If at first you don't succeed... keep pestering

I rang 'The Big G', eventually, after another half an hour of sitting staring at my phone like it was an alien object. Or a bomb. It turns out... I sent my story to the wrong person. So, attempt number two is now firmly underway, and hopefully I've found the right woman this time. I'm now gearing up early to make another terrifying phone call on Monday...

Phew, all this pitching stuff is blinkin' hard work, physically and emotionally. I'm quickly understanding that being a journalist involves very little writing and lots of running around like a crazy person and very big phone bills. And lots of emails. Endless emails. I'm seriously considering having my computer surgically attached. Especially now that I have one so wonderfully itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny.

Yes, my computer dilemma is, touch wood, resolved. He is tiny, blue and light as a feather. I've named him Sparky.

This week I have been mostly hating...

Computers.

Well, maybe hate is too strong a word, as my love affair with the Internet isn't THAT easy to let go of. This week, however, I have been mourning the death of my beloved laptop, Bridget. Big, clunky, old fashioned, lovable Bridget. My first ever computer. The product of all my saving throughout my A-levels. Gone. To be honest, I knew something had been wrong with her for a long time. It all started when she began resetting herself randomly to January 1988... But on Sunday evening, whilst having a You Tube comedy clips session (as I am wont to do on a fairly regular basis), she suddenly decided she couldn't go on any more. So, duly, we pulled her apart to see what was wrong, and my in-house IT expert (aka flatmate) told me she couldn't be fixed. At first I was angry, resentful even. How could she break at such an important time in my career? Then, I was just sad. I even shed a little tear for her. (She is now being used as an organ donor for her various working parts.)

I was forced however, to recover swiftly. Clearly, being a journalist without a laptop is impossible. It's like a goldfish without water, cheese without pickle, salt without vinegar... I'll stop now, you get the picture. I needed a quick fix and decided that my limited funds would stretch to a replacement in the form of a sexy little Acer Aspire One, who I was sure would soon become as much a part of me as Bridget was. (I mean, come on, I spent about 8 hours a day with her for over three years... I was bound to become attached.) Terribly excited, I skipped to Currys with the remainder of my life savings and bought one. On returning home feeling highly excitable (the effect that spending money on pretty things tends to have on me), I forced my housemates to bask in the wonder of it's beauty and tinyness for several minutes. Which I am sure they LOVED.

But, alas, it was faulty. I thought my housemate was joking when he said to me this morning: "Um... it doesn't turn on". Pants. So, fresh from Currys, I have returned home with a new one. I've got no idea if it works, as I have temporarily stolen my housemate's laptop on which to blog, and do work. Well OK, more of the former and less of the latter. Technically though, blogging is work. At least, that's what I've decided to tell myself in order to suppress my guilt at not reading my media law textbook...

Anywho. I've still heard nothing from 'The Big G'. It's been a week now, and I have been reliably informed that tomorrow is a good time to call. Wish me luck... Will keep you posted.

'Tis the Season to be Jolly, fa la la, la la la la.

I got the shock of my life when I woke up on Monday and looked at my calendar. December? Really? Bloody hell... remind me again where my year went?

Oh yes, I finished my degree, graduated, found a new job, quit the job, then sacrificed materialism completely in the name of journalism. I remember now.

The Christmas lights are going up everywhere (naturally, from the very minute that it became December), the little Christmas huts selling bratwurst, roast chestnuts, sweets and all manner of festive things are back outside Churchill Square shopping centre and the season to be jolly is firmly upon us. Whether we like it or not.

I for one, haven't managed to get in the festive spirit yet. My Christmas spirit has been firmly credit crunched. Yes, I know, the shops slapping sales on everything at the moment has made it all ridiculously cheap, but since the silly banks wouldn't give me a loan, the silly letting agent has been messing me about with admin costs which have slowly sapped away all my money, and the cost of cheese (which I find very hard to live without) has become INSANE, my money has vanished. Totally. Therefore, one of the fundamental ingredients of Christmas, the PRESENTS, are not happening this year. Christmas shopping, the highlight of my year, the one time I get to spend loads of money and time in shops without feeling guilty has been denied me. I almost want to cry...

...but anyway. Yesterday, I struck out of my safe little trainee journalist bubble once more and, in pitching them a feature, have steeled myself for a knock back from The Guardian a.k.a. 'The Big G'. Seriously, I must have checked my pitch for spelling mistakes fifty times over before I finally, with red cheeks and a thudding heart, hit the send button. That was twenty-four hours ago. I'm now clinging onto a teeny-tiny shred of hope that they've simply 'forgotten' to get back to me today. I wonder how long I have to wait before its perfectly acceptable to pester them with a phone call...

