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Published: August 27th 2006
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Me my sisters + Morgan
Not travel related, just so I can access it from Kuwait computer. Will add loads more as I take them.... This journal account is primarily about what happens from the time after September 06 in Kuwait, but feel that a quick recap of the 26 odd year before 06 might help give a more rounded picture. So.... here goes (Will be like the Reduced Shakespeare Society etc)
So, were born in January 1980 to parents, Roy and Jacki, in Poole - Dorset. Waiting for me was my big sister Jayne who arrived a couple of years before me. Oh, and Filley - pet English Setter Dog.
Parents moved us to Seaford (sussex) 3 months after my birth and Tamsyn (second sister) was born in 1983. Ummm everything else was pretty standard for a few years. No major events or issues, very 'normal' childhood if such a thing exists.... Morgan (Great Munsterlander dog joined the pack in 1994)
Sport was the main love of my life up to about 13/14. I were crazily competitive and competed to a pretty high level in Football, Cross Country Running, Tennis, Karate and bizarrely enough Chess. Chess was a very sad obsession (which I still partly hold on to) - actually came 7th in Sussex U-18s when I was 13....
Music took
The 100 yards Club
Alas, possibly my best 'failed' band )
You can see what I mean about the dodgy Suede comparisons, I'm the one with the chinese writing on my t-shirt.... over from the sport as the mid teens kicked in. A mixture of Pearl Jam/Nirvana and Radiohead convinced me that I wanted to be a rock drummer. Subsequent lessons establishe dthat I had some rhythm and my music ambition was born. My first band 'Invercargil' (named after a frozen sheep we found in a field) sadly split when the lead guitar Paul felt the need to seduce our singer (Charlie) then ignore her.....
Jumping ahead, to keep the music theme going - after uni (2001) I got into my most promising band that gigged and did mini tour around london for a year or so - they were 'The 100 Yards Club' - a camp disco pop/punk band that made Suede look macho. Oddly enough the band kind of worked, recorded an album and promised great successes and riches etc... Sadly, that did not happen for various reasons (another story in itself) Pretentious musicians (including me probably)......
Final music chapter was with a band called Kiera down in Hastings in 2005. Great music, a lead singer with a vocal to die for and a unique sound. Repeated record time.... Singer (Mario) started going out with Bassist player's (Dave) sister and ......... yeah, lust and egos wreck another promising band... Think I will join a middled aged cover band in Kuwait doing Bon Jovi covers )
Anyhows, back to the later teen stage of my life. Vodka and desire took over from the music and A level / Uni years began.... Before uni kicked off in 98 I spent the summer living/working at Butlins in Bognor doing all that cheesy 'maroon' coloured type work.. Much randomness, obsession with tequilla and other uni cleeshays were the norm. My course, Modern Drama, was fun, but taught me very little except some random Eastern European Grotowskian Physical Theatre and how to be pretentious to pass units... Ultimately, every graduate of my course learned only to create self absorbed rubbish and all were thus unemployable to conventional proper narrative drama. Thus a new path was choosen and the acting dream died.... oh, and somewhere in the middle of uni i managed to spend a few months in the south of france (Atlantic side near Mimizan) working as a chef at night in a top seafood restaurant and learning to surf in the daytime.... Random, but that sums me up quite nicely...Oh, and I think I went on a couple of dodgy BBC datytime quizes somewhere in the middle of that too....
Coffee took over from the vodka as the media became my new world. In 2001 I graduated then moved back to family home in Seaford. Jury duty came a calling and I sat in on a rather horrible trial.... (in retrospect I think we possibly reached the wrong verdict, but that's another story)... Anyhows, after jury duty I had work experience up in Norwich on C5's 'The Wright Stuff' - no job prevailed from that, but I did manage to impress a producer from Norwich's then famous chatshow 'Trisha' who took me on as a Researcher - one of the people who books guests, arranges the 'problems' and ultimately psyches the guests up so that they perform for daytime winning ratings etc... Twas quality for about 3/4 months, separating guests, giving them wine, showing them the audience to intimidate them and thus creating fear in them and allowing you to create your own narrative each day... Anyhows, the conscience kicks in eventually and I realised it wasn't for me. At this point I rellocated to central London (Camden) and proceeded to work on a couple of documentaries for Lion TV called 'The Tower' (London tower old man type one) and 'Gospel Singer of the Year 2003' - which was a complete disaster and shown I think at 4AM one night by ITV - the shame. Then I went on to work on the Richard and Judy for a year on Ch4 before doing my PGCE in primary teaching . R & J was actually good fun as there were some nice features and theres nothing like live TV everyday to get the adrenaline pumping. Even managed to do some on air stuff - best bit was dressing up that weirdo Ali Bashir (the muslim man who crashed Prince Williams 21st birthday in a pink dress) and being followed by armed police around London as I tried to do a spoof interview on Waterloo Bridge about people's reaction to it... Most random again.... But yeah, TV ended there - too many people off their heads and it was literally the sword of damocles scenario - fancied a bit more security thus teaching....
So, lived in Russell Square for PGCE (very posh) - worked hard and got my pass, even after disagreeing with 80% of the stuff my course tried to teach me.... Didn't fancy living in London anymore, so moved down to Hastings (only 40 minutes from my childhood town of Seaford) and bought my first property....
I taught at Christ Church primary for 2 years and had great fun. I was left alone by my Head who gave me free reign.... Thus were given space/time to do the lessons that the kids and I both wanted/enjoyed.... Had some of the best experiences of my life in that Y5 classroom, which I spent almost as much time in as my flat... My competitive sporting nature emerged again as I became coach of the Cross Country running team and the Football. Without blowing my own trumpet I had loads of success with a great bunch of sporting kids. We won all the local cross country meets and had the most represntatives of any school in the Sussex finals for two years running.... With the football we won 3 out of the 4 trophies on Hastings this year and came came 2nd in the county out of 473 teams in the Sussex Cup.... I have never been prouder than watching kids I train be successful and over perform on the day, tis a nicer feeling than competing myself and reminds me that I made the right choice becoming a teacher....
Oh yeah, after 1st year of teaching I spent the summer in Vietnam, chilling out by the souther delta coast and waterfall jumping up in the hills of Dalat. Twas out of this world, such a genuinely lovely way of life out there. Feel inspired to explore more of that area. In fact... next summer I am planning to spend a couple of months in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). It has a very cool mix of jungles, islands and mountain villages... Anyone out that neck of the woods next summer give me a yell, or if you only have 2 or 3 weeks holiday let me know and we can hook up for a bit over there....
Anyhows, to conclude, I saw some adds in January for jobs abroad. I dismissed the idea, then thought about it and then then did a pros and cons list. Pros list won by a landslide and I applied for 3 posts. I were lucky enough to be offered all the positions and in the end decided to go to KES in Kuwait. The school's ethos and attitude seemed spot on for me.... The moneys not bad either )
So, that's where I am at. I leave in 3 days and hope to update this site every two weeks or so with exciting news etc... Phew - that was a bit of an epic update..... Sounds almost interesting - have missed out so many bits too!!!! Hope it was an almost interesting read....
Matt )
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Amanda
non-member comment
just by chance
Hi, I was searching some information about Kuwait, and saw your name by chance, which make me think about the Matthew in Bible , you have an interesting life, so nice, wish you good luck in Kuwait