Final Chapter?!

With my faith waning in the belief that meaningful employment which would allow me to progress into the world of media and journalism was just around the ol’ proverbial… I needed a way out, an escape from Albion and all the problems and lack of opportunity that dwell within these realms.
And then it dawned… a way out of the interminable dross that was and still is the employment scene in these United Kingdoms… TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) incase you’re not too familiar with this particular concept I shall explain: As we all know English is one of the most spoken languages used on this planet we call Earth; well as natural purveyors of this language there is a course you can do varying in hours and expense in which you can learn how to teach English to those who wish to learn all over the world! Now who wouldn’t be interested in such an opportunity?!
Late in 09 I decided that’s it I’m going to work my arse off save up do the course and then take a job in Barcelona teaching gorgeous, cultured, uninhibited and effortlessly sexy Spanish sorry Catalonian women (who all happen bear a striking resemblance to Miss Penelope Cruz in my mind’s eye.) It all sounded perfect… leaving behind dreary, samey and routine like London for a climate change in every sense; and saving would of course be easy! For once the fact that my social life was ebbing towards its dying embers would be to my advantage.
Well by way of sod’s law (would love to know who christened such a term) the social life actually started to under go a renaissance; would you Adam and Eve it! Yes I still unable to say no to a night out despite the Utopia I could picture waiting for moi in Iberian paradise went on a series of night outs from late September including birthdays, dinners, clubs, gigs etc till about mid November; it was as if for 5-6 weeks I was all of a sudden the recklessly social 19 year old that I thought had been lost under the weight of fear of the future.
This period I termed as my ‘crest of the wave’ because it couldn’t possibly last and I figured I might as well ride it till the waters calmed once more.
One night in particular of this period still reverberates and was in many ways the peak of the wave. It was Halloween 09 and I along with a couple of mates was heading out to Underworld located right in the heart of Camden Town…Underworld incase you’re unaware is a night club small in stature which pumps out the latest in contemporary indie music; it is also a relic of those early carefree years between 17-19 I would frequent the venue and lose myself in a sea of indie disco heaven.
The mates I went with named Alex and Danny are two people shall I say who haven’t been affected as I have by the recession; Alex has been settled in a restaurant for the last few years as a waiter and Danny graduated university and found a job and salvation at betfair in 2007.
Throughout the night I had to endure them talking about their girlfriends, their holidays (in Thailand and Turkey respectively) how they managed to spend just £800 on flights and accommodation. Swapping holiday stories, discussing where they were going next year etc. I had nothing to contribute so I just sat there taking in all their merriment whilst sipping eternally on a JD and coke longing for the subject to change to football or music or even Haruki Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood!
The reason I mention all this is I want you to be able to understand the state of mind I was in upon entering Underworld.
After a few drinks inside I was desperate for some type of validation, some kind of escape from the recession-ridden path I was forced to walk. Never before had the gap in quality of life between my mates and me been so prevalent; they knew it, I knew it and I was determined to during the great leveller that a night-club can be seek my own form of temporary redemption.
Whilst on the dance floor with my two mates in tow I got the attention I so craved, so desired, longed and lusted for… the source however wasn’t the shining light I needed but instead was more of symbol of my desperation.
A rather large woman came boogying towards me; her eyes wide, her hair short and black, her attire pieced together from discarded curtains. She was a good couple of inches taller than me and a dozen or so inches wider! Not to mention that she was in her mid to late thirties at least.
Suddenly there she was dancing in front of me eager for me to pick up the baton…
I wish I could say I managed to resist or that I was blind drunk but that would simply be a fabrication… without thinking I picked up the baton and ran.
I put my arms around her considerable frame avoiding eye contact as if somehow that meant it wasn’t real. After a song or two I just thought fuck it! I’ve gone this far down the track I might as well go a little further.
I leant over and kissed her on cheek and she proceeded to giggle after which we tried to establish a dialogue, which just amounted to each of us merely pretending we’d heard what the other had said.
With my mates seemingly out of the picture off to bar (I’d seen Alex mime the drinky drinky motion) I leaned in and pulled her; as with all guys when you pull a girl you first start off with your hands by her sides, then slip them down to her arse your hands will just rest there for a moment cupping each buttock in one hand then we’ll slowly work our hands up to her tits giving them a fair ol’ grope all whilst maintaining the snog and this ritual groping is just as important as the engaging of tongues.
