Dear Reader...the submissions are over finally!!! phew!!! I am relieved and now can concentrate on the brand new spring term...yay!!! I cannot tell you how much I have been enjoying the new courses that I decided to take this term.

Both the new courses are actually very interesting. Queering popular culture is an fun topic and, the classes that I have attended so far have certainly been a revelation! I must say that I’ve started ‘thinking outside the box’ in a way that I have never done before. I really like the idea of studying the queer face of music, cinema, fashion, media etc. It is an innovative way of understanding the popular culture that we are very much a part of.

In a similar way Global journalism, the other course that I am taking this term, has an interesting way of looking at the effects that globalization has had on media and journalism. To be honest, I never really imagined the extent to which these two topics were connected and am looking forward to exploring the said links further.

However the best part of the spring term has been...hands down the training that I have been receiving at the Argus. I confess that I miss researching and writing news, but I have to say that the highlight of my week these days is going to the Argus house on Tuesdays and learning quark express (I know I sound completely mental and need to get a Life!!!).

It is amazing!! I never knew the amount of work that went behind the printing of a newspaper everyday!!! In fact subediting is actually some days, even more interesting than news writing! I think that the attention to the smallest detail and the meticulous way each and every column is planned is nothing short of miraculous (I know, I know...I really need to get out more!!). 

Seriously though, for a person like me who has zero decision making ability, being able to make decisions about the layout of my own tabloid page, with complete freedom to choose the stories and pictures is in a sense, liberating. It is like a child getting to behave like a grownup without the hassle of actually being one!!

So, I end this entry on a note of optimism. I am glad I came here and decided to explore the field of journalism. The overall nature of the course for me may be frustrating and difficult but, I still get to learn some really cool things that have made me grow as an individual. 

PS: Reader, I have included these funny caricatures from a really cool website www.cartoonstock.com for your amusement

In which I struggle with a completely new essay writing style..........

Dear Reader, I begin my first post of the New Year by wishing you a happy new year! I hope that you aren’t suffering from the aftereffects of the event or, in my case, aftershocks from my sojourn in London. I have thoroughly wasted my holidays and after all the steely resolve to polish my writing skills, I have done nothing…..absolutely NOTHING!!!!

However, I did stick to my resolution to relax but unfortunately, I took it too far. I don’t mean to say that I didn’t study for my assignments at all. In all fairness, I did doggedly go through the reading material that I lugged all the way to London. However, I cannot honestly comment on the amount of information that my brain has retained!!!!

Now, in the first week of my return, I am in a state of panic. Why, oh, why do I do this always? I NEVER seem to finish my assignments comfortably without any drama. NO, I have to go and really botch my timetable by rushing things.....The result is that now all my notes are tangled up. They are in a royal mess and I can’t make the head from the tail!!

This may seem morbidly funny to you reader, but I am in near hysterics!!! Yes!! I admit it, ‘I am a scatterbrained loony’. I wish I wasn’t but I am!! I assure you that being me is certainly not a cakewalk. But, perhaps I have some sympathisers who are in the same boat as me.

To top it all, I have to write my assignments in a completely new style!!! Yes! Your eyes don’t deceive you I am in a way flying blind. The Indian method of writing essays is different from the method used in the UK. So, I am in a way a novice like those fresh faced first year BA students!!! On that note I am signing off as reality calls and I now have to wade through a pile of work and my own indecipherable notes. Certainly not for the fainthearted, so I leave with the last stanza from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’.  

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.