from Brighton and University was back in December 2007 and if I’m completely honest, it wasn’t because I wanted to see family or friends, but because London had something Brighton didn’t for me; a bloody job. And if it wasn’t in a games store that would satisfy my geeky fetish for Super Mario, I probably wouldn’t have came back. London’s always been a ‘problem’ for me because it represented a life I wanted to leave behind with all the same people, leading the same lives and doing the same things.

I remember coming back for just ONE WEEK last Summer because in Brighton, I had nowhere to live, no money, no friends… I pretty much had nothing going for me. After a week here, I realised that I came back to that life I wanted to escape from, that poisoned me and was trying to take away everything I had strived to become. I didn’t fit in, nobody understood me, WAAA WAAAA WAAAAA! London sucked! I had been there for 19 years and it still offered me the same bullshit I had grown to hate for almost two decades! Why the hell would I stick about for? I packed my bags and went back to Brighton where even though I had nothing to go back to, I believed there was potential to build something there. I’m so happy I did it, because I earnt some of my most fond memories and experiences there.

So why am I back in London? Other than having my family put a gun to my head and march me back?

Over the last year, I’ve had some of the worst experiences of my entire life – which isn’t surprising considering the initial 18 years was spent in my room playing Playstation all day – and I’ve been on a journey self-discovery, but more importantly, self-development. My new mission in life is the EXPERIENCE that comes with it, good or bad or as I LOVE to put it, “Looking for Adventure and Finding Trouble.”
I refused to let myself stay put down by those negative events, life’s too short for that! They’re just challenges, life lessons and I’ve learnt quite a bit. I’ve become strong and self-centered, secure and the most important thing I’ve come to learn and believe is that everything we do is our own choice, everything is our fault. Our lives are OUR RESPONSIBILITY!

I’m strong now, I know who I am, or at the very least, where I’m going. It’s called direction! Everything positive that’s happened to me is because I’ve made the effort to go for it, I made action and steps towards something I want. And so, it’s not good enough to come back to London and blame everyone and everything for me feeling miserable. It’s impossible that there’s nothing decent out here, so I’ve got to find it! I’m a cause in the world now, not an effect.

And waking up late, home cooked food througout the day and living rent free is definitely a plus. More so when you’ve been homeless for a year.

So, back in London after quite an eventfully uneventful Summer and to kickstart off all the fun, I think I’ve spent over 12 hours today lying down on my belly, facing this laptop screen. 12 hours trying to re-design my blog and get back to grips with all this nerdy shit, like Photoshop and webdesign things that the girls love me for. Ahh, it reminds me of the good old days when I used to have plans for an exciting life and to document it in a blog I spent days and days setting up.

However, now exciting things are going to happen FOR SURE, as if they haven’t already! I now come equipped with something called ‘motivation’ and a delicious little dish named ‘ambition’ in a quantity so great, I’ll serve up a feast fit for a fat king. At 3:30. Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation, I don’t know.

Oh boy, I cannot fucking wait for tomorrow!

I’m on a fear ban at the moment. Let’s see how this goes.

Okay children, listen up because class is in session! Last night, I went out and fucked my shit up intentionally formulated the perfect recipe and guide to messing up a first date! With a real woman! So get ready to take notes and prepare to go out and mess up. I guarantee you WON’T get laid, or I’ll give you all your money back and possibly provide you with some kind of sexual favours. I’m getting desperate.