Any thoughts?

If you don't have something nice to say... It doesn't really matter

From what I've been hearing over the last few weeks, there has never been a worse time to be a young, fledgling journalist. Great.

The dreaded Credit Crunch (cue Jaws music) is rearing it's ugly head again and along with the property and retail industries, the print industry is suffering. From what I can understand (which isn't a great deal - financial expert I am not), advertisers simply can't afford or don't see the point in advertising right now. As a result, there are major losses for local papers that rely on big advertisers - cue major cutbacks in journalism jobs. Bad times. To top that, from what I hear, a certain national paper is now in dire straits... So, all in all? Not looking good. Now more so than ever, if you want to succeed, you have to be the best. And to be the best... well, what does it take?

I'm quickly learning that to succeed in journalism, it's not enough to be able to write. It's not enough to want to write. Trust me, if you say that to anyone, the standard response is: "Then go and be a novelist." Which, to be honest, I wouldn't mind, but I'm not by any means ready for that yet (friends, feel free to disagree). Being a journalist, I'm learning, involves bags of determination and ruthlessness. And the word 'No' must be eradicated from your vocabulary, especially when you're starting out. People who hire journalists aren't looking for writers, they're looking for people who can find and tell stories - unique stories with unique angles, in the tightest possible way. With no frills. And to get to that point, you have to be on your toes all the time. Anyone hiring will be looking for the best, so somehow, you have to convince people that you are the best, even if you don't necessarily believe it. Clearly, there's no room for modesty in the news industry.

If I'm honest, it's pretty scary. And my skin still has to get a hell of a lot thicker before I can get there. I can take constructive criticism, but I need to learn to take NON-constructive criticism just as well ( I realised this today). I need to prepare myself for the fact that there are a lot of people out there that aren't going to like me, and aren't going to like what I write. For no other reason than the fact that they simply don't like what I do. But, I also need to hang on to the fact that for every ten, fifty, one hundred people who think what I do is crap, there might just be one person who thinks it's pretty good. There are a lot of authors and a lot of journalists that I love who a lot of people can't stand. There are people I like who others can't stand. That's not a reflection on me, or on them. It's just a matter of taste.

Take Dan Brown for example, simply because The Da Vinci Code came up in conversation in class the other day. About 80% of the class (including myself), expressed the opinion that book is pretty pants (but in not so pleasant terms). The remaining 20% LOVED it, adored it, were ready to defend it with violence (it almost got pretty ugly). It occurred to me then that Dan Brown doesn't care about the billions of people in the world who haven't bought or read the book, or the millions of people who have read it and think it's crap. He only cares about the 40 million or so who bought it and loved it.

I guess you can't please everyone. But actually, that's OK.

Blargharghargh. It's What All The Ill Kids Are Saying.

Colds. The single most pointless and irritating things EVER.

I mean, come on, if you're determined, whoever you are, to take away three days of my life from me, can't you at least knock me out when you do it? Jeez. Meanwhile, everybody looks you up and down and thinks: It's just a cold. What is she, a total wuss? So, you're sitting there, or lying there, (depending on how paralysed it's rendered you), with your temperature going up and down like a yo-yo, being unable to laugh because it triggers a 20-minute coughing fit and coughing and spluttering every time you speak, so that the only thing that comes out is somewhere along the lines of blargharghargh. Which sums up your condition pretty well, seeing as there are often no words to describe just how crappy you feel. I'm fully expecting it to be a new entry in the next edition of the OED, thus:

Blargharghargh, adj.
I. The condition of feeling so unwell and discombobulated that there are no other words to describe it.
Generally used when one has the feeling that use of any other words may cause others to underestimate just how crappy one feels.
2008 A.REEVES: "How do I feel? I feel blargharghargh!"

So, for the last few days, I've been sufferring from this "just-a-cold" which has had me bed-ridden, and feeling ever so blargharghargh. I have also, in the eyes if many, been highly unproductive and have dedicated my rest-time to watching the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7 in just under two days. (Personally, I think that it was an incredibly productive use of time. I now feel inspired to kick some evil ass.)

