Real progress...

I have a rather important announcement just to make …

I’M WRITING FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST!!

(I think you’ll agree that this is news that is worthy of the capitals and the two exclamation marks…)

This is a MAJOR step forward. The Huffington Post is a very well-known news site in America, and they’ve started a website in England to try and mimic the same success. In the journo-world, to be able to say you write for this site is a pretty good thing. It’s voluntary blogging much like this (although I’ll try and make it a bit more serious each time!) which is ideal experience for my columnist career dreams.  

Yet when I excitedly blurted the news out to my friends, I was (9 out of 10 times) answered with ‘The WHAT post?!’ So, it seems that whilst I’ve made one little toddler step towards writing professionally with a big, renowned site to my mind & those in the writing profession, to the rest of the world (i.e. my lovely friends) it’s still a bit of an unknown…

But you just wait, The Huffington Post & I will rise to the forefront of your minds until every time you hear that name, your eyes will light up & your minds will frantically race to conjure up the latest exciting story you read on there the night before.

We WILL succeed.

(I’d better hope so, because if I don’t know I’ll look incredibly stupid after that determined almost heroic-like statement…)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/stephanie-allen}

Poetic Inspiration

So, this week is a bit of a different entry...
Yes I know, I say that every week, but it really is different. Really.
This week, is poetry.

I was sitting in a seminar this morning, reading the poetry of Frank O'Hara. A poet, I'll admit, I'd never heard of before. We were meant to be reading his collection titled 'Lunch Poems', but our brilliant tutor got us to discuss one called 'Having a coke with you'. There were two lines that caught my eye: 'the secrecy our smiles take on' and the image of 'a tree breathing through its spectacles'. The latter I love as an image, even if I'm still not completely certain what he means...(interpretations welcome!) whilst the former inspired me.
It inspired me to write.
And this is what I came up with: (NO COPYING!)

That Feeling

It’s the feeling that makes words become redundant,
When patterns of syllables aren’t needed to convey meaning
One look,
One smile,
Our own language is all we need to understand each other.

It’s that idea that we have our own little world,
we’re our own unit,
Us against the world,
Us within the world.
Together.

It’s accepting that we annoy each other
It’s knowing when the other is annoyed.
Yet talking,
laughing about it
Believing we’re better together, irritated, than not at all.

It’s the feeling that can brighten the everyday
Provoke that cute smile that you like so much
That emits like a radiance just over a thought
so the person seated next to me,
on the bus
gives me a strange stare.

It’s the comfort that comes from being in your arms
Safe and happy.
Sharing and silent.
Snug.
In a space where I feel like I belong.

It’s that feeling…
                              …that feeling…
                                                          …it’s love.  

Muddled Thoughts

Tempting as it is to jump on the bandwagon and write something about the Kony 2012 campaign, which has been impossible to miss unless you’ve had your laptop off and your head in a hole for the last few days… I’m instead going to rather selfishly focus on a mini personal triumph.

I’ve done it. I’ve finally made a decision about my dissertation topic!
(*Cue loud applause and tears of joy!*)
Yet, whilst I’m relieved about putting weeks of indecisiveness to an end, I’m also slightly subdued.

It’s occurred to me that whilst I’ve finally picked something to focus on, I’ve also eliminated a whole world of literature. In comes sentimentalism and the social reform novels of Dickens and Gaskell, but out goes the propaganda voices of WW1; the social injustices of post-colonial Graceland; the racial prejudices of Benjamin Zephaniah, the love from the Romantics, and out goes the politics of George Orwell. 

During a conversation with one of my tutors, I realised that out of a whole world of literature, I’ve chosen to focus on novels from the nineteenth century. True, I’m focusing on the issues within that which I find extremely interesting & engaging; social reform & injustice, poverty, gender…yet look at how much I’m also neglecting!

Now, obviously I can’t write my dissertation on the entirety of literature, that’s just silly. But I suppose that it’s finally dawned on me quite how much you can find in literature that can grip you and draw you in to its world. When I discussed with the same tutor modules for next year, this really hit home. 

It seemed to me that specialising could also be coined limiting.

But I suppose that, on reflection, just because I’ve chosen to focus on one topic for my dissertation, there’s nothing to stop me pursuing my own directions and thriving off words from the likes of D.H.Lawrence, Shakespeare, Abani, Coetzee, Plath… it just won’t be critically assessed!
 I guess I just wanted to have my hand in every biscuit tin as it were…

I wonder if, alongside some of these writers that I’m so reluctant to forget about, anyone will ever be reluctant to forget this blog and these words in progress... 

In the Grand Scheme of Things

I’ve been mulling over numerous topics on which to write my next blog on; my experience of sitting in on numerous court cases in the Magistrate’s Court (mainly drug crimes!), a traumatic weekend involving a spam, fraudulent email, feeling the pressure of picking my very, very important dissertation topic, or the release of yoga. But no. I’ve gone for something a bit more serious.

