friezaess | Entries tagged with journalism

Today was weird, and having an active imagination, I can't stop thinking about it.

I took the company car out to Wacol to cover a story about a new police training centre. I'd never been out there before and it was like being transported into a movie. On one side of the tracks there's your standard low-end housing, milk bars and fish and chips shops, but on the other are some sinister buildings hidden behind shrub and hills. There are a number of facilities out there including the prison, youth detention centre, and mental institution. There are few trees sprouting from the red soil, and it feels 10 degrees hotter than the rest of Brisbane. That squiggly little Queensland Government logo you're used to associating with festivals and buses is juxtaposed onto big white buildings with high walls and razor wire.

I drove up to the top of a hill where an old concrete guard tower stood. As I got out of the car, I turned to see a kangaroo staring at me. I'd never seen one outside of the zoo and was feeling awfully white bread. Sadly I saw another kangaroo that say, lying by the side of the road with its neck twisted :(

So yeah, they showed us the new police cars and some bits and pieces of the new facility which was full of old buildings with broken windows. It also overlooked the prison. All you could see were roofs. I keep thinking about it. I want to know what life is like behind those big white walls. It wouldn't be a newsworthy story because there's been plenty of doccos done on life on the inside, but how can you not be curious about something like that?

I met up with Matt later that day and we had coffee in King George Square. As I looked at the clock tower, my mind kept drifting back to that hidden part of Brisbane that felt like being sent into another dimension.

Edit: Mah story.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Today I photographed a buttfuck of places for Melbourne Cup (Brisbane Times internship this week!). A number of things happened and my feet are currently leaking puss. But aside from Stefan offering me a prawn, the most interesting part of my day was this:

>Doing some vox pops
>Ask people how they feel about interest rate hikes
>Find out they're trainers
>They won $30, 000 and buy me a drink so I'll stay while they tell me stories
>Fuck yeah, this is what life is all about!
>Aging foul-mouthed baby boomer asks to take picture with me
>Look down, his hand is hovering over my boob but I humour him (no actual contact)
>Turn to say something to him
>HE FULL ON PASHES ME ON THE LIPS

Now that said, there is a chance that there was no drunken debauchery involved and he was just trying to suck the youth out of me. At least Matt and I got a bit of a giggle out of it when recounting the tale. (Take a moment to read one of my articles so my mouth-AIDS won't have been in vain!)

SIDE NOTE: Brisbane Times will run a story I pitched this week that is a little bit... frilly :D

It was hot. People vomited. But on the bright side, someone's wedding ceremony was interrupted by 5000 of the undead walking past. I'm not sure they appreciated it as much as I would have. 'TIL DEATH DO US FEED!

Several people said my "burn wounds" looked like black face. Harry Connick Jr disapproves ;_; It was fun going to uni today with bits of paint still attached... apparently I looked like I had malaria. I CAN HAS MORPHINE??

As a side note, I hate everything. I've been making tonnes of journalism-related phone calls but do you think anyone's at their desk when you need them? What a wonderful way to begin my final week of classes. Still deciding whether or not I should go to graduation seeing as I've already donned the square hat to get my diploma, but there's going to be FREE COFFEE AND BICKIES, possibly the only thing a university has given away without a price tag. Hm...

I've been looking through job listings on the ABC and such, and have found that, as expected, quite a few of them would require relocating. Now, I've been itching to travel for quite some time and God knows that Brisbane is an inspiration wasteland, so let's have a look at some of the exotic locations I could be stationed at when I graduate this year!

KALGOORLIE, W.A.

With an average of 6.2 rapes per capita, Kalgoorlie is Australia's most friendly country town. Thanks to the mining boom there are a plethora of employment opportunities such as digging for rocks, smashing rocks, burning rocks and smashing small rocks against bigger rocks to make tiny rocks. Popular pass times include getting your rocks off, rocking out and getting stoned. However, if mines aren't your thing you can also have fun at any number of pits, quarries and dug-outs.

