Biting the bullet.

Okay, so I've never blogged before and to be perfectly honest, I never thought I would ever be one of those people that said "hey, come read my blog" so I might just keep this badboy under wraps for the time being and then drunkenly publish it to my Facebook or Twitter one night, no doubt.

Well, first off, I'll tell you a bit about me, although in all honesty, if you don't know me and you're reading this blog, I have to ask WHY. Because I lead an incredibly dull life. Although the occasional crazy thing does seem to happen which I suppose would make very good reading... in which case, hi and welcome to my blog.

I'm Emily Rose Chriscoli. I'm 21 and I'm a university graduate from Warrington. If you don't know where Warrington is (that's probably a good thing, by the way), then it's slap bang between Manchester and Liverpool. It's something like half a metre closer to Liverpool, so you would expect me to have a Scouse accent, but I don't. However, once in Manchester Picadilly train station, I got stopped by some American girl who was lost and as I was waffling on, she was just staring at me and then at the end of my speech said, "Oh my god... do you know the Beatles?"... So, perhaps you can hear a soft trace of Scouse in my accent.

I graduated from Edge Hill University in July 2011. So that's 7 months ago now, which makes me feel a bit sick when I think how long ago it was and sometimes I still describe my friend Katie to people who don't know her as "my housemate Katie" or when people ask my occupation, I automatically say "student". Clearly, I'm missing the student lifestyle, which isn't surprising as I have nothing but fond memories of university. Saying that, however, I've not had a great time since graduating.

I was fortunate enough to find out about an audition for a theatre company based in Liverpool, called Black Box Theatre Company in September and was taken on by them, which I suppose was very lucky considering I'd done no professional work before. I managed to secure quite a few acting jobs with them actually - in September and October, I was touring round the country in a little Ford Focus with two guys called Mike and a girl called Claire, performing a little known play, which you might have heard of, called "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

I have nothing but hilarious memories of those few weeks. Except the early starts. Anyone who thinks acting is a glamorous profession is deluded. I'd set my alarm for 4:45am everyday, to get up, washed, dressed, bag packed and onto the train for 5:45, to get into Liverpool Lime Street for 7:00, to meet up with the two Mike's and Claire. We didn't say much in those early mornings - usually after a tankard of coffee and a bit of toast my mum had made us all wrapped in tin foil, we could just about open our bleary little eyes (except Mike Lockley, who was the designated driver) and we would tour round the country to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream to primary schools and high schools at 8:30am. It was always cold, despite it only being September, and naturally, my body's denfences were shot at so I was full of a cold. It's fantastic standing on stage in front of 200 school kids who clearly don't want to be there, trying to say "I love thee Lysander!" whilst in the midst of a coughing fit. I'm well aware that I sounded like Mike Reid throughout that entire tour. For this tour, I was paid £290. Sounds like a lot, but when you take away train fayre etc, it doesn't really stretch far. I knew then I needed a job in between acting jobs.

In October and November, I toured round the North West with a girl called Liz for a play called "Harry the Horror", which was aimed at the very little ones from the age of 3-7. As it was a two hander (and for those of you who have no idea when it comes to theatrical lingo, that means only two people involved in the play) Liz drove and I nagivated - yes, you read that correctly. I navigated. So naturally, we got lost many, many times. The show was mostly a puppet show, so I comandeered this ENORMOUS lime green duck whilst simultaneously trying to hide behind a flowery curtain and with my spare hand, control the CD player (which had a mind of its own - seriously, I would press 'pause' and for reasons unbeknownst to us all, 10 minutes later it would start playing and poor Liz would have to shout her lines. Yeah, the kids loved us. Not so sure the teachers did though.) and when 'Duck' disappeared behind the curtain and 'Lion' and 'Zebra' appeared in front of it, I had to not only stuff my hands out of and into various animals bottoms' but also change the track on the ghastly CD player AND hold the curtain. Naturally, it went wrong and on several occasions, children screamed "MISS, MISS, LOOK! THERE'S A GIRL BEHIND THAT CURTAIN!" For this whole tour, I was paid £450. Again, sounds like a lot, but isn't that much really.

Then in November and December, I was rehearsing for and performing for a series of six short plays - of which I performed in two - called, quite imaginatively, "Six in the City". The two plays I was in were called "Goose's Gander" and "The Inner Man". Two very different plays, very different characters. This was a great time for me because finally, I wasn't acting for children. Six in the City was performed at the Liverpool Contemporary Urban Centre for three consequtive nights and all my friends and family came to see me. Even the boyfriend's mother came. I had a fantastic time and got some wonderful reviews, but the pay was dreadful. I won't tell you how much I earnt, because it's somewhat soul destroying, but hey ho that's the industry I chose to work in, I suppose. Now, it didn't matter so much about the pay for Six in the City, because I was simultaneously working at Asda the whole time we were rehearsing and performing.

You see, ever since I graduated, I'd gone from temporary job to temporary job. I needed something flexible enough to be able to ask for time off for rehearsals/performances etc, and when I saw Asda were hiring, I jumped at the chance. I won't bore you with too many details, but to cut a veeerrryyyyy long story short, they lost my passport details, I got my bank card stolen and hacked into by someone in the locker room and then I got sacked the day before Christmas Eve because I asked if I could go to church for 6 o'clock mass on Christmas Eve. I won't name my department manager, so let's called him Pat. Pat was a twat. I apologise for my language (or as my gran would say, "Excuse me French!") but he was a down and out twat. Only 3 years older than myself, throwing his weight around. And he had a LOT of weight, being a big fella. He sacked someone else the day before me and assaulted a girl in the stockroom by throwing boxes of DVDs at her. He was a charming man, was my department manager. So I quite literally got turfed out into the snow.

I sobbed my heart out at home, even though, if I'm being honest, I hated the job but I did enjoy sitting by the Christmas tree crying to my mum who kept saying the same thing, "It was never meant to be. You were too good for Asda anyway". Even though she's my mother and she did bring me into this world, I have to say I think she's right. Nothing against people who work in supermarkets - my Auntie Nat and three of my cousins work in a different Asda to the one I worked in - but it just isn't for me. When I was there, I was surrounded by people whose idea of fun was scribbling 'cunt' into their work shirts and seeing if anyone noticed, and no I'm not remotely kidding. I felt like a little flower being kept in the shade. So, I tried to turn into a positive thing and I wrote a letter to David Cameron about the sheer state of our society. I searched for auditions, I looked for any acting work going.

So, it was with a very heavy heart, that I signed back on for Job Seeker's Allowance.