My problem is that when I'm well, I stress about most things. When I'm ill, I get stressed about being ill because it renders me incapable of doing all the other things that I've been stressing about. Stress, as we know boys and girls, is NOT conducive to a healthy immune system. Personally, my immune system is shot to shreds. Maybe it's because I've realised that I'm about six weeks away from finishing my last stint in education. Maybe it's this fact combined with the fact that I'm not really sure I have a clue what I'm doing. It is in times like this that I formulate a theory to help myself feel better. I tell myself that most successful people in this world don't actually have a clue what they're doing. I don't think Buffy really had any idea what she was doing, and she averted a mega-apocalypse. Seriously, I just watched her.

So, I now prepare put my head down, work my arse off, try to remember a million things that until September I knew absolutely nothing about (the education system at it's best) and then, hopefully, and with much, much difficulty, turn these skills into a job. Or rather, a career. Career. Scary word. Maybe I had better work out what I'm doing pretty soon... Does anyone know an easy way to learn politics? Or even better... a FUN way to learn politics?

Didn't think so.

I went outside the bubble... and now I've gone back in again

Ok, so last week I ventured properly outside the student bubble for the first time. I did my first stint as a trainee journalist at the local paper. Was it the most wonderful experience ever, cementing my lifelong ambition to tell people's stories to the world from the comfort of my news desk?

Not exactly. Being a reporter is HARD. Yes, of course I already knew this - I'm not TOTALLY deluded (some may argue...). But it was hard in ways that I never thought it would be. I was looked after a little more than the other reporters, being such a newbie and all, but most of the time I was left to my own devices. This I expected.

The hardest thing I found was trying not to ask too many questions. For the last sixteen years I've been in an environment where I've been constantly learning by questioning: "How does that work Miss?", "What does that mean Miss?", "Is this good enough?", "What can I do to improve?", "Am I allowed to write about this?", "Do you think this is a good idea?" You get the point.

In a news room NOBODY CARES. Nobody wants you under their feet, nobody wants you asking them the best way of doing things. They want you to sit down, shut up and get on with it. They want the finished product, no questions asked along the way. And if I'm honest, I didn't have the confidence to do that last week. Now... I think I just might be good for next time. But the adjustment from education to the real world is definitely proving far harder than I thought it would.

The other thing I found hard was the fact that things were totally out of my control. I have the kind of personality where if something isn't done properly, I want to shout and scream until it's done right, or take the reins and do it myself. Ha. Not gonna work in a news room. Again, its a case of put up and shut up... like I had to when they missed the police statement out of one of my stories rendering it (or so I felt) pointless; or when they put someone else's name on an article I'D worked my arse off on; or when they uploaded my article to the website but left half of it off, again, rendering it rather pointless (as a total stranger rather unpleasantly commented).

If I'm honest with you, I didn't put up and shut up. In the privacy of my own bedroom I cried, I screamed, I shouted, I kicked things in frustration... and then I went shopping. Which made it much better.

Then I realised I was being pretty stupid. In the grand scheme of things, it was three articles on a local rag that I may or may not go back to in the future. The way the newspaper industry is going at the moment, I guess I should just be grateful they let me in for the week. And it was a learning experience - it was certainly an eye-opener if nothing else.

I realised in the course of a week that I am going to have to do the following:
1. Develop a MUCH thicker skin
2. Accept that even if I feel I could do something better, I should keep it to myself
3. Have the confidence just to get on with things, rather than seeking constant reassurance
4. Take criticism to my head making it useful, rather than to my heart making it upsetting

So, it was with much relief that I stepped firmly back into the student bubble today when I returned to college. Although I know it'll be a matter of days before I want to put myself through emotional hell again by heading straight back to a news desk. Is that emotional masochism? Maybe, but maybe I need to prove to myself that I CAN rise to the challenge. That I can identify my own mistakes, overcome them and not make them again. I need to prove to myself that I can be tough and not let things get to me anymore. Cos I ain't gonna survive out there unless I can...

"I'm a SURVIVOR, I'm not gonna GIVE UP tra la la la la..."

Is this how a writer's mind works?

I want to be a writer, and as a writer I never stop writing, or at least, I never stop thinking about writing. All day long I play things over and over in my head, every scenario I experience I can’t stop imagining how it would look in print. Is that sad? Is it being over-dedicated? Or is it just who I am?

