Graduate at last!!!

Being brave is not always easy. Having to take care of yourself after graduating in a foreign country is the most frightening experience I have ever been through. When you graduate your life is supposed to be in front of you. The worlds your oyster as they say. But there’s no mention of the difficulty of finding a job. It is no secret that being a student is seriously straining your bank accounts as well as your health. The stress of having to support yourself with a tiny amount of money each year is terrifyingly difficult and I must say that I am very amazed that the millions of talented students, who study in London, actually manage to do this. It is the pure talent and strength of these students that gets them through to graduation day, however it is my opinion that students are let down by the system. There are no jobs for them, banks will not help them and they are left to take on job seekers allowance till they get a job. Agencies are supposedly working hard for the students. However many students are being let down by agencies as well. Thousands are without a job. Thousands of young students who worked so very hard are not given the chance to gain the experience the employers want. When applying fro jobs where the headline is 'GRADUATE' and '...WITH FULL TRAINING...' you expect that these terms will apply to you as a graduate. However, having applied for many a job with those headings the reply from the employers was '...sorry...you have not got enough experience...'

The beginning of getting a career is so very difficult and the beginning of your dream life is nearly impossible.

I wonder how this is possible. When are we given a break? When are we given a chance to prove the skills and ambition we have?? When are we given the chance to make a difference?

When are we given a job??

Finishing the last bits of our project!

By working closely together, Papiya and I have managed to finish this today (Thursday). We have both a lot to do regarding our other Uni work, but together we have done a great finishing touch. I have learned a lot from her as she struggled in the beginning understanding the site set up, but whilst talking and emailing and facebook'ing...yes we are using all available tools here... we have done a great job! I am proud of us all. I am a worrier and a warrior and like the challenge. Maybe the worry gave me strength to pin point the weakness and strengths if each individual in the group. It is good and fun to play this game of getting a project done on time. Urvi is good to discuss things with, Raquel is doing a great and thorough job and research, Papiya is our computer wizz and Jess...well I am glad she got well enough to come back in the group just in time to hand in her written work and help us finish this wiki wiki. And me?? Well think this is the first Blog entry where I am positive and very very relieved.

Working in a group with people I have not worked with before I have learned a lot about myself over the past nine weeks. The essential skill of working successfully in a group to get a project done has been an interesting learning process for me as I have mostly been quite happy working on my own. However these past weeks has developed me and my skills Becoming aware about the excessive importance about the use as well as misuse of the Internet has opened up my mind as to how I am using the web in the future. Over the past weeks I have been working with people who has turned out to be, maybe not fantastic communicators at all times, but yet able to get this project on the road and finished in time. Their contribution to the group as a whole has given many interesting inputs, when we, discussing and sometimes arguing our topic and ended up with many, and often too many constructive ideas for our wiki page. We are working hard on finishing the last small bits and bobs. However we have all experienced stress and worries with getting together at times when other assignments had to be handed in. Whoever says that women are good at multitasking are not telling the truth. However all in all I believe that our group have worked well together. Specially I think that Papiya have been fab at setting up the page. With out her skills we would be lost. I sincerely hope that by tomorrow we will have everything together in time for the hand in. Last day of stress, multitasking and making people do their work....c'mon girls!!! Let's finish this!!! We are doing so well now! : )

Roller coaster and giggles!

Being a cynical young woman I am easily misunderstood. On my last blog entry I was not referring to the course itself, but the stressful and confusing state of being a student in her last year of studying. Managing a team of talented young women to achieve something which has a deadline as well as requires communication between the group members at all times, is hard work, but yet very rewarding when we have done well in the end of it all. Roller coaster is the metaphor of my own unfortunate situations which disabled me to attend two classes as well as managing my time to write my dissertation etc. Having to manage a group whilst being ill was hard work. However we have nearly finished our work and I am really pleased with the end result. Last week I was very confused as we were told to sign Jess out of the group as she had only attended once and therefore not been in the process of doing the group work. I understand she has been working on a piece for the site, but as she has not been in touch with the group I am insecure of what she can give. We have been working hard, and changed things each week as we discussed the topic, added things as well as scrapped other. Now i am told that Jess is in the group anyway. I really hope that her contribution to our site will add positively to the end result and not downgrading our group work. Referring to a roller coaster as a part of this experience is summing up the positive as well as negative that has happened over the past weeks. Nothing to do with the teaching... so don't worry NOGBAD, I still have the giggly feeling in my stomach when getting out of the roller coaster. Just happy that I am closer to be able to concentrate entirely on my dissertation.

