Strengthen Your Strengths, Weaken Your Weaknesses

This is what happened when I went home for a weekend and was the only photo I had of remote relation to this post..

The apology for lack of blogging never gets tiring, oh no wait, it does. However, once again life has come at me full pelt and blogging has been forced aside to make way. Last Monday I started my journalism course and with only 15 weeks to become a fully fledged journalist and an absolute tank at shorthand it has been an intense week and a half. But I bloody loves it! For months now I have been itching to get stuck in and being unemployed and out of education is the worst so I am absolutely loving having hardly a moment to spare. 

Lectures are far more interactive and practical than university which is fantastic and so far we have covered lessons on Shorthand, Public Affairs, Media Law and Reporting. Not only that, but I now have my own patch of Brighton, Whitehawk and Woodingdean, to report on; I am pretty much living, breathing and dreaming journalism. No really, I am. After 7 hours of media law yesterday I dreamt about getting the word 'court' tattooed on my neck. Thankfully, I can report that my neck is tattoo free and like that it shall stay. 

Today was particularly interesting as a former editor of The Daily Express took our lessons and the tales that he enthralled us with were just fascinating. I don't think that there was a single student in the room who wasn't utterly gripped by his real life accounts of the world of journalism. I look forward to meeting him again in week six and the many tales that I am certain he still has to tell. 

So far, the course has not helped me to make up my mind as to whether I'd like to become a columnist, feature writer or a reporter. In fact, it has done the complete opposite and made me want to pursue each of these fields in more detail. What I have been left with is a feeling of being utterly inspired and that the hope of becoming a writer is a tangible dream.    

So until I get there, I plan to abide by a little gem of wisdom that Roxanne, champion of shorthand many-a-times has said; strengthen your strengths and weaken your weaknesses.