Although, saying that, I never thought that sitting down to write a novel would be so hard, maybe its because I’m only 21 and most people are at least five years older when they come to write their first book. Maybe I’m being over-ambitious? I mean, five years ago I was only sixteen-going-on-seventeen, and my God have I changed since then. I barely recognise the person that I was. I was selfish, immature, naïve, overemotional, melodramatic and generally quite annoying. No doubt five years from now I’ll look back on myself and think exactly the same things about my year 21-year-old self.

I believe you should never underestimate how much it’s possible for you to change. I’m not talking about a conscious change where you sit yourself down and think: “I need to reinvent myself”. Because trust me, that NEVER works. That kind of thinking comes about when people don’t want to admit their faults, and one thing I have learnt is that your faults make you who you are. They are so much a part of you that when you make a conscious change to leave them behind, it’s impossible. For example, I happen to be a very loud and rather opinionated (or mouthy, if you ask my Dad) kind of person. I’m also, or so I believe, a marmite person. You either love me, or you hate me. That isn’t an exaggeration. Yet there are so many people out there who just seem to get on with everyone, and for so many years I wished I could be that girl.

I tried, honestly, to change who I was when I went from sixth form to university. I decided that, in the space of one day to the next, I was going to act less emotional, drink less alcohol, eat better, be quieter, be less demanding, open myself up to getting along with people who normally I wouldn’t have been able to stand five minutes with…

This worked for about half the year before my old self, my REAL self, started to peek through. And the friends I had made during that time deserted me in spectacular fashion, leaving me to start all over again.
At square one.
As myself.

Apples and... wine.

The thing about having blog readers is they start to nag you when you stop writing for a while. Not that I'm complaining, it's a good thing! I wouldn't be sitting here writing now, with a rather large glass of red wine beside me and a yummy sausage casserole (a-la-how-my-mum-makes-it) in the oven, if I hadn't been nagged about it earlier.

These have been my thoughts today:

I really wish I liked apples. Honestly, it's something that really gets me down. You know, an apple a day and all that is a good thing. And they always look so lovely too... all red and green and shiny. Then you bite into it, expecting something sweet and juicy and beautiful. A taste as wonderful as the lovely shiny object you hold in your hand. And it's always so damn disappointing. Take my apple today, it was a glorious apple - red, shiny, like it had rolled straight out of Snow White. But it was honestly the most boring thing I've eaten all week. If it was actually poisoned it would have been more fun.

I really envy people who sit and eat apples. And I hate them a little bit too. They always look so bloody smug. But, to be honest, when it gets to 4pm and my blood sugar takes that afternoon dip when all I want to do is have a nap, I have the choice between apple... or flapjack. It's not a difficult choice to make. Mmm... flapjack. The saviour of the cake world for those who cannot eat wheat (myself included).

And this is what I did:

So, today was my second day playing proper journalist, it's my first real and honest step outside of the student bubble since I graduated. It's a step towards a... CAREER. When, may I ask, did I get OLD enough to have a career?

After getting over the initial nerves of yesterday, I think I've settled into the office pretty well. I went to court for the first time ever yesterday, and found it so surreal. And strangely emotional. I felt so voyeuristic, even though as press I had every right to be there. There's something about seeing a woman break down after being sentenced to six months in prison, or a man accused of beating up his wife stand there without the slightest bit of remorse on his face that I have a feeling will stay with me... I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a crime reporter.

But after that yesterday was pretty easy-going, and today in fact. I've been on familiar territory though. Getting voxpops, checking press releases, writing little panel stories. I've come up with a couple of pretty good ideas myself though, which made me rather proud. One is waiting to go to press and one is in the pipeline, so yay me so far! I'm just not looking forward to it all being over at the end of the week.

A news desk is where I belong, I've known that for the last six years. And it feels SO good (and quite a relief!) to finally be getting there.





P.S. Jo aka Big Mouth BlogGirl - have been trying unsuccessfully to comment on your blogs for the last week! Do you have privacy settings on? Loving the blog as always, my fellow tea drinker!

What makes a (pants) writer...

Well, I am officially the most pants blogger on this site. And I call myself a writer... Bah!

I do love to write, honestly. I could quite happily sit and do nothing but write mindless (and sometimes mildly entertaining) drivel whilst drinking copious amounts of tea all day long, but it seems that the hours of work (read: especially shorthand) that I have to fit in each day sufficiently outnumber the amount of hours in the actual day. Hmm... I feel that herein lies my problem, maybe I should just stay up later and see how my zombie-like state affects my journalistic skills... But hey, I'm sure that's me along with the rest of this overworked and underpaid world - or in my case, the not-paid-at-all world.

