The unease comes from how bloody easy it is to see what I got up to during my fresher year at university – and anyone who’s been a fresher at Swansea University will know quite well why I’m not so fond of this particular feature of timeline. Cue the mass-deletion of inappropriate and, quite frankly, inane statuses from my past five years on Facebook (has it really been THAT long?) and much tweaking of my privacy settings to make sure my Facebook was well and truly locked-down to the outside world.

I’m probably being a little dramatic – for starters, the content isn’t so embarrassing to anyone but myself, but there’s something quite unnerving about the whole world being able to see how much of a prat you were in years past. Plenty of my friends and acquaintances have done the same, with some even planning to pack up and leave Facebook as soon as the new profile is forced on their accounts.

Yet all of this embarrassing content is information we have given to the multi-million phenomenon completely willingly. All this data was always available for people to see – Timeline has just made Facebook-stalking a bit easier.

Facebook has become such an integral part of our online lives, even with this discomfort, most of us will find it difficult to leave it all behind. The site plays on a certain vanity we’ve developed – like contestants on a reality show, we’d like the world to see what we’re up to, if only to prove how much FUN our lives are.

Now, people can broadcast what they listen to while revising, which newspaper articles they read that day or even geographically pin-point exactly where they are at a certain moment in time. So much for Big Brother watching us – we’re all just watching each other.

Mind how I said I was starting up a new project? Well here it is! Seamless is a sewing blog with a challenge attached – no more new clothing for me until I’ve graduated from Cardiff… what have I got myself into? You can read all about my progress over at http://seamlessblog.wordpress.com!

No prizes for guessing why that would be. Things are well and truly on the way at Cardiff. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of shorthand, newsroom banter and more practical lectures than you could shake a stick at. Today I managed to muddle my way through 70 wpm in shorthand, a feat I thought completely unachievable not so long ago. I’ve spent most of today tweaking my niche blog, which I’ll post here in due course once it gets started. It’s more or less a revamp of Can’t Say Strawberry, albeit regularly updated and more in tune with the sewing community in Cardiff and further afield.

It probably goes without saying, but I am absolutely loving it here at Cardiff so far. We’re beginning to step things up a little now, and I’m sure I won’t be as chirpy when I have to travel into Uni for 7 am production days, but let’s face it, it’s not like I’d rather be anywhere else now is it?

This involved running around the union’s various nights with the then Societies and Services Officer elect Mr. Tom Upton and camera man Gavin Porter, shoving a microphone into people’s faces and asking them what they thought of (insert union night here). The week itself was hilarious. There was the massive height difference between Tom and I, not to mention the banter (pretty sure this interview was the reason SSE thought it would be a class idea to pair us up as co-presenters) the fact I almost lost my voice and sounded a bit like a bloke after a few nights of hollering questions at people as the bass thumped in the background and just the hilarity of Swansea students in the final week of term in general.

Now Swansea Freshers Week is around the corner, the videos are out… and I don’t look like too much of an idiot, though I am mighty disappointed the footage of us asking for people’s favourite chat up lines, best dance moves and best stories from Swansea were mostly cut out. I may not be at Swansea this year, but the videos serve as a nice little memento of the kind of nights I attended during my undergraduate years!

One thing which maybe isn’t said as often but is probably just as important is this: when you screw up, it will come back to haunt you, especially in the digital age, where your work is available at the click of a button and can be dissected and researched in detail. Such is the case with Johann Hari, whose apology for his plagiarism was published in The Independent on Wednesday.

What really brought this whole scandal home for me was Hari’s ‘punishment’ – that is, to take an unpaid sabbatical from The Independent and spend it at a top journalism school with the promise of his old job back in a year’s time. In about two weeks’ time, I’ll be beginning the postgraduate course at Cardiff, putting Hari and I in eerily similar positions. Except, Hari has almost a decade of hands on journalism experience, and we’re not talking unpaid work experience. He’s been on the payroll of a major newspaper for years now, putting him completely at odds with those who’ll be studying with him at the University of Columbia.