1. Find a girl.
   In this case, I met a cute Japanese girl at the on campus bar and getting her two friends out of the way and eventually having her ask me for my number.
2. Arrange a meeting.
   I exchanged a few texts with her so we would meet the next day at the local bar first where we had some good old fasioned conversation and got to know each other. Everything at this point should be going to plan. Now, here comes the hard part, guys!
3. Take her to a cockfest.
   What I did, was genius. I took her to a friend’s house, where we sat in a room of around six sleezy guys (myself not included) who asked her if she had kissed me yet, when we were going to have sex, whether she likes balls, etc. You must ensure your company does everything they can to make a foreign girl who is very conservative, polite and not used to obscenties uncomfortable and imply that at some point tonight, you are going to try and make a baby with her.
4. Take her to a BIGGER cockfest.
   Yes, one cockfest is not enough! Not unless you want to get anywhere with this girl! And you don’t, of course. Don’t be silly. My preference was taking her to Oceana, famous for having the most sleezy and disgusting men prowling for slutty girls. It’s been described as the perfect place for getting laid, but I debunk this rumour with my mad skillz for getting nowhere!
5. Put a stop to a bad night.
   Get drunk and lead her out of a fire escape so you’re seperated from your (bastard) friends and the only source of fun.
6. Sit in the street and go for the kiss.
   It’s best to do this on shy, insecure Asian girls in my experience who are scared to dance or hold hands. Don’t bother trying to take things slow or any of that bullshit, just DO IT. Results will follow 100% of the time!
7. Get rejected.
   Hopefully, she should pull away from you and make things deliciously awkward. If for some reason she does return the kiss, slap that bitch, call her a slut and walk away.

Follow these simple rules and guidelines and you’ll be single FOREVER!

I’ve been talking to my good friend Jamie a lot lately about doing things that we don’t really want to do, to get the hell out of our comfort zones because it makes life more interesting. For the average person life can be pretty linear and that’s most definitely the case for a lot of my student life which involves wasting away money on expensive food and alcohol.

Lately I’ve been telling him and myself to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” So a little while ago, whilst drifting about on campus with nothing better to do, I was talking on the phone to Jamie when a cute Asian girl walked by. I won’t deny that I am quite fond of Asian girls and this one was wearing pink which is a colour which sends me into a bit of a frenzy. I had to meet her, so I came up behind her and started talking to her only to find out she’s one of these shy girls from China who’s interests are kind of the opposite of mine. She didn’t drink, so being an alcoholic, this could be quite problematic.

Either way, I ran into her a few times since then, making small talk and no plans as she told me she’s very busy with homework as she doesn’t believe she’s doing too well for her Foundation year which makes or breaks whether she gets into University come October. Good luck to her?

Until I got a text message from her yesterday asking me to help her with her presentation. Being the man I am, I of course saw this as the perfect opportunity to meet up with her on her day off, get to know her and MAYBE make some kind of move.

So at 6:30pm, the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and I sit on a bench watching children play on the grass. I see her appear from outside a building, shooting her usual modest smile and giving me a wave. She’s on the phone speaking in Mandarin, her tone excited and her pace fast… a complete contrast to the shy, nervous girl I usually try to make conversation with. Her dress sense is pretty amazing, stepping into silver shoes with heels before she left the house to giver her height and her long, dark hair glistens in the sun. For once I’m not trying to force conversation out of her or reassure her that her perfectly acceptable English is not as bad as she thinks it is. I just stand and listen to her on the phone for a moment and watch her… she’s gorgeous.

Soon she drops her call and sits on the bench next to me, the first part of our conversation lost in translation, then moving on to the subject of her presentation. She tells me it’s only worth 20% of her mark, and I stand up and joke that 20% is so easy, it’s not worth my time and I’m going back to sleep. She looks a little hurt, “okay,” she tells me sounding a little dissapointed and defeated. As my heart melts a little for her I sit back down and tell her it was a joke and that we should get to work, her asking where there’s a computer and I of course suggest my room which has a laptop.

Of course, my room is like a sauna so we settle for working in the kitchen.

At this point, all I know about her is she’s got no confidence in herself, she doesn’t eat chocolate, she doesn’t like pizza, she thinks England is boring, she doesn’t drink… so I ask her what’s so great about China and apparently, it’s karaoke. So I get her to put on some Chinese pop songs which I find more entertaining than a lot of English pop because I can’t comprehend how stupid the lyrics are. I start correcting her grammar and stuff on the computer for her presentation as she sings along to the songs. Occasionally we glance over at each other and I can feel tension building up, constantly thinking whether I should just go for it or keep playing the teacher role.

Until the conversation leads up to a point where I don’t really get a say in it anymore.

She tells me that she finds it so difficult to get to grips with English and writing essays that she’s afraid she’ll fail the year and have to repeat her Foundation year. Before even giving her a mark for her first essay, her teacher even assured her of this, telling her straight up that she’s going to have to repeat the year. Bloody motivating bastard tells her that her grammar is very off in the essays and that he’ll help her if she puts £50 down on the table.

