Resolutions

Here is my resolutions, so I can have written proof that I challenge myself to them.

1. Lose weight - the most obvious one I have every year, but this time I really want to be healthy again. I have a gym membership this time so I will use it to my advantage.
         Goal: 1 stone by  20th February 2011 (2lbs a week)

2. Get things done - Don't put things off for ages.
         Goal: Write a list every week and tick off things I have done, if there is still things left by Sunday punish myself by doing 50 sit ups, thereby helping with the previous resolution.

3. See my ideas through - If I have an idea for an article, go after it.
         Goal: Cary an ideas notebook, everytime I think of an idea for Spark or anything else write it down. Check it everytime I'm bored to see if I can write it up.

These are my resolutions, I will check in at some point to update.

Media coverage of basketball should be improved

I look over to the scoreboard and there’s two minutes left on the clock, we are trailing by eight points and a whistle is blown. The crowd erupts in cheers as something goes our way.

September 19 and the Glaswegian wind is blowing through Kelvin Hall. The basketball game is in the dying minutes and the atmosphere is electric. Newcastle has been behind Glasgow for most of the match and the fans’ excitement for winning the match is growing as the gap gets smaller. Then suddenly the team comes back fighting in two overtime’s to secure a win.

You wouldn’t think that there were only a handful of fans that made the journey to support the team unlike the masses of people that follow Newcastle United Football club. Football is huge in England; we live and breathe it no matter if we follow it or not.

Basketball is a different story; this country has a successful basketball league. The Newcastle Eagles in particular have been named the most successful team in the country ever. However, it does not have a large fan base, this is down to the lack of media coverage to make the game a valid British sport.   

The United Kingdom newspapers think of it as an American Sport and tend to concentrate on “British” sports such as Football in the press. We shouldn’t have to stick by this.

Sports journalists in Britain are stubborn on what they think are more news worthy and fail to accommodate newer sports that are growing in popularity. For example, fishing has one of the highest participation levels in the UK but newspapers don’t cover it to the same extent they cover football.

                                               

The Newcastle Eagles has a massive fan base; there can be up to 3,000 people at a home match. However, they would get many more people interested in the team if they knew more about it. A lot of people form an opinion without knowing anything about it –newspapers have the ability to change this.

My dad is the prime example, he thought that basketball was “a bunch of Americans playing netball” and the only reason he went was to support me when I was dancing there. He has admitted that other than briefly playing basketball at school, he knew nothing about the sport and as the captain of the school’s rugby team he thought that it was for softies.     

He started to like the game because he “tried to understand it” and that intensified his feelings towards it. If the newspapers and press have more coverage of the BBL there would be more knowledge and from this more people would discover this exciting league. Now my dad loves basketball, he never misses a home match and gets to as many away matches as he can. The spare room is covered in posters and signed shirts he has bought.

The Newcastle Eagles enjoyed their 13^th silverware in six years last season and with such a successful team you would think they would get more media coverage. This isn’t the case. I looked at the local papers the day after the home match on October, 15 2010 won against Glasgow Rocks and the majority of the sports section was predominantly about football even though nothing had happened, the day before, the stories were all about the players or strategies. The headline in the Journal that day was: “Perch: We must win this time.”

If the press don’t get with the times it won’t affect the basketball circuit – the fans that they have already are loyal. However, a lot of people are being starved of excitement, atmosphere and fun at something they may enjoy if they even knew about it.

The press shouldn’t just stick to the status quo that was set for us by the narrow minded. They are depriving everybody of the excitement and tension of the dying seconds in a close basketball match. 

Students: We're not all thugs

 In every group someone always lets you down. Your football team are one game away from winning the league and your star player turns up hung-over or you have an important presentation at uni and someone forgets their USB. Whatever the situation is you can be sure something will taint it.

What is the relevance to this I hear you ask? As you all know all students have been rioting and attacking in protest to the university cuts. All students attacked Millbank and charged in and all students attacked the car that Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla were travelling in. Well according to the media anyway.

There were thousands of students in the capital last night protesting before and after the announcement that University caps will be raised to £9,000. Out of all the students there, only 34 arrests were made.

I do not condone that type of behaviour in any shape or form, in fact I think those minority of idiots are giving all of the hard working, sensible and passionate students a bad name. And it doesn’t help that the news in this country likes to concentrate on the negative things.

I’ve always been a strong believer that the media has the power to change the way the country thinks. When they portray students as being violent and horrible the public will start to think that is what they all are. A person I know changed his status on Facebook to: “The students are going wild, get jobs u lazy f**ks.” To which I replied: “I’m a student and I have a job. We aren’t all the same as the idiots that cause trouble; I’m in uni to get a good job.”

 

People seem to forget that not all students are the same. They are one of the vastest group of people. There are people who were born in England, and then there are people from France, China and all over the world. There are people studying academic subjects, people studying arts and new media and people studying other things such as law and psychology.

 

The media isn’t going to change their ways so we just have to remind ourselves and those around us that we aren’t all the same. You may never want to let down your football team on an important match, you may never forget your USB on an important day and you may not want to violently attack people at a protest.

2010 so far

I haven't blogged in a while so I've decided to dust the cobwebs of my keyboard and write something.

Thing is though...I don't know what to write.

There really isn't much going on in my life right now, I bum around during the week watching tv or I go to the gym. Then I go to work on the weekend -I now work at Peacocks- for four hours on each day.

I did just read through my past blogs and find this...

I have decided this year to add some resolutions to my usual try to be healthy one. Here are my 2010 resolutions:

1. Eat Healthy,
2. Spend less-Save more,
3. Spend more time studying and
4. Look on the brighter side of life, I miss that part of me sometimes.

I don't know how long they will last but I'll give them a go.

One word: Failure.

1. Eat healthy - I tried this for a while...the longest I've done is a month...then about 2 months off...I'm back on it now but I'm going to the gym aswell...so fingers crossed.

2.Spend less-save more - I passed this up until my contract ended on my old job, I knew I wouldn't have a job, so i saved my student loan so I could survive. But when I didn't have a job I found myself taking more and more out of my savings

3.Spend more time studying - FAIL... I always say i'll do this, right up until the point where the essay is due the next day, or at one point the same day. I haven't even looked at shorthand since I finished.

4.Look on the brighter side of life - I think I've started to succeed with this, I haven't been as depressed as I was at the end of last year, and this time off has been pretty good. Yeah I've had my quiet moments but I've always had hectic times too.

Man, I've just been hit with the worst writers block ever. I can't think of a single thing to write about except this...what's on my mind. I don't know how I'm going to be a writer, I really don't. I'm always complaining I've got writers block, why couldn't I have been interested and/or good at science or maths or something that didn't involve been creative eh??

Anyway I should depart, I have to get up early...ish to drive to longhoughton tomorrow morning. G'night who ever reads this x

Guildford road trip

It's dark outside. It's boiling inside. There is a constant whistle from something we haven't detected yet. There isn't much room.

I'm on the coach coming back from a trip to Guildford. I went there to watch the Newcastle Eagles play in the trophey final.

I can't write an in detail blog just yet because it is quite difficult to do this on my mobile.

But, we won. With a staggering 111-95 points.

Charles Smith was awarded MVP with a excellent 27 points. He definately deserved the title, he played brilliantly.

In true Eagles faahion they started the game trailing behind. The Jets started with a 7 point lead but it was shortlived as the Eagles came up from behind to lead for the rