Fear of being a t'ird!!

It's my third year at uni - hooray, I made the first two! Only one more to go!

I've done my best to take it seriously.
Typical scenario:

"Hey Dave, wanna go out?"
FUCK OFF, DOING COURSEWORK, LEAVE ME ALONE!
"What a wanker..."

I was on fire in my first year - 70% upwards on module assignments. Who's a clever boy (hint: me)
At this time, however, I was still ignorant to university grade banding. '2.1?' 'Honour?' A 'first'? I'd heard all these terms on Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air as a young'n and thought they were just American grades so Carlton could go Harvard! I told you I was ignorant to uni grade bandings.

Last week I was in a learning skills lecture on what we want to get from our degree. We went over all that stuff. The rusty floodgates of my mind opened, and knowledge gushed forth, filling my knowledge tanks to the brim.

FLASHBACK! The second year of uni was different for me:

Got a girlfriend, Dave?
Nope.
Lonely?
Uh-huh. Where to I go from here?
Shiiiit I dunno, I'm just your conscience!
How can you help me?
I can't. But as you're dwelling on how lonely you think you are, I guess I can make it worse for you by reminding you how de-motivating some of your lecturers are.
GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
That's it, let it all out...

I got me a few 70%+ here and there. And a few below. And one fail.

YOU'RE BACK IN THE ROOM! We worked out a few examples of who we thought got a 1st, 2.1, 2.2 or 3rd. Something in the back of my mind is thinking 'What if the tutor is using your results as an example?'
Oh, and I learned that the first year doesn't count towards your final degree - WHAT?
Somewhere along the line, I switched off when they were telling me that!

To cut a long story short, it brought me to question what I'm going to get from my degree.
I did brill first year (even if I didn't have to), okay in my second, and my third year is going to be the hardest yet.

I have visions of me going to a job interview at a worldwide publication.
One queue for 2.1s and above. Pinstripe suites bought on Saville Row, promising futures. A second queue for those with a lesser degree, wearing cheap child-labour suits from Tesco . And me in it (dressed slightly better).

Or at airport customs. With a journalism visa. The customs officer opens it up, and for some reason, my degree is stamped on it too. He takes a look at me as if to say "I got the same degree as you, now look at me, having to work overtime here AND raise a kid at home, alone since my wife ran away with the postman who she was having an affair with since around the time she told me she was pregnant!"

Its not easy being at uni. Let's hope that every time I submit my assignments that I did them right, referenced them well and impress the marker.

Otherwise, you all know what my future is.

O Lecturer (a poem)

O Lecturer,
How you stand at your lectern,
Jowls wobbling,
Voice stuttering.
You are like a wooden puppet;
Your chin droops loosely.

Do you not know
Tis a Monday morning?
Students in their seats,
We all doze off.

Why can you not talk
In
Continuous prose
And
*cough*
Stop



With the long silence...



Every time you say something?

Fellow undergraduates,
Academi (that's probably fictional Latin)
How can we make notes
If our lecturer cannot speak well
Publicly?

My friends:
We are in a quandary.

A lecturer to make you go "eek!"

A tutor with a personality that shocks and amuses! Someone who is passionate about what they do, and, most importantly (this is the factor that most lecturers lack) someone who is so very professionally on the ball with strict morals. Me likey.

Someone who will behead me if I don't do my reading for the next workshop... I better go!

Some summer resolutions

Just a couple things I want to get done over summer, in no order.

• Eat breakfast. As in cereal, not a cup of tea and toast.
  
• Send out my CV and get work placements - maybe at Nuts. Why? Because I'd only really get one chance to do it before I [hopefully] become a serious journalist!
• Get extra work thus earning wages to buy, I dunno, a car, so I can drive.
  
• Get my windmills SORTED.
• Go busk for money with said skill in my b-boy repertoire.
  
• Take hayfever HEAD ON! No more blocked, crusty noses!
• Wean myself off caffeine.
• Drink smoothies more often, wasting food less.
  
