The Strange World of Axel Fendersson

And so another year has passed and we find ourselves in 2011. 2010 ended the way it started: with a barbecue. There were also clockfails and there was merriment, although it was a little more subdued than usual. We started too early and peaked too soon.

2010 has been a mixed year. At a glance, it would be easy to write it off as a failure, but I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

The most obvious negative is that I remain just as unemployed as ever. I have now had no work (besides one day back in March) for two years. With the current government hell-bent on destroying any hope of economic recovery, I cannot help but wonder how long this situation will go on for.

Following on from the one thing I achieved in 2009, I have continued to make progress with my Epic armies, although that has rather dropped off in the last few months. I should have my Chaos army completely finished within the next few weeks. I’m not sure where best to go from there. In theory I’d quite like to start a fourth army, but I’m not sure I have the motivation to get it done at the moment and I know that I can’t afford it.

This year more than previous ones I have felt the disconnection between myself and So’ton GameSoc. Although I am still in contact with some people from So’ton, and have been down to visit, it has really struck me recently not only how much I have lost in leaving it behind to carry on without me, but how impossible it will be to replace. There will never again be a social environment open to me with such a high concentration of interesting people that I have things in common with.

I have found some local gamers in the form of Oxford Gaming Club. But they’re essentially a wargaming club and mostly play W40K and WFB, neither of which are games that I’m particularly interested in these days. I still might enjoy an occasional game for fun with a friend, but neither are games I’m keen to play for their own sake with people I don’t know. There are a couple of other Epic players in the area with whom I can arrange the occasional game there, but otherwise I don’t see myself getting that involved with OGC and since I also have other plans for Mondays from now on, I think playing there will only be something I do occasionally.

Musically, this year has been a bit of a mix. In the spring I had my performance at Oxford Folk Festival, which was in some ways a success but in others a disappointment as for a couple of reasons I don’t think I really did myself justice. I hope to play again this year and hopefully that will go better. I have however become increasingly disillusioned with open mic nights. Although occasionally there is a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment to be gained from winning over a crowd and giving a good performance, all too often it involves trying to perform to an indifferent audience who try hard to ignore you and would rather you’d stop making so much noise so they could hear their conversation better. Accordingly I have played few since July.

The big news this year is of course my taking up Modern Jive at the end of June. In six months I have gone from awkward, terrified beginner to capable taxi dancer and I am loving it. In some ways I wish I had taken this up years ago, but then if I had I would not be getting to discover it now. It could very easily have never happened at all. It took just the right opportunity presenting itself at just the right time; the barriers to entry being lowered just enough at just the right time that I was willing and able to take a leap over them into an unknown that turned out to be fantastic. But happen it did and leap I did.

Once I start taxiing next week, I will not usually have to pay to dance in Witney, which will mean I can then afford to start dancing a second night a week, in Oxford on a Monday (not to mention once a month in Carterton on a Friday). I had originally been going to wait until I had a job before investigating other venues, but now that I don’t have the financial justification for that I feel that my other concerns aren’t enough to justify waiting any longer.

Of course, going to venues outside Witney wouldn’t be at all feasible were it not for the other success I have achieved this year: passing my driving test. Although I obviously can’t afford to run a car at the moment let alone buy one, I can borrow my father’s car for the moment and once I get a job then I will be able to sort out my own transport fairly quickly. This not only adds to the number of things I can get out and do, but can only be an asset in searching for a job.

All in all, although I am still not at all happy with my situation in life, I think I’m in a significantly better position than I was twelve months ago. I have a better idea of what I am looking for work-wise. I have a better understanding of what is wrong with my situation, why, and what can be done about it. And I have much more of a sense that I am making some kind of progress with something, that I am not just sitting here waiting for some sort of job to come along and make everything right. Instead I am at least to some extent trying to do what I can in the meantime and make the best of what I have for now.

Things aren’t right, but they aren’t as wrong as they were at the beginning of the year. And while 2010 hasn’t been a good year by any stretch of the imagination, it’s been a better year than 2009 was, which makes it the first year I can confidently say was better than the year before it since 2005. That has to count for something.

