Tag Archive for Cardiff

Busy (like a bee)

October 21, 2011 Blog No comments

Well hello there Blogosphere, it’s been a little while hasn’t it?

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?

Mine’s a chips and cheese

August 28, 2011 Blog 3 comments

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.

Lines and Squiggles

August 12, 2011 Blog No comments

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.

YES!

April 27, 2011 Blog 2 comments

YES!!

This would be the face of someone who just got their acceptance letter to the journalism course they’d been pining after for who knows how long, and if you think that’s bad, you should have seen my mild Twitter freakout when my Blackberry pinged with the acceptance e-mail.

I don't think mild really describes it...

Expectations for the interview had been mounting for so long, I’d cultivated this fantasy of everything running smoothly in the run up. Fat bloody chance. When does anything ever end up perfect? Predictably, my hopes of a non-stressful run up to the interview were dashed with printer drama. Who doesn’t have a printer drama or two to share?

We’ve all made the mistake of leaving something until the night before to print. In this case it was a few Siren articles for my cuttings portfolio. My track record with technology (one laptop, four hard drives, read it and weep) should make me somewhat more cautious, but nope, potential calamity catapulted my way in the form of printer drama. Who doesn’t have a printer drama or two to share? Everyone’s had that stomach wrenching moment when your printer splutters like the spoilt brat it is, gobbling up paper before spitting it back out at you, that is, if it doesn’t get jammed first in its haste to utterly ruin whatever it is you’re trying to print.

I’ve come to think of printers as the stroppiest of children who are prone to having tantrums in the middle of supermarkets. Sometimes, they just will not cooperate. No amount of coaxing got mine to behave. Forget Skynet, printers are going to destroy humanity somehow, I can feel it in my bones. Lucky for me, I have good friends who are willing to lend their less temperamental printers (they exist?!) to a desperate cause. Crisis averted. Thank you Ed!

Thankfully, that was about the worst it got in terms of calamities. I managed to finish the skirt I’d made especially just in the nick of time, and the most that went wrong on the actual day was my somehow getting a 20p stuck to my foot before putting my tights on. I didn’t notice it until I was actually in Cardiff, meaning it was, er, stuck to my foot all day. For luck?

The interview day itself was intense, consisting of some written tests, including a current affairs test where I most definitely said Bohemian Rhapsody topped a poll of best rock anthems to head-bang to (the answer was actually top song rated by the armed forces – I vaguely remembered seeing the article, but couldn’t remember what it was about, and polls in head-banging are definitely commonplace, right?). I’m sure I made some gaffes in my interview as well, including admitting to staying in Wales to study because I had a boyfriend in Cardiff at the time. Where on earth did that come from?

It’s little things like this which allows post-interview pessimism to really get you down. The fact is, I haven’t got such a great track record when it comes to interviews; the last major interview I had to face was when I applied to Oxford. In the course of three days at Jesus College in December 2006, I discovered three things:

1) I certainly was not as clever as I thought I was.
2) Getting in to Oxford was a matter of life or death for some people.
3) Oxford really wasn’t the place for me.

I think it speaks volumes when I say none of the people I made friends with during the interview got in. Needless to say, I just didn’t want it enough.

Cardiff on the other hand? A different story. Making the prospect of rejection slightly more terrifying. On top of this, Cardiff School of Journalism has been called ‘the Oxbridge of Journalism’; an ominous comparison for an Oxbridge reject.

So getting that acceptance email and letter… I haven’t stopped smiling. Pretty much been grinning from ear to ear, loving life and getting inappropriately excited about the prospect of shorthand (I’m sure this will change). So, Cardiff! Are you ready? Cause I bloody well am. Roll on September.

Cute as a button

January 10, 2010 Blog No comments

st_davids_1

When I went home for Christmas, Cardiff was a completely different city to the one I remembered. When I left, the Hayes was dirt, scaffolding and JCBs – now it’s boasting the biggest John Lewis outside of London as well as the mahoooosive shopping centre, St David’s 2. It’s crazy to see my city changing in this way, and the word on the street is that Swansea is to get similar treatment. It’s pretty impressive though; Cardiff is clearly on the up with a shopping centre that rivals that of bigger English cities. Personally, I was really excited to see John Lewis because of its fabric section – in fact I ran straight for it and haven’t really been in the rest of it yet… I have a feeling the fabric ladies will get to know me veeeery well when I’m back in Wales!

Read more