Well, that went pretty smoothly. Wore a shirt and black trousers and black shoes and black jacket. "You look like someone from the Amish," said my mum. "It's a good thing you don't still have your beard." Abandoning the Jebediah look, I wore my old brown jacket instead. And so I went in, asked for Laura, filled in a form, met Laura, tried not to look like a weirdo as she perused all that crap you put on CVs ("I help abandoned kittens and built a heat generator powered by sound and once I was awarded a gold medal by Pelé!"), listened about the job, and that was it. It's 17 hours at the weekend, cleaning tables and serving food and washing and stuff. So, basically McDonalds but in a nicer environment. And not quite-so-soul destroying. She's gonna phone me tomorrow to confirm it, but it sounds like I've got it. So that's a nice £300-350 rolling in each month, and I can afford to hopefully put most of it away. Except I owe my mum like £600, and I'll buy pointless stuff I don't need, but I'll budget for the pointless crap so that's ok!

Been planning for Japan. Again. At this rate, there'll actually be nothing to do in September. The gap year thing and the insurance and flights comes to £1,156 - but I'm still mainly concerned about needing £1,500 for the visa. I'm not sure how that works. Hopefully I can get my visa before I have to pay for the flights and stuff, otherwise I'm in a decidedly spicy pickle. (Can you get spicy pickles?)

There's just so much to plan. Like, I wanna get a 120GB external hard drive to store my music/photos/movies and stuff, and hopefully I'll be taking my laptop (although it's tempting to get a shiny new MacBook), but that also means I need a Japan power adaptor (which Apple, in their infinite wisdom, do actually make as part of the World Travel Kit, which comes with five other useless adaptors and sells at a typically high price of £30, but better that than nothing). Also, chances of my iRiver surviving until I come back are slim, and it won't be compatible with my Mac anyway, so I may end up just getting a 30GB iPod. Which will be nice. Ah, purchases.

Actually, the MacBook and iPod are way cheaper over there (£592 rather than £749 for a MacBook, and the iPod's only £130). Cool.

And the biggest bitch is that if I want to go to university in September next year, I'll have to be applying for that at the same time as I'm weeks away from going to Japan. Now, my plan for this is...

1. Go to Japan
2. ???
3. Profit Go to university

So, uh, yeah. What I really want to do is just stay in Japan another year, except I think the immigration authorities will not be happy. Cool, I'll be an illegal immigrant!

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to, y'know, going to Japan, is the fact that I require somewhere in the region of £2,000 to sensibly execute this plan. That's £450 or so for the gap year folks (who so far have been about as useful as a inflatable chocolate teapot dartboard, but I'm sure I'll be glad they're there to fall back on once I'm there), £1,500 to bribe prove to the Japanese government that I'm not a dirty poor gaijin and that I can have a visa, and then £400 from that to pay for flights and £1,100 to live on until the yen from my job as Miyamoto's PA/Ghibli's chief animator/Kabuki star/comedy gaijin sumo wrestler/teenage girl underwear sorter starts rolling in.

So, as I've worked out previously, I need to really get a job before March. So I'm lookin', I'm lookin'! The JobCentre site has a pleasantly not-crap selection of jobs. If there aren't any jobs fitting your exact preferences, the search engine shows you similar, perfectly acceptable jobs ...in Scotland. Oh dear. Still, it's thrown up some interesting items, like being a furniture sales assistant in Bonds John Lewis. I could do that. Or, the long shot, selling food on the Norwich-London train. Which would be cool cus, y'know, trains are cool.

Or there's always Asda, which I guess is alright. I'd already know Shaun's mum.

Hail Atlantis!

Ooh, the semi-sequel to Operation Flashpoint, ArmA Armed Assault is out on February 15th! It looks hot. Hilarious tank/bus/Harrier massacres, here I come!

OK, so, my expenses currently are running at

£180 for my final 10 driving lessons
£45 for Japanese lessons
£20 for paintballin' (hopefully)
£20 for Leavers Ball
£12.95 for replacement remote control
£358.76 for Lufthansa flight to Tokyo, via Frankfurt (ooh!)
£1,500 for bribing officials getting a visa and/or living expenses

That suggests that I need £2,136.71 before October 1st, my penciled-in leaving date. Which, assuming I work, say, 16 hours a week at £5 p/h indicates I need to work 7 months or so.

