The Busiest of Days

Tomorrow is my first day in London.

Well, sort of. Its a day of job interviews and room viewings crowbarred into a long weekend which was supposed to be a holiday.

How did I get here? Well, it starts back in April. I decided that staying in York for another year just wasn't going to get me anywhere and if I wanted to be serious about acting I would probably need to knuckle down and start looking seriously at Drama Schools. I stopped looking after I checked the fees.

Still, London is the place to be for actors aspiring or seasoned. So began a sweep of rooms and flats in the Greater London area. However looking in April for a move in July/August didn't look promising. The only email replies I received advised me to ask them in July, a few weeks before I was wanting to move.

So, disheartened, I ignored my plans, leaving them to future me.

Now future me has become present me, and is very stressed. But we're not at today just yet, past me did some good.

After I made the decision to move to London for certain I had two tasks: find a room, find a job. Easy!(er said than done).

To apply for jobs in London, you need a London postcode. To get a London postcode, you need a profession. The situation quickly became a Catch-22; I called up room advertisements, they asked me what my job was, I said I was looking for one, they put down the phone.

I was disheartened. I was upset, stress was rising and time was not slowing down. Time is like that. Ruthless. The key is not looking at it, getting on with what you have to do. After some reassuring pep talks I set to work. Acting jobs are few and far between, and not well advertised off subscription-based websites, however London as a city is teeming with opportunities if you're willing to move a little out of your comfort zone. Reed is a very useful website, for any type of job, and its completely free. I sent off quite a few CVs and was contacted by thee companies, two of which offered me interviews on Monday - the one day I have free.

But I couldn't sofa-surf for long, despite the various good friends who've offered me floor space in London. No, I needed my own bed, and after some help from the Yahoo! Answers community, I got to intoLondon.com, a very useful website with some very clever search features (I wanted a room in zones 1-3, preferably on the Victoria line. The website had hundreds.) Again, I winged off some emails and even a few texts to my favourite choices and hey presto: I managed to get some room viewings for Monday!

So. Tomorrow is going to be my busiest day. Two interviews. At least two houses. And a West End show in the evening. Should be fun!