Dream #1

I can never ever remember my dreams, but for the last few weeks I've been dreaming and remembering it almost every single night, this is the first one I've recorded.

As with a lot of the dreams I have it seems that two different dreams were sewn together. I don't know where they connected but I'll describe both parts. In the first part I was in High Wycombe, it was dank and the sky was grey. I was on my own walking somewhere and got on a bus from Morrisons to get into the town centre (I'm not sure why, it's so close) I only had £5 and asked how much it would cost to get to town, the guy said £5.30, so I said "really!?" and got off the bus to start walking. For some reason I started to walk the opposite way from Morrisons, for whatever reason this is the path I took. Looking back now I walked down a road which doesn't exist in High Wycombe, past a bunch of shops that don't exist, including a pancake shop called 'WEAK PANCAKES'. The guy in the shop behind the counter wore a chef's hat and white overalls and had a big grey moustache. I remember thinking how silly the shop name was. At some point I saw Will O'Connell (a friend from college and school) and caught up with him while we both walked up a long hill. I don't remember the conversation or what happened after that.

The next part of the dream is the strangest. I walked into a corner shop in a town which I somehow knew but looking back have no idea where it was, in my head I think I thought it was Birmingham (?) and it was around 5:00 in the afternoon, dreary, grey skies again. I went in and walked through to a small back section of the shop where they were renting videos, DVDs and Xbox 360 games. One of the games was a Super Mario/Spider man crossover, it had Super Mario in a Spider man costume riding a bad ass motorbike on the cover. There was an indian woman behind a small counter in that room. Realising I didn't need anything back here I walked through the front counter of the shop, walking past a shelf that stocked 'Gremlin Cider' which had the head of a Gremlin (from the film) on the packaging. I asked an indian lady at the front counter for some large blue rizlas, some green rizlas and a pack of filters. As she turned around to fetch these I noticed two new products by OCB behind the counter - they were aerosol cans, or spray cans at least, one of which was for spraying the end of your spliff with a non-toxic but flammable substance so that you could walk along and light it in inclement wind conditions. At the time I looked at it and marvelled, in fact I almost bought it, and there was a diagram on the box of the cans of a guy lighting a VERY long spliff while walking down a road. The second spray can product was something to do with being able to smoke with the lights off? I think it might have actually been a small circular light like the camping ones you get. The lady offered me 'OCB Extras', which looked like OCB Experts but less wide and slightly longer.

I left the shop and eventually arrived at a flat/house. I'm not sure if I lived in the place, I think I did, but either way when I got there Ruby Willis was there and she drew my attention to a package that had arrived for me. I was really excited for the package and opened it up. It was a multi player accessory that you plug into a Nintendo DS (?) which allows two people to play, but it was two small caricatures that looked a lot like Ruby and her boyfriend, my close friend, Jonny Trussell. They were the size of the little nodding head figures you see in cars. You moved the over sized heads around as the joystick and there were buttons on the sides of the bodies. Very strange, but at the time I'd obviously been waiting for these to arrive for a while and had a good laugh with Ruby about how similar they looked to the caricatures; I think this was the reason I bought them.

The part connecting this and the next event is blurry. I just remember meeting a dealer in the stairway of what seemed to be a large block of council flats, but somehow it was the stairway of the house. We wanted to buy some weed from him, but didn't have any money. Without much conversation he just handed over an eighth and gave us a knowing look that said "I know you're good for the money", and then quite cheekily said, "let me see what you've already got, just so I know", like you would need to know as a dealer? We got out a grinder full of ground up weed and I chirped in saying "it's chocolate Thai, by the way". This is a real strain for those of you wondering, but I'm embarrassed for myself that I even said it. I probably sounded like such a dick.

I can't remember how but suddenly we're all sat outside the front of the house in the street drinking casually and having a laugh. Except it's gone from 5:00pm and dreary to 2:00pm on a clear bright day. When I say 'we're' by the way, I mean suddenly there's maybe 10 of us all sat outside, I can't remember them arriving but I remember there were people I knew like Stephen Clare (Steve O) and Jordan Gaster, I can't remember who else. Nothing mad happened, we were all just intoxicated and having fun until the police turned up. We didn't move for ages, they seemed more interested on getting a background from other people around me as to why we were here, what was going on. Next thing I know, a male police officer is questioning a drink on the floor saying "are you sure that's all that was in it? Look at Stephen" - Steve O was very drunk bumbling around barely able to walk or speak. I remember pranging because some of us had weed, but I knew mine was in the house, so it was nothing to worry about as long as they didn't go in there. They did.

