Rearranging the Blog

I am currently completely rearranging the blog, so please don’t judge how messy and all over the place my pages are right now. It will be fixed!

I Am Back!

Sometimes things happen in life which mess everything up, and unfortunately the last few months have been one of those times, and probably the worst time I have ever experienced.

Hence the poor post updating, the lack of doing anything productive, and well, just generally doing nothing.

For those who know me personally, you would be aware that I have become a stressed out, psycho, crazy freak who blabbers random stuff as she walks along and wears her old Spongebob with googly eyes jumper to uni which is completely different from my normal choice of clothing.

But I am back! To get me started, here are a few things that I will be working on:

-First of all, I am currently doing terrible at uni. I have dropped one course this semester so only have three to focus on, so before anything else, passing is my key goal. For Journalism Techniques, our final assignment will be to make a professional journalism blog so maybe I can just submit this one I have already which will give me the trouble of one less assignment.

- I really want to, and need to, start writing more for Our World Today.

- What I found kind of cool is that if I go to the ‘search terms’ people have searched to find my blog, there are many along the lines of ‘Annie from fresh,’ ‘Annie fresh fm,’ ‘Annie from fresh 92.7′ so I am going to try, somehow, to get back on-air. I am also currently writing their Community Service Announcements, so need to keep going with that.

- I have been assigned to make specialty sport school reports for www.whowon.net.au which I should get onto asap.

- During the holidays, me and my friend Max who is a producer will be working on making a documentary.

- I want to start looking for a place to do an internship next year. I really want to do it at a kids television show, probably interstate but I shall see how I go.

And I think that is a good list to get me started!

More Stuff

And I can’t believe it but uni is back!

To top off the list from the previous post, there are a few more things I managed to squeeze in before March.

I did another promotional DVD, and gosh I love doing these. This one was for the event ‘Get the Drift.’ It in itself is a very boring event and acts as a day off excuse for school students, but presenting at it was great. One of the special guests was the Young South Australian of the year, Khadija Gbla. She is actually one of the most amazing people I have ever met, and though she’s not really that famous, she’s a celebrity in my eyes. And I got a picture with her! I also think I am getting a lot better at interviewing to camera.

For Fresh, I did a pretty cool interview with Brooke Clark from the ARMY of Autism Awareness Angels. They are a great, and interesting organisation worth having a look into. I also wrote an accompanying for Our World Today which can be read here.

Another interview I enjoyed was with Lauren and Rachel about the Oaktree Foundation where they had some very interesting things to say about poverty and human issues in general.

And unfortanetly due to timetable clashes, I had to do my last Thursday Morning Fresh. To my surprise, I had a good amount of people notice me mention that ‘it was my last show’ and either text or call saying they will miss me. One caller was a man who met and had a photo with me at The Royal Adelaide Show. He told me he had stopped listening to Fresh lately and was glad to hear me on. Through out my Morning Fresh, I have had a dedicated caller ring basically every single week and he called me up and gave me a big speech on what a great journey it has been! He said he’s going to join Fresh as a volunteer, and thought it’d be cool if he ever got to work with me!

I did some reporting for OWT at a ‘Football United’ event. The video is still being made, and I wasn’t in front of the camera but instead behind it asking questions. Another random article I wrote, this one is about Pete Wentz, can be found here.

I did some interviewing at the Fringe as well for OWT’s ‘Fringe TV.’ I spoke to Peter Combe, Smart Casual, and Morgan and West: Time Travelling Magicians. Next week I will hopefully have a handful more but those are still in the process of being organized.

During this time period, I also sat in as a news assistant once on Fresh. Writing news for radio is actually really difficult, but I do really want to become one of their newsreaders. This will take a while and I need to get a permanent assistant spot first.

I don’t really think this is that exciting, but I recently made a Linkedin profile which can be found here. I have to make it more descriptive, but at least it is there!

And also got myself a new job working in administration at one of the gyms I teach step at, and I actually really like it.

Back at uni, I know of three people in my year who have got paying journalism jobs which makes a very jealous Annie. If other people are doing well, I find it so hard to focus on just myself rather than thinking about what they are up to.

Overall, all the courses for this semester seem very easy and it is a very big relief not having news quizes anymore. I’d say a very good start to the study period!

A Month That Was

One big thing that I learnt this month is that it is so much more fun having a boyfriend than actually doing anything productive. So the challenge here was battling with a mini me “devil” on one shoulder and a mini me “angel” on the other, but looking back on January, I did more than I thought I did.

Channel 44 gave me an opportunity to do TV presenting and interviewing at the launch of the Tour Down Under for a promotional Prospect DVD titled “Tourrific Prospect.”

I didn’t get to do that much considering the majority of the time the event was on I had to be at work, but still had a few decent minutes of air time. I also did the outro which I thought was pretty cool. I originally did the intro as well, but once played back they realized there is a very annoying loud man with a microphone in the background so instead they put the mayor’s speech in the beginning.

