Thursday 17 March 2011

Land Of Confusion

I refer here to the Disturbed cover of the Genesis song. I love both and found it rather comical that Mum sang along to this (metal!) version in the car! Anyway, I am currently residing in such a land. I have stuck my neck out and sent my CV to BBC North. During the process I was asked to 'tick all that apply' regarding my knowledge and skills etc... I felt quite overwhelmed by the technical jargon concerning
media production because I prefer (not so traditional) methods from pen and paper to laptops and blogs!

I am hoping that this will direct me somewhere in the regions of PR, advertising and communications which I was relieved to find in such extensive lists. I had help from a University CV adviser to update my CV to 'showcase' my ablilities. I was able to write about university experiences and how they have developed me as a person in terms of applicable interpersonal skills and academic knowledge. I wanted to show that writing is my forte and I hope that this shows through!

I will continue to search out my perfect career. I think I am more clued up about it than I was six months ago and that has enabled me to search in the right places and ask relevant questions. I want to write, I need to use my linguistic competence for pleasure and purpose, I have discovered PR. It is very much the type of thing I need. It would allow me to write, advertise and communicate. I like to spread the word and publicise as much as I can, to do this on a daily basis would be perfect for me!

Thursday 10 March 2011

Underdog

You Me At Six, what a brilliant way to start a blog =]

I promised myself last week that I would make it home for pancake day. Guess what? I didn't. This was partly because itwas one of the rare weeks where I actually had three days of uni. I didn't see much of a point in going home after class, only to come back next week when I have another three days off.

 (Someone needs to tell me how to turn off 'Overwrite' as I just had to completely retype that last sentence, this will make things very difficult to edit...)

So, anyway, Friday last week is barely worth mentioning if I am honest as it was the usual Friday night in, with the exception that Tom was there of course! I did my 9-6 on Saturday and choked on my lunch whilst arguing that Ewoks are not only for girls. I am no girly girl and you only have to ask my friends to confirm that. It was slightly embarrassing  but I'm sure it will have been forgotten by this week.... Tom picked me up and we had made plans with our friends to go to the AMC cinema.

Unfortunately, Tom has a strange habit of 'spontaneously' arranging cinema visits. I.e. show up at AMC cinema and watch whatever's on. This annoys me though, I find that we end up watching lots of films which we couldn't give a toss about and missing all the good ones just because we were ten minutes late or two hours early. Figures. So, of course, we find nothing of interest on at a decent time and wind up going for drinks, because it's always our back up option.

We left AMC from the back and walked round the GMEX to appear on the street near Deansgate station. Chris had decided he wanted to try Overdraught's latest makeover and go 'Downtown'. As far as I could tell, there was hardly anything different about it. It was very quiet and it played very much the same old. It used to be quite alternative when we started going at 18 but it succumbed to the sheep. I have to say, its rebrand is very much to hide the fact that nothing inside has changed. The lads played pool against two very energetic men who Andy appeared to get quite close to! Adele, Sam and I chatted. We had to instigate the move to City Road Inn because it just wasn't feeling like a Saturday night.

   I resolved whilst in 'Downtown' that I really want to go on a big night out after the final deadlines at Uni. We had some really good nights in college and they seem to have gone by the wayside recently. I wanrt to give 5th Avenue another chance to see if it has returned to it's alternative glory as Number One Indie Experience, I really hope so.

Sunday was work again and the best bit about it was the extra sausage rolls that came back to the counter at the end of the shift. The big managers were in taking a look around and Nicole had been told to put out extra sausage rolls and pasties, to fill up the grab and go section at the front of the store. Of course they didn't all sell and a bag full came back for waste at the end. I think it's a real shame how much food does get wasted because it has 'gone out of date'. We rely too much on specific numbers, if a customer sees something on the shelf that's one day out of date, we are flouting Trade Standards so everything has to go. Pity.
I finished High Fidelity this week, read Nick and Norah's Infinate Playlist and now I'm on Skins The Novel, it's all for uni work! I have got to say that my fiction piece is my favourite deadline to work on and deadlines are all that I have worked on everyday this week. I think I've started everything except for two essays which are due in May. It's all so I can have fun at home over the weekend. Roll on 5pm tomorrow and the cinema trip on Saturday where we are picking a film AND a time! We will get to see a movie!!

Thursday 3 March 2011

Simple Plan

I don't think i've ever written a blog without the aid of music in the background. I don't generally do uni work without music either and I've definitely spent a lot of time with iTunes this past week. It knows me and my friends well.

When Hayley entered my room yesterday it was inadvertently playing Disturbed via my iPod, when Tom is around it goes for The Courteeners etc when I'm here I get a mixed bag of everything. This week hasn't necessarily been much of a mixed bag of anything other than work which I'm now doing for the sake of it. Everyone has deadlines to complete. At the moment, my timetable consists of one full day and one half day. This is for two of three weeks at a time i.e. Monday morning and all day Friday.

We are doing what could be considered as our dissertation. I like this form of dissertation, it is wholly creative with editing input from some of my friends. I seem to have chosen one of my favourite topics again - Manchester. I drop place names like a trail of crumbs around the city. It makes my story realistic, I know my location and it comes across in the story. The idea of 'write what you know' is similar to the analogy by Ben in our film studies exams 'tell me what you know'. It is also a revision technique I was told perhaps a little too late but better late than never, Rachel advised me in future to talk out the subject which I am revising for with a relative or significant other. It probably succeeds in highlighting which areas have a lapse of knowledge. I will encourage this in the future, perhaps with Tom or whoever needs it!

I have kept on top of most of my work, the 'dissertation'  of 5,000 words has 445 words over its' limit which does allow 10% extra. My poems have been handed in today, my presentation is ready to give tomorrow and I have been reading Communicating Sexuality materials to find information which I can use to analyse a piece by Scott Kiesling. The benefits of Ormskirk are that you can get your essentials very easily but there is little to distract you other than Facebook, though I did travel to Hayley's yesterday via the town to chill out.

Chilling out involved playing with Abi's iPad which was rather fun. I was able to watch Ambition is Critical (see previous blog) on a decent sized screen whilst relaxing on the bean bag chair! Hayley reckons that the infamous bean bag chair will have to be disposed of at the end of the year due to limited space at home, it's a sad thought...

Today offered little excitement, I met Paul, handed in my assignment and chatted  with Mark in the LRC for a bit. It also included a hoovering of my room and more reading of Communicating Sexuality. I am considering returning home to Manchester after class on Tuesday next week, 1) it's pancake day at some point 2) I like to see my family (and friends if possible). Yesterday I missed Sarah's homecoming from Germany and now she's off to Spain! I am thoroughly annoyed that I didn't go home for it and hope she had a good time out with people last night. I did see most of my friends on Saturday though for Dan's 21st. I really enjoyed it and made a new little friend as well as catching up with old ones and people who I've not seen for quite some time!

The weekend ahead involves work on Saturday and Sunday but it's all part of what enables me to get out and about, it will be a quiet one but I don't really mind! =]