I'm well aware that a writer who barely has time to write should probably not call herself a writer, but shh, don't burst my bubble. I like being inside it now the comparatively safe student bubble has been popped. So instead I give myself over to the world of fiction which helps to distract thoughts from the fact that I have no money to shop with (I long for shoes and handbags...)

But anyway, enough excuses... Oh yes! Duh. I moved house last week too. Forgetting that tiny detail just shows the extent to which my mind is slowly unravelling. I now live with the boyfriend and four other people in a fantastically tall house in the heart of Brighton-land by the seaside. And seriously, I just can't see the novelty of living so close to the beach of my childhood holidays ever wearing off.

So apart from packing, repacking and unpacking boxes, building furniture and struggling with a very stubborn and determined-to-fall down curtain rail (which I've almost come to blows with on several occiasions already), I've had a pretty hectic few weeks. It's all gone by in a blur of shorthand, politics, law, making pretend newspapers and playing musical houses. Fun times.

So... to business. Despite this time seeming AGES away when I started my course, I've got my first stint in six years on a local paper next week and I am terrified. My crisis of confidence would have to pick now to kick in wouldn't it? I know I can do it, I've done it before and I was MUCH younger and even more clueless back then... but there's always been something about showing other people (particularly strangers) what I can (or can't) do that fills me with terror.

Take this week at college as an example. We've been working on 'virtual' newpapers, wherein we all research and publish our own original news articles. I, of course, wrote about how students are affected by the credit crunch (using the inspiration behind my first blog post) and before I sent it off to the rest of the group (who are my friends) I felt almost sick. What if they think it's terrible? What if they criticise me? What if they don't criticise me because they're trying to be nice and in fact it's awful but I don't know so I carry on writing terribly? Argh! (My brain hurt a lot at this point).

In the end I went for it and yes, I did get criticism, but I could see why. So I changed stuff and it ended up on the front page, with lots of nice things said by the rest of the group. But I'm still petrified about showing my stuff to the real journalists next week. I wonder if this is something a writer ever gets over? I mean, with news stories it isn't too bad, but something I've put my all into, something that's a product of my personality - how will I take criticism then?

I guess that to deal with that very issue was the original purpose of this blog. Just one step on the way to becoming a writer, forcing myself to get my thoughts out there and open them up to criticism...

...anyone?

Alice's First Adventure in Londonland

Firstly, I have discovered there is nothing like turning up to a very trendy and exclusive party in London with a badge that says 'Journalist and freelance author' to make you feel way more important than you actually are. Aside from the free bar (which was in hindsight, probably not so good), there was just so much free STUFF (I haven't done so much squealing with delight since I saw the Spice Girls). Clearly, although it's a tough world out there in the media world of "selling yourself" (in a literary sense), I feel that the freebies go part of the way, or indeed sometimes a lot of the way, towards making you smile in periods of muchly-diminished cash flow. Like now. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will all get incredibly tedious after a while, like it seemed to be for all the important people I saw standing around in designer suits not talking to anyone, their facial expressions emanating clear "I'm only here because I'm very important" vibes.

Or, maybe, just maybe, I'm still very much in the 'university student survival' mindset that loves everything that's free simply because it's free, no matter what it might be (ginormous posters, tiny ice cream samplers, mini cans of coke, new celebrity-endorsed pasta sauces, little pots of hummus on a tasting counter in Sainsbury's...).

Anyway. Yes. Very trendy party in Camden. Open bar. Free cosmetics (yay!). . Meeting very cool people working for painfully cool companies... Am I milking this a little too much? Okay, I know. But of course, all of this leads to the rather tremendous perk of being able to write and talk as my JOB and (eventually, hopefully) get paid for doing what I love most.... ahem... did that sound a little too much like a MasterCard advert?

Of course, I'm under no delusions, everything I've done in the last six years that relates in any way to my career has been done for free (but I've loved it) or I've physically paid for it (like my degree, like this course I'm doing now...) And I'm guessing that for a good time yet everything I do in this crazy world of the meed-yah will be for free. I'm just relying on having as much fun as possible (for free also) along the way to keep me going. That, and of course working my arse off as I do it.

These are crazy days... (daze?)

PART ONE:

Well, I'm not sure I expected the first EVER comment on my blog to be for the sole purpose of highlighting my lack of explanation of the credit crunch... but ho hum. I guess that I should just be grateful that someone, whoever they may be, actually took the time to read my waffle.