They went upstairs to the small living area I'd been sat in before with Ruby. There was a grinder on the table, both parts separated, ground up weed sitting in it. "Right, we're gonna need to have a look around". "Shit," I thought to myself, "as long as I stay out of it, I'll be fine." They left the room to go into what I think was my own room, which was very, very small, just a desk and a bed. While they were gone, lo and behold, there's a large brick of compressed shitty weed sitting on the living room table that they somehow didn't notice. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I then notice a pack of OCB rolling papers which has ground up weed tucked into it (?) so after trying to hide it under a bed and deciding that's a bad idea as they might find it, I picked up a bin and put the bin back on top of it. A pretty good hiding place I reckoned. As if these sudden findings of cannabis wasn't enough, I look up from the bin at the handle of the door in the living room. Somehow, wedged BEHIND the straight handle, is a bunch of ground up weed. Just sort of wedged behind it. I just left it there for some reason. I then hear my house mate calling from far away within a room somewhere in the house - my house mate, obviously, is Lara Henry, a girl I used to know from an amateur youth acting company in Beaconsfield when I was younger. When I found her after lots of shouting asking where she was (she was in a room immediately next to the living room all along) she opened the door to see the police man standing there (she obviously hadn't realised police were in her house searching it for drugs) who then jokingly said "he's pregnant", referring to me. She played along and acted shocked. This makes literally no sense because it was Lara who was calling to ask me something, not me calling to ask her something, so the policeman had actually made some ridiculous joke that, in the dream, seemed fine.

I woke up after that. I can actually attach a bunch of the things in this dream to my subconscious making references to stuff that's been happening at the moment and stuff I've been thinking about. Very strange, but I'm going to try and record any more dreams I have before I forget them.

the land of the free

I got back from my family trip to America this morning and something weird has happened. Before the plane left Las Vegas airport I was thinking about how I wish we could have stayed longer and everything - the standard end of holiday blues. But when the plane was racing down the runway and then when it left the ground so we could see the city from above I immediately started to choke up. Tears started to fill my eyes. I managed to hold them back but I spent at least 10 minutes staring out of the window watching the endless Nevada desert mountains while holding back tears. I made a very deep connection with Las Vegas while I was there and I can't put my finger on it. Something about the way that town is put together really grabbed me and I was absolutely fascinated by everything I experienced while I was there.

Before I continue I want to expel a thought which, no doubt, may be planted in your mind. Yes, Las Vegas is famous for its hotels and the vast casinos within, but that is really only the very beginning of what makes this town special for me. I mean, the only times we got to see the hotels were when we passed the strip on the highway so it's not even that part of the town that contributed to my experiences there. Las Vegas is stereotyped as some insane party town where all you do is gamble and drink. It's a 24 hour town, no doubt about that, but the Sin City really is confined to one area which is just the strip where the hotels are, the rest of the place is shops and residences. Anyway, there's someone I need to introduce to you so I can continue trying to describe the hold that Las Vegas now has on me, and her name is Amy.

She's my aunt's boyfriend's niece, or to put it another weirder way, my aunt's future boss's daughter. She came to the family reunion that we camped at in Pine Valley, Utah, and after realising that our music tastes were spookily similar we decided to meet up again before I left to hang out. One thing I love about Americans is that almost every single one you will ever meet is just as friendly as the next. Amy is no exception and after spending only a night with her and her friends I love the girl to bits. It was this night that really gave my experience that extra personal spin I think. Amy and her friends are all 17-19, lovely people and very funny. She picked me up from my aunt's house and we went straight to a shop called Zia Record Exchange which just buys and sells loads of music and DVDs. They have a surprisingly good range of more obscure and British alternative and indie which Amy had obviously latched onto, so we spent a while looking around to find different CDs for each other, it was a lot of fun! Bands I recommended her included The Cribs, Jack Penate, The Coral, Bloc Party and more.

After we got a Slurpee each at the 7 Eleven we went to see Amy's friend Alex at his house. Alex was a great guy and had been turned onto a lot of the music he likes by Amy, and I like all the stuff she likes too, so that was a good starting point. We listened to the likes of Passion Pit, Two Door Cinema Club and Vampire Weekend while puffing on a hookah for a couple of hours. Alex's girlfriend turned up for a little while too. We even smoked some of this stuff called Dooja, a legal substitute to cannabis that worked surprisingly well. While we sat and talked and laughed I really felt like I'd made some new solid friends, this is probably where my attachment began to take a deeper hold because we just got on really well!

