...or thereabouts by the time I actually posted this...I'll be home.
Well, one month yesterday. I'm writing this for tomorrow. Now. Anyway...
I figured it'd been a while since the last post and so I'd better get on with one. Normally though, I can't force myself to write one. They just kinda happen and I break off whatever I was going to do in order to do so. Which, tonight, was watching S4 of Breaking Bad and Braveheart (That film is 13 years old you know! What the fuck happened there?!) So nothing pressing.
Mostly, it's going well. Shows are getting better all the time and I'm getting some much-needed stage time just doing the same thing over and over every day, so I don't forget everything by taking 2 week breaks to do other stuff. I'll be interested to see what happens when I try to do my Ferrari-refined (sounds much more impressive than it is) show elsewhere but that's to think about later. Elsewhere. I'm learning a lot about how to communicate with non English-speaking audiences too. Paid. In the warm. In case you'd missed that bit ;) Actually, the evenings are pretty chilly but nothing like the UK as far as I can tell from the amount of #snow #snow #snow posts all over the internet. Incidentally, on the above subject, please read this and follow them. They're hilarious.
I say 'mostly' it's been going well. And it has. But it's a mixed bag really. Ive realised tonight (and hence the blog post) that it's just the monotony that I don't like. I've never had a full-time job. In fact, I've spent my adult life up until this point studiously avoiding one and this bout of employment is easily my longest ever. I did music, I plumbed, I did streetshows, I even delivered pizzas and had fuck-knows-how-many crappy jobs as a teenager (even sorting potatoes at uni) but I never "got on that train" as a wise and fellow lifelong self-employed friend once put it.
Every day is the same. I value what it's given me and I'm far from against coming back at some point. I've given it my best, delivered a good product (I think) and helped them figure out a bit more about what they want in the future. And it's not bad here, but it's not hugely inspiring. Useful, but not enveloping. Motivating, but not intense. I like intense and I like change, it would seem. Life in the UK moves at a million miles an hour whilst changing all the time and although I value my time off hugely, it's new things that really make me tick, I think. I've missed them, lots.
This week has been broken up by a visit to some friends of my Parents for dinner, aforementioned friends visiting the park today and tonight, wait for it....learning about the local buses and using them to go to the shop and back. Sounds simple, right? I feel amazing. And all I did was one little thing different. That little break from the daily routine will last me a week.
On my one day off a week I've been hanging out with the cast of the other show mostly. They're all lovely. Fortunately, also, there are some people out here that I know from elsewhere. Some absolutely lovely, generous, hospitable and fun (albeit until now fairly peripheral) London friends recently relocated to Dubai so I've been out with them a couple of times and another friend from the Edinburgh Fringe has been out here working so I went on a Desert Safari with him and went to see the theatre shows he was working on (also in Dubai) which was all awesome. Dubai is brilliant by the way. Crazy buildings, which I love, and a general Disneyland feel about the place. A lot more relaxed that Abu Dhabi overall too.
Ethically, the whole thing is about a million miles off - they have loads of cheap imported labour, don't recycle and drive huge, unnecessary cars. As a sociological chinstroke the whole country could fill countless notebooks. It's a very 2-tiered society which, as a white male, makes it difficult at times to communicate. Once I got round it though, I found that there are now about 5 more countries in the world that I wouldn't even have thought to visit that I now MUST go to having met some of their people. So thats a bonus.
Overall though, considering the times we live in as a planet, it kinda feels like they had the resource and opportunity to make a whole new and advanced country and just decided to make exactly the same mistakes as the rest of the world, preferring to make looking good a priority instead. Shame. Of course, I'm far from against record-breaking skyscrapers and fast rollercoasters - I would just like the investment to build to to be from a co-operative, the food there to be vaguely local, be supplied to me by a working national and the packaging to be recyclable. Not that we get that in the UK, but you get what I mean. I'm an idealist, what can I say?
My acommodation is pretty good really, looks like a portacabin from the outside but I got a large one to myself and it's the size of a studio flat I guess. The idea of this isolated, tucked-away compartmentalised and very regimented housing for all the workers is less paletable of course, but that's pretty standard. Again, its a constant eyebrow-raiser telling people that I'm living in the makeshift village that is almost completely populated by Bangladeshis, Poles, Egyptians, Fillipinos and Pakistanis who work in the nearby Aluminum Mine or at the various attractions on Yas Island (the bit where Ferrari World is and which, incidentally, is located half an hour or so away from Abu Dhabi itself.)
There's a certain look that I'm getting used to which means something along the lines of; "But...you're white and you MUST be rich. Why on EARTH are you working here and living there?!" Goes to solidify my point about how two tiered the society is but, I guess, throws a third, tourist tier into the mix. You get the idea. I have the choice to be irritated/saddened by it and see it as a barrier, or work round it and use it as a learning experience. Mostly I'm managing the latter but I don't think I could do that for very long - stuff like that really gets to me.
Anyhoo, nearly there. Then it's back to blighty for the crazy summer and whatever it may bring. Here are some photos of the things I have been doing:
