On a Deadline?

Well, I don't know if it's me or this paper, but if this is a deadline I'm going to be a journalist for the rest of my life.

Maybe I'm just super organised or super calm (I'm not by the way) but it just seems that everything is ready to go and I've actually got LESS work to do now that most of my editorial has been sent to the subs.

STOP THE PRESS: Actually, the sub editor has just phoned in sick after six years of never missing a deadline. Whoops. Think I jinxed the place.

But I do feel surprisingly calm, I don't know if it's my editor. She is a stressed out kind of person, but thrives on it and gets the job done. So maybe I'm only stressed by stressed out other people and thats why I'm so calm here.

Also, I'm not exactly working at the Sun so I suppose theres less pressure to start with. But the editor and the last journalist that worked here warned me about how busy it was and how stressed they always got. Maybe I'm just work experience so am kept out of it but no one really seems that bothered about the deadline.

And I get to go home early today, fair enough I started at 8.30 this morning but I still get to go home at 12.30! Totally looking forward to that, I've got nothing to do here! My editor said to me yesterday "if this doesn't prepare you for working in a newspaper, I don't know what will!"
I smiled politely but this is not my idea of journalism, I thought it was exciting and pressured and busy and creative. This is sitting in a back office in Stockton Heath rewriting press releases about cows farting. (Fact, I got an email about that earlier this week).

I also heard a fact recently that journalism is one of the most stressful of all careers. I thought my first ever deadline would make me cry. In fact, I'm bored and am going to make a cup of tea.

So... The exhaust fell off my car today.

Yes, another thing in the long, long list of problems with my car. Not even a month ago I had a new head gasket, starter motor and water pump. That all came to the grand total of £700. I was skint at the time and managed to scrape it all together. I seriously mean scrape. I had absolutely nothing in my account after that fateful day.

So today, I was leaving campus and heard a funny clunking sound. Then the car started to sound like a jet. Not a jet garage, a jumbo jet. I'm sure they heard me coming all over Warrington. So I continued to ASDA, it was a shoe emergency and when I got back. A fellow student flagged me down and gave me the middle section of my exhaust. It's now sitting in the back seat.

Needless to say, I'm not particularly keen to get it fixed, I'd rather push it in a canal. But unfortunately, I need her, I like her no matter what huge expense she throws at me, but I still am not looking forward to the three mile drive to Kwik-Fit tomorrow. And if I'm perfectly honest, I just can't wait to get rid of her now!

That drive to the garage tomorrow, people will stare, others will flash their lights as if I don't know that my exhaust is slightly louder than theirs... Ok the loudest you have ever heard. It's going to be embarrassing, then when I get to Kwik-Fit, they'll see wee me coming and add 90% onto their prices and fob me off with a half hearted job that will cost three times the price. They will think I don't know what I'm talking about but to be honest, I know absolutely everything that can go wrong on a car. And how, when you think that it's as bad as it can possibly get and the price is as high as you think it will rise. Things will always get worse. And more expensive.

This really is the last repair. I can't take it anymore. But then, the MOT is due on June 3. And that will probably fail. Just because it's me, and it's Beryl and we don't have a very good relationship at the moment.

I only realise what I miss when I get it back again.

When it was sunny, i was happy. I loved it, wearing sunglasses and pretty shoes and feeling warm all the time. I liked driving with the windows down and stopping for ice creams. I liked watching boys play football and I liked going to bed with the windows open. I didn't like the suncream and getting in the car when it had been parked in the sun, but those were small sacrifices for barbeques and beer gardens.

But then, as the days got darker and more grey and eventually when it got cold, wet and windy again, I realised that I'd missed it. I hate the way my hair frizzes though, and I hate when my feet get wet because I wore ridiculous shoes for the weather and when my jeans soak up the puddles. I hate it when the windscreen wipers only wipe the passenger side of the car and I hate when I'm totally unprepares and don't have an umbrella or a hood.

But I like the rain, I really do. And I miss it when it's gone. It's Britain though, and the rain is never far away, but I like the noise it makes on the window and I like walking in it when I don't care about getting wet. I like looking out when it's rainy and feeling pleased that I'm dry. I like the smell when it rained and the ground was hot. And like my wellies although I don't wear them unless the rain is torrential or at a festival.

It's the same with people and things, I miss my family and friends from home but I only realise how much when I actually get back home. Then I'm too busy enjoying myself there to realise how much I'm missing Uni and my friends there. So when I say I miss you, I mean it, but I'll mean it more when I see you again. I suppose I've been lucky. I think I'll count my lucky stars the next time. I won't always get another chance.

23 Days to go...

23 working days that is. I'm counting down already to the end of work placement and the beginning of the summer. I've always hated it when people "wish their life away". Always waiting for the weekend or counting hours till the end of the day. You only live once, why shouldn't a Monday be as fun as a Saturday? Surely there's something in your day that makes it worthwhile.

But here I am, doing everything I hate. Counting hours and days and wishing they were over. I hate myself for it, but the working for free isn't really filling me with much joy. I'm finding it hard to concentrate on my work because no one is really expecting anything amazing. I think that will change next week though when I'm under the pressure of a deadline!

My expectations of this placement were immense. I had visions of me working 20 hours a day with no thanks and no support. It's turned out better than I expected but I still can't help myself wishing the day away. It doesn't help that every night when I finish work placement I have to go earn actual money in my real job. Not a job that I particulary enjoy or am inspired to do well in but it buys me food and beer and pays my bills.

I hope one day that I can have a job that I truly love and that I don't mid getting up in the morning for. It has happened in the past and I hope it happens again sometime. In the meantime though, I either want to be a proper student who works part time and moans about how hard it is to write a 3000 word essay or a journalist who gets paid to sit in the office and re write press releases. Neither of which is happening right now! I'm doing the latter, but doing it for free and I think we've established that this is not the kind of thing I can see myself doing for 20 years. (Or less, depending on when I get bored or have a quarter life crisis).

So good luck to all of you on placement at the moment, I hope that something is giving you joy and it's not just the thought that there are only 4 hours left of your working day or 23 days left of your entire placement. Just think, when we finish all of this, there are still 3 weeks until the end of term. That's a whole lot of Piazza action!

Have a lovely day.