a representative day in the life of an expatriate slayer
5:00 am: First alarm goes off. Five in the morning here is midnight back home, and Marc likes to greet me good morning as he goes to bed.
Talking to Marc, making conversation, is starting to get harder. It's been two months since I was stateside, and it's starting to show. There's been new people hired at work to help with summer, so Marc talks about working with and partying with people I've never met and wouldn't recognize if I saw a photograph. Also, I'm slowly falling behind American pop culture -- the British press does cover the adventures of those wacky Colonials, but not in the media circus three-ring frenzy that the American press does. I still read the headlines on Google News, but it's odd how it matters less when it's only text.
Marc and I usually chat for about fifteen minutes, then we both go to bed. He thinks I go ahead and get started on my day. I've never felt the need to disabuse him of this notion.
8:00 am: Second alarm goes off. Time to actually get up and start on my day.
Opening my cereal cabinet is still mildly freaksome. The cereals I was used to back home are either here under a different name but the same manufacturer, or here with the same name but a different manufacturer. Nestlé Cheerios still cause me to do a double-take (I don't think I'll ever get used to a white Cheerios box.) I've been experimenting with which ones are good and which ones are just nasty. So far I've found it's generally like it is in the States: anything with sugar prominently featured in the ingredient list is good, anything featuring bran is gross.
9:30 am: Corinne -- Ms. Heritage -- arrives to pick me up so we can go work on our current assignment.
My situation with the Council is hard to explain. After hearing Buffy's stories about the Council, even if most of the people that treated her like that are deceased now, I didn't really want to work for them. I wanted to operate on my own. Unfortunately, just about the only way to get in the UK and stay for any length of time is by a work permit. So the Council pulled a few strings and secured a TWES visa for me, which allows me to live here and work/be trained for an indefinite period of time.
To fulfill the terms of the visa, then, I have to be working for or being trained by the Council, which they accomplished by making me a general dogsbody for them. I believe my official title is Slayer Operative for Southeast England, but the upshot of it is that any Council business that needs handling in Southeast England, I handle it. I'm responsible for tracking down new Slayers, training and supervising the ones I've already found, and running any errands that need run in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, although special occasions take me further afield.
Currently there's a group of about six Slayers I'm responsible for supervising, scattered from Southampton to Dover. Today's excursion is all the way out to Southampton to check on the two Slayers living there; Corinne will be driving me.
Since I'm not a UK citizen, I'm not allowed to hold a license. It's frustrating being able to drive but not being allowed to hold a license. Public transit in England is way better than it is back home, so I can still get around pretty well. I walk a lot, more than I'm used to, but I think it's doing me good. There are some buses, and if I need to go long distances I either take a train or Corinne drives me.
1:00 pm: We arrive at the first girl's house and start in on the check. A quick status report, some sparring, and then a bit of education -- bulletins from the Council, things Corinne or I have turned up in our research, or anything I feel they need to know.
The mandate from the Council said only that I was to "supervise" these girls, without any details on what that supervision meant. In the past two months, I've started to act like a blue-light Watcher for them. I can give them basic fighting training and "this is how you kill vampires" lessons. I also try to keep them up to date on what's happening in the area and lately I started assembling a PowerPoint series on indigenous demons.
I do get information from the Council to give to them. Sometimes it's a little sketchy, so in those cases I try to research, with Corinne's help, to have more information to give them. Some things I find on my own, although those are rare.
Today's bulletin is from the Council, expanded by Corinne. There's a species of water demon that's going to be spawning off the coast here in a week, and the babies bite if they're disturbed. They're not poisonous and the bites aren't big, so they'll be more of an annoyance to swimmers than anything else. Mama Demon is liable to attack if anyone goes after her babies, though, so I wanted to give the girls a heads-up on that.
3:00 pm: Depart Elizabeth's house, head for Chloe's.
3:30 pm: Arrive at Chloe's house. Rinse and repeat earlier routine.
4:45 pm: Depart Chloe's house.
5:30 pm: Stuck in traffic. Corinne pops the new Corrs CD in and we both caterwaul along.
Corinne is, as mentioned earlier, my Council liaison. Corinne is not a Watcher and is very definite on this fact. Before the big Council re-formation, Corinne was an academic at the University of Leeds, studying ancient history and language or something. She found out about the whole demons, vampires, and Slayers thing several years ago in an escapade involving a book containing a few critical prophecies that she found in the university library. From then she did some part-time work for them until the big re-formation when they asked her if she wanted to help out more regularly. She said yes and got assigned to be my liaison, although she didn't realize when she said yes that it'd involve a move from her hometown.
Corinne's pretty cool and not nearly as uptight as you'd expect someone with the name Corinne Heritage to be. She's in her late-thirties, I haven't been able to wring an exact year out of her, and has a pretty colorful life history, which I'm still learning about. I like her.
8:00 pm: Arrive home. Flip tube on to "The Fairly Oddparents" while I cook -- okay, heat up -- dinner.
8:30 pm: Ugh, SpongeBob on. Turn off television and hop online.
8:35 pm: E-mail in inbox from Corinne. Apparently there's been a series of killings over in Ireland, and they're putting together a team of Slayers to go investigate. I've been requested for. Will head up to London with Corinne tomorrow.
