Post SitC Woofing

First things first, watch this. It's a fantastic summary video of Summer in the City 2010 by CasioClark. I appear in it a couple of times, waving my hands about and shouting... which is pretty standard for me at SitC events.

SitC this year was especially important for me, because it was the first time I have seen my virtual friends since last summer, and it's also the last time I will see them until next years event. Lots of long hugs were had and I'm gutted for all the people who couldn't come; NSG, whataboutadam, MissYau etc. But it was exactly what I needed in the middle of this long hot summer... and it's 95 degrees in the shade...

I am ashamed for quoting Girls Aloud. Apologies.

So, I've been in Madrid for the past six weeks or so. I've kinda kept that under my belt. Unintentionally of course. I have to do at least 8 weeks here as part of my Uni course, so was here on an internship with an media company. I won't go into details, wouldn't be professional and all that, but due to the circumstances in which I was working and a dodgy relationship with the boss I decided to quit. So for the past week and a half or so I have been jobless, trying desperately to find something to do with my time. I tried charities, other internships, but no one seemed to be hiring or looking for help. To be fair, it's also Madrid in at the beginning of August, half the businesses close down for the holidays.

I have ended up settling on wwoofing my last couple of weeks here. Wwoofing (Willing workers on organic farms) is an organisation based around a website where willing workers (volunteers) work on organic farms... funnily enough. You get put up and looked after in exchange for doing various jobs around the farm. I have wanted to do this for ages. It was an option when I was touring Japan, and I was thinking of doing it around New Zealand next summer after I finish my second year in China. But I had a good friend from Uni doing it so I thought I would join her, so in a couple of hours I will be on a bus bound for Barcelona, arrive there in the morning, and hopefully be on the farm by tomorrow afternoon or early evening.

One annoying thing was that I went food shopping only a couple of days ago. This was all very last minute by the way. And so I have been eating like a pig so I don't get rotting vegetables in my cupboard when I get back. Not that it has mattered that much, loads of my carrots, my lettuce and all my pork chops went off prematurely over the last couple of days. I was very annoyed.

On another note, I haven't mentioned the house that I'm staying in! It's wonderful. It's all a bit touch and go because not all the people are here because it's summer, and people have been arriving and leaving as the rooms switch over, but it's full of young people from all over Europe. A good few of them are artists, and all very friendly. It's very similar to L'Auberge Espagnole if anyone has ever seen it, just in Madrid, not Barcelona.

I wish I had a camera so I could show photos of my time here. When I have money I will be sure to invest.

I will update when I have things to update. I'm not taking my laptop to Catalunya because I think some time offline will do me good. Which may seem ironic to those of you who are still waiting on new RWO videos. I still haven't managed to sort out the technological difficulties on that front. Sorry.

In the mean time, a photo from SitC

Ciao

杰