But with this woman who’s subsequently become known as ‘Valuev’ (the fight was the next weekend and once I revealed she was Eastern European the moniker was inevitable, Danny even suggested that I being a comparatively small Black guy and she being a tall eastern European it literally looked like…)
I simply kept my hands up by her ample sides for obvious reasons.
Did pulling this woman provide me with the satisfaction and validation that I so desperately craved that night I hear you cry?! Did it provide adequate escapism from a life a galaxy away from where I wanted it to be?! Did I suddenly feel I was on par with Danny and Alex in life stakes?! No would be the simple and rather obvious answer to those questions; I went onto snog her a few more times before she ventured off with her friends and we ‘agreed’ to reconvene on the dance floor for ‘round two.’
Needless to say I’ve taken a fair bit of stick for such a fois pas; in hindsight wasn’t she wasn’t ‘Valuev’ a physical manifestation to how low I’d sunk, how desperate in every sense I had now become?
Danny, Alex and every so often some geezer you vaguely remember from secondary school who you become ‘friends’ with on Facebook and you discover they’re married, engaged or happen to be the assistant manager at C&J Clarks and you can’t help but wonder when did ‘appen? When did everyone suddenly go off and get a better life than me? How is it that he’s marrying an adult human female he professes to love? Whilst I’m making do with whoever shows the vaguest bit of interest in me in some grotty little discotheque!
I mean did someone literally start giving out handbooks as to how to get the job and girl that you so desire by the age of 24 but whilst this was occurring I was at home wanking over whatever tart ‘appened to be on Babestation?!
The thought of running into anyone I knew from Rushcroft Secondary and having THAT conversation in which we attempt to in the space of five minutes divulge the significant events that have occurred within our lives over the space of the last 7-8 years. Is a disturbing one.
I can have a decent 3 quarters worth of a conversation about going to college and then onto university but that’s where it ends; I do not believe there is a pleasant or eloquent way of describing how upon graduating from university in May 2008 I have spent the past 19 odd months looking desperately for respectable employment but thanks in no small part to a worldwide recession and rising unemployment figures this has proved to be a nigh impossible task so I work casually as a Steward/Waiter, still live at home and wake up everyday to this rather depressing reality which inevitably means I wont pass up the opportunity to ‘escape’ through the means of drink, drugs and whatever member of the opposing sex gives me a green light.
I do however find this whole situation I and millions of other recent graduates find ourselves in rather funny perhaps even ironic… all through secondary school and laterally college its drummed into you incessantly that University is the pinnacle, ‘you get a degree and you’ll earn x amount more…’ Higher education the essential ladder you must climb to where you want to be, to be content, to be that spivvy cunt.
But on the odd occasion I do run into people from my ol’ school it tends to be the ones who found work straight after school or college that are now thriving; settled in a job, renting their own place, have a few grand tucked away, a world away from this interminable dross, this perpetual purgatory within which the vast majority of recent graduates dwell.
Is a shift in the balance of power in the offing? Will recent graduates upon the world waking from its recession induced slumber be the ones who are holding all the cards? Are these 19 odd months we’ve had to endure (so far) us merely wandering through the desert to reach the promised land?! Salaries, renting our own places, when asked what you do for a living being able to answer with assurance and pride instead of the ol’ vitriol about how you’re a ‘recent graduate’ just doing agency work till you break into your chosen field.’
Will we look forward to those catch up conversations? See them as a glorious opportunity to boast how after a couple of rocky years those degrees paid dividends, came good in the end.
That all does sound rather lovely but how would we all cope without the squalor to which we’ve become so accustomed?

As I sit and I write these words at 14:38 on 14/1/10 I do possess the renewed optimism that only a new year can bring. My plan now revolves around getting that TEFL qualification as I’ll only require a 20 hour (£195) certificate to teach this wonderful language of ours in the Czech city of Prague.

Perhaps upon returning to Albion I’ll have another crack at that Journalism lark.

The past 19 odd months have seen the glorious university bubble well and truly burst… a world of agency work, recruitment agencies and applying for endless jobs online have become life as I and millions of other recent graduates know it.
By writing this novel it was my attempt to provide an insight into what life is like for recent graduates at a time where genuine job opportunities are increasingly sparse; its also been my salvation as I have so much free time; writing about my experiences over the past year and a half has proved cathartic and proof to myself that I’m not a steward or a waiter; but that I am a writer.
What does the next 19 odd months have in store? Que sera, sera but I’ll be perfectly content if its so formulaic that I couldn’t possibly write another novel based upon it.

By Kwame Boakye.