• Get bigger pecs. My stomach clearly outdoes them, as some of y'all know.
• Read the paper. More often.
  
• Go to a museum.
• Go to the theatre more than once.
• Keep up uni-related reading.
  
• Retake any papers/modules I have to.
• Do something for charity, again.

Let's see how that stands up by October, shall we?

I'm in need of...

I don't know!

Deadline time, right? I can't tell you what it is I need when I get to this point.

I'm sat at my laptop. I feel that I need some sort of stimulation. The question is what do I turn to?

I've already drunk what feels like my weight in caffeinated drinks over the last week. I've had late nights and long days and my eyes have dark circles around them to show it.

But while I sit here, each time I sigh I don't quite know what it is I want to fill that gap of sighingness!

I can't drink any more cappuccino, or have Red Bull, or even the weakness that I call tea as my caffeine levels are too high and they'd have no stimulating effect!

What a crave most is to curl up in a ball and die. If not die, then fall into a deep, re-invigorating sleep.

There'd be a point to that, of course, were it not bank holiday tomorrow and I'd have somewhere to go. Damnations.

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A little somethin' somethin' for free. Consumables.

I can't believe the consumerist society we live in.
My belief is that if I'm going to invest good money in something, it means I'm going to indulge in it.

So if I'm going to buy something expensive I want to get the most of it.
Consider - if I see a pair of jeans I like, that cost a bit more than I'd normally pay, I'm wearing those jeans as much as I can!

Some people I know buy a clothes nearly every, wear them a few times then buy more. Why? Because we have too many consumables in this world. We can feed and clothe the world several times over if we just shared.

Part I:

Well, let me say, I was sickened to see the staff at **a coffee chain** (trying to avoid libel!) clear the shelves of their refrigerators into bin bags as they were closing. Paninis and toasties, all with a day or two left until expiration all being thrown in a bag, fully packaged. They can't even decompose that way.

Well I had to speak up didn't I? I say I, I was in fact with Mateo and Chubby. We had to speak up.

Walked out of the place with two - TWO bin bags of paninies and toasties, some with two days left of shelf life.

At home, we had a damn feast for dinner!

30-odd cheese melts are in our fridge. Breakfast, lunch and tea. SORTED.


For the record, at £2.85 x 30 = £85.50's worth of sarnies!

Student to the max!

I implore all who read this to go to coffee chains at closing time and ask, just ask them what they're doing with their sandwiches/toasties at the end of the day. If they're chucking them, rescue them for being disposed, because unlike Benjy's who give their sandwiches to the homeless at the end of the day, they're not going anywhere except the bin. And that's a waste.

Hear me now.

Part II:

For some of us, right, it's been a while!
Well I was going through the old, ahem, condom selection in my 'nookie box' and realised that a fair few of my stash have expired!

So I've had to dispose of these consumables. It's truly heartbreaking that they couldn't have been used for better means, but hey, from what's been learned to day - when things pass their expiry dates, they have to be thrown away.

Around the place are condoms lying about after being snapped like elastic bands.

Nice.

Remember guys, make the most of your consumables. They're made for consuming, sure enough, but consume them well!

Me, me, me!

The Easter holidays have given me so much ME time - its as if to say all my hard work has paid off! I just hope it has, in exchange for a high percentage mark!

Partly to blame for so much time to myself is the movement of comrades going on holiday during this time, which would seem disheartening at first, but its worked out fairly positive for me :)

All my email have been corresponded to. My summer work application was emailed to as many contacts at the council I could harass to read. My interview for my voluntary journalism project has been secured thanks to my uni placements officer. I have a work interview for my aforementioned summer job (I only really had two major emails!)

This makes my future look exceptionally bright. Around 100 watts, were we talking of a comparison with a light bulb. Enough to live with, not quite floodlight brilliance though.