I hosted another episode of “The Noticeboard.” Every time I do something on camera, I try to never repeat what I wear. And it still has to look good so… my dilemma right now is that… I am running out of TV clothes! Overall though, I think the show went pretty well. This was my fifth time doing it and I cannot wait to receive DVD copies of all the ones I have done.

I did presenting for another promotional DVD, but this one was about the Chinese New Year celebrations in the Central Markets. I interviewed the President of Chinatown along with random people. Questions were very simple, just got them to explain symbols such as the colour red and the dragon, their favourite part of the celebrations, what they were most excited to see on the day, and what they were hoping to achieve in 2012.

For “The Noticeboard,” one of the interviews was about Australia Day in the City for which the Event Marketing Manager came in. While he was there, I asked if I could get media passes to the event and he very kindly said yes. So I did something very similar yet completely different from last year and made a video about the event. Last time around it was a news report for “Inside Adelaide” but this time it was a fun two minute clip for Our World Today. I was making the pieces to camera up on the spot, and unintentionally even quoted similar phrases that I had used in the news report. With the help of lovely Susan Sohar who shot and edited, here is the final product:

 To see the article to go along with the video, jump on here.

On as side note, as a reminder, I had made myself a goal to get 50 articles published this year. I am moving very slowly, but I am on my way.

This one is about riding trams without pants.

And this is about the Wikipedia shutdown for 24 hours.

I also wrote an article for Uni Life, but that hasn’t been published yet.

In breaking news, I have now started doing promotional work! This really has to do with nothing, but I guess it is still related to the media/communications field.

I represented www.wiggle.com.au at the Tour Down Under, which mostly consisted of walking around looking fancy. I was then a Vodafone girl at the cricket test where I gave away free stuff, played games with kids, and made lots of slushies.

I have been pretty slack with Fresh I have to say, and unfortunately when university resumes, I will have to give away my Thursday Morning time slot because it will clash with my classes. My goal is to get a breakfast or drive home show.

I think this was pretty cool though, I did a little voice over for a “Mix @ 6” by T-Star. Below, I cut a couple of the places where my voice was and put it together.

I will be doing a fair bit of work when the Fringe Festival starts doing “Fringe TV” for OWT and being a Fringe Reporter for Fresh.

And I am pretty sure I have covered everything.

Bring on 2012!

2011 had truly been a year to remember, so many good things have happened! I finished my first year of university, met so many new amazing people, got my hands into journalism, finally got a job as a fitness instructor, started Fresh, began clubbing, and that is just to name a few.

Though I am very happy with everything in my life right now, there is no reason why 2012 should not be even better. Besides life resolutions such as going to the gym more, since this is a ‘professional’ blog, I have made a list of things I want to do this year in terms of journalism.

Still unsure about what exactly it is I wanted to do, in 2011 I focused on doing as much of different work experience as possible. Some I loved, some I only liked, and some I disliked, and this has given me a better understanding of the career path I want to follow.

So this year, I am going to try and really focus and specialize in the areas where I expect and want my career to head. Plus, if I do a fewer things I can focus on them even more and do them better.

In 2011 I discovered that hard journalism isn’t my thing, and well, neither is really news even though that is basically what journalism is. Radio presenting at Fresh has definitely been my favourite, and it is something I really want to continue developing. Very soon, I am expecting to receive my first media related paying job of joining the Street Team at Mix 102.3 which will be a first foot into radio. Well, technically second cause Fresh is first. Plus, saying I work at Mix 102.3 sounds really cool!

I also had a chance in creating TV news packages, and TV presenting. I quiet enjoyed both, but at the end of the day, the presenting was more my cup of tea. But if I had the chance to create more news stories, I would take it.

One of the items on my 2012 “to do list” is to get 50 articles published. Though I do not want to be a print journalist, writing is a part of every journalism job and it is good to have many samples of published work. I want to cover a wide range of genres with this, but I want to particularly start doing a lot of music and entertainment writing. I initially had the 50 be a 100, but I do not think that is very realistic especially since print is not my main focus.

Through my first year of university, I did not get particularly good grades. They were not bad; mostly credits; but this time round, I am going to work harder on my studies. I also did a poor job following the news and keeping informed so I am going to try and change that.

Another CSA

This one is for the Karma Carousel.

End of Radio School

I don’t think I wrote about this before, but anyway, Fresh gave me a scholarship to do a course at the Australian Radio School which is run by Mix 102.3′s Sean Craig Murphy and Mel Greig, who also went on The Amazing Race.

It was an amazing experience, and a great kick start into a career in radio. I met some great people, and it something else to add to my resume as it acts as a proper qualification.

At the end of the course, there were a few awards up for grabs. There was an “Encouragement Award,” “Most Improved,” “X-Factor,” and “The Big Star Award.”