While it’s not explicitly stated in his apology, I found it to be implied Hari made his mistakes (and let’s not forget, these weren’t one off mistakes) because he hadn’t undergone the kind of journalistic training I’m about to get at Cardiff. This may come from a person of relative inexperience compared to Hari’s, but how on earth can such a lengthy time working as a journalist not be sufficient to learn the basics? What Hari did was substitute rubbish quotes with something better said elsewhere, as though it were said to him rather than printed years before the interview. Anyone with rudimentary interviewing skills knows this isn’t recommended practice in the slightest, and if anyone else tried it, they’d be out long before they even had the chance to print a long-winded article about how sorry they are.

Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve made several mistakes even in my short time in student journalism and I’m likely to make a couple more along the way, but the key thing about mistakes is you learn from them. Had enterprising bloggers not spotted the similarities in Hari’s quotes to content published elsewhere, then I don’t think Hari ever would have learnt from his mistake and he made it perfectly clear when the scandal blew up he thought it wasn’t exactly that much to make a fuss about. The criticism was then labelled as “attacks” on Hari’s journalism, marking him clearly as a victim rather than the wrongdoer. At least Hari is now actively attempting to learn from his mistakes by heading back to school, in a sense.

Yet there’s a bit more to it than that. The real kick in the teeth, as some have put it, is the fact Hari will have a job at the end of his year of training at Columbia. Cardiff may have an excellent record where graduate employment is concerned, but I’m by no means guaranteed a job by this time next year and neither are the vast majority of my peers. Sure, Hari may be paying out of his own pocket, but what issue is this when he has a job to look forward to in 2012? Many people on the course have taken out Career Development Loans to pay their course fees and accommodation, and paying that back is no picnic when you’re without a job.

There are many journalistic crimes worse than those which Hari has committed, and he’s done well to actually face up to it in a very public manner. Regardless, the result of the entire case is a bitter pill for us wannabes to swallow.

Being patriotic during 2010's Six Nations

You know the rugby’s arrived in the Cresci household. Talk of tactics, prospects and player choices have been en vogue at family mealtimes for a few weeks now. As you would expect, the rugby world cup has been top of the family’s sporting things to look forward to. I’ve been privy to many grumbles about Wales’ group, meaning I haven’t quite been sure whether my family have really been looking forward to the world up, or actually properly dreading it. Either way, there’s no escaping the rugger at Casa Cresci.

Sadly, I’m the clueless one at the dinner table when it comes to rugby. I know nothing about the sport. When I watch it, I wonder when they’re going to start hitting each other. Then I promptly move on to ogling the fitties on the pitch. Then I’ll either leave the room or if I’m in the pub, get another drink.

You see, for me, rugby has come to mean a booze-up with friends, much in the way of banter and singing Sosban Fach with some boys from the Valleys until I lose my voice. I make no secret that my favourite part of any international game is the bit with the Welsh national anthem. Obviously, being in New Zealand, the games aren’t quite corresponding with sociable drinking times as they would do if they were held in the same hemisphere as my local. I feel robbed.

As you would expect, this is not an attitude the rest of my family share, particularly my younger brother. Yesterday, I was up at the crack of dawn despite it being my first Saturday off in a while. Cwtched up in my Swansea Jitsu hoodie and not quite being able to face getting dressed just yet, I ambled downstairs for my morning cuppa. In pops a very peppy Baby Cresci from the living room, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, curiously so for a Saturday morning.

“What are you doing up?” I grumbled, wondering the same of myself. My younger brother is just about to go into his second year of university and usually doesn’t rise before at least 12 noon, standard student practice during the Summer holidays.

“Oh, actually, I haven’t been to sleep!” he chirped. “I’ve been watching the rugby! Two more games to go still! IT’S BEEN GREAT!” That would explain his markedly early appearance in the Cresci kitchen then. Nothing but rugby could induce such early morning enthusiasm from Baby Cresci. Unsurprisingly, he spent the rest of the day sleeping.

This morning, rather than wake up at the crack of dawn, I decided a lie in would be a good shout, and it was… that is until I heard roars of “WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOOING?” boom from downstairs. Begrudgingly shaking off the remnants of sleep, I heard further screams of “NOOOOOO” and “ARE YOU BLIND?!” and much in the way of cursing and swearing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Wales were probably losing. (Mum explained later that much of my brother’s ire was saved for the referee rather than the Welsh team, who actually played rather well against South Africa. Woo Wales!)

