So where were we?

This blog wasn't supposed to be very personal when I started it, but finding the time to sit and write a report, or a feature, or just an articulated well written rant is difficult. It's so much easier to sit at my computer and spill. I'm not one of those people who is comfortable writing about every minute detail of their lives and publishing it online. But then, I don't really know who I'm writing this blog for.

It started as a seminar excersise at Uni, and it stayed that way for a few posts. I hated the idea that so many blogs were started then left with only one post somewhere in cyberspace, forgotton and relegated to the depths of the internet. So I kept going, I've posted about everything, and I did try to keep it professional, but now, I'd hate for an employer to see my emotional rants about life, the universe and Neighbours.

I'm pondering taking stock and deleting the emotional debris, but when I read through the posts it's like a diary. A diary of the things I thought too trivial to talk about, too boring to make into a story but also those things that I did think were important. Things that struck a chord or things that made me angry. I occasionally wrote to style, I occasionally wrote something that resembled a feature. I posted Uni work, competition entries and things I'd tried hard to write.

But now this blog is littered with both emotional and professional posts. I'd delete some, but then it would be incomplete, who really (apart from maybe a future employer) wants to read an entire blog made up of my news stories and half hearted features? It's boring, I suppose it's up to me to make my writing exciting, but how can you link a 3000 word feature on music festivals to a news story about the Thelwall Beavers and keep it interesting. And, what employer is going to actually look at a blogspot.com webspace?

I don't know what I'm trying to achieve, I'm lost in a number of parts of my life. It sounds like I'm trying to take stock. Make everything into something and have direction and show the passion that I really do have. I promise! But at the same time stay professional and interesting.

It's a hard balance to strike and I don't think I've achieved it here. I know what I want this to look like, but it's hard.

Oh, and I'm not starting another blog to keep both parts of my life seperate. That's rediculous. One or both of them would end up unused and forgotten, then dragged up on me when I'm on 'This is Your Life'!

Thanks, to whoever reads this, I occasionally get comments and emails, but not enough to make me think that I have an 'audience'. Maybe that's why I share.

Nude No More

Have a look at the new shirts on Threadless they're all incredibly cheap at the moment. If you buy two, with shipping it will only cost you £15. How amazing is that.

What now?

So now that I've worked at a newspaper for six weeks, I think I've decided that local news isn't for me. Well, I had already decided that, but this has confirmed it.

I'm the girl who left Glasgow because she thought it was too small, I'm the girl who packs her bag and leaves for Sweden or Belgium at two day's notice and I'm the girl who hates nosiness and bitching. It seems that reporting the local news is all about that.

I think this job would be better suited to someone who actually likes living in a village, maybe someone who cares that a section of one of the hundreds of local primary schools is going to be demolished, or someone who cares that there is going to be a new disabled parking space on Stockton Lane.

Maybe someone who hasn't seen that there is more to life than one village, more to life than the Thelwall beavers and what ex students of the local college are doing now (most of them by the way are travelling abroad and getting jobs in London). I'm just not suited to knocking on people's doors asking them why they started a hat hire company or opened a funeral home and I'm definitely not suited to sitting in a small dirty office rewriting press releases when it's the first sunny day we've had in weeks.

I've always said that only boring people get bored, but really, when you're not getting paid to rewite a story about a horse that was born at a farm 12 miles away or you're stuffing envelopes with newspapers so that the locals can have their very own copy it's hard to stay focused, never mind awake.

It's not the job for me, but I don't know what is. I do get excited about seeing my name in print, but then I get excited when I see my favourite band's name in print too so that doesn't say much. I'm finding it very difficult to muster up enthusiasm for an office job with no prospects and no cash. But even if I was getting paid for this, there is no room for promotion, no room for improvement, the boss already loves me and I don't even think I'm working hard. She's got no room to go further, how could she praise me for doing better when she already thinks I'm the best.

Ok, my shorthand leaves a lot to be desired and so does the occasional grammatical or style slip, but really, once I've finished my degree those things will be spot on. What do I get to do after that? It's very unfulfilling.

But then I don't know what is. There are hundreds of young journalists out there who would absolutely love the freedom that I have to write what I want (as long as it's in South Warrington) and the deadlines and the so-called pressure (see my last post for my uneventful and frankly boring experience of a deadline) but I don't want it. They can have it, infact the job I'm doing now is advertised in this issue of the South Warrington News.

I don't know what I'm destined to do, I'm creative, but not creative enough, I'm dedicated, but not dedicated to something that's not my own, I'm committed, but not disiplined enough to start something like a business so I don't know what's next. I miss being arty and I'll always have crafty bits in my blood, but I'm not good enough at anything to start a business, I don't even think I'm good enough at writing to write for a publication that I love.

So who knows what's next for me, I can feel a change coming (again) but I don't know what I want. I'll finish my degree and I'm absolutlely going to do the best I can at it, but after that, I don't have a clue, it's a blank at the moment, and it's a bit scary.