How many... uhm... eight months to October. So, assuming a lazy two days a week at work, and assuming I don't go crazy and splash £425 on a PS3 and buy a car, which I know I will, it will all work out fine!

Hurrah!

Of course, to be more realistic, I'll probably spend a lot on stuff I don't need. But also, considering that I leave school in May (don't I?) that gives me three or four months to work some shitty full-time temping job, which should give me (according to my calculations) upwards of £2,400 or so.

Oh, Japan. Should I be preparing more? It's only, like, less than ten months away, and it seems so distant that I can't believe that it's happening, which is a dangerous viewpoint because not believing can soon turn into not actually happening. Dude, me, in Japan. It seems impossible, which makes me want to give up somewhat, but of course that is not the right attitude. I'm not going to give up, but I may end up blowing lots of money and exploding dramatically. Better to burn out than fade away.

I also need to devour the DVDs of Spaced, Peep Show, Garth Marenghi's DarkPlace, and most importantly The Day Today. Also, Don't Watch That Watch This, if that has a DVD. Also the very similar programme, possibly by Armando Iannucci, that I forgot the name of.

I don't have a New Year's Resolution, but if I did, it would be Get a Job. My finances are Bad and I need to start saving for Japan and most importantly, buy Wii RGB cables/SATAII hard drives.

Choices, however, are limited. Monster.co.uk is crap for job hunting: it's full of "MAKE MILLIONS FROM HOME!" scams. Other sites seem to be better. I've given up hope of working somewhere cool: those sorts of jobs are reserved for annoying friends-of-friends who got lucky. Medical testing - don't laugh - actually seems like a good idea, because the pay is great, it's interesting to be in, and it is vaguely related to future career prospects. However, my hyperchrondia probably wouldn't help when I'm being pumped full of untested drugs and my eye starts to go yellow. Also, I can't be bothered to fill out the form.

Allied Carpets might have jobs. They're just down the road, and carpets are nice. You won't get any chavs coming in. Carpets smell good. That is a possibility. But their website says: no.

Something with computers in would be good, because then I can apply my skills and stuff, but in the long run my skills aren't actually very profitable. Or provable, because I have no qualifications. Dagnammit.

Bleh, January 17th is coming up. Anniversary of my first day at the McD. Godiamnevergoingbacktherenomatterwhat

There was something profound and interesting that I was going to 'journal, but I can't remember, so mundane and dull will have to do. Wait I remembered! I'll mention it later.

Headed down to the hospital, eventually navigated to Occupational Health (man, I work there (kinda) and I have an unusually keen sense of direction, and yet I have no idea where anything is there. The signs are woefully incomplete, appearing once and then disappearing mysteriously, etc. etc.), sat down, waited, felt annoyed I hadn't brought anything to read and I didn't have a chance to use my ID card, and eventually got my second Hepatitus B injection. FTW, as the kids say. So hopefully I now properly have proper immunity to hepatitis, which may come in useful some day.

Off to school, where I turned up for Registration for the first time in ages and got my exam form. I am in for a Chemistry exam! Huttah! I can't be arsed to sort it out!

Conference was a video about gap years. Tcha, don't be telling me about gap years. But seriously more people should go on them, and this means you. The video probably put everyone else off though. I impressed Mr Field/embarrased myself by saying I was going to Japan. I'm going to Japan. Yeah.

Heathcliff, it's me it's Cathy I've come home, soo-oh-oh-oh cold let me in at your window

Then we had Biology, and at one point I was about to leap up and shout something because I was so bored and tired. Seriously. Luckily we then got to watch a video of Dr Robert Winston getting thoroughly shloshed.

After leaving at a horribly late 1530 and tormenting Shaun with the clown joke, I got home and decided to get a job. (This is the bit I remembered to put in. See the beginning.) 'Cus I need £180 for my next block of driving lessons, and Christmas is coming up, and the sooner I raise £2500 the better. So I phoned up Beatniks, Kulture Shock and Swallow Games. The conversation went roughly like this:

"HIIIII! I like totally love your awesome shop and man it would be awesome if I could work there and well I don't know if I'd actually be very good and I probably wouldn't work very hard and just goof around with the CD player/Final Fantasy action figures/demo console and stuff and I realise you probably get a million wannabes wanting to work and but can I please have a job please? Hello, this is Matthew Durrant (trying not to sound like a famous person), I was wondering if you had any vacancies?"
"Oh, dude, I'm sorry, dude, not really."
"Oh, that's ok. Sorry. Thanks. Bye."