I ended up getting the “X-Factor” award, hopefully cause I’m different in a good way.

During the course we wrote up and created a little demo, here’s mine:

 

Psychic Reading

This isn’t very relevant to journalism, but I’ll write about it anyway.

A few days ago, I was talked into getting a psychic reading. Apparently it was this person’s destiny to take me to a psychic reading because they were told they were going to meet someone with my hair colour and help them, and taking me to the psychic was helping me. It is very complicated, but it makes sense.

I don’t know how much of a believer I am in psychics, but she sat me down and started listing all these things about me! It was like she could read my mind; she knew all about my past, what I worry about, things going on in my life right now, etc. so there was no doubt she was up to something. She was even able to describe physical aspects of the people in my life; it was very freaky.

I won’t go into detail of the personal stuff she told me, but here are some random points she mentioned:

- Apparently I’m going to be rich and famous at 22 or 23

- People think I’m stuck up (I’M SO SORRY EVERYONE)

- She couldn’t tell me what job I am going to have because there’s too many possible paths I can take

- My dog’s not going anywhere anytime soon

- Overall, I’m going to be very happy with how everything turns out

I seriously hope she was right about the first one, unless I have already jinxed it by thinking about it.

Failing/Winning at Life

This week for Morning Fresh, I decided to try a new format which consisted of lots of interviews. This came at the realization, and being informed by ‘Very Important People’ that just shoutouts and music announcing get really really boring. Plus in the Fresh license and general description, it says Morning Fresh is meant to be a chat based show.

For my first interview, I had Nathen in from the Fresh Variety Show of Hearts Scholarship Fund. And… I really messed it up. This is the first interview I’ve ever done live, and especially because this was the case I should have prepared way more. He had a really inspirational story to tell and rather than asking him what the listeners wanted to know, I just ran through all of my prepared questions. To make it worse, I originally referred to him as a swimmer when in fact he does athletics. I’m hoping to have a chance to redo this interview. To find out how a bad unprepared interview is done, listen below.

I then had a 23 year old drag queen who was very entertaining. I’m happy with the interview, but I got a warning for having inappropriate content in terms of making references to ‘rimming.’ In all truth, I have never heard that word in a sexual sense before but since it was recorded I should have gone the distance and made sure it was alright.

Following this, I did something naughty yet again. One of my friends from high school is in a band and asked me to give him some publicity. The band is metal, which is completely unrelated to Fresh so I tried to think of another way to get them on air. This is what I came up with.

And lastly, I had Aston from The Freestylers. When I was actually doing the interview, the questions were a bit messy and the answers were all over the place but once edited into a tight 2 minute segment it sounded, well, tight!

I’m not sure how much listeners liked this format though. Usually I receive a decent amount of ‘fan mail,’ but on this occasion I received lots of hate mostly directed to my voice being annoying. I haven’t had one of those in a while actually. In radio school, we were told that less than 5% of listeners actively participate so I just tend to ignore those comments. But when I do get ‘fan mail,’ its usually when I do lots of shout outs but then again if the 5% or else is true, it must get really boring for those who don’t text in!

And unfortunately, more talking means less listeners. Even with me, when I hear talking start on a station I often switch to another one which has music.

This is a tricky case, but from professional feedback I got, I’m going to try to stick with this format. Now I just need to work on getting good interviewees and asking the right questions.

One Year Down, Two to Go!

It is official; I have now finished my first year of university and am on holidays for the next four months.

Luckily, journalism doesn’t have exams. We just have lots and lots of long essays.

To my surpise, an extraordinary number of people have either dropped the course during the year or at the end but unfortunately I have to admit that I can’t blame them.

The course is highly undeveloped and many of the units are absoluetly pointless. If it wasn’t for all the extra stuff that I did, I wouldn’t have learned what it’s like to be a journalist at all.

I have heard that the course starts to get a lot better from next year and I really hope that is the case. Though I don’t like actually studying journalism, I like the idea of being a journalist and since this degree is one of the main ways of getting into it, I am going to be forced to stick it through.

I found this to be an extremely subjective course and even though it is mainly essays, there isn’t a marking scheme tutors follow so instead they read someting and think, “Hmm…. I think I’ll give this person a… C!”
I also didn’t receive the most attractive grades, coming from school where I got all A’s down to now mainly getting P’s and credits. But for some reason, I don’t even care. I’ve been told that nobody cares about grades in journalism anyway.

Now that I am on holidays, I have a BIG list of things to do. Hugely consisting of normal things like get my P’s, get a real job, and get a six pack, I’m hoping to be my usual self and do lots of journalism stuff. I’ll wait a bit though before I really get started as I think I deserve a little break. My friend Lina who I usually go out and clubbing with is going away soon, so I’ll have loads of time to be productive during then.