The First Week Of My Master's Degree

It's 8:30pm on a Wednesday evening and I'm as tired as a hibernating badger. I don't think I've ever been this drained of energy.

Why? Well, I am halfway through the first week of my Journalism Master's course. In this opening week we have a quick, intensive opening module about journalistic practices.

This has involved creating a group presentation, having lectures around law and ethics, going out into Kingston and finding a news story whilst there has also been the fact that this week has involved meeting lots of new people.

It's been an interesting week and I've already slightly changed my mind about my future career direction. I've suddenly lost all interest in becoming an actual bog-standard news journalist thanks to some pretty depressing lectures about newspapers and reporting. My interest now seems to be magazines, features and online which appears to be the more fun and creative side to the industry.

I naively thought the course wouldn't be too great a challenge or too tiring but it seems like this will be a heavy, intensive year ahead.

I keep telling myself that it'll all be worth it in the long-run if I can achieve my career aims as a result but I just wish I could travel back in time and tell a younger me to take media studies and then study broadcast journalism.

However, that would have resulted in not doing things, seeing places and knowing people that I have had the luck to meet.

The Writers Block

If I haven't written anything for longer than a week then usually that is due to a legitimate, actual time-consuming reason that means I haven't been able to commit anything to paper. Well in this cause the internet, I guess...

This time it would be a case of my lying if I were to fob you off with an excuse. Really, I just feel like I've hit a block over the last couple of weeks.

It isn't that I've run out of ideas. It's just that nothing exciting has happened in the past fortnight.

Sure, I've been out. I've been to the cinema. I've been to the pub. I've met up with friends. I've carried on going to the gym. I even enrolled at university last week for my Master's degree.

The reality is that nothing has been overly exciting to write home about, share with the internet and divulge to you.

The last two weeks have flown by. It felt like only yesterday that we were waving goodbye to August and with it the summer, and subsequently ushering in September and the early evenings of autumn.

I have one last week free. One final week to do as I will before I start my new degree and, ultimately, give up the next year of my life.

I ate two bananas today.

The Next Step

Today is my Mum's birthday. I woke up early and wrote the card that I brought and placed it with the wine and Belgian chocolate that I purchased from her favourite shop, Marks and Spencer's.

I went downstairs to the living room, having prepared my best "Happy Birthday!" shout to really remind my Mum that it was her birthday. I felt it was important to remind her of that.

My Dad immediately said, "Mum's out shopping".

I made myself a cup of tea and kept the presents in their waiting place.

After finishing my morning beverage, my Mum eventually returned. I yelped "Happy Birthday!" as she walked through the door and I thrust the M&S goodies into her hand.

"Wine and chocolate! You know me so well!"

I would like to point out, my Mum isn't an alcoholic or a lady of rotund size despite what she just said. She doesn't live off wine and chocolate. That would be slightly odd.

She then proceeded to give me some bad news.

"When I was out, I stopped your direct debit."

"FUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!" I thought loudly in my head.

Let me fill you in. Just before I started university, my parent's had managed to pay off their mortgage so they decided that they would give me money every month to cover my living and personal costs instead of taking out student loans.

Their generous money had lasted me three years and I counted down every day until the next batch of monetary juice would flow into my account.

However, as my parent's are paying for my Master's degree they decided that they would cut down this allowance to the exact amount of my phone and gym contract.

Today was the day it stopped.

This news has forced me onto the next step. Whereas before, part-time work was something that I occasionally did which provided me with money to spend on little gifts for myself. Now, I will have to work to fund any fragment of social life.

I guess that is my next step of adulthood but I will now be pretty poor for the next year and I will probably be forced to shop in places such as the 99p Store and Primark.

RIP to my monthly allowance. You served me well, you will be missed.