I liked the Beatniks guy most of all. "Oh, dude, well it's just the two of us working here so... and one person on Saturdays... so... sorry." Bless him.

So... fuck. "Why don't you work at Budgens?" suggests my mum. "Because I don't want to go crazy and kill everyone," I didn't answer.

Also I can finally make a really bad joke I tried to make ages ago when I heard that Jay-Z was staging his comeback. But... naw, the time has passed. This song is incredibly awesome, like if ... a... robot... combined with... a guitar. Also I like the way it makes the Linkin Park guy sound like a weedy little girl compared to Jay-Z.

I went into HMV with the intention of purchasing either:
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages of...
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds

Funeral was too expensive, and I don't know if I like the Polyphonic Spree enough to get their album, and Final Fantasy is too niché to be found, so I got Psychocandy, which I will have to listen to on the train out of Tokyo to Narita when I leave. It's kinda funny I still buy albums in this age of MP3s, but I do love albums. The artwork. The booklets. The CD. The arrangement of songs. It's so much better than pure digital, even if it does cost you. It's like what Kate Bush says in this month's Q (which incidentally is a good read). Kate Bush is hotter than ever now. I am amazed.

I've ripped Chris's copy of He Poos Clouds, anyway. (Looking back, you can notice the Final Fantasy influence. I bet Henry would be able to name the exact game and location he gets some of the violin bits from.)

Sometimes in my weaker moments I wonder if quitting my job is really such a good idea. After about a minute of work today, I realised I was really doing the right thing. It's not like today was a particularly bad shift, but it was just really unenjoyable, you know? Just... not at all redeeming, other than the £30 I get for it. It was sad when Martin was going home and we realised it would, like, be the last time we ever saw each other (at work at least) and he wished me the best of luck for the future and I wish I'd shook his hand now. Oh well. I'm still glad I'm going.

Anyway, Chris told me I should go work in HMV, and I thought "Naw, that's silly, I could never work at HMV..." and then something suddenly clicked and I realised "wait... I could!" And now I'm excited, because no longer do I have to work in a crappy McJob. Get a job at Asda? Pah! Work in Currys? Tch! Although it's unlikely that I'll get a job at HMV, I might do. But if I don't, I can try at Ray's CDs. Or Swallow Games. Or the new indie music shop near Game. Or Game. And one of them is bound to accept me eventually, and I will have an awesome job. And the world will be good again.

SON YOU SHOULD!
SON YOU SHOULD!

er... anyway. I'm going to make some phone calls and stuff tomorrow. And I might be the guy behind the counter at Ray's CD. Which is now Beatniks. And has been so for a year now. Right.

Two weeks to my 18th birthday and it looks like it will be sadly forgettable. I guess birthdays do that when you get older. I'm gonna get my parents to get me the deposit for the Japan gap year people as a present and... that's it. Not very exciting. Pah. I should be going to Amsterdam and getting wasted and waking up in the morning with several Dutch transvestites. ...maybe not.

I'm watching Torchwood. It looks good so far. Like Doctor Who... except not!

I nearly quit my job!

...ahem. So all day today I've been agonizing what to do, whether I hate this job enough to leave. Also I've had the Smiths song "Frankly, Mr Shankly" in my head, but I don't actually know the lyrics or the tune, so it went more like
Frankly Mr Shankly I know
I know
It's serious
to the tune of Girlfriend in a Coma. There were times where I could have murdered her it was going pretty well, and I thought to myself "you know, it's really not that awful, if you just worked shorter hours on weekday nights, you'd be happier". Then I'd see a butt-ugly chav in a stolen BMW merrily chucking the rubbish from four whole meals out of his car window, next to another chav car chucking the rubbish from four whole meals out of their window, and I'd think "That's it, I'm out." But then Jon was unexpectedly human with me, and we had a laugh about my beard growth, and I thought "Aww, I can't tell him I'm leaving!" But then the general goodness of the day declined, and by the end of the day I was ready. I went for a pee, then marched into the Office and confronted Jason. "Frankly Mr Jason," I said, "This position I've held, It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul." I then continued: "I want to leave, you will not miss me." No, not really, I paused, composed myself, and blurted out "I'd like to ask about quitting." "You can't quit," said Jason with a straight face. "Er..." I said glancing from Jason to Larry. "No, not really," said Jason, smiling. Good ole Jason. So I mentioned I was hoping to find work at Bennetts, and he said wouldn't it be best to find work first before leaving, so I reluctantly agreed that that would be sensible and left. I felt kinda silly on the way out 'cus I wanted to do it in private but the door was open and everyone could hear and I felt kinda embarrassed and mean for leaving them. As I went out Kirk cheered me for being one of the lucky ones who escape, and I smiled, and I felt bad cus although there are a few bad'uns, there's people like Larry and Neil and Martin and Kirk and Edney and others who are genuinely really, really nice people who I will actually miss, even if I didn't talk to them much.