So my latest news on the Jive front is that I’ve been asked and have agreed to become a ‘taxi dancer’.

Within the context of a Modern Jive class, taxi dancers are experienced dancers who help beginners by dancing with them and giving them help and advice. This can include teaching the beginner review sessions that take place while the rest of the class are taking the intermediate or advanced lesson, but doesn’t have to (and wouldn’t to begin with).

That I was asked did not actually come as a huge surprise. Coralie, the organiser, told me some time last month that she would like me to taxi in the future, but that they didn’t need any new taxi dancers at the time. Additionally, last week there was an additional free session on Thursday for the purpose of teacher training. Only one person there was a complete beginner, and with no taxi dancers there, Coralie handed her over to me as someone who could help her out and help go through the material from the lesson, which was additional confirmation that she thinks of me as the right person for the job. Still, there’s a significant step from knowing I will likely be asked in the future and actually being asked and having agreed to it.

Apparently there will be some training in the next few weeks, and I will then be ready to start after Christmas.

More or less since leaving Southampton, I have had some inclination that I might try and finish my degree via part-time study through the Open University or similar. However, this seemed like something I ought to leave for a few years, both because I needed a break from studying, and because it seemed like I should probably wait until I had some other stuff in order first. I had envisaged it as being a step that I should probably leave until I had found a job and worked out what I was doing with myself in general. This gap would also give me time to think more carefully about what I actually want to study, since I think that straight-up physics might not have been the right course for me, and I might have done better on a broader (or even just different) programme of study.

However, a few things recently have led me to think that despite being still unemployed and my life in general not being remotely in order it might be time to take the first few steps towards getting back into studying to some extent. So I have decided to sign up to an introductory OU course entitled “Making Sense of the Arts“.

This course looks to me to be a fairly gentle introduction, which I will need after a few years’ break from any kind of organised learning. But it also looks like a good opportunity to discover a couple of things without having to dive into a full-sized 60-point module. Firstly, it will allow me to see whether distance learning via a correspondence course is something I can get on with. If so then I can consider doing more; if not then I’d better give up on the idea. But in that case at least I can do so knowing that I gave it a go and it didn’t work out, and at the same time I will have discovered that without having wasted a lot of time, effort and/or money on a more substantial course. But in addition to this, it will also allow me to see whether I can get on with studying an arts-based subject at degree level. If so, then I can consider, rather than doing a combination of physics modules and obvious subjects like maths or computer science, instead combining modules in subjects like philosophy, which I find interesting, but have not previously considered studying formally.

Obviously, this decision to take the first tentative steps towards resuming my academic career does not represent a huge shift in my mid-term plans. I still need to find gainful employment of some kind as soon as possible and then try to find somewhere to live that is within easy reach of both that job and a large settlement like Oxford. But at least while I’m searching for that I’ll also be doing something active towards improving myself and my situation. And at least it will mean that a few years down the line, I may be able to go some way towards reducing the glaring disparity between my academic qualifications and my ability.

I think, if I am going to have any kind of social life again before I reach middle-age, I really need to move out of Witney.

I do not make friends easily. Partly this is because I am introverted and shy, and it takes me a long time to get to know anyone. But partly it is because I am not an agreeable person who can gel with just anyone. Most people I just have no real connection to, and while I may be able to get along with them on a superficial level, I don’t feel any real affinity for them and never make any real connection. In general, most people are not ‘my kind of people’, and no matter how pleasant they may be, and how much effort I may make in trying to get to know them, they will never be more than casual acquaintances.

And the small minority of people with whom I can get on? They aren’t going to be living in Witney. There is nothing for them here. They are mostly geeks (albeit usually not really over-the-top in their geekiness). They’re the kind of people who go to university and once they have finished they either continue living in the town they studied in, or they move to other large settlements where their often specialised or unusual interests are catered for. In a town like Witney, they will rapidly become bored and isolated, as I have done.