I’m pretty appauled that this leech can get away with that. She tells me that studying for the Foundation year costs £18,000 and these students are denied the luxury… no, not luxury, the RIGHT to be given some one-on-one time or help with their English skills? And then being told that unless they pay the tutor extra, they’ll fail and have to shell out another £18,000 to repeat a year of mediocre teaching! That’s more than 2 years of my proper degree programme!

I can’t help but feel incredibly bad for her as she tells me that she really wants to get into University asap but she’s finding it too difficult, only having started learning English properly a year ago. I also feel like a bit of a twat; I got into University quite easily, avoiding a lot of obstacles and spend 90% of my time having memory lapses through alcohol abuse and sleep all my days away, only bothering to start an essay a couple of hours before its due when you have people from other countries, struggling to get to grips with the language paying all this money only to be told they’re going to fail.

I keep bitching and whining about how I’m paying around £400 to have a place to live and can’t find a job to earn it all back when this girl’s potentially going to lose out on £36000. At this point I’m pretty disgusted in the University itself for not providing these guys with the help they need and deserve, an education they’re paying shit loads of money for. I’m quite tempted to go to the douche teacher myself and contest his little services but then, I don’t want to get her in any trouble and tip him off to the fact I’m helping her.

And yet, at the same time the work looks so easy!

They’re given a few 300 word essays! Something that could be done in a few short weeks and the University spreads this out over several months, milking the students for their living expenses and putting money in the pockets of overpaid tutors. Not satisfied with that, the Uni’s more than willing to have these guys fail the year and come back for more. By this point I’m more than certain that not only do I want to help this girl, I HAVE to. Not because I think she’s ridiculously cute, but because I can’t stand the thought of her failing, her parents wasting more money and I really want to see her get to University.

In the moment I forgot that I’m struggling to be responsible for myself by finding a job amongst other things and now I’ve taken it upon myself to help this girl get through her Foundation year. Oh man, was this the right thing to do? I mean, she doesn’t particularly like the country and she admitted she has a problem with studying anyway… she failed to get into University in the first place because of it. By helping her, wouldn’t I just be keeping that habit ongoing, getting her hopes up and rinsing her money anyway? Surely if she’s struggling with this easy Foundation year, a real degree programme would be much, much worse?! People fail for a reason; because they need to learn and improve more before they find success. Getting me to help her isn’t so much an issue about her cheating the examiners or teachers, but herself as she’ll never need to improve.

This suddenly isn’t so bloody black and white anymore. I can’t even remember or comprehend how I saw her as a mere attractive girl because now I feel a disgusting amount of responsibility for her and I don’t even know the broad!

Before I walked her to her bus, she gave me two of her short essays to look over, telling me it’s my “work.” Then she starts telling me if she gets good grades, she’ll cook for me?! I really can’t tell if she’s joking with me or whether this whole time I was being played by her. I really can’t see her as having any kind of game to be able to pull it off, but now I’m not so sure. Either way, the food or anything else isn’t why I’m trying to help, but the fact I want to.

Oh wow, I sound so cliche. This must be the shit people in education feel like, wanting to see people succeed but not knowing if the student has the capacity to make it through or whether they, themselves have the ability to make it happen. But either way, I don’t really think or feel like I can just give up on trying either way.

Looking at the stupidly vague and unhelpful essay guidelines she’s been given, I’m quite worried that she’s had no idea what she’s been doing so far and has already messed the course up .

AAH fuck! What have you got yourself into?!

So, Kenny hit a bit of a brick wall lately!

After what I’d say was a disaster of a year, I couldn’t wait for the Summer. Last year’s was one of adventure and discovery in which I learnt a lot about people, the world and myself. With the most amazing people I’ve ever met in tow, I had what I would call the best time of my life. And so, I had high hopes and expectations for this Summer. If it was anything like last year, I would have an easy, well paid job on campus again, meet some cool people from America and other places and also save quite a bit of money on rent.