Last blog entry...I am looking back this whole experience and think we all in all have done quite well. However I have seen myself as a 'troop' leader directing the team to complete their tasks, and that sole responsibility can be quite tiring. In the end we have a result which I am all in all quite happy with. Starting off not knowing anything about creating websites, I have learned a lot about the whole process of working as a team to finish a project and that is valuable. I know from previous jobs that I naturally slide into this role of team leader as this is something I am good at...and do you know what?? I am really proud of the girls even though it has been a rough ride. Things happen when you back off and let them do their bit, because even though some might not believe it themselves...they are actually really clever at what they do. However, I feel frustrated and sad that one group member has to be written out of our team as the person has not been in more than once. However this is how it works and we have done okay. These past weeks have been interesting. Panic, frustration, anger, puzzlement, happiness, relief, fun etc. has been everyday experiences. Like going on a roller coaster and feeling the relief when it all stops and you can get out.

Last week on the wiki project!!

My goodness me what a ride!!! Finally I have finished my writing for the wiki page. Not that it was much writing as such, but the research was on something that was on a subject very new to me. But now we can concentrate on setting up the site and that is a relieve. All in all I think we have done great in the group. Unfortunately Jess have been absent most of the time so I am not sure exactly where she belongs in this project. However if she turns up tomorrow with a page of research useful for us and the site I am alright putting it up. It has been an interesting journey doing this course. And thinking back all in all glad to be able to work with people I have not worked with before as we will all go separate ways in a few weeks time. Always good to gain more friends on the last breath of a degree. Funny how three years of your life can go so quick, and still not being able to speak to everyone in the classroom. Watching the youtube film much truthful is said about contemporary student life. The Internet has become a frightening important part of our life. Most of communication is done online, skype, facebook, myspace, email etc. is so important for us in the west that we are cut of from the world if we have not got access to a computer. News covering is done online and we don't realize how widely we are influenced by the use of the Internet. Sitting in my room with my computer I am thinking about what I would do without the Internet. I remember my childhood full of adventures and explorations in the real world. Walking in the woods using my imagination to play trolls and witches under the young trees. Pleasures we in our contemporary society easily forget when surfing the net and talking with our friends via Facebook. This creates the question weather the internet is such a good idea for us humans. Well...as long as we have our imagination intact I guess it is good. Just feel my backside grow bigger and bigger by each minute I am sitting by my desk surfing the internet. Better finish this blog entry for today and continue researching for my dissertation : )

C'mon you guys!! Lets do this!! Together!

I wish I had time to enjoy this course as it is very interesting and useful for the future. However I can't enjoy this entirely as I am concentrating on researching and writing my dissertation. This is so much more important for me than this (unfortunately as I find this course interesting) as I want to provide the tutors with a proper piece of work. However as we are at University full time as well as working on the dissertation I feel the stress. I have just recovered from two weeks of flu which knowing my self has been caused by the stress I am now trying to fight off. I realise I can only do my best in producing work of a certain standard required by the department, and I am finding myself only to discuss and focus on...the dissertation!!! We in the group have discussed and shared out the work out well, however we have unfortunately (caused by personal problems or injuring themselves) not all been in class on the Mondays. I, myself wished things were different as the pressure is not only going out on the coursework, but also induces personal concern. I hope I am exaggerating and that there are not any reason for concern, but I would love for the other group members to be in contact with the group if they know they are not going to be in class. I hope we will produce a good website all of us, when we are all able to work together as a GROUP. It would take the pressure off the rest of the groups shoulders and make this project move forward towards success.

Google, 192 and me

Finding myself on the web has proved to be an easy task. Being blessed with rebel parents who happily bought the hyfon that is in between my two surnames I am easily found on the web. I managed to get four hits with my own name and and internet history and all of them I am able to stand by. I also managed to find jobs I applied for or jobs I had in the past. Poems I posted online many years ago which shows the world about my broken heart and me being madly in love, but not happy. I wonder if my whole history is as easily accesible for higher authorities as it seems that no activities ever done online gets erased. Looking more closely the hits I get when removing some of my surname and am left with the most common surname in Denmark it is not only people who has similar name but also similar proffesion's and interests as myself. Maybe this proves that names can rule your interests in life. This whole venture is interesting.

Unfortunate as I am I had an accident on Sunday which disabled me to attend class on Monday. I bashed in to an iron wall and cracked my head open and spent the whole day in the A&E. I tried to go into University and managed to go up to the media office to speak to Lynda as I realised I was too ill to attend class. I sent a message to everyone in my group to let them know about me. They reassured me that everything was under control. So I went home to rest.
I am bit insecure about how I shall write a reflection on the class when I am unable to attend. However I will keep writing and hope for the best. I will catch up when I come back on Monday.
Till then I will stay in bed resting my sore head.

Kleenex and homemade chicken soup!