Brilliant.
Not.
Talking to Marc, making conversation, is starting to get harder. It's been two months since I was stateside, and it's starting to show. There's been new people hired at work to help with summer, so Marc talks about working with and partying with people I've never met and wouldn't recognize if I saw a photograph. Also, I'm slowly falling behind American pop culture -- the British press does cover the adventures of those wacky Colonials, but not in the media circus three-ring frenzy that the American press does. I still read the headlines on Google News, but it's odd how it matters less when it's only text.
Marc and I usually chat for about fifteen minutes, then we both go to bed. He thinks I go ahead and get started on my day. I've never felt the need to disabuse him of this notion.
8:00 am: Second alarm goes off. Time to actually get up and start on my day.
Opening my cereal cabinet is still mildly freaksome. The cereals I was used to back home are either here under a different name but the same manufacturer, or here with the same name but a different manufacturer. Nestlé Cheerios still cause me to do a double-take (I don't think I'll ever get used to a white Cheerios box.) I've been experimenting with which ones are good and which ones are just nasty. So far I've found it's generally like it is in the States: anything with sugar prominently featured in the ingredient list is good, anything featuring bran is gross.
9:30 am: Corinne -- Ms. Heritage -- arrives to pick me up so we can go work on our current assignment.
My situation with the Council is hard to explain. After hearing Buffy's stories about the Council, even if most of the people that treated her like that are deceased now, I didn't really want to work for them. I wanted to operate on my own. Unfortunately, just about the only way to get in the UK and stay for any length of time is by a work permit. So the Council pulled a few strings and secured a TWES visa for me, which allows me to live here and work/be trained for an indefinite period of time.
To fulfill the terms of the visa, then, I have to be working for or being trained by the Council, which they accomplished by making me a general dogsbody for them. I believe my official title is Slayer Operative for Southeast England, but the upshot of it is that any Council business that needs handling in Southeast England, I handle it. I'm responsible for tracking down new Slayers, training and supervising the ones I've already found, and running any errands that need run in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, although special occasions take me further afield.
Currently there's a group of about six Slayers I'm responsible for supervising, scattered from Southampton to Dover. Today's excursion is all the way out to Southampton to check on the two Slayers living there; Corinne will be driving me.
Since I'm not a UK citizen, I'm not allowed to hold a license. It's frustrating being able to drive but not being allowed to hold a license. Public transit in England is way better than it is back home, so I can still get around pretty well. I walk a lot, more than I'm used to, but I think it's doing me good. There are some buses, and if I need to go long distances I either take a train or Corinne drives me.
1:00 pm: We arrive at the first girl's house and start in on the check. A quick status report, some sparring, and then a bit of education -- bulletins from the Council, things Corinne or I have turned up in our research, or anything I feel they need to know.
The mandate from the Council said only that I was to "supervise" these girls, without any details on what that supervision meant. In the past two months, I've started to act like a blue-light Watcher for them. I can give them basic fighting training and "this is how you kill vampires" lessons. I also try to keep them up to date on what's happening in the area and lately I started assembling a PowerPoint series on indigenous demons.
I do get information from the Council to give to them. Sometimes it's a little sketchy, so in those cases I try to research, with Corinne's help, to have more information to give them. Some things I find on my own, although those are rare.
Today's bulletin is from the Council, expanded by Corinne. There's a species of water demon that's going to be spawning off the coast here in a week, and the babies bite if they're disturbed. They're not poisonous and the bites aren't big, so they'll be more of an annoyance to swimmers than anything else. Mama Demon is liable to attack if anyone goes after her babies, though, so I wanted to give the girls a heads-up on that.
3:00 pm: Depart Elizabeth's house, head for Chloe's.
3:30 pm: Arrive at Chloe's house. Rinse and repeat earlier routine.
4:45 pm: Depart Chloe's house.
5:30 pm: Stuck in traffic. Corinne pops the new Corrs CD in and we both caterwaul along.
Corinne is, as mentioned earlier, my Council liaison. Corinne is not a Watcher and is very definite on this fact. Before the big Council re-formation, Corinne was an academic at the University of Leeds, studying ancient history and language or something. She found out about the whole demons, vampires, and Slayers thing several years ago in an escapade involving a book containing a few critical prophecies that she found in the university library. From then she did some part-time work for them until the big re-formation when they asked her if she wanted to help out more regularly. She said yes and got assigned to be my liaison, although she didn't realize when she said yes that it'd involve a move from her hometown.
Corinne's pretty cool and not nearly as uptight as you'd expect someone with the name Corinne Heritage to be. She's in her late-thirties, I haven't been able to wring an exact year out of her, and has a pretty colorful life history, which I'm still learning about. I like her.
8:00 pm: Arrive home. Flip tube on to "The Fairly Oddparents" while I cook -- okay, heat up -- dinner.
8:30 pm: Ugh, SpongeBob on. Turn off television and hop online.
8:35 pm: E-mail in inbox from Corinne. Apparently there's been a series of killings over in Ireland, and they're putting together a team of Slayers to go investigate. I've been requested for. Will head up to London with Corinne tomorrow.
Brilliant.
Not.