The Adventures of Matthew Townend

I'll start this off by saying that this is a bit of a whiney post. I am frustrated. I came to the UK thinking I had a job, and it fell through. I've attended interviews and made a bunch of trips to get jobs, thought I've had them, and come up short. There's a lot of factors at play. One factor is that jobs are difficult to come by. That's an accurate statement right now in the UK. It's going to require more determination to find a job. Another factor is that I don't have my National Insurance Number yet, and it will take about a month to get it. Employers say it's all right that I don't have that yet, but then they don't call me back or hire me. It could be that I'm American, which means that not only do I assume people here don't like me (which may or may not be true), but I expect that the business would, God forbid, be efficient. I may never know. What I do know is that I hate having to ride this emotional train. Th...

It's so crazy how expectation and reality rarely coincide. I was expecting nothing but difficulty in this move to England, but so far it's only had a few small hurdles. I want this blog post to be one about success and doing well over here in the UK, but the doom and gloomer in me doesn't want to celebrate preemptively. I still have a ways to go before I start work, and I have a lot to get in order. But today I did secure a job, technically, assuming I pass the background checks and all that. It's another call centre job, working people's case files and solving customer problems. I'm excited to start this work, as it will present a challenge to me in a new way, but I'm also hesitant and a bit concerned about how easy it was for me to land this job. It might not be all that great if I'm able to get it so easily. But it's no matter. Part of me thinks that maybe jobs are just a little bit easier to get here than in the US. My friends ba...

So here I am in England. Yep. I have relocated the position of my body. That's the update. It seems a bit surreal still, and it certainly feels anticlimactic, as I assumed it would. Honestly I feel paralyzed saying anything else, because I've yet again found myself in a place of indecision and limbo. Let me catch you up. I came to England with the promise of a job in Leeds at a bank call centre. It wasn't my ideal job, but it was something to get me started. But because of the timing of when I get my National Insurance Number (which is required for the job), they couldn't hire me in time for the start date. So now I'm back to the drawing board and have to find a new job. When I got the call about this, I was at once anxious and excited, a theme I've noticed throughout this whole process. I'm anxious because I don't know what I'm going to do now. I have to keep applying for jobs and hope something else opens up. I'm applying ...

I just woke up from a nap on the plane to Stockholm. I had to sleep, otherwise jetlag would destroy me, which means I wouldn't be fully present with my family upon arrival. I want to be fully present. I want to do this right. The feeling I have right now though is still a sense of the unknown. I'm groggy, but I'm strangely philosophical. It's entirely possible that all of this – planning on going to England, selling all my possessions, even being let go from Best Buy – is all a part of one of those stressful dreams that I'm so glad to wake up from. The scary part is that it's not a dream, and at this point, I honestly don't know how I would feel if it was.  On the one hand, I might be relieved that the stress of going into the unknown is off my chest.  On the other, I might be disappointed at the opportunity I just missed.  Either way, I'm scared. That's the thing about doing things out of obedience, and not knowing why. It's sc...

Traveling is weird. You go to some foreign place in some unfamiliar culture that inevitably makes you uncomfortable, but it's still fun because you can have an adventure, admire the experience, and then go home. That's not what I'm doing. I'm moving to England, for good. Actually moving somewhere I'm not used to is a completely different beast, especially when I don't know a lot of people there. I'm absolutely fucking terrified. I have no idea what I'm doing at all. I'm on the plane right now, on my way to LA, about to hang out with my good friend Sara for a few days before I launch into this new “adventure”. I know I can't just go home. I can't. I need to stay for at least six months. I need to find out if there's something God has for me. I need to know why I'm here. “So why are you going to England, anyway?” This is a question I've been asked many times. I could be here to find a wife, that's a po...