Hmmph. So I guess I will job hunt, and then hand in me one week's notice, and that will be the end. I will be a little sad.

Speaking of job hunting, I finished my CV and uploaded it to Monster.co.uk. I'm a little embarrassed about my CV, because it feels stupid to write about yourself. "I'm an intelligent, computer-savvy young man looking for similar female GSOH for friendship and maybe more." Exactly. Currently my CV description is "Intelligent young student," which sounds really, really stupid.

Also last night I started filling in the UCAS form online with me old china nomaki, and it was a hilariously bad rush job. Well, not actually hilarious because I'm probably ruining my entire future, but oh well. It's funny to think back to July, where I was determined to get into the best university and really excited about getting out on my own and becoming a doctor, but now I'm suddenly taking a gap year out in Japan, the prospect of living in a flat on Unthank Road seems a little tame. (I'm particularly worried that I will end up living in Japan for the rest of my life, which would be fun but not, as my sister would say, actually getting anything done.) So it's like "Yeah, whatever, Medicine course, UEA and Sheffield, hell, might as well throw in Biochemistry or something like that, who cares?" and I'm a little worried I should be taking more care with it.

But there's a lot of stuff to fill in and it has to be done by Monday and I'll probably screw it up anyway and who cares, I'm going to Japan! All my problems are solved!

I'm not entirely sure why I want to go to Japan, but part of the reason, I've just realised, is an site I've been going on for ages which is full of photos of Tokyo at night, and it's truly awesome:


Hrrnnnng purdy
Night Windows

So, like, I'm not at the big party, but to be honest I probably wouldn't enjoy myself. Well I say that, but, you know, socialising is more difficult and often less rewarding than playing computer games, so I'm happy.

Defcon has predictably levelled the Defcon website, so won't be able to download it for a couple days. Oh dear. (Oh wait, they sent me an email. So that's alright.)

Phoned the hospital today to find out how my volunteering is coming along: they're just waiting for an oppotunity to place me, which is good. I was talking on the phone and my mum was in the room and I said "I'm probably not applying for university yet because I'm going on a gap year" and when I hung up my mum said "You didn't tell me you were going on a gap year" and I was all "Um, when else was I going to go to Japan?" and... such. Anyway. Tokyo is giant. The grounds of the Imperial Palace alone are the size of Norwich. Norwich has less than a fiftieth of the area of Tokyo, and a hundreth of the population. Crazy. People have already started to doubt me, but even if I totally fail and blow £1,160 on this, it'll still be like the best thing that's happened in my life so far. Well, uhm, when I look back on it a couple of years later it will be humourous.

So I reckon if I get a dull temping job on minimum wage I can make £2000 or so in a couple of months. So that's £599 to the gap year people, £320 for a one-way ticket to Narita Airport on Lufthansa, £320 to come back on, and ¥185,806 left for living on. It sounds like a lot and it probably is! Yeah! At Tokyo prices, that's:
1,238 loaves of bread
709 Big Macs
320 boxes of tea
4,240 rolls of toilet paper
61 months of cable TV
37 months of FIFTY MEGABIT internet :D:D:D:D
5 months rent for a 12 metre-square, one-roomed apartment

So if everything else goes horribly wrong, I should be alright for a month or two. Awesome. The good thing about Japan is that I don't mind living in a 12 metre-square room. With no toilet or bathroom. With FIFTY MEGABIT.

I see Bennetts need Christmas staff. Electrical retailing, here I come!!! possibly.