Now, I can deal with not understanding the dinnertable rugby banter, and even being robbed of an excuse to crack out Sosban Fach in the pub. But being woken by rugby induced rages? That’s just not on. So, Wales. Bloody start winning already, and refs? Please don’t wind up Baby Cresci, because I swear, that boy makes his displeasure so loudly known, you’ll be able to hear him all the way in New Zealand.

I could hardly mention Sosban Fach without embedding the techno version now could I?

I'm just jealous she's more successful than I am

“I need to make a spoof Twitter account of you,” I was told by a friend in the wee hours of this morning. As he has a love for all things Gossip Girl related, I’ll call him Z. Being as the foundation of our friendship thus far has been insulting each other via every social networking means possible, this statement was pretty tame on his part. After all, it was 1.00 am, and he had just finished telling me I reminded him of a duck; a change from his usual screeches of YOUR BUM IS SO BIG AND YOU HAVE NO HAIR. You’ve probably guessed by now, but explaining Z to people who have yet to encounter him is difficult at the best of times.

Despite his past exploits (including, but not limited to, “gossip blasting” exaggerated events in my private life via his Swansea-themed homage to GG) I brushed off his remark and told him I was off to bed.

“But I’m not done yet!” Perhaps I should have asked exactly what he wasn’t done with, but bed seemed a more appealing option. Typing our goodnights, little did I know Z would be tapping away on Twitter, giggling to himself as he created @GuardianCresci, my far more successful and only marginally more ridiculous alter-ego working at the Guardian as a columnist dedicating herself to “short people struggles”, meaning a required distaste for the tall.

Throughout this morning, my Blackberry pinged and blinked as @GuardianCresci tweeted away, exposing @elenacresci as the spoof account du jour. “Clena Eresci”… – Any relation?” wrote one Cardiff Newspaper graduate on my Facebook wall after @GuardianCresci approached him and others to “start our own paper together! We’d be the #dreamteam“. My Mum found it hilarious, while other friends lamented they hadn’t thought of it first. “You gotta hand it to Z…” Becca, one of the new Siren editors, told me, “@GuardianCresci is hilarious.”

…40 Tweets, 131 Following and 13 Followers later, I think you could say I’ve learnt never to underestimate Z again! Having a spoof account is like walking through a house of mirrors; watching an alternate version of yourself, twisted and magnified almost beyond recognition, but still looking eerily like you. I’ve spent most of my morning giggling at our shared love of Germans, her passion for the plight of the vertically challenged as well as her tips for those wanting to achieve the perfect shade of red hair.

My favourite spoof Tweet so far? Possibly the one about practicing shorthand “until my fingers bleed”, or even the lament to @Frost_J about waking up to an “out-of-date e-mail coupon on red hair dye”.

So does this mean I’ve “made it” now that I have a spoof Twitter account?

It's inadvisable to allow cameras near your person on Chippy Lane

For anyone who’s lived and partied into the wee hours in Cardiff, Caroline Street is a bit of an institution. I may have picked a few favourite late-night kebab haunts in my time in Swansea, but there’s nowhere quite like Caroline Street. Fondly known as Chippy Lane to locals, this lane not two minutes from the station is where you’ll find a fair amount of Cardiff’s nightlife when closing time arrives. It’s not uncommon to be dragged from a club the other side of the city centre just for a polystyrene tray of chips and cheese.

Like many things at 4am on a Sunday morning, Chippy Lane always seems like an excellent idea. Why wouldn’t you walk barefoot down St. Mary’s Street with your inadvisably high heels in hand just to get there? Not to mention, in your state, you probably don’t care that much about food hygiene standards or even about that diet you committed yourself to not three days prior. We’ve all been there. And hey, what doesn’t kill you…

No one looks good on Caroline Street. You may have spent several painstaking hours primping and preening before heading out on the town, but here, the night’s excesses really show as you devour your culinary award for lasting until closing time. There’s a high probability you will end up with curry sauce on your person at some point. I bet you swore against doner kebabs for life after last Friday night as well, yet there you’ll be, dribbling mint sauce while you relish your meat (for lack of a better word) and pitta.

