Oh how fantastically awfully I am...

I'm genuinely ashamed of my lack of writing this summer. I find that moving house (which i'm half way through doing), working (which I'm on holiday from at the moment) and drinking/reading/lounging about on a beach (which is the reason why I currently look like a pasty patchy lobster) don't fit together as a good enough excuse.

Other than drinking and moving I have little motivation for anything that really matters... losing weight, not being poor, writing etc. In fact, gimme two more months of this I'll be fat, broke and illiterate and that will just not do.

In spite of all of this anti-productivity I have managed to do some mildly course-relevant work, designing posters and such for my Aunt's play in October. I've also delightfully misused Quark Xpress to make a drinking game. I really need to actually get work experience so that I'm making layouts that aren't spoof birthday presents or card games. This is my one talent and the last two layouts I've created involved fake stories (Jamie and Hazel's diamond heist) for birthday presents. It's a shame that I can't help but create phoney layouts in a tabloid style. It looks more cutesy than professional. Damn my need of experience to get experience. I don't like that I know I'm good at layouts but have no substantial way of showing this.

Now that I've rambled incoherently, I'm gonna to pootle off and thing of things to write about that aren't simply "I can't think of things to write about".

Redtops and jesus socks

I'm currently writing an essay critiquing health and crime reporting and this ended up in my trawling tabloid websites for examples of irresponsible journalism.

It was highly useful when the Express whacked me
in the face with this frankly ridiculous headline.

However I've now had to take a break from my essay and get back to packing for my Easter week at home (hurrah for my little village being away from all this awful killer smog) because it was chipping away slowly but steadily at my belief that there's good and intelligent life in the world. Urgh.

The other day I happened to bump into an old "friend" from high school who asked me how I was getting on. After replying with "busy, journalism degree, lincoln, blah blah blah small talk" her friend said something that saddened and irritated me.

"When you finish your course do you want to work for The Sun?*"

Not, "a newspaper" but specifically The Sun. Yes, I get that people enjoy that redtop trash but it's not really something to aspire to, is it? I guess people must want to write for the redtops but surely people can see that the quality press is refered to as the quality press for a reason. The writing quality is better, everything is better.

There's a chance that I'm being a bit... er... "socially mobile" here but really. If I get stuck reporting on "celebrities" and socks with heavenly aspirations then my career has gone down entirely the wrong path.

*She seemed the type that if she'd have written it down she'd have used the wrong "your".

Mmmmm academia...

For the first time I had a discussion today about what to do after university without feeling utterly terrified. All other discussions have ended up with my inner self whimpering and mumbling about debt and jobs and my outer self is focusing intently on the ceiling or a nearby squirrel.

A few days ago I was first tempted by the possibility of doing an MA. Myself and Kirsty had a mooch around the possibly MAs at Lincoln, Nottingham and Nottingham Trent. Looking through the courses it became clear that a lot of the journalism MAs (I was looking at print and magazine ones) crossed over with my BA. However when I came across the creative writing course I was intrigued. This is perhaps an option I could look into. I was thinking part-time MA with part-time work.

It's nice not to be terrified about AFTER UNI for once.

How to hide mediocrity behind a veil of pretty colours and vanity.

No matter how many different colours they projectile vomit onto a page Bullet is still nothing more than an SU toy with a budget it doesn't deserve. Well done, you have glossy pages but you seem ignorant of your audience and you treat your staff like idiots. Three members of staff have left in the last few weeks, it's like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

If you shove enough colours on it everyone will love it.

This month's copy was the last straw for my good friend Crystal. As entertainment editor you would think she would have a little creative control. However out of the 4 pages (one double page feature, 1 single page article, and 2 shorter articles) what ended up in the print edition (not to the knowledge of the so called entertainment editor) was the single page article and one of the half page articles with a page each then an article written by the editor about some microsoft software that came out months ago.

The article claimed to be about software that helped students but it only mentioned microsoft's windows live mesh and so just looked like a pr piece. If the article had been well researched she would have talked about Dropbox, the new Facebook groups feature, Google docs, and the fact that students can get cheap software. That's what that feature should have been.

I find it strange that with the SU promoting democracy so much it's publication is such a dictatorship. One editor asks everyone else to do the leg work then ignores it all and does what she wants.

This edition has just been the last straw. The contents quite good, Jamie's got a couple of good articles, and I can personally vouch for the two articles by Joe and James. But there's yet another article about clothes sizes/body image, do all Lincoln students think they're too fat and constantly think about clothes? And the photos are ridiculous. Almost all images in the issue are pixelated and dreadful. The front cover is badly photoshopped and makes no sense. Not only that but the subbing is frankly lazy, instead of subbing properly they've just deleted spaces after punctuation.

I know it's such a tiny thing by they've done it many times in the issue. It just not professional. The whole thing looks like it's just been cobbled together at the last minute. If you're going to do something, do it right. This is not a publication I could be proud of, I'd never publish something I didn't think was perfect. Not even as an assignment.

Oh this silly magazine enrages me. Silly silliness.

Essay blues and an extensive post script on the subject of fried chicken.

 was so positive walking to the library earlier today. For once I was actually keen to do an essay. I found the subject interesting and I felt I could get it all done and dusted in time to chill for a couple of days before heading home. All I wanted to was to eat, drink and be merry. But no, why did my subconscious have to lie to me? All this confidence (so I thought) but secretly my subconscious was running round in circles, having no idea what to write, whimpering something about Christmas puddings and cheese.



If I'd had prior warning of my impending writer's block, I could have prepared! I could have done more work on Saturday (instead, I nearly ate a chicken's spine*) and maybe I wouldn't have been so confunded today when faced with a blank word document.

I suppose I'd still be in the blasted library now if it hadn't been so cold. I suppose if I'm not doing work, it's better to be not doing work with a duvet and christmas lights, than on my own in a cold library. But hey, this is why I find myself writing a blog at this time. Once I get writing this, I get to writing my essay. At least, that's the plan.

*Cue anecdote: So, myself and the Joe went to KFC yesterday evening, because y'know, everybody loves fried chicken. After ordering a mahoosive pile of chicken we tucked in. Only for Joe to find, within a few minutes, a complete and miniscule spine within his fried chicken wing. Rendering it inedible and a waist of chicken. After investigation we discovered that my chicken had the same er... affliction. This of course, was not meant to happen. Damn creepily small chicken bones. *shivers* Damn kfc for being so tasty... I was certainly not as disturbed enough as I should have been on finding a teeny tiny spine in my tea. o.o And I could go for some popcorn chicken right now. :/