A couple more of Amy and Alex's friends came round and joined us and they were also awesome. We departed to meet up with Amy's boyfriend, Damon, and her best friend Ingrid, and then headed to a hookah bar where a couple more of her friends met us. I wish that me and my English friends had easy access to a sweet hookah bar at 10.30pm any night, it was so nice to sit there and chill and just make conversation while relaxing with a hose. Anyways, so Damon is lucky enough to have benefited from an American law passed known as Proposition 215 - known to most as a marijuana card. This gives you access to a health service appointed store full of as much professionally grown, medical standard cannabis as you could want. No seriously, as much as you could want. Damon's card allows him up to an ounce a day. We sampled some mind blowing New York Sour Diesel courtesy of Damon and I got especially spangled just because in the US they almost exclusively smoke through pipes and bongs and don't use any tobacco in their mix. I'm used to the UK traditions of smoking joints and using tobacco, so after a few pipe hits and a silly hit from a $100 bong it had done the trick, to say the least.

For the rest of the night we chilled and watched a film, got a McDonalds (their medium size meals are bigger than our larges by the way) and fell asleep on the sofas. All I could think the whole night is how much I wished that I lived in Vegas, that these people were my friends, my routine was theirs. Something about just being there made me feel really homely and happy in a way that I don't even get here in England. It's not until I've reflected on it now that I understand how strange this is, to feel such a positive and homely connection with a place that I have no experience with living in, only visiting since I was young.

I keep thinking, because I have an American passport as well as a British one I can go to the US to live and work there whenever I want. No Visa required, no hassle. If I didn't have the prospects I have right now lined up right in front of me for a degree and a career in the UK, I think I'd already be trying to plan how I could move there. I have so much family in Utah and Arizona that it would actually all just fall into place, I'd have so much endless support. Fuck it, maybe one day I'll find a way to live in Vegas, but until then I have enjoyed this trip in more ways than I could have previously conceived. Here's hoping I can go back soon.

aerophile

I went away to Serbia for a week with a bunch of friends and had the time of my life. It was so relaxed; between friends, at the festival itself, in the town, money constraints. Such a great time. £1 for 20 cigarettes, £1 for a beer. Yeah, exactly. Got royally fucked the first night of the festival to a degree where, apparently, "I should have been paralytic or passed out, but somehow I was still awake". Pictures and videos aplenty, don't you worry.

I'm going to America tomorrow for a week with my family to see American relatives, we'll be hitting up Las Vegas first as always to meet my Aunt Marsha and then a couple of days later we'll be heading out to Pine Valley for a big family reunion/event thing. It's always family based lols. We've been to America a good 6 or 7 times to visit family right from when I was a baby, but now I'm older and I know I will appreciate it way more. Being in America makes me happy and I'm going to take as many photos via the wonderful Hipstamatic app for iPhone as it will allow me.

Strangely the part I am most looking forward to is the flight over there and back, I don't know what it is about aeroplanes but I always get really excited. The chilling out in a pretty comfy chair, food and drinks brought to you, little TV in front of you (with games if you're lucky enough). A long distance flight and actually being on a plane always act as a sedative for me, I feel so comfortable and sleepy. Weirdly I also love airline breakfasts, dinners and snacks. Everyone seems to think they're distinctly average but I crave them. Pretty weird but true. I also absolutely love waking up mid-slumber to something like this:


You feel like you're on top of the world, literally.

It's odd how smells and feelings are often the most prominent and easiest to recognise from memory. I know exactly how my Aunt Marsha's back yard in Las Vegas smells when it's hot and you've just gotten out of the pool. I know exactly how my Aunt Colleen's garage in Tucson smells and the smell of the heat in the air when you start driving through their neighbourhood. I remember the wave of intense heat that hits you once you glide through the automatic doors at Phoenix airport, leaving air conditioned territory and entering the harsh Arizona sun, even under shade. These are some of the most nostalgic elements of my past for me, I'm so sure I'll always remember them with such sensitivity and accuracy. This is great, because my long and short term memory otherwise is actually falling apart nowadays. I can't wait to be boarding that aeroplane in 11 hours :)

glory years

Absolutely huge turn around. Took the day off work a month ago, looked for internet related video courses online that were still taking applications. I found Web Media Production and Management - a brand new course launching this September studying the creation and organisation of multimedia on the internet. When I found this I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, it's just so perfect for me! To make a quotation about the 'kind of student' they want:

"If you are already using the internet in a creative way; posting video to YouTube, running a Twitter feed, uploading photos to Flickr or exploring immersive environments such as World of Warcraft or The Sims, then this course will help you develop a career in the new creative industries."