I am never going to make friends by chatting to random strangers in pubs whatever settlement I might live in. I am only going to find them through more organised social activities. I’ve been aware of this for some time. But the more I think about it, the more I realise that they are also going to have to be the right sort of social activities, and they’re going to have to be in the right places. Because the number of people that are potential friends of mine is very small, and unless I am careful, I am unlikely to meet any of them.

There’s also the unfortunate additional issue that the crowds that feature the kind of people I get on with, the social circles in which I can move comfortably, are overwhelmingly male-dominated. The implications of this should be fairly obvious. Not convinced there’s much I can do about that, though.

What really is the point of interviews? All they test is whether the candidates can give the right bullshit answers to the interviewers’ stupid bullshit questions, and whether they come across as likeable in person. All they do is ensure that jobs go to charismatic people who are good at bullshitting.

Speaking as someone with no charisma who is not very good at bullshitting, this does not seem fair to me.

Since I started dancing, I’ve been looking on the internet for videos. There’s quite a lot of useful instructional material on the ‘net; one site that’s particularly good is www.danceyourselfdizzy.com. Unfortunately, without a partner to practice with at home there’s not that much I can learn from online videos, but I’ve been able to pick up the odd thing and they’re useful for going over the stuff I’ve learned in the lessons.

Like a lot of websites, many of these places are supported by Google ads. The ads it throws up are mostly what you’d expect. Some dance classes. Lots of places selling dance shoes. Halls for hire. But I was slightly surprised by the fact that pretty much every page will somewhere feature an ad like this one:

Am I just naïve not to expect webpages about dancing to be full of ads for online dating? Or am I just out of touch and inclined to forget just how huge an industry onine dating has become in the last few years?

Of course, not all the videos on the Internet are instructional. Some are just spectacular (and inspiring) to watch. I already posted this one on Facebook, but I’ll put it here as well:

Yeah, somehow I don’t think I’m going to be dancing like that any time soon.

Well, tonight was my last night at Jive+ as a beginner. After two months I have been advised that next week I should try the intermediate class. Which is good. As of last week, I have done all of the moves that Jive+ classify as being for beginners (other places have slightly different sets of beginner moves), although two of them I actually don’t much like (they’re easy to do, but nearly impossible to make look anything but awful), and another I still find awkward and don’t think I’ve ever successfully managed to do in freestyle. Not sure how big a step up this will be. I think the main challenge will be in the fact that I’ll only be going over each move once, without getting to revise and refine it in the review session. Still, nice to have confirmation that I’m making good progress.

Meanwhile, back in the realm of things that actually matter, very little progress continues to be made. No luck on the job front: I didn’t get the job I interviewed for the other week and haven’t found anything else to apply for for a while. Although I haven’t looked since last week, so perhaps something will come up next time I do a search.

And I failed my driving test on Monday. I’d been driving for about two minutes when I turned off a roundabout and forgot to cancel the indicator. Trouble was that it was raining so hard that I could hardly hear the clicking over the sound of the rain, and so I made it past a left turning and a zebra crossing before the examiner pointed it out. I then went on to complete the rest of the test with only six minor faults, but that was all for nothing since by then I had already failed.

Returning to hobbies and interests, I continue to make painfully slow progress on my Epic Chaos army. I have only a handful of units left to paint, yet somehow I only very occasionally get around to actually getting to any of them. Still, hopefully it won’t be long now before they’re all done and the army will be completely finished.

Hmm. Well, the first job application I’ve submitted since I revised my CV has led to an interview. Not sure whether that’s a coincidence or whether having an excuse for the past eighteen months does actually mean that I look employable again.

It’s for a job as a lab technician at Oxford University’s chemistry department. Which would hopefully be more interesting than the manufacturing/production/assembly jobs I’ve mostly been going for. Also being in Oxford it would be fairly nicely located: easy to get to by public transport and convenient if I wanted to pop into the city centre during lunch or after work or something.