While on the subject of work, I have been working like a biiitch on Saturdays, and with fantastic rewards too in the form of time off at the end of the day. I don't mess about, I want my summer work and I'll do anything to do it and not enter another less fulfilling profession!

Work brings me to money, where I scoured everywhere to reach the final £3000 needed to fill up my ISA for April 5th. I emptied all my pennies into the money converter in Sainsbury's (£9.56 it came to- they take 8pence of every pound you put in) it came to!
Anyway, I got my interest returned to me, but I don't feel it was the advertised 5.30% advertised, so I'll be writing my bank a formal email! Why leave the zero at the end of it, too? Any mathematician will tell you you don't leave zeros after the last number in decimals!

All this success has gone to my head a bit.
My latest problem now is I'm becoming a bit of a narcissistic. Thanks to the excessive working out going down for my dancing, I'm becoming even more defined than I was before. I'm catching my reflection and going "Damn, is that really MY body?!" This is all minus any sort of gym membership too.
I'm looking to buy some tighter fitting sleeveless tops for summer.

So that's ME done. Me, me, me.

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Coursework: Survival on Red Bull and broadsheet newspapers

I've spent too much time doing coursework. Of course, there is never too little time doing coursework, because coursework should be perfect, and that requires a lot of time.

Nevertheless, I have put untold hours into rushing the coursework. The time of year I don't think I ever work so hard.

Have I plugged my newsblog for journalism? http://news-for-frank.blogspot.com. Its fortunate I can blog, because this was the easiest piece I've had to do.
It did mean reading the papers and scanning for the stories I was going to blog about, so I've survived off reading the happenings of the world in the papers.

So I've also been up til the early hours, I'm talking about 2am, and it has a devastating effect on my beauty, because I've looked a state for the past week. A funny hot water cycle also means I haven't had a shave either.

To add to this, I've been doing the dance training I do every week.

• Sunday (this is why Red Bull has been mentioned in my blog title), Red Bull came to U.D.S to promote their breakdance classes and they brought two crates of cans, so I took as many as I could.
• Wednesday I was tired. But I packed some Red Bull that I took on Sunday, and I was on some other shit with memorising the [first] routine. I mean, normally at a professional level I have trouble remembering counts, but I actually did alright.
• Matt gave me the sound system for Thursday's class, and its a heavy fucker. Hauled that thing home.
• Thursday, ha! A deadline for my newsblog, so I headed to uni to hand in my cover sheet. All the way to Ealing, with the system over my shoulder, and we never had to hand in a cover sheet. I hadn't read the email properly. So I had to haul it all the way to Staines via public transport. Later that day my shoulders and calves (why?) were aching me.
• Friday was another deadline and the previous night I had drunk the remaining Red Bull to stay focused! I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my film studies tutor for extending my deadline (and the Academy for this speech...)

On the way home I was at the paper stand in Tescos deciding which paper to buy with my remaining coupons.
I don't like Tescos much, as some of you may know, but I knew I could use expired newspaper coupons at the self-service tills which would result in a loss from Tescos, so who cares? It backfired though, and the till said to "seek assistance" on the screen. It wasn't the voucher because they're identical in every way to the ones in date. Procedure, I guess.

Some foreign-accented assistant came up and typed a code into the till, but then told me it was cash only. I only had my card on me and 20p in my wallet. I couldn't believe my luck when she took 5pence from the till and paid the remainder of my cost! I killed two birds, using expired coupons and a further 5pence out of Tescos' oversized pockets! Beat that! I'll probably have Tescos on my back now, ha!

Anyway, I flicked through it (The Guardian) and onto G2 magazine to see Peaches Geldof had a whole one-side page to her name! Why is Peaches preaching?
I'm annoyed because of having the contacts/agency and fame she has being the daughter of Bob, she isn't the one going through a journalism degree to get her name in the paper! Why is she doing it? And why am I reading it?!

