Teapots, Tantrums and Mice.

I have reached melting point.

Once again I have bitten off more than I can chew and the times when I am not busy I spend moaning about how busy I am. I am not a fan of this person I have become. She is tired, grumpy, almost always hungry, pessimistic and prone to tantrums.

An example of one such tantrum, is when the other night my house mate caught me rather aggressively man-handling my chair out of my room at 3am, with the utmost certainty that it was this chair the mouse was using to get onto my worktop. Yes that's right, I have the mouse from hell inhabiting my room. Most mice, you would think, are in search of food. Oh no, not this mouse. This mouse takes casual strolls across my furniture and stares me out whilst perched on my hat stand, fully ignoring the lump of cheese attached to the trap on my floor.

To add to this, Fuse FM has started its 20th broadcast, and once again I am plunged into a world that I both love and hate. This is what I want to do, just not whilst doing a dissertation, working and job hunting at the same time.

God, listen to me. Even I'm boring me. I want to go out. I want to drink so much that it takes me four voicemails just to tell T that I love him. I want to watch Eastenders and Channel 4 documentaries about pregnant women without feeling guilty about it.

On the plus side, T bought me a teapot for Valentines (despite agreeing we're not going to do presents...but anyway). This is quite possibly the most exciting thing to happen to me in the last few weeks. It comes with a cute cup and I have even resorted to hanging milk out of my window in a plastic bag so that I can have teapot-tea when I like. If it wasn't for said teapot and the steady supply of hot tea it brings me, I fear it may have been me hanging out of my window in a plastic bag.

Despite my moaning however, the last couple of weeks have been good on a journalistic level. I have produced two video reports which can be found here, implemented Fuse's 'Hot Topics', and achieved our first ever live bulletin.

I just hope that all this hard work pays off. I have yet to hear back from the BBC, which worries me a little. To be honest I have been somewhat slack on the ol' job applications of late. There are just so many and they are all so epic. BBC North has opened its applications for Media City, the Mecca of the broadcasting world, all you need to do is upload your CV.

Right, should probably get on with writing my CV then.....

Dissytation

I had another of those every-now-and-then dissertation lectures today, which I swear are made not to give you advice and words of encouragement, but to scare the crap out of you.

"By now, you should all have done your literature review, your methodology section, and begun collecting your empirical research..." Oh, really?. I have barely picked up a book. Surely, after years of dealing with the species that is the student-race , these people know that we aren't organised.

I know - I've not done any work, what a surprise. But there is more to me than a simple cliché. I have had so much to do I have barely found time to read the thirty or so books I am supposed to. Well, I could have found time had I sacrificed going out, eating, Christmas and my life in general.

I'm not shifting blame, I know being behind is my own fault as well, but I feel as a student it is my duty to laugh in the face of motivation. In my head I have all these ideas about how I'm going to make an effort this year. There have been several times where I have sat down, books open and pen at the ready with every intention of working, but before I know it I'm watching 'Ukulele Boy' on YouTube.

I went to the Sociology office immediately after the lecture and made the huge mistake of requesting to read dissertations from last year. It was a moment of madness, in which I thought I would gain insight and inspiration. I didn't. It made me want to cry. How on earth, amongst everything else I've got to do, am I supposed to produce 13,000 words of a similar standard to this?

With an oral presentation looming at the end of the month however, I really do have to do something. Especially as Fuse FM begins it's 2oth broadcast in a couple of weeks, and with other modules to work for of course.

Oh god. I may as well buy a month's supply of penguin bars and a kettle and lock the door.

"So.....what are you doing after uni?"

If I get asked this one more time I WILL cry into my penguin bar, the chocolate biscuit which seems to be my comfort food of choice as I struggle through the beginning of 2010. Its probably a nostalgia thing. As I write this I am eating what is my fifth one of the evening. What can't penguins fly? Because they cant afford plane tickets. Brilliant.

And tea of course, the quintessentially British drink that this blog takes it's title from. The quote, from T'ien Yiheng (whoever that is) I feel is fitting - final year is rather an awful din and a nice cup of sugary tea really does seem to be my escape from it.

I decided to write this blog as a way of venting the angst that any final year university student goes through when facing the 'real world'. Unless of course you are a student who is horribly organised and already has a job come graduation, in which case I don't like you, please go away.

Its not that I don't know what I want to do, quite the opposite, I know exactly what I want to do. I am pursuing a career in the media. Yes, thats right, that ever popular industry that the whole world and its mother wants to 'get into', which is precisely my problem.

What path do I take? Do I do an expensive Broadcast Journalism course that seems to be the popular route or do I try and get a job? If so should I aim at local level, or aim high? Do I apply for traineeships or entry level positions? Am I actually good enough to get a job?

I have just submitted my first application (for the BBC - optimism never hurt anyone) and I feel I have made the first step in deciding the rest of my life. Scary huh?

So, as I apply for jobs, hopefully go to some interviews, make difficult decisions over what I want to do, whilst at the same time attempt to complete my degree and act as head of news for my radio station, I will be writing this blog, an account of my transition from tax dodger, to tax payer. Hopefully.