Why I never liked Marmalade...

Do not worry I am not going to use this blog post to dissect the reasons for my distaste of certain toast toppings. It's more my realisation that while avoiding dark chocolate and never understanding the fashionable fascination of a gin and tonic, I have still managed to create a certain bitterness in my life.

Now this bitterness may not be one I can feel on my tastebuds but it certainly leaves a lingering aftertaste.

I am a struggling or 'resting' actress, living and working in the catastrophically expensive London Town. Two years out of my masters at Drama School, although I was fortunate to have the funds, the year cost me my entire inheritance and I have only one paid acting job on my CV to date. With my thirties on the not too distant horizon , I am living in a mouldy room in North London because it's cheap and barely making my rent with every bitty, freelance job I can find and possibly hold down for a few months. Knowing that there was once a time I had enough money for a down payment on a flat or a year travelling the world does create a certain sting. Yet these things were never a priority for me.

I made a choice. That choice I decided when I was a child, all I ever wanted to do was perform and all I ever wanted to be was a performer. I couldn't or wouldn't choose anything else. Now I'm no longer a child and again I have a choice:

Do I continue to attempt to make a living from performing? Knowing that for probably 10 or 11 months out of the year that will be me teaching children, selling popcorn or programmes and making just enough money to scrape by. Therefore not creating any sort of future or building a career of any kind, but safe in the belief that I'm following my dreams and that I'm not a quitter.

Or, do I decide that I need to stop treading water and actually get a real job that can give me stability, security and safety? Knowing that 'quitting' as I put it, giving up, changing my mind and picking something new is the most frightening thing in the world to do , when all you have wanted since the age of 5 is to be onstage.

The ultimate cliche is that acting is a hard business, it's the first thing that comes out of every strangers mouth when you say Its the career you have chosen. Yes we all know its hard, and there's a lot of rejection and it can take a really long time to make it etc, but we are supposed to believe in ourselves enough to put up with all of that negativity.

We go see shows and look at all the other actors with success and know we can do what they do, but so can 50 other people.  We create our own work and discover that someone else has already created practically the same thing. We go to open calls and see a Walking Dead queue of people who look exactly like we do and we wonder what makes us the exception. The industry is saturated and there is endless choice, so evidently most of us will miss out and after a while that begins to hurt.

I think I have finally discovered where my hurt comes from. They say you should only do what makes you happy. Performing makes me happy but living this limbo existence waiting around to perform really doesn't.

Actors go through these ups and downs very frequently some more than others, I have had these conversations with myself too many times to count and every time no matter the cons I couldn't justify giving up on my dream.

Is my bitterness now a justification for that? However baffling it may seem, is following my dream actually making me unhappy?

Maybe happiness and following your dream are not mutually exclusive.
Maybe I need to find a new dream.

I cannot say what the answers are right now but I hope I discover them soon.
Otherwise I should just take free marmalade on toast to my next audition, because no matter how
good an actress I am, there's no way the panel will miss the bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

Tinder: Yes or No?

I still find myself very confused and frustrated with online dating. I discussed the problems of this in a previous post in April last year:  Internet dating or Internet failing (http://obsessedkim-butterflymind.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/internet-dating-or-internet-failing.html)

More recently I find I am a particularly unsatisfied consumer when it comes to one specific app: Tinder.

Its description in the App Store, is very broad and general 'Tinder is the fun way to connect with new and interesting people around you' therefore not labelling itself as a dating app per se. The last line reads 'it's a new way to express yourself and share with friends' Again very non-committal but,  I don't remember choosing my 'friends' based on how they look.

For anyone who hasn't seen the delights that Tinder has to offer, you are given pictures of people in your area and swipe left for no and right for yes. If you both like each other then you are matched and can chat on the app. I believe this puts Tinder in the same bracket as dating websites like Plenty Of Fish and Okcupid as they also offer this feature, are free to join and you can message people as much as you like.

Other dating websites like Match.com and Eharmony, require payment to join and promote a more lengthily matching system; whereby the potential for finding long lasting relationships is believed to be greater, as the participants have put a financial investment into their dating life.

All dating websites have different stigmas and reputations. Some say Tinder is the heterosexual version of Grinder - a homosexual dating app especially designed to match people in their immediate location for sexual encounters. Therefore if this belief is true, Tinder would not be the best option for those wanting a relationship.

In my personal experience I have not found Tinder to provide a successful platform to strike up conversations of length. I find the layout of a website with messages promotes more conversation  than a chat stream which is more likely to provide one word responses. Therefore I think subconsciously I have never had the faith in Tinder to preserve long enough to actually meet someone. Yet, friends of mine have not had any trouble with Tinder and have managed to fill whole weekends meeting different guys for actual dates.

I wonder if there is something I am doing wrong. It is pretty binary out there in the Tinder dating world. After the usual, 'Where are you from?' 'What do you do?' questions are out the way, the next is usually, 'What are you here for?' 'Do you want some fun?'  Now I'm not suggesting that all men on tinder are only looking for sex, however from my experience it seems the general view of men in their mid twenties, is that they do not time for a girlfriend,or cannot be bothered with the actual dating game. Are we now so spoilt by the immediacy of internet dating that we are too lazy to even go on a date with a potential match?

One thing I do like about tinder is that it provides a way to be brutal and not apologise for it. If someone only wants sex they will say so and you can decline or accept their offer and there's no hard feelings. I have always preferred this 'rip off the plaster' approach when it comes to dating and Tinder is no exception.  Why waste time? There's plenty more fish in the sea, and they are all a swipe away... If they can be bothered to swim to you!

Becoming Jane

After just finishing 'Becoming Jane' the 2007 biographical film about the life of the great Jane Austen, I have suddenly had the inspiration to write. This coupled with the beginning of a new year and the heavily championed idea to make resolutions, I find myself upon my once neglected blog.

I have always enjoyed writing, mainly in a diary using the creation of my thoughts on paper as a form of therapy. After starting this blog during university, I ventured into a more formal writing style and covered various different topics, that either troubled or interested me. This inspiration however didn't last, and I found that even though I wanted to continue blogging I couldn't quite find my voice.

After writing a diary avidly from the age of 15 to 23, with the years since only containing perhaps a entry every few months; I have always known that a decent chuck of my life has been in a way heavily documented. It's contents mainly a stream of consciousness and therefore a very accurate portrayal of myself, just on paper. At times quite depressing and at others truly hilarious! In discussions amongst friends, family and the occasional stranger, I have frequently expressed my desire to turn these diaries into some form of novel.

While already attempting to make it as an actress, in one extremely difficult and subjective field; I have always left the idea of this other and similarly impossible creative desire, as something I will perhaps do 'one day'.

I'm not sure if my recent surge of inspiration will last long enough to attempt writing anything of substance, however if it reignites my blog with something fresh and a bit more continuous then I feel that can only be positive.

I have always loved period dramas, and after learning about Jane Austen I now want more than anything to live in a period drama myself. She was a young women forever determined to live by her pen and achieve female equality in literary terms. I believe that she certainly achieved this. Yet, she also desired a true experience of love, which she managed to find but only for a short while. The rolling credits unveiled that Jane herself never married. I am unsure what my feelings are towards this truth. She was able to achieve to one dream but not complete the other, but at least she dreamt.

Therefore, what I have learned Jane Austen is that:

One cannot assume to achieve everything they set out to, but one can certainly hope to.