This week I was ill. One of these stupid things that happens when you are busyist doing other things and really have not got time for lying in bed. However I wrote to my group (Raquel) to make sure we agreed what to do this week and in between my chicken soup and kleenex I managed to send through the research I have done on our case study 'Second Life'. Contact has become better in the group and I was pleased to get updated about the work by text and through emails and facebook all through the next couple of days. Nice to feel you are a part of it all even though you are nailed to the bed under three duvets and a laptop. I am getting confident about the project and am not stressing as much as I did. Being ill took care of that. When your body tells you to slow down you better slow down otherwise I know from bitter eperience that you are in serious danger of burning out. Thank God for homemade chicken soup I managed to fight it off and start again. Spring is here and I am ready to roll!!!

How very interesting....and difficult indeed!

Mondays are always daunting, however the course is taking radical steps towards a real challenge. We had to learn a new language...the language of html! Not easy but we did it all of us even though there were no blackboard for the tutor to write on. We were all very proud of ourselves and walked away with a new interest in mind for future reference...

We are all stressed at the moment with dissertations and groupwork constantly reminding us that none of us have time to have a short break to breath and think things through. We are on a roll and talked in the group about what we should do. We arranged a meeting on the wednesday, but as we were not all there we arranged to continue the brainstorm and meet up on the thursday...still not all there...so, the ones who were there talked and decided on a topic. We also shared out the jobs, research and research and now we will all (hopefully) be there on Monday to get started on the project.

The topic will be 'second life' and online identity. We found out who would do the editing and that we all in the beginning to get familiar with the topic did some research for monday.

Think we on monday have to be sure of availability and communication. This week has been a bit confusing and stressful, but I believe we have learned from it and can move on from there.

It should be interesting and will work well if we all work together as a team. Go Girls!!! We can do this!

http://www.met.police.uk/

Looking at the layout this web site is really useful if you need information of a particular subject that regard the Police department in your local area. When I was mugged a few months ago I needed some information of recovery and future help from the police. The centralisation of the text as well as the most relevant topics displayed on the front page it makes it very easily accessible. The fact that the site is not clotted and have been kept simple is reasuring for someone in distress. It is easy and very good for the general public who have questions about less serious things in their dayly lives.
An example of a bad web site is the hackney gazette website. http://www.hackneygazete.co.uk/ is ugly and unappealing. As a customer I want to be inspired to view the site again and again to see what is going on in my local community, but the layout just does not do it for me. To me the site is a confusing mix of news and adverts set up in a way that you can not be sure of what is what. To me I would like to have a simpler and straight forward style to the web site. Maybe with a clear divition of important news and adverts. I would like to enlarge the design to fill out th whole screen to make more room for relevant local news decorated witht the neccessarry ads away from articles.

In this weeks class the group was introduced to online identity. I think we all were a bit apprehensive as to what extend this meant that nothing we have ever done so far online is, or have been private. It is frightening to learn that people who use the internet daily is not aware of the lack of privacy they have when using the internet. Logging onto a web page of own interest is recorded to others benefit to send adverts to your email account as spam and even if we are not extremely careful identity fraud. Personally I have had a Myspace account as well as a Facebook account, but after I began this course I have deleted my Myspace account as I got frightened that other people would use my writings and personal information. However, as explained in the course even that does not equal that external users/hackers misuse the information I put on the site in the first place. So what is private?? Have we lost our privacy by the evolvement of the technological revolution? Can we trust anyone we meet online? Well the truth is that we can’t and as we are still learning about the internet and how to protect ourselves working online is a rocky road with lots of things to be aware of. This World Wide Web which I thought was so familiar is now a completely new world for me. A world I am keen to explore and get to know. Bring it on!!

Reflecting on my previous blog posting I realised that my ambitions will have to be put down in a box locked with a huge padlock and hidden away till I have finished my degree in June. I like online journalsm and really want to be a part of that world...sometime. I understand that I now have to consentrate on mondays lecture whilst writing these lines. My future is the next eight weeks. So...reflection...is a thought that continues working in your mind reminding you about what you have learned throughout your day/week or year. Reflection can be a dream that wakes you up at night, a worry that have been enlarged and lures in your mind till you sort your them out. Reflection is you and what you have learned througout life, the stones that build you. The story you tell your grandchildren and the thoughts that follows. Reflection is your history and what you tell back to yourself and your surroundings. Relfection is how you see the world, from an outsiders point of view. History re-told. Reflection is why I am writing this and where my thoughts are coming from. Reflection is reflecting on life it self and sharing this with others.

I have always been a keen writer. However as I do not enjoy writing essays I have longed for something more creative. Finally after nearly three years at University I get the chance to do an intensive course on on-line journalism and blogging. Learning about contemporary new media has become an interest for me, developed over the last few years. As new media and online journalism has become a more obvious way of getting news across the wide borders of the world we have been bombarded with instant news, of what ( unfortunately) is most often published, horrors of the world around us. This I want to be a part of and I am therefore very glad to be a part of this course. I am hoping to get the tools to understand about the many ways we can use new media and in this case blogging. I am looking forward to proceed on this journey learning about how to influence the media today.