Dream with me

I have a work placement! Yay me!

Yes, this has been really worrying me since the start of term, cuz I have to get three weeks worth but now no more worry! I'm set!

It was bugging me this afternoon so I did some surfing on magazine sites and came across The New Statesman home page. Anyway they were running a four week Online Internship so I e-mailed then my CV and they e-mailed me back an hour or two later! I've got three weeks with them in London in January!

I am so relieved! I think I'm the only one of the girls to get things sorted thus far! I mean, Liz has a week on a local paper but she still has two weeks to fill out.

And just this morning I was sitting and worrying about it!

On friday I plan to sit down and try to devise a proper proposal and interview for another magazine. The Spectator. They are a very right wing Conservative paper so I wanted to get that interview with Micheal Moore and maybe write a comparison between him and Boris Johnson, the Spectator's Editor. He's a bit of a fop, but it *must* be an act. You don't become Editor of the Spectator if you're a total moron!

It was Rafferty's idea. I thought about a lads mag or something but I think the Spectator, which is so at odd's with Moore's ideals, would be a much more interesting article to write.

So Friday shall be dedicated to that.

The Magazine Writing lecture was just as pointless as the last two weeks but the Seminar was fun. It over ran by 20 minutes, which pissed off Hayley but I didn't mind, it's not like I had anything better to do ^ - ^

So I'm feeling very...de-stressed.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm still stressed over the workload this semester *on top of* getting The Groove off of the ground but I'm feeling much more optimistic than I was this morning. It's one of those tasks I can cross off my list.

And it was one of the most difficult because it involved approaching people *asking* for things. And I get guilt when I have to ask my *friends* for rides places!

But now it's out of the way.

Of course, I e-mailed a lot of different places sending CV's and stuff and my biggest fear is that one that is a better opportunity or more interesting will then turn around and offer me a placement and I'll have too *pick* one.

Of course, it would be equally as awful if the rest all turned me down flat, I think I would almost rather none of them replied.

Although, if a local paper (I applied to two locals from home) offers me a week or two I will try to negotiate something during Easter because it would all be good experience.

Hell, so long as it does not interfear with my studies, I'll take all the experience I can get!

As it is I think I will be missing the first two and a half weeks of semester two for this work placement. It's ok because it's moslty induction but I shall have to talk to Malcome or someone to make sure it's alright. Which is fine because I have to tell them I have a placement sometime soon, too.

The New Statesman is somthing of a high brow magazine for professionals. Ii don't know how much of the copy production I will get too see or be involved in (I doubt it will be very much) but it's a chance to learn about online sub-editing and all new skills are welcome. Anything that makes me more employable.

Anyway on this CV that I wrote with the help of an online guide I had to put two referees. So I put James (the PR guy from September) and Rafferty down. Now I don't know if they *contacted* either of them. I doubt it, I think it's more just a trust thing but it would be sort of a relief if they had contacted Rafferty, because it would mean I didn't have to broach the subject with him or Malcome.

But I doubt they did.

Yes, ok, I'm feeling very pleased with myself for biting the bullet and doing the hard part - e-mailing.

Of course come January, when I actually have to meet these people for the first time, I will most *certainly* not think this was the hard part!

Anyway it all means that I can be in that fabulous *smug* place, that if we are honest we all like to indulge in every now and then. I tend to take great pleasure in it because I am rarely the person who gets those smug-inducing breaks.

Now Sarah, she gets a lot of these moments. People hear about all the fabulous opportunities being thrown her way and gush over them and - while we are all so pleased and well aware of how hard she works for them (I swear she didn't sleep in all the time I knew her last year!) - we are all very jealous. There is always that little moment, however fleeting, of "why her?". That little creep of envy that makes us feel bad about ourselves.

Now see thats what makes me think that keeping this diary keeps me healthy, it keeps me sane. If I am left to my own devises I cannot deal with the feelings of jealousy and "why her?" on my own. I bottle it all up and it becomes very...well bad.

But this diary is an amazingly freeing thing. I can spew those feelings that I would generally rather not admit I have and then disguard them because, once I see them down on screen and I read back everything that has happened to me, I can see them for what they are. Meaningless, pointless manifestations of the Id. The infamous "I", "me" and "want."

Geez, this is a long post by my standards. I wonder how many of you read down to the bottom? Well if you made it here with me, Kudos. You win a prize. You can have a cyber cookie.

Right well I think I have rambled more than enough and, if you have read right the way down with me, wasted more than enough of your time already so I shall go. Besides, it's almost 10 and I want to get my dinner from the burger van. (This has become something of s Wednesday night tradition for me ^ - ^

Ja Ne all