The Job
Due to apparent cutbacks, my boss told me that some people would only be able to work on the weekend and not the whole Summer. Having worked for her last year and being good friends with her and the husband, I didn’t think it would count me. But indeed it did! That was the first spanner thrown in the works, many to follow. Now I had no form of income to fund my Summer of fun so I did the most sensible thing I could think of.
I found a bottle of Vodka and drunk myself stupid!

My state of emergency turned to one of intoxication and in the dizziness that clouded my mind, only positive thoughts could escape me. Yeah, I didn’t have a job but I wasn’t paying rent, I had found enough free food to last me a while. A job would find me sooner or later.

The Acommodation
Not satisfied with cheating me out of a living, Lady Luck decided to swoop down and piss on my parade once more. Up until then, I had been staying with my friends Asif, Fiona and Serina. Asif had left for Bangladesh and so, gave up his room to me. Fiona also left the house to stay with family and friends, leaving me with Serina and their other housemate Daniel. Daniel is a strange character, a very jealous, psychotic and suicidal soul, miserable more often than not and arch nemesis of his housemates. I, however always tried to get along and defend him from their personal attacks.

Then, one morning Serina wakes me up and delivers amazing news: Daniel had squealed to the landlord about me staying in the house and she ordered me to walk the plank and get the hell out of there. After having Asif come to my rescue via emails all the way from Bangladesh and Serina putting up a fight, it looked like I would be able to stick around for a bit… until Serina decided to go back to London for a while. Staying in the house alone with Daniel wasn’t really an option, so it looked like I was going to have to finally bite the bullet and pay for a place to live! With money I didn’t have. What was once money to go towards something such as travelling was now going towards me living on campus and struggling to find a job. But hey, with all these International students about, it would be fine… right?

WRONG.

The Students
Last year I didn’t really care about being surrounded by all these American students until before I left for India, so thought it would be fun to get to know some of them this year. After getting to know quite a few, I incurred the wrath of the Summer School’s staff who I’ve learnt get overprotective of the students and jealous of anyone else who dares talk to them. In some elaborate plot to make me look bad and keep them away from me, they spread rumours about that I’m “dangerous” and some kind of playboy, which is quite hilarious.

So now, like last year I had ended up on campus… minus a job… losing my savings on rent… and surrounded by a couple hundred Yanks who had been led to believe I’m a rapist.
GRAYT!

These are stories for another time though. Where am I going with all this?

Yesterday I went to town for Gay Pride, because last year it was so much fun. This year, as if my luck could get any worse, it absoloutley PISSED down constantly meaning I would drown if I stuck about. Everything so far had been going wrong constantly and I couldn’t catch a break! I had been craving and needing things so badly; money, people, time. I was so attatched to the past that I wanted to replicate it and was chasing after memories that belong in a time gone by. Essentially, I was looking for a time machine to transport me to a better time.

And so, last night I sat around anticipating another underwhelming night at home, knowing that the past was beautiful, the present is terrible and hoping that it’ll all pick up with the future of tomorrow. Then I got that sudden urge to get out there and EXIST NOW. My favourite quote echoed through my mind:

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

YES! And so, I got the bus at 11:30 and headed into town. A huge mob of idiots crowded around the roads, stopping the bus from progressing any further and stopping me from getting to where I wanted to go. I moved to the front and had the bus driver let me out there and then, as walking to my destination would be easier.

As I stepped off the bus, the huge mob transformed instantly into a happy and welcoming crowd. They applauded as I stepped out onto the street, a small step for any other man but a huge leap for me that night. Music decorated the air, stars were stuck in the clear sky, the crowd was laughing, smiling and inviting me to their party in the street.

These people were living in the moment. They were loving life and it was infectious and I saw where I was going wrong all this time. I had been stalking what was already gone and having unreal expectations for what was to come. After a night of brilliance, I sat with two friends, watching night turn to day, the darkness welcoming the everblazing Sun in all its glory and painting the sky a beautiful bright blue. We stared out at the sea, the pier resting on it in the distance, almost suspended in the distance and in thin air as the sea became one with the blue skies. Clouds lingered and silence was golden as I sat in awe at how amazing everything can be if you just take the time to appreciate it.

I have no job, I have no money, no food and I’m not going to get to go travelling.

And yet, life seems so perfect…