Afghan is looming!

Today, was the start of the days that I was dreading to come around.
I had to intend a briefing on Liam's Afghan tour! It was quite honestly the most miserable meeting ever! The briefing discussed our welfare and obviously our loved ones welfare whilst they are on tour.

The officers in charge tried to make it sound as though they were going to a holiday camp because there are PS2's and DVD players on camp, whilst not trying to make address the fact that Liam will be in a war zone.

To be honest I am dreading when he leaves me in 6 weeks! I keep thinking to myself it is only 4 months then he will be home on R&R, but 4 months without seeing him will be hell! The day I have to pick him up when he has completely finished tour after 6 months will be the happiest day ever for me! Because I know then my life and his life is not on hold any more. You are probably reading this and thinking your life isn't on hold Emma, you have university to keep you going, and Bullet to think about etc, but, yes it will be on hold because until I know Liam is home safe I am going to worry like hell and I won't feel right without him next to me by my side.
When we are together we are inseparable we are like two peas in a pod, and unless you are in that kind of relationship yourself, you would not understand.

I know that I will be able to cope fine, it's not like Liam hasn't been away before he has been to California for 2 months, Afghan for 7 weeks, and lots of exercises, so I know I can do it! It will just be adjusting myself to the fact that he won't be around every other weekend or he won't be on the end of the phone when I need to talk to him because uni is stressing me out or I just want someone to cheer me up!

But hey ho! I'm just so grateful I will have my friends and my family!

Rant over!

Work Experience at The City of Lincoln Council

So, last week I had work experience at Lincoln City Council Press office, and overall I loved it! I had the opportunity to write so many articles, which was great, as it means more content for my portfolio. I got to release press releases on to the Internet, answered the telephone to journalists, did a little bit of work for their Lincoln magazine, Your Lincoln, that gets delivered to many of the houses in Lincoln, and so much more.

I also went to a press conference, which was something I didn't expect.

I imagined it would be like what you see on the news, all the journalists sat on chairs asking questions and for the photographers to be snapping away, this was far from the case. It was so civilised and more like a little rendez-vous then anything else. I felt a little bit like a rabbit in headlines whilst I was there, as I wasn't sure what I was meant to be doing, so instead I just sat and watched the journalists fight over who was more credible and who would be the first to be interview.

If anything, this past week, has made me more interested in the press office side a lot more, and who knows what lies in the future for my journalistic career.

University Year 2 complete...

I have finally finished my second year at uni and my word it has flown by, it only feels like yesterday I was a fresher.

I can't wait to start third year already. I'm so excited. I have so much to look forward to. Being Deputy Editor of Bullet, tackling my dissertation and so much more!

But for now, I intend to enjoy my summer. I have gained work experience at Lincoln County Press Office, Hull Daily Mail and hopefully, fingers crossed Lincolnshire Echo.

Plus I have my 21st birthday to look forward. My dad and step mum have organised a huge party so that should be great, I can not actually wait.

I am also hoping to find full time work over the summer to earn some dollar to get out of my rather frightening overdraft haha

Anyways,

Choi for now as I need to go and job hunt with Megs

Em :)

Military Relationships...

I have been with my boyfriend Liam, for a year and a half now, and it has been great, but has not come without its difficulties.

I have had to deal with scheduled and organised weekends, last minute changes to plans, not being able to see him on those lonely bored nights and most of all his month long trips away.

All of that, has been fine I can handle all of that. I, myself, like time to myself and don't feel the incessant need to be with someone constantly.

However, I have just been told he will be serving in Afghanistan for a tour of duty come September for six whole months. I seriously can not imagine not seeing Liam for four months and only having the occasional phone calls, its going to be tough, granted.
Yet, somehow, I feel that this could be a big, huge step for us that could turn into something positive. It will make me appreciate the time I do spend with him, rather than having stupid little spats at each other because one of us won't help each other cook tea or the rows we have for leaving wet towels on the bed. It sounds ridiculous, I know!

I intend to throw myself into my uni work, and now I have been giving the job role of DEPUTY EDITOR of Bullet Magazine, I feel my spare time will be taken up by this. I actually cannot wait. I hope that because I will be so busy with my uni work, my 10,000 word dissertation, my deputy editor role and fingers crossed a part time job, that the 4 months until Liam does come home for R&R will fly by.

I am hoping to turn my experience of this into an ongoing feature piece/diary entry into Bullet Magazine or at least on my blog so that I can look back on this as a sort of time capsule. Try and make something positive out of a bad situation.

Plus, Liam has promised me that we will be moving in together once he has come back and ive finished at uni, and I actually can't wait, I'm already looking for pink utensils to fit in with my PINK kitchen hahaha!

Friend or Faux?

After having a bit of a rough time at university this semester somethings positive have been achieved out of all this.

I have finally realised, after one and a half years, who my real friends are at university. I have come to the decision in my life that although my real friends can be counted on just one hand...I don't care.