Now, I'm certainly no expert, but I know how it's affecting me and the people around me. The cost of food is going up, the cost of living is going up, the price of rent is going up because mortgage prices are going up, bills are all going up. I'm studying 9-5 Monday-Friday and apparently, in Brighton anyway, Saturday jobs don't exist anymore and to be honest because of the state of the economy it seems that the retail industry, which was pretty much my only hope, don't want to take on any more staff AT ALL, let alone part time ones that they can get next to no hours out of. Therefore... I need to pay rent, but first I need to be approved to take out a rent contract (just coming out of uni and still studying, but not living in a stereotypical 'student house' with a 12-month contract on Mummy or Daddy's money = BAD) and in order to pay rent I need a loan, which I stand next to no chance of getting because of.... TA DA! The muchly-spoken of but never properly explained, Credit Crunch. As I understand it means literally that the banks are crunching down on the amount of credit they give to people, because people didn't pay it back, rendering the country horrifically debt-ridden. And presumably, because they used to make loads of money on interest and investment, because no-one is lending anymore, they aren't. So they're suffering. Big time.

Phew... That help? Sure it's no definitive guide by any stretch of the imagination, but hey... only a serious geek wants to get to grips with all that jargon - all we want to know is how it affects US. Well, that's the way I see it from talking to the people I know. And to be honest, I don't know about you, but it hurts my head to think about it.

In short: I have no money. I cannot get money. This sucks.

PART TWO:

This blog is not to embark on various (and poor) attempts to explain the state of the country's economy, it is to share my thoughts on embarking on a journey into the strange and intimidating world of working in the media...
...and generally just to pontificate upon the various happenings in Brighton-town that may amuse or dismay.

Stay with me, my as yet anonymous readers... it'll get better, I promise.

My first venture outside of the bubble...

When I was growing up, it was most definitely inside an incredibly safe 'bubble'. It was also a very small bubble. I had it pretty kushty I reckon, a roof over my head, a cosy room with no damp or fleas or leaking things (the perils of the student house), food bought and cooked for me every day (with nothing ever left to go mouldy in the fridge), my washing done (without the aid of a launderette and without my white underwear ever being dyed pink), my ironing folded neatly on the end of my bed at the end of each day (pffft, like I have time to bother with ironing anymore)... And all of this came at the cost of doing the washing up and keeping my room tidy. But of course, in the true angst-ridden teen fashion, I hated it. Retrospect is a wonderful gift.

Then came the time for the big U-N-I. After overcoming the initial terror of having to wash my own clothes and pay my own bills, it worked out OK. But pretty soon I found myself swanning around in another, albeit considerably more fluid, bubble: The University campus bubble (made doubly bubble-like by the fact that it was in Brighton aka The Party Capital). I can honestly say for those three years, I couldn't possibly have had it better financially. I was working part-time at a bank for a decent wage feeling awfully professional, and in addition to that I had a hefty chunk of lovely student loan coming in every three months. I could buy whatever I wanted (read: handbags), go wherever I wanted (read: pub), stay up as long as I wanted and, crucially, drink as much as I wanted (read: insane amounts of wine). My only worries were exams and men. And I thought this was the real world... Pfffft, I cringe at the naivety.

But then I stepped out of the student bubble at arguably the worst possible time into a less-than-ideal situation. So, I'm still a student (technically, although I prefer the term 'professional trainee') but I'm also expected to live and, crucially, pay like an adult which is proving almost impossible (though the student discount takes a the edge off a little). There's no help for trainee journalists you see, now if I was training to be a teacher, doctor or lawyer things would be different (I have a feeling the people in the know are trying to stop the ever-increasing ranks of journalists). Plus there is the ever-present and ever-descending dark cloud that is the credit crunch (cue horror-moviesque DER-DER-DEEEEEER). This makes the situation even more helpless, especially as we are fast-approaching outstaying our welcome at the Boyfriend's parents' house... Have you SEEN what's happening with Brighton rent prices?! Shocking.

So, it is with a rather pathetic (or in fact, non-existent) fanfare that I am 'welcomed' (ha ha) into the big scary and professional world of training, work, tax and credit crunching that I decide to share my thoughts online, not necessarily because I expect anyone to read them... maybe I want to help, maybe I want help, or maybe I'm just another blogger/journalist-in-the-making/wannabe columnist who expects my personal outlook on life to be vaguely interesting to others. You decide.