The only trouble is that it’s only 38 weeks a year. Which means that the respectable (for a job that I’m qualified for, anyway) pay of a little over £17,100 a year goes down to about £12,500 in practice. That said, it might be possible to find some other work over the summer to make up the difference, and even 12k is several times what I’m getting now in benefits. Also, having three months off would at least make it easy to find time to do things over the summer like going to festivals, seeing friends and the like.

This job would also be a chance to gain experience of working in a laboratory, so I could always stick it out for a year or two and then try and find something else for more money, this time with two years’ proper lab experience behind me. Hell, just having been in continuous employment for a year or two would put me in a much better position than I’m in now to find another job, so it’d definitely be valuable as a stepping-stone to better things, even if it’s not going to make me very much by itself.

Having said all that, I really don’t know what my chances are like of actually getting this job. The interview is next Wednesday, so I now have all week to worry about it. But even if I don’t get this particular job, it’s an encouraging step to even have an interview. This is the first application I’ve made in some time that’s even got this far.

I have taken up a new pastime: modern jive dancing.

Dancing of any kind has always been something I’ve been terrified to do. It’s just so…revealing. To be expressing yourself with your whole body. There’s just so much potential to look ridiculous. I don’t mind looking ridiculous, but it has to be on my terms. I’m OK looking ridiculous if it’s because I have chosen to. I’m less keen if it’s because I’m screwing something up. In addition to that, I am quite socially anxious, particularly when it comes to interacting with women. So dancing with partners would be particularly intimidating for me.

But I have of late become keen to challenge myself, to try new things, learn to overcome my anxieties and to try and sort out some of what I am not happy with in life. And so when, a few weeks ago, I learned that a local dancing group were running a free session, I decided that I should go along, as it would be a great opportunity to face my anxieties and try something new without having to spend anything.

So, rather apprehensive, I went along. The initial beginner’s session went all right. By the end of that I was feeling cheerful, pleased that I’d given it a try, but doubtful that I’d come back. Then we beginners split off for a beginners’ review session while the more experienced dancers stayed for an intermediate lesson. By the end of the beginners’ review, I was beginning to get more of a feel for what was happening. I wouldn’t say I was getting the hang of it as such, but there was at least a sense that I was starting to make progress. And so by the end of the evening I was less sure that I was going to leave it at that as a one-off.

Against going back was the fact that it costs £8.50 a week. When you’re trying to live on JSA at £65.45 a week, that’s a fairly substantial expense. Also it clashes with open mic night at Fat Lil’s. But at the same time I had enjoyed it and it seemed a shame not to carry on for at least a few weeks until I had got a bit better at it, and so could better assess whether it was something I enjoyed or not.

In the end I went back the following week, and again this evening for a third session. And I think it’s beginning to click. I mean, sure, I’m still not very good yet. Obviously I wouldn’t be. But it’s starting to feel just a little less awkward and a little more natural than before. And consequently it’s a little more enjoyable. So I will keep going for now.

I have a problem. I have spent the last 18 months unemployed. There is nothing on my CV more recent than 2008. And so when applying for jobs, a lot of employers will see this, assume I’m a work-shy slacker and bin my application.

They’re not completely wrong. For a good while I was only making a token effort to find a job and really wasn’t looking all that hard. But now I am genuinely trying to find a job, and I am wondering what to do to paper over the huge gap on my CV.

One possibility is to find some voluntary work. I have been looking into that recently, but I’m not sure that it’s going to be enough.

And so I’m wondering whether I should claim to have been self-employed in that time, as a musician. It wouldn’t be a complete lie. I have, in the past year, played some proper bookings and tomorrow a friend and I will be running a morris dancing workshop for which we will be getting paid. But it would definitely be stretching the truth.

Is this a really stupid idea? Will employers see through this ruse and prosecute me for fraud? Will they decide that trying unsuccessfully to make a living out of music is basically the same thing as being unemployed anyway? Or even that it’s worse? Or is this a good way to explain what I’ve been doing for the past eighteen months without having to make anything up?