LAUNCESTON, TAS

Tasmania is known for such technological marvels as the Internet filter trials and bong innovation. From a comparative point of view, Launceston is Tasmania's clitoris and as such there's a certain pungent smell about it, particularly given that it's surrounded by seafood. Locals take pride in being able to claim that they're from the "ninth-biggest non-capital city in Australia" and will tell you about how fast the city is evolving, going from 4 railway lines in the 1800's to none.

MOUNT ISA, QLD

Named after a local Saturday night passtime, Mount Isa is at the heart of Queensland's fertile loins and produces silver, ore, and sodomy. Baby-eating dingoes patrol the streets to help curb population growth, though the growing amount of miners moving there means the city has had to employ a massive 35-strong taxi fleet. Visitors are invited to join the locals in going for a traditional kangaroo or aboriginee hunt, however if you feel like joining in the arts scene, Donno the tradie will be only too happy to teach you how to draw in the dust using the traditional method of urine splattering. And who knows, maybe you'll be one of the many people who find love at the local women's shelter!

So many places to travel, they all make Gundawindi look bland in comparison! (Though that's on the cards too.) With so many options, how can I lose?

Current Mood: excited

So my internship at Triple M & B105 was a little exhausting. I met Carmilla, Labby and Ian Skippen. The latter was really nice and talkative, asked about what I was studying, and was generally awesome as were most of the people there. The news director said to add her to Facebook and to call back after I've graduated to see if anything's opened up, so yay networking! The most important thing I learned was that staying up til 4am is immensely different from getting up at 4am X_x

Matt helped me out with some filming this weekend- the one weekend since forever where it decided to rain ;_; It's fun going on road trips out to the middle of nowhere together, I must admit.

Somewhere along the line I managed to develop a fear of mobile phone towers. The fact that people go to so much trouble to hide these looming grey towers makes me feel like something sinister is a foot. Half the time you don't even realise they're there, looking down on you with their many protrusions. What secrets do they hide?

Journalism in Text: High Distinction
Journalism & Mass Communication Research: High Distinction
Creative Writing: Distinction
Journalism in Sound: Credit
TV & Pop Culture: Pass

ARGH, I *just* missed out on a GPA of 6 ;_; Once again it's the result of me being a slack arse and not turning up to TV & Pop Culture lectures (and bombing on the Sound exam). I went to like 2 because they were on at 5 in the afternoon and traffic is shit on Coro Drive at that time. Le sigh.

Brislitas: It's getting so cold that I have sparrows and pigeons duking it out for a spot atop my letterbox. Suggesting we rug up in our most loliable winter jackets and hit up that little tea cafe opposite Eckersly's in the city to regain feeling in our extremities with hot chocolate and tea over the uni break, y/y?

Yesterday I was presented with an affront to environmentalists everwhere- 30 pages of dead tree covered in only the most toxic-smelling ink. It was the 10, 000 word paper that my professor and I are working on, and I have finally come to experience the most common thing that journalists bitch about: HE EDITED SOME OF MY BEST BITS ;_; He gave me the job of going through the whole thing and making sure the references matched up, so tonight's going to be just me and my big red pen alone in a room together.

Current Mood: tired

I got my new Masquerade Theatre OP in the mail today :D So happy! They also threw in one of those resin rings with a glittering pink plastic bow on it. BECAUSE I HAVE SO MUCH PINK IN MY WARDROBE! Well, actually I guess it would go well with my Lovely Sweet Room JSK, which is also made of win. Hm... which one to wear to

bindijade's birthday on the weekend?

Oh yeah, finally finished recording a news story on Skype only to find out that CallGraph failed me and I didn't get any of it, LAWL. It was with some chick at the Regent talking about what's happening on their closing night. They're showing 8 decades in 8 days this week, and the 90s movie they're screening is Titanic. Is it sad that I'm tempted to go for the nostalgia? Also, fuck Brisbane and it's habit of tearing down historical realms of the people to make way for private enterprises. (I'm looking at you Festival Towers.) Fucking hate this place and it's shitty population explosion, DSGAKFSGKDGSK RAEG.

Aussie dollar is still shittastic, so start selling all your crap if you haven't already. It'll be interesting to see if it plummets even further if the mining tax comes in.