I’ve just watched the evening news, in which over half the programme was spent focusing on the war in Syria. Among about 185 deaths, two journalists have been killed and many Syrians injured(in the hundreds).

Now, I’ll admit…I didn’t actually know a great deal about this; so I’ve spent some time doing some research, (something I’ve actually been meaning to do for weeks, but obviously, being such a hardworking, manic student…free time is a rare thing…).

When my housemate asked why it’s happening, I said (in a terrifically accurate guess) that it was probably an uprising against the government and their regime.
Indeed, the president Bashar Al-Assad has come under fire for treatment of his people, human rights issues, freedom of speech restrictions and a violent regime. Barrack Obama even signed an order attempting to pressure the president into ending its use of violence and converting to a democratic state rather than their system of autocracy…otherwise known as totalitarianism (one person acting as the supreme power within the state –woop-de-doo for them but not  so exciting for everyone else.)

I’m not going to bore you with the whys and wherefores …this isn’t a news site. But two incidents really struck me.

1)    In the beginning of 2011, protests began against the government. According to eye witness accounts, soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were executed by the Syrian army. Refusing to shoot innocent people.

2) In August 2011, Syrian security forces attacked Ali Farzat – the country’s most well-known political cartoonist. Think of the cartoons in our daily papers, playfully mocking David Cameron or Ed Milliband. A man, responsible for producing such cartoons in Syria, was hospitalized with fractures to both hands and blunt force trauma to the head, after the attackers threatened to break his bones as a warning to stop drawing cartoons of government officials.

If you think they’re shocking, consider the day to day trauma that is still on-going.  News programmes show the break of day starting not with an idyllic sunrise, but with threatening gunfire.
When you actually bother to find out the facts, the situation in Syria is horrific. It’s a disgrace to our supposedly ‘developed’ modern world, that such violence and oppression is causing hundreds of deaths every day.

So, it got me thinking, in the grand old scheme of things, it makes my daily traumas of what dissertation topic to pick, or whether to have cereal or toast for breakfast seem slightly trivial…

Love Thy Neighbour...or something like that.

Last week, for me, was a week of mini triumphs. Not only did I get some pretty damn good results from university, but I had an informal one-to-one chat with a lady who used to be a journalist for Nottingham’s local paper. We mulled over our Costa latte and cappuccino, chatting for about an hour during which she suggested new directions and ideas I could chase that I hadn’t even considered. Everything suddenly seemed that little bit more in reach, just a little bit more possible. That day I suddenly felt more driven, more focused, more optimistic and more determined that I can make progress towards my dream.

Writing for a living.

So determined in fact that the next morning, despite having a day off, I resisted the temptation to wrap up in my cosy duvet and blissfully ignore the outside world. Instead, I got up and walked to the local Sainsbury’s and bought a paper.

I did the brisk, early morning, paper-fetching walk. Oh yes I did.

I then proceeded to make myself a cuppa, opened a packet of digestives and flicked through this paper like the budding journalist I am. One news story in particular happened to catch my eye and, dare I say it, provoke a little giggle.

The Independent had a filler article entitled ‘2012 Olympic ‘segregation’ for warring nations’.  The more I read the more bizarre yet obvious this story became. It addressed an issue I never even considered within the Olympics.

Athletes from conflicting countries having to live in close proximity to each other within the Olympic Village.

Well, of course they won’t be borrowing each other’s butter will they?  How silly of me.

Yet, whilst the issue seems obvious, it also seems slightly ridiculous. Can these individuals not put up with it, just for the duration of the Olympics?

One man seems to be going to extraordinary lengths to keep the peace.  Chris Hale, who is in charge of the Village for the InterContinental Hotels group, told The Independent his plans. Israel and Iran will be housed at opposite ends of the Village, Team GB will be far away from Argentinian athletes following the recent tension over the Falkland Islands, German athletes will be distanced from the Greeks after protests erupted in Athens in response to measures forced upon their country by Berlin…and so on. (Needless to say, any friendly nations remaining will be given the same apartment block.)

But this isn’t all. Oh no.  He also has to consider that no one wants to be near the Brazilians who are renowned for being the biggest party goers, and the athletes don’t want to be anywhere near the swimmers who finish in the first week and spend the remainder of the Olympics having fun.

And there was me thinking the Olympics were a chance for the world to unite over sport. How naïve. How amusing.

I don’t know why but this story just struck me! It’s a side of the Olympics no one tends to consider, because the minute that an athlete starts running, a gymnast starts to somersault, or a swimmer jumps in from the starting block, conflicts and wars seem to fade away. The sport, the thrill of the competition, and the buzz of winning takes over.

Yet the real world continues elsewhere.

It just goes to show…’love thy neighbour’ is so much easier when you actually get along. 

The State of the Day

I went to visit a friend this weekend, and took advantage of the spare moments I had (where I’d usually be stressing over my to-do list for uni) to catch up with the news headlines.

One thing struck me; humanity.