So what if I dont have tons and tons of friends it does not mean I am less sociable then the next person.

Some of my friends at uni constantly ram down others throats about how popular they are and how they have all these so called mates, but to be honust can they really say they are friends, do they know each other inside and out and have a real honust friendship or is it a mutal fake friendship that they possess to look popular? I think the latter.

University can be fake and towards the beginning everybody wants to be your friend but as part of the growing up process of university life you realise who your real friends are, and for those who have not realised, well they obviously still have a long way to go in the maturity stakes.

The University's Art Building closure

The University is planning to close one of the main Art Departments at Lincoln University after threats of financial stresses.

The closure of the Greestone Centre, one of the buildings off the main campus, could be as near as September whereas the new Art building will not be opening until 2012 which has left some students questioning where they will be studying..
One student, Paul Stewart a second year fine art student believes the closure is “just a con on the fact that the estates are trying to cut a budget.”

The University is under the impression that the Art studio at the Greestone Centre is barely used by the students, yet Stewart completely disagrees, he says “As an art student we use the space as and when needed, we use blank space for creative ideas, not all our work is based in the studio. We do work outside of the University building just like everyone else, studio space is just one part of the course.”

The caretaker and auditors of the grounds have been assessing the amount of students who are using the centre and keep a track daily on numbers. Paul feels they university have a contradictory attitude as, “they count the people [in the studio] not the amount of art there itself.” He feels that the university should be looking at the wider spectrum being the amount of art in the centre and this should be a reflection of the amount of work the students do do in the studio itself, not just a simple case of numbers.

It has also come to light that not long ago, the cafeteria at The Greestone cente was shut down and the art students came back to University with nowhere to eat or drink. The students had to protest for the café to be re-opened. Stewart says, “[The University] expected the art students to not have any eating facilities. Yet the main campus has over 3 café’s, so the closure of our café was unjustifiable.

Many art students have been asking questions as to why the university are considering the closure of the centre, saying it is due to funding, yet there is new buildings being built around the main campus.

Director of Estates and Commercial Facilities, John Plumridge comments on the fact that the University is growing, “The University remains ambitious and still needs to grow its estate.

The capital programme sets out the finances underpinning a number of major building projects and is fully aligned to the University’s latest thinking in terms of its estates strategy.”Plumridge says “the construction on the Brayford Campus of an Artbox building (planned for 2012) to house the School of Art and Design [will] see staff moving out of Thomas Parker House and Greestone to the main campus, and will provide access to much better facilities for staff and students while saving the University money in the long term. These projects are all to support the academic developments set out by the University.”

My article written for the Linc about Drunken Pranks

A drunken prank went too far last month when two students wearing disguises broke into a flat at the Junxion, terrifying the residents. The student flat was terrorised in the early hours of the morning by intruders wearing horse-face masks entering one of the bedrooms.

Julie Knapp, a second-year psychology student who lives in the flat, says: “I was very frightened that someone was capable of getting into our flat. It is believed they did so by taking the keys from one of the residents’ bags. I am very disappointed that students who are meant to be mature and grown up would find it amusing to intrude [on] a person’s flat to play pranks on them at 4am in the morning.”
She also explains how the prank, which left her very shaken up, reached a whole new level when the mask-wielding intruders got into her flatmate’s bedroom, awakening her. Julie explains that her flat mate “woke up terrified”, and when she got up to confront the people involved they ran out only to return again once she had got back into bed, shouting “I’m back!”

When the flat’s residents complained about the intrusion to the Junxion’s staff, they quickly reacted by changing the flat’s locks, and were apologetic about the incident. Knapp says: “I am very happy about the locks being changed. Within five minutes of the complaint we had a knock at the door with maintenance wanting to change our locks.” She also says that she would have no issues with approaching the Junxion office again as they were “very helpful with the situation and very sorry that it had happened.”

Ross Cummings, a fine art student from the same flat, says: “This was disgraceful behaviour and was a very difficult experience for the whole of the flat [who] felt it was necessary to have the locks changed to keep our minds at rest.”

Knapp also told The Linc how she discovered the identity of one of the intruders after he bragged about his involvement to her at a party. She says: “He was very apologetic when we said to him that he had frightened us and said he felt as though maybe him and his fellow flatmate had gone too far with the prank.”

Daniel Gahnstrom, one of the intruders, admits he loves to play drunken pranks. He says: “[Pranks are] so much more fun when you’ve had a few. You don’t care about the consequences, or who you upset and make cry, because you’re drunk and it’s good fun.” However, he believes that pranks shouldn’t be violent, “just funny so you upset someone in a non-physical way.” He also claims he plays drunken pranks regularly, admitting to knocking over bikes on the street and smashing plant pots. “We once put a fish through somebody’s letter box. It was funny. We once climbed on someone’s roof and then fell off pulling the guttering down with us,” says Gahnstrom.