The footnote said she was covering for Andrew Chancellor. At present I am getting into reading columnists so I can identify with each of their styles and opinions. Now, off the top of my head I can't think who Mr Chancellor is, but his surname alone suggests he is a man of high profession!

I never said the article was shit though. Yes, I agree with what she is saying about MySpace. But Guardian readers don't need to know about what a celebrity's daughter thinks, because Guardian readers, in my mind, are not active MySpacers! Her thoughts are better identified to being commissioned by Mizz, or a tweenage publication.
I don't care much for her dog either, because the way she wrote it too girly, and men read G2 as well!! Getting a dog is not responsibility, getting a goldfish when you're five is, because at five the carvings of responsibility are drip-fed to you by your parents trusting you to take care of another creature. Responsibility is not putting your puppy on the table in Subway - why do you think people look at you!?

I just get so mad when I see stuff like that. You're just 18 and you're writing for the Guardian. I don't have time for this!

Here's to deadlines

I've managed to prove to myself that anything is possible when you really put your mind to it.
I managed to get all my work done this week for handing in by putting in maximum effort with the last leg of it, having many a sleepless night along the way.

That, AND I managed to go about my usual leisurely business with dance, doing an evening class on Monday, Stanwell Youth Club on Wednesday and Magna the night before!

The task involved me editing the material I had for broadcast news, in other words, my radio piece, from two five-minute interviews to a 3:40min long report - and it sounds flawless!

Now I'm working on trying to make my work pay off, by getting attention from the local papers interested, and maybe getting my piece on King Manoel archived.

On that note, I have my first Portuguese correspondent, Nuno, if ever I need help with my stories - how good is this?

Inside I'm jumping for joy.
Tomorrow morning I am to have a shave before work, as all this coursework has kept me from looking after my facial fuzz!

Peace all

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My media scrapbook

Possibly the inspiration for blogging a long time ago, I purchased a scrapbook from WH Smith to paste extracts I find interesting in newspapers or magazines.

I originally intended to do this for a new year resolution, but I figure there's going to be a lot of media hype before Christmas, as there always is.

Unlike a weblog, it wont be available for the public to read. Two reasons:
It's my incentive to be picking out the particular type of journalism that most interests me, from hard news to comment and debate
There's a certain charm about actually having print on a piece of paper on mounted card than there is text on screen.

The creation of this personal scrapbook deliberately coincides with my return to university next week.

However, I lack glueing materials.

So far, my favourite cutting is "Man rejects penis transplant"

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What did you do with YOUR May Day?

Wayhay, a long weekend, just what the doctor ordered. Or would order, if I was ill.

Anyway, my muscles have been aching all day from the weekend's activities, including a day of sitting on my arse all day at work on Saturday, having a piggy back race through Covent Garden and rickshaw riding through Soho, followed up with dancing on Sunday.
And they hurt now coz I've been sitting still most of the day trying to finish off my coursework due in tomorrow (I am SO fortunate we've been given an extension, THEN it's a bank holiday weekend!

Yes indeed.

So my work has been feedbacked, read over again, corrected, and feedbacked another time (thanks Danielle) and should be handed in tomorrow morning.
All I hope, and I'm really hoping this, is that its of a high enough quality, coz I know the particular teacher/lecturer who will be reading it can be quite critical.

What do I have to be scared of though?

Anyway, the rest of my fantastic May Day was spent doing mundane things, like reading the latest Labour / Lib Dem pamphlets being posted through our letterbox. Oh no, local politicians don't take holidays!
Now I'm unsure who I'll vote for in the local election. Probably whichever party is more committed to posting the most pamphlets before May 4th.

I also moved a mountain... of clothes from my room to the washing machine, then further, onto the washing line.

I don't have a clue what May Day is about, do I??

A waste of my life...

It's bad enough when I don't turn up to lectures or workshops and the teacher, if they care at all about individuals, wonder where I am.
But when they don't turn up for me, IT'S PERSONAL!