Have you ever watched the News and been struck by the amount of stories on murder, theft, assault, rape, war….? Ever flicked through a national paper and actually stopped to find a story about something good that’s happened (disregarding those heartfelt animal headlines)?

While I was with my friend I read a headline about an elderly man who was mugged just after taking money out of a cashpoint in a busy shopping town, at half past one in the afternoon.  Half past one? DAYLIGHT?!
It’s a little shocking, no? Crime in daylight hours still has the ability to shake me up a little; perhaps it’s the thought that a busy place that should be safe wasn’t.

Today, I scrolled through the BBC News website to find a story about a girl called Thusha Kamaleswaran.
Thusha is five.  She is also paralysed.
She was ‘playing in a shop’, according to the article, when she was shot, along with one other person at a store in South London in March last year. Two innocent individuals were shot that day caught up in a gang rivalry which had nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Google provides a definition of humanity as ‘human beings collectively’. As in together.
Further down the page of results is a link to a website called The Humanity Initiative. One of the quotes supporting the link says ‘encouraging people to understand this planet as our common home.’

A common home…somewhere we all live collectively.

Now, I don’t want this to get all depressing for my lovely bright eyed readers, but it’s something I’ve noticed. And it’s going to be my message of this blog.

Look for the bright side of the news, to try to balance out all the overwhelming stories of suffering we seem to become suffocated with. There’s campaigners protesting in Nottingham at the moment, for various reasons; one placard states that they are protesting against world poverty and for world peace. Now while that’s a lovely dream, I’m afraid protesting won’t achieve that much; everyone is aware of the issues facing our modern societies and I’m sure many try to do their bit.

So I return to my first point; humanity. I guess we all just need that little bit of faith in it. After being ill the last few days, (nothing life threatening, just a stomach bug) you begin to realise those little gems that sparkle in your life and help you when you haven’t even asked. It seems such a shame when you hear of the horrors that go on day to day; those stories that end up being the next publicised headline on the TV. We can get so caught up in the ‘big news’ that we can forget; they’re people too. So remember your little gems and look for the good in the stories; keep the faith.  

Future and Guilt

Today was the day I attempted to narrow down my dreams for the future.
Today was the day I had my first appointment with the Careers service at University.

Filled with anticipation and excitement, eagerly clutching various job descriptions, I walked into the Careers office with high hopes that they would clear the confusion that was currently occupying my head

15 minutes later, I walked out of the Careers office... feeling slightly bemused. I felt like I had made a bit of progress, but I don't know how. Let me explain:

I told the nice career lady in the leopard print shirt that I had a rough idea of the paths I wanted to follow: journalism, editing and programme researching for broadcasting. She proceeded to discuss journalism, said I really needed to investigate work experience or shadowing.
I already knew this, I just haven’t done anything.
She then suggested I have a look at the website Prospects.

I already have.
Everything she then said was pretty much read off this website. Now, unless I’m very much mistaken, I probably could have done this back in my room…
Anyway, after a few minutes she told me about another girl who wanted to be a journalist and had applied for an 18 month short course for after her degree; the application process is made up of multiple stages, one of which sounded particularly intense. Basically an ‘observation stage’, the tutors tell the applicants that a major news story has broken and ask ‘what do you do?’ They then proceed to watch them, finding out what contacts they use, what they do and what they write. They form a judgement on this, throwing random questions at applicants during the process. Now, I don’t know about you but this sounds slightly scary. 
No.1: I am a 20 year old student; what sort of contacts should I have already?
No.2: I have never, NEVER dealt with a major news story and attempted to gain more info. About it in my life.
No.3: I think I work well under pressure, but I started to imagine the tutors as one of those horrible fitness trainers shouting in the ear of some crying, obese person as they exerted all the energy they had on a treadmill. That would be me except without the obesity, and swopping the treadmill for a keyboard.

I think this nice lady in the leopard print shirt noticed my slightly daunted expression. She reiterated to me that all jobs are competitive but to succeed in the ones I’d mentioned I’d have to show I really wanted it, show dedication and persistence. The word pushy sprang to mind.

Me? Pushy? SERIOUSLY??

The nice lady in the leopard print shirt finally suggested I come back tomorrow for a second careers talk; one that pursued each of my jobs in slightly more depth and might help me narrow things down a bit.
So to sum things up; I now know for sure that I want to work in the ‘Publishing and Journalism’ sector, but I still can’t narrow it down….is this really progress?

After this, I proceeded to make a visit to town with a housemate and SPLURGE.
Why is it that when you have vouchers for a clothes shop you only find clothes you like in other shops? Typical.

To conclude my day:

The good news? I am well and truly a size 8 and I have made an 'investment' in buying that Zara blazer ... I now also know that I want to go into the publicity or journalism sector but I also highly doubt whether I have the right attributes to be a major player in the dog-eat-dog journo world…

The bad news? I now feel incredibly guilty that I have spent a fair amount of money on clothes. Despite the fact they are all gorgeous. And I love them.

Being a student is SO.HARD.