Oops, looks like I just came all over myself before finishing the first sentence. So I applied, got an interview, attended, nailed it and got the last place available for the degree. I have a very good feeling about this thing. A career in the industry I'm studying will be ever-changing, fun, current, creative and incorporates what I have spent so many of my waking hours browsing; the internet. The university I'll be at is Ravensbourne who are moving to a brand new delicious campus directly next to the O2 in Greenwich, another incredible plus because I've always wanted to live in London and now I'll be spending 3 years there! Not to mention the new campus is pretty jaw dropping, please take 20 seconds out to check out the 3D virtual tour of the outside of the new buildings, it looks amazing! Find the link right here.

I move from the flat back to my parents' house in just under 2 weeks. It's been such a valuable experience and I have learnt so much. Yeah, the basics of fending for yourself and earning a living, but actually even more so I've learnt a lot about myself and about my friends. All sorts, good and bad, but all lessons that have and will continue to contribute to the way I live my life.

Almost from the very first month I moved in here my god awful excuse for an employer has decided to fuck me over by cutting me off from a week of work every month (often more) which has made things very difficult for me. 'Budgeting' doesn't even cover it, seriously. I've been spending weeks and sometimes fortnights with a budget ranging from £0 - £10. To be fair, it's been a steep learning curve though and now I'm ready for whatever student life wants to throw at me. Ironically, I might even be better off most of the time as a student - I wont have to work a 5 day 9-5 week for my income which will be... well, bliss.

Entirely new people, entirely new city, going back into an exciting education, fuckadoodledoo I think I might be entering my (first of many) glory years.

keep surprising yourself

I'm near enough 'over' all this university rejection stuff. I've at least embraced the fact that I should seize this opportunity not as a wall but as a future that I now have the chance to mold into any shape I want. It could actually be a god send that I'm not going to university, who knows. That said, university is still an option and by no means am I ruling it out.

I'm very gracious to have two very caring and supportive parents who are willing to give me any help I need in whatever field it is I choose to go into. They've said they'll support me for the next year which means I can live at home and make working at that fucking call centre a rarity instead of a 5 day per week marathon through fields of shit and stinging nettles. Which, anyone who works there will confirm, it is.

I'm still very confused about what to do but I should relish the fact that actually, right now, I don't have to make that decision. I'm hoping this summer will be massively inspirational for me. I'm going to Serbia in July and 10 days after arriving home I'll be jetting off to America with my family to attend our first family reunion in years. I think I'm old enough now to appreciate the meaning of a family reunion. The fact that my family actually has an annual reunion depicts quite perfectly the warmth and sincerity that emanates from my American relatives. I can't wait!

I'm staying in the USA for an extra week too to spend some time in California with friends of the internet; first and foremost a guy called Todd who happens to be completely awesome and who I cannot wait to see. I want to explore new places and experience new things, my current lifestyle genuinely stifles my creativity just because I never get out and do stuff outside of this town and these friends. There's nothing wrong with that and obviously I'm really glad to be where I am and to know the people I know, but for the sake of my creative mind both right now and in the future I'm determined to start breaking out a little. It's so important to keep surprising yourself. Those of you lucky enough to be regular readers of this blog will hear about it every step of the way, so here's hoping you enjoy it as much as I will!

You're welcome

So a couple of months have passed since I last entered a blog post. Things are looking sort of bleak for me right now.

Having applied to Bournemouth, Southampton Solent, Sheffield Hallam and Farnham UCA to study Film Production, a few days ago I'd been rejected by all but Farnham and Solent. I only really applied to Farnham as a last minute addition on recommendation from a friend studying the same course there already. Solent however, offered me a conditional place - conditional that I sent them my A Level certificates and Art Foundation certificate too. Here's the bit where I start to look like an idiot.