Current Mood: cold

Phew, back from the south. It was an exhausting few days. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend as much time in Sydney as I'd hoped, instead hanging around Gosford with Matt's father who was prone to hissy fits. And it was raining the whole time, argh! I was so moist ;_;

Anyway, here's a few pictars.

Obligatory "I WENT TO SYDNEY" shot. Nearby was the a Guylian cafe where we stopped for choclatey goodness. My $10 hot chocolate tasted like ass, but the complimentary candy was made of win :P

Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go inside Naruto, but let me tell you- that pavement was dry as a bone before a flock of 13 year old yaoi fangirls walked by.

Oh, and by the way- I did end up stopping by Shibuya after all.

Derp.

It was lovely spending time with Matt on a nice little interlude to uni hassles, however speaking of which, I was pleasently surprised to find an e-mail in my inbox from the School of Journalism with the following statement in regards to my silly little doodles:

"The managing editor of Brisbane Times is interested in seeing some of your work and has asked to see three examples."

SHGFJDJAHDFSHJFDJA 3 examples?! GAH I don't know what to do, my best work resides on DeviantART and is animu/manporn. I dunno, maybe I should just chuck up a blog on Wordpress and throw all my junk there. But how the hell do I choose 3? ;_;

Current Location: Brisvegas, Australia

Oh God, next Saturday I shall be in the middest of my mid-twenties. This means I have 5 years to become a foreign correspondent and get shot in the head by some Islamic extremist while reporting from some dodgy battlefield. I'm pretty fluent in Arabic thanks to Team America, so that's a good start. A durka-durka to everyone reading this.

Friezaess, age 29

Drawing the Line was good. Thanks to

zurka_dameer ,

celrya ,

damasquerade ,

vrrrrt , and everyone else who watched the stream/came along. There ended up being about 25 people in the chat and 30 in the real actual people audience, so that was cool. Of course the most important thing is that my lecturers seemed pretty stoked with it. The guy hosting it was one of the producers at the ABC for years, and he's pretty keen on doing it again. He came up and gave me a big hug after we finished, he's so nice :D A few other professors came down and watched too, and the one who organised the whole thing was beaming the entire time. So regardless of how everything went over (I'm too self-concious to watch the recording), I'm pleased that they're pleased.

That reminds me, Matt's dad is flying us down to Sydney next month for a visit, so it's going to be two free trips to Australia's netherregions in two months :P

Favor to ask for everyone reading this!

If you're not busy at 1pm AEST today, please log on to the DRAWING THE LINE U-STREAM which will be streaming my political cartoons and give us feedback!

It would be so great if even just a couple of people watched and sent comments like "That looks like shit, draw him with childbearing hips and a banshee" it would be a massive help because we're not sure how many people are actually going to watch, haha.

In return, I will listen to endless stories from the time you went to Shelbyville with an onion on your belt.

Current Location: UQ

Thanks very much to everyone who filled out the CP survey yesterday. I'll post the results once they're properly aggregated. It's funny how those who I know for a fact are "nerds" (in a good way) answered differently to the standard audience.

That aside, Drawing the Line, our little cartooning workshop, will be on this day next week at 1pm. Please let me know if you can come along, even if it's solely for the purpose of raiding the uni bar afterwards- $9 COCKTAILS, BABEH! But yeah, it would be really great to have some familiar faces in the crowd as I am rather nervous ;~; We're also looking for people to post suggestions during the event on Facebook (the whole thing will be on U-stream), so again, please let me know. Being poor/interstate/minus a leg is no excuse not to participate!

Paraphrased quote from my professor: "Your outfits are great, can you wear one to the workshop? But the background is going to be dark so make sure it's not black!"

O_O

Ho shit. Wat do, f-list? I was thinking of getting something off Bodyline later tonight just for the occasion but I haven't worn light outfits since my teenage years. *is sick of people keepin' da black girl down* Advice plz?

Current Mood: hopeful

Yesterday was pretty great, hung out with Matt and watched Kamikaze Girls together. It's nice having a guy who actually likes that stuff and isn't stealing my BTSSB to clean his Holden with.