I left at 11 so only had an hour to make it, and following advice I got a 285 to Feltham station. Yes, I'm that lazy I took a bus for two stops when I could have walked!
See, coz my Oyster is pre-pay I don't care much for buying tickets these days, so I didn't buy one at the station.
As a precaution, I went to take some cash out from the ATM. It only issued £20 notes, so I have to settle with carrying a large amount of money around. A mugger's dream come true!

Anyway, train came and I did a quick sweep of the carriages for ticket inspectors. All clear and it's 11.16 so I'm just cruisin'

Then it hits me that while the gates are open at Feltham, there's no way they will be at Richmond. Mérde.

Luckily for me I know how to deal with ticket checking people, but the fucker prettymuch labelled me a 'fare evader.'
I got off with a warning.
Not like I had to make up a huge lie. I told him I got on at Whitton (in case he wouldn't believe Twickenham). Dammit. I was ready to pay with the £20 I withdrew only to find I had a fiver already in my wallet.

Mans gets vexed.

11.26- Richmond Station busstop. The 65 comes in 6min. I know I can make it on time!

11.50, South Ealing. Nothing is more perfect than this. I've even read a few chapters of my book. Next thing I'm interrupted by a text telling me the workshop had been cancelled at short notice.
I DON'T BELIEVE IT.

I get to Ealing Broadway about midday.

Sometimes I wonder why I even try.

Two things which annoy me: punctuality and wasting time. I'm no angel with either, but I expect much more from my elders. Don't you? Mofos.

Graduation Day Is Among Us

I'm at the Barbican at Mother's graduation ceremony. And doesn't it look grand? O yes it does.

Really though, cant honestly say I'm looking forward to graduation day a lot.
There's about four pages of names and Mum's is hundreds down the list.
I wouldn't even wish this kind of ceremony even on my enemies!

I beg of you, years in advance, dont come to my graduation!

I'm an incredibly hard worker

You just gotta make sure you know there's a reward for it.
Right now- my work's my uni coursework - all three parts of it
My reward? I thought about it properly. My reward is the day it get my marks slip back and my mark is one of the highest in my class.

Yes readers, I'm becoming a geek.
Does it bother me at all? Well, once again I thought about it. Call me what you like, but I meditated on it, and I'll be working hard.

My reason? The student debt at the end of it all. I'm sure it will all be paid off, yes. But adding it up, and including the money from my student loan, I'll be wallowing in personal debt (the type which my child fund savings wont cover)

That's what I thought before going out tonight. 3000 or so words on, an hour extra at Uni and a day closer to my coursework deadlines, I had a change of heart for the better.

Check the timestamp on when this blog entry was published by the way. 3:45am. That's how hard I've been working.

Bow down before me, baby.

Assessment Results (2 out of 3)

There is such a thing as overachieving. I'm not in that category. But I have feedback of two of my mid-semester assessments and I have to say I'm impressed with myself!

*Journalism - 68%
*Creative Technology - 75%

That averages out at an exceptional 71.5%!

Well I think I'm a blessing to the university league tables! I'm joking, obviously. There's my Media result to wait upon, and that was a 1500 word essay. So I wont speak too soon.

Yae, but I think all this work may be having an effect on my wellbeing as the stress of uni mounts up. Or whatever it is.
Accumulated fatigue is how I put it. Several early mornings a week (inc work on Saturday) and many late nights are disabling me. I've been waking up with my back in knots. My knees are affected by the cold. Oh I'm in pain. A codliver capsule and an aspirin when I need it should help. And probably the occasional Red Bull.

The times I live in. Sigh.

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Lonely, I'm so lonely!

I tell you something. I never knew Uni would have such an impact in making me a loner!

I think I need to change my strategy a little so I make as many friends in as many classes as possible in order to have someone to hang around with in between classes. Sure, the relationships wont be as strong, but its easier to have shitty company than none at all coz everyone's in different minor subjects!