On my UCAS application, seeing as I passed the first two modules of Art Foundation before leaving the course, I said I had passed, because technically I had passed the parts of the course I attended for. There was no option on the application form for 'modules completed' etc, only 'pass', 'merit' or 'fail'. I decided, (perhaps naively) that I would attach a 'pass' to it and explain fully in the accompanying personal statement my reasoning for leaving the course early. Surely they'd put 2 and 2 together and understand the situation? Wrong.

Southampton Solent Registry adds up the points gathered from your qualifications. Someone else in an entirely different department checks personal statements. After passing emails to and fro with the Registry for a couple of weeks and filling myself with false hope, an 020 number tried to call me at work a couple of days ago. I called the number back on my afternoon break. A brief conversation with the Registry attendant I spoke to confirmed my worst fears. They were under the impression I had completed an Art Foundation diploma; this brought me up to enough UCAS points to meet minimum entry requirements. When they found out I hadn't done the whole qualification they informed me it wasn't enough and that my application had been rejected. This, 2 days after I'd gone to an inspiring open day, was crushing. The bitch on the phone was cold and unforgiving. I was left absolutely speechless, in a state of shock and after a few moments of stunned silence she calmly declared "you're welcome. Goodbye." and hung up.

In that moment I felt like the past 9 years of my life in education - which I have always seen as a decade of grabbing for something unknown in the dark - was null and void. I've never ever even been half sure of what I want to do with my life despite what I've said in the past. I finally found something that motivated me, took a leap of faith by leaving Art Foundation to pursue it with vigour, and now I'm told that after all I should have stuck with that boring course that I hated. Farnham is the last uni left that might take me and there's no way I'm going there just by default.

There are so many different paths I have to consider now, but it's so overwhelming. So many of my close friends are already in their second year at university and I feel like I've spent a few years fucking up my chance to be in their position. It's just a case of where to start. I've always been incredibly unorganised and have such a busy head that I find it near impossible (seriously) to gather coherent thoughts for long periods of time. I think it's about time I grabbed life by the balls and sculpted my own path to follow. Well, here goes.

an audience with the pope

I totally expected living off my own back to be some massive head trip of crazy fun for the first while, and then I'd come down to reality and have to start taking it all really seriously, and then find my balance of work and fun over time. Turns out that I'm pretty good at budgetting as far as paying the bills go, and every night I'm with my friends, pretty much always doing something. I'm loving this so much and I have adjusted to the lifestyle instantaneously!

First rent (from my own funds) is due in a few days, it's all sitting in my bank ready to fly into my landlady's account. Not interesting for you, but exciting for me - it's my first ever residence-based payment that I've earnt myself! Living expenses are a little tight, but it's all working out fine, I have plenty to survive on! Working a 5 day week isn't so bad when you've got a genuine incentive and goal to meet, I'm not tempted to skip work any more. Well, sometimes I am. But a boy needs holiday time! If you want to see my room/flat and haven't yet then head over to youtube.com/blogmaths.

I'm determined to strengthen my DVD collection while I'm living here, especially after meeting a new friend recently and hearing about his 900(!!) strong collection. I've just ordered The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited and Road to Perdition, three of my favourite films ever, as well as The Science of Sleep, a film directed by Michel Gondry that I haven't seen and am really interested in. "But what's already in your DVD collection, Ivens?" I hear you cry. 'Ave a butchers (click for big version):



I still need another 20-30 to reach my desired minimum collection of personal favourites and then I hope to extend it to loads of films I've always liked, loads I've always wanted to see and then thanks to Amazon's 'you might also like...' feature, loads I never knew about that I should add to it. Not to mention many box sets and TV shows. The collection's missing 3 or 4 DVDs that are currently on rent to friends by the way.

A gradually increasing group of myself and friends have all decided to hit up Serbia this Summer to attend EXIT festival 2010 - check out www.exitfest.org for photos and line ups of previous fests. Firstly it's in a lovely town called Novi Sad (which I have been told is nicer than Marlow, for you Bucks dwellers) and everything is stupid cheap - most expensive pint of lager being 90p. Fucking win. Everything else is just as cheap too. For a 13 bedroom complex with a pool, kitchen and living room, we're looking at £120 a head for 5 nights, which is blindingly good. With flights, festival ticket, accommodation and spending money we're looking at £500+ but friends who attended last year have assured us it is worth every penny! Can't wait!

Peace out home boys and girls, I'll be back soon. For now keep an eye on Blogmaths.