Press Gazette awards

These are the student journalist awards and not the real industry ones but they are still very special to get one and were judged on Friday 27 June in London.


I had no shot of getting into any of the nominations but fellow students at UCLan did get into the nominations.


The best bit is they won quite a few - just goes to show with me blaming the Uni at times for my poorness in my degree, it was actually my fault!



Ricki Dewsbury, who seems worse than me at updating his blog, collected both the Scoop of the Year and the News Writer of the Year awards.



Student Radio Journalist of the Year was won by someone else I knew and played football with at Uni = Thomas Clarke and Team of the Year went to:

Homefront a magazine which "hits spot-on the market it is supposed to be aiming for", the judges said.

The downside is for people like this guy and Dave Lee who I can't believe didn't get one to be fair from what I have seen/heard about him.


The total awards meant UCLan actually scooped 6 out of the 11 awards - now all potential students have to ask is: was that down to the students or the Uni, or both?



Anyways, if you want to read the full article it can be found on the Press Gazette website.

100th post Results Day

I checked my results today and after seeing all the status updates from Uni mates on Facebook I am left feeling very bad indeed.
In my six modules I have got a 57, 60 (a double module), a 61 and a 64 which is all good until we come to Investigating Public Admin which has a 33 next to it. Anyone remotely knowledgeable about how University assessment works knows that is a fail.
I contacted the Uni today and the mark has been confirmed and I now know I have to resit an exam in August and will not graduate until November, if I pass the PA exam second time around.
Which means that all the people I thought I was going to see one last time, I won't see which is not a comforting thought as I had three years of my live with most of them and graduation had been organised in a template sort of way
This news is gutting to me and after first finding out had me contemplating the darkest of thoughts but now time has healed that slightly except I feel a bit fucked up.
All the details will be sent out soon and although I had thought this might happend I wasn't really expecting it especially as I had got a 60-0dd mark in my essay for this module.
The re-sit means I will not be able to go to Magaluf with the lads, the holiday for which I have already paid for, my graduation could (if I pass my re-sit) be in November which leaves me in the limbo until then.
Worst of all, as I have mentioned on here an odd time, my trip to Australia seems doomed - for now at least because I need to stay over here and study to make sure I pass the piece of shit they call PA and graduate in November.
So not a good day at all - I have eaten my way to comfort for a bit and a bit of drinking later could delay the problem solving but I would like to end with the fact that I have posted a lot of ups and downs on this blog throughout my uni life and I am guessing will continue to do so throughout life as a whole - this is certainly a down point :(

One post before three figures - a celebration for the unbeaten 99?

I suppose you could look on this as a celebration or you could also look on it as the end of an era.
I started up this blog as a way to expand my online presence and that has backfired - especially as I am no longer a Uni student but in three years I have posted 99 times? I'm going to have a fair stab and say that's not great...

Today saw quite a bit of my stuff go back home this weekend - via my parents collecting it - and next weekend is when I go home for real = no more studentville.

I have blabbered on about that FAR too much so the other things I feel like saying - because I am REALLY bored being in the house on my own at the moment - is my time as Preston FM news editor was an overall success and the presenting of the news show on Saturday also went to plan, with all the clips playing in the right place/order etc thanks to some help from the tech people!

I have got myself a gig writing about France at the Euro 2008 Football Championships which is going to add an online element to my CV which was painfully inadequate and show I can write about sport - which is always good news.

Otherwise no reason to blog (as usual - which is probably why this blog gets so sparadically upodated and most of it is utter toss) as I feel unmotivated and lack a passion for it.

I know I need to change the text bit in the top right and maybe a fresh background will make me blog more about important stuff or I could keep it as just a little online diary for the WORLD to see. Hmm I'll have to think about that one...and decide to blog about more important things.

Radio is NOT dead

This is my 98th post and first as someone who is out there in the "real world" as I am not a student journalist anymore so deep breath.

It's not all bad news though as I am news editor for Preston FM this week in Lancashire. It might be an unpaid position but it looks pretty sparkling on the CV and it is the stations last trial broadcast before going live full-time later on in the year.

The role involves me gathering content along with my news team (who I haven't actually seen yet!) for a one-hour show on Saturday which gives me a comfort bed since saturday's used to be "Whitworth at the Weekend" on student radio.

I am hanging around this city (if you can call it that?) until the middle of June when my tenancy runs out at the house I am staying in and then it will be back home to look for a career, it is weird as most of my friends from Uni have already packed their bags and headed off home. I have already hit and applied for some jobs and face the dilemma of do I go all out when part of me still wants to go to Australia or do I wait and go all out after the Aussie trip? hmm it's a toughie.

Finally, I have been looking around on the net and after hearing so much about it I have joined Twitter but I have the feeling that account will go the same way of my Digg account - nowhere.
I also found this little gem of a site, a bit of a laugh put into England missing out on Euro 2008 and helpful as it can help you learn bits of a new language!

keep twittering, digging, blogging, stumbleUpon, Delicious, reddit and facebooking with the technological generation everyone :)