So here’s to you, Chippy Lane. You’re not exactly glamorous, and you haven’t seen Cardiff at its best, but Friday night wouldn’t be quite the same without you.

It’s not all relaxation and fun times before I begin the course in Cardiff in September. Before I arrive at Bute Building in just over a month, I have to be able to write in shorthand at a speed of 40 words per minute (wpm). A daunting task, made no easier by the reminders of past students who didn’t practice regularly during the Summer subsequently failing the shorthand exam in Winter.

Having studied languages, learning the outlines for shorthand almost feels like learning another language, except all the lines and squiggles correspond to letters a lot more familiar than the utterly alien verbs and nouns I struggled with when I began learning German. Friends and family have remarked how much it seems to look like hieroglyphics rather than any abbreviated version of English.

I can’t say I’m pulling my hair out in frustration… yet, but that’s only because I’m still only just mastering the theory. My first foray into dictation exercises left me feeling as though I’d been completely idle the past few months, learning outlines yet barely able to recall them as the dictation marched on. Getting to grip with a short sentence at 40 wpm feels satisfying, but then I remember I need to be able to take notes at 100 wpm in a matter of months.

It’s easy enough to transcribe a shorthand version of simplistic statements about heading to the park or a new job as a business representative. Taking notes in real life would involve more in the way of unfamiliar vocabulary, words you aren’t likely to have diligently practiced the shorthand outlines of.

The very thought of passing the exam in a matter of months seems unthinkable, but then before I moved to Germany, I honestly could never have seen myself being able to converse confidently auf Deutsch. So 100 wpm by Winter? Bring it on.

For the past few months, and especially with this news overload of a summer, Twitter has been the focal point of my news consumption, acting almost as a news aggregator as well as a useful tool to gauge public opinion. When something big happens, my Twitter feed floods as the world tweets about it, with hashtags flying left right and centre. When #piegate went down (that would be when comedian Jonathan May-Bowles, known as Jonnie Marbles, foam-pied Rupert Murdoch) Twitter was the first to hear about it.

This is just one recent example of numerous counts of Twitter ‘getting there first’. In the past three days it’s been proven further as an invaluable tool to citizen and professional journalists alike. A friend of mine now in London (tweeting from the handle @beatingyou) was out in Clapham and Fulham on Monday night taking a few photos and tweeting updates, while Guardian journalist Paul Lewis (@PaulLewis) has been on scene throughout, providing constant updates on the situation via Twitter.

Yet it is in these past few days Twitter has shown a few of its weak points in informing during such a highly-charged situation. Because of Twitter’s very nature as a social networking tool available to all, verifying the content of Tweets can be difficult. An excellent example of which comes from my home town of Cardiff; both Monday evening and this evening, rumours flew of disturbances taking place in Wales’ capital, when this wasn’t the case at all.

Initially unwittingly, I became part of this spread of misinformation. Arriving home from work at about 5 o’clock, I received a phonecall from my worried Mum, who’d heard from a colleague in work that shops on Cardiff’s Queen Street had been warned to expect trouble at about six that evening. I rang work just to give them a heads up, and they mentioned a policeman outside the shop, but they assumed it should be OK. Almost immediately after I hung up the phone, I turned to Twitter, showing how much the social network and I have become joined at the hip of late!

Several Cardiff users were tweeting similar rumours, but with no proof. My Facebook feed too was beginning to show similar messages. Thankfully, I follow some excellent journalists, who pointed users in the direction of local journalists who actually knew what was going on in the centre of Cardiff and other areas. Kudos to Daniel Fisher (@DanFisherJourno), who’s spent most of his evening dispelling rumours of disturbances in various areas of Cardiff.

Twitter’s key strengths contribute to some of its failing points as a news source; it’s quick and very easy to update , especially if you have a smartphone to hand. This has been invaluable for journalists on the ground during the riots, but when you take into account that pretty much anyone can tweet what they like, stick in a hashtag and post away, you see how issues of accuracy can crop up now and again. It’s very easy to get sucked into the rumour mill and before you know it, you’re helping the chinese whispers pass along to the next person and the next person. Twitter makes this so much easier.

Anyway, lesson learnt. Pics or it didn’t happen. Or at least wait until a few verified news sources have tweeted away!