EDGES MAGAZINE Issue

October 1998

"I DIDN'T FINISH MY A LEVELS" ...

For the last two and a half months I have been homeless and living in a temporary shelter and just recently I've moved into a flat, at the moment I have got no gas or electricity or anything. I was thrown out by my mum and dad for being unemployed, just dosing about, going out with my mates and coming back in the morning, not seeing them all day and then going out again at night. I got thrown out of college twice, and I got sacked from my job.

I started college in 1996 and I was doing A-Levels in Media Studies, English and Medieval History. I got thrown out for messing about with my mates and never turning up because I found it boring. I went to College a year after that and got thrown out of there as well because I found it boring and I was again just messing about with my mates. I got 7 GCSE's, A for English Literature, A for English Language and A for History, B in Geography, C for Science, C for Maths and C for French. I found it boring because when everyone else was doing the lessons I was having a good time; whilst people turned up for there lessons I was living my life quick. I started doing "acid" in the 3rd Year of Secondary School and that just wakened me up. I realised I didn't want to spend all my day doing lessons - I wanted to be out.

I don't believe in Heaven or anything like that, you've got to make the best of your life, your 70 years if you can. Some people can, and some people don't manage it. That's why I don't want to just get a crap job, I've worked in a supermarket - it bored me senseless. I don't want to get a stupid job working for œ4 an hour and wasting my life just getting a pension, and live in a grotty house. I want to leave something when I die, something people can remember me by, be famous or something. I'd like to be a Journalist or own my own business.

When you are homeless you just live for the day. As soon as I became homeless I went to an emergency shelter and then all I was waiting for was to get temporary shelter, then all I was waiting for was to get a flat, now all I'm waiting for is gas. There's always something you've got to do; you can never just chill out. All I do is wake up in the morning and try and get some food and try and get some fags, next day wake up in the morning try and get some food, try and get some fags - no future though, so that's why I want to go to college. That's all it is every day, get some food, get some fags, get bored get some dope, take some trips or something. You find time's running out - I'm 19, if I was 16 it wouldn't be too bad, but I'm 19. I can't get a job because I haven't worked for a year, only jobs I can get are rubbish, so I've got to get myself through college and so I can do something good that I enjoy doing every day, a job that when I wake up I want to go to, I suppose.



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