Now, aside from writing this, I have four hours in which to entertain myself. And I even left the book I was reading (more on that later though!) at home, so sitting in the library and reading for an hour or two is out of the question too.

Yes its a cold world out there. Cold enough to numb my typing fingers and bite my ears (not erogenously either). Colder than the forecast predicted. So I wont be walking about town to pass time either, coz I'll catch a chill before my birthday. No thanks.

I'm off to get some food. Breakfast wasn't enough, I need something to go on.

Good morning to you all.

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Learning over the hidden secrets in Ealing

They call this 'freshman adjustment;'
Well I now know where a lot more things in Ealing than I did in the first week. OBVIOUSLY.

And all the student guides say that Ealing is 'cosmopolitan' and 'metro' , well they need to look around, to be honest, coz I've found a surprisingly relaxing place where I can disconnect from the city life and completely chill out, and surprisingly, its surrounded by a road right around it! Its surprising what a patch of flowers can do to an urban green!

I forget the name of the particular green, although 'Eden' wouldn't be far off with its well trimmed lawns (so no ball games, or not that I've seen). Its like some sort of Mary Poppins park with hundreds of pigeons and old people sitting on benches, with a full view of the busstop where busses collect commuters from Ealing Broadway Station.

Lovely place, free of the dirty air in the student bars, and as remote yet so near to bustling life as you'd want it to be. There's a circumference of trees, but sitting in the middle there's less shade and it looks great when the sun is in the sky.

It shall be my new place. I'll apply for its name to be changed to Dave's Urban Eden as soon as possible in fact.

A rhyme written during a boring lecture

Its not my fault i already know most of the stuff they're trying to teach

I wrote this at my own accord
In my lecture coz I am bored.
They send me here in rain or snow
To teach me shit I already know!

I'm coming here to waste my time
(Dude beside me's drinking Coke 'lime')
Our teacher needs to get with times
We know this info from online.

"Vectors made of different layers"
I want to play my CD player.
I don't care for resolutions,
I'd rather leave this institution.

It does nothing but bore me,
I'll only learn if the teacher floors me!

What I think of my course at Uni right now?

IT'S SHIT!

So far, none of my lectures are what you'd even call near a lecture. We've had hour-long (not even that) sleep inducing sessions of talks about "What we're doing on this course" which despite being a week in hasn't even begun yet.

The lecturer in question who was supposed to turn up today, and who also didn't turn up for his pre-course meeting with us, the students, never turned up for his session today. Even though I was a little late for the lecture, the person who took his place only went on for 30 minutes!

So that's 1 hour to get to Uni, 1 hour back, and only 30 minutes spent there!

So far, Uni has only been good for the discounts for students and meeting new people. While apparently you hardly do 'any work' during your first year at Uni, I'd expect the teachers/lecturers to put there bit in rather than leaving dozens of hopeful young adults's fates dangling.

Coz that's not what higher education is about.

Secondary school I expected disappearing acts from teachers and lots of cover lessons, but Unis are big money spinners with enough budget to supply us with punctual teachers.

10 minute rule may apply to some...

So our teacher needs to sort himself out (Eryl) or I'll be slipping substances into his coffee or leaving surprises on his chair. Bash Street Kids style!

The Longest Day

Tue 4th October

What can I say? I am completely run down after only two days progress into the course!

It was up at 7, out at 11 (a little later, actually) to try make it on time for my 9am workshop. Which I still managed to be late for!

There seems to be a glitch with the timetables meaning there's up to 4hrs of free periods. And no work been set. Making it hard finding stuff to do in the mean time.
Unless that time is spent drinking at the student bar, of course.

Fresher's party and it starts to get packed. Although I'm sure there's more freshers. The breakdance crew scheduled to come never came. Bastards. But people got down to some battling and as a result met most of the Uni dance crew - nice people.

All in all, socially a good night, despite the disgruntled, attention-deprived DJ who was in the bar (not the main hall) complaining nobody was listening to him!

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