It kinda sucked that such a nice day was complimented by the usual nightmares soon after. Kinda really getting sick of my traumatised little subconscious replaying what happened 3 years ago with various graphic twists :/ You'd think after this long the nightmares would stop, but no, I still get them around 4 nights a week. And sometimes I wake up and for a brief second have this feeling of "Oh it was just a dream, maybe she's not really dead!" and then the standard angst kicks in and blah. Some nights I wish I never had to sleep again.

Then again, given my current uni workload, never sleeping again may well be a possibility. I forgot how different writers and journalists are. So many creative types get the speel of "Oh wow, you're such a good writer, these stories are great! Why don't you get into journalism?" It's kind of like saying "So you like ham sandwiches? Ever thought of getting a job at a slaughterhouse?"

I should probably start editing that interview I recorded at The Mana Bar like a week ago...

Current Mood: tired

So this is what I came home to yesterday.

(Happy now, Rea? :P Anna House is calling you!)

I'm really looking forward to wearing the Putumayo ensemble :D This stuff has been sitting in Celga's warehouse since November becauset he damn thing cost $US64 to ship -_- I wish they'd just charge in yen. Rar.

Anyway, Uni's been okay. I died of shame in the Journalism in Sound lecture when the professor (who also runs our student radio station) had a picture of me on one of the Powerpoint slides and started going on about my show before realising I was in the class and drawing further attention to my little cringing self. My friends were kind enough to help me hide behind my notebook >_> Lulz. I had to switch one of my subjects which was sad. It was supposed to be about how the media and society interact which is one of my favourite themes, but then I saw the weekly topics which looked like they'd been written up by the Socialist Alliance and one of our assignments was to write a giant essay on the Stolen Generation.

OH FUCK AUSTRALIAN HISTORY! *ESC* *ESC* *ESC*

So now I'm happily doing a media studies subject on television instead of reliving high school monotony (or Commie Class as Louise and I referred to it, o lawd). I'm happy to write an essay on how Law & Order SVU is one of the few shows I recall seeing where a man and a woman can simply be friends without having to do it up the butt.

Current Mood: tired

I've been teasing myself ~~with~~ ~~a Hello Kitty massage device~~ by looking through the Masters courses offered through various universities. QUT has some good ones and they take 6 months less to complete than those at UQ. They only require a GPA of 5 to get in which is great, and I have at least two professors who would happily give me a reference. All this is a bit far off of course and more of a Plan B in case I don't get a job within a year of finishing my degree. (But honestly, journalists are in such high demand that I'm going to be editor-in-chief after a week of being there, right? >_>)

The only thing that bothers me is... eh. I see course names like "Masters of Communication for Social Change" and while that's not really my thing, it's a lot nicer than modern journalism. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to knock on some woman's door and ask her about her recently deceased kid. I don't want to put an obvious slant on a story to make it seem more dramatic and fuck someone over as a result. These things kind of come with the territory of reporting. I thought I could hack it but... I mean, journalism is all about selling a story. The whole internet debarcle has made that even worse and brings about a lot of ill-informed and heavily slanted articles as a result. Most people get their worldview through the news so it's not just those who get written about who suffer. This is all common knowledge to anyone who's ever picked up a ~~newspaper~~ blog, but you'd be surprised how little people realise it.

Christ, I'm such a woman X_x

Current Mood: annoyed

So I made the mistake of wasting time on

sf_drama and stumbled upon a thread in which a person who briefly referred to a couple of kids "crotch droppings" in her post to a community. This was deemed offensive, sexist (hurr) and derogatory towards children.

10/10, would rage again.

Bitches need to man the fuck up. If you're going to be offended can it at least be over something legitimate?

Oh, and you know what's REALLY sexist? Apparently me being female means that I must just love and adore feminism and so my professor has given me several journal articles to read on the subject, LOL IRONY HGFJHGAFDSJGFDJSAFG I don't want to hear how a pen is a phallic symbol of MALE OPPRESSION :(

Current Mood: irate

So, one of the compulsory courses I have to do in the Bachelor of Journalism has several pre-requisites that mean I won't be able to take it until Semester 1... 2011.

I was supposed to finish at the end of next year. I'm going to be 26 when I graduate :(

Post time ending in 00 decides how I an hero.

Current Mood: defeated

Yesterday was a rather hot day to be dressing in lolita, but nonetheless a bunch of us indulged in karaoke and drinking in celebration of the lovely

vysanthe 's 19 years of being alive. Lots of bogans in the city on a Tuesday night for some reason. I can see why so many girls prefer to hunt in packs as opposed to walking down Adelaide street alone with naught but their pettis to protect them from teh raep. Also, $2 drinks are awesome.

When I got home I found that UQ's website was down due to >9000 students trying to get their grades. I got two 6's, a 5 and a 4 to give me a GPA of 5.25. Not enough if I want to do post-graduate work :/ Still, had more fun watching weird hentai at Matt's than going to my stupid Convergant Journalism class. HAY GAIS THERE'S THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT'S GUNNA SAVE SPERMALISM CALLED TWITTER LOL!

On a related note, today I received my acceptance letter from Stony Brook University, NY. It's weird being referred to as an international student. There's travel advice and information about accessing JFK Airport and FUUUUUUUUUUUU-!! Must remain calm. Must look for a goddamn place to rent >_>

I wish we had Tofurkey in Australia, it looks freaking awesome. That said, I really wanna check out a new vegetarian place at Mt Gravatt that has lots of Chinese dishes like "beef" and black bean and sweet and sour "pork". Anyone want to "check it out"?

A recent incident at work experience amused me. Newspapers are typically left wing and Quest often has articles about multiculturalism/diversity/brown people/etc. So when we went out to interview people in the street, I found it ironic how they wouldn't interview anyone but whities. As in, when I tried to approach "people of colour", I was told not to bother with them, even when the streets were barren and we were desperate for quotes. Happened like five times. O lawd.

Speaking of all things newsy, since when did the phrase "climate change sceptic" (YES IT'S SPELLED WITH A C, GODDAMMIT PEOPLE) become synonymous with "fire-breathing Nazi Polpot"? I've always figured that people on both sides of the debate have a lot of money at stake and thus take everything surrounding the debate with a grain of salt, but damn... I mean, I'm all for planting trees and shit, but apparently being against an $1100 p.a. tax hike means you are a conservative old man who wants to own 20 four wheel drives and nuke the whales.

Oh well, we'll all die in 2012 anyway I guess.

Anyway. Time to see if there's anything on Mbok worth splurging on.

Current Mood: tired

I am so hard for this hat. Anyone got a spare $160?

My newsy experience continues. It's hit and miss- I like writing stories and interviewing people, but I'd rather be messing around with multimedia software. Have to fight the urges to shun other people and desires to be left alone to do my own thing. That's not what I'm there for, dammit. COME ON, EXTROVERSION! Jesus Christ, I need to get my act together. Why must I be so damn awkward :/ Really not helping my potential future.

Funnily enough, there's another work experience chick at Quest who used to be friends with one of my old BFFs. We all hung out together a couple of times in the early naughties (God I hate that term), so it's good to have someone to chat with. She's doing photography so we're hoping we'll be sent on assignment together sometime. Poor thing got some of her images published but didn't get credited :( At least my shitty fluff pieces have my name on them. City North News tomorrow, by the way. I'm sure my stories will help distract people from real issues that matter, just like actual journalists do!

Matt has established a hovel in which we can talk side by side - on our respective computers via MSN - in peace. I hung out there last night, it's pretty much just a basement but it gives him space away from his dickish room mate which is good.

Ugh, I need sleep... working 9-5 doesn't suit those of us that stay up 'til 4am.

Profile

friezaess

My arty stoof

November 2012

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated May. 22nd, 2025 02:25 am

Easily Distracted

Here there be milky discharge

Entries tagged with journalism

My advice: Don't ever go crazy.

xoxox

Zombie Walk 2010

The tourist reporter

I can haz sleep in?

Grade-A prime ribs

Wang.

Girly shit

Of Sydney and surprises

Quarter century

HALP GAIS

Of Cartoons and CP

Interruption

My haul.

Da edumacationz

OFFENSIVE!

Shitballs.

Ups and downs (herp derp)

In which we discuss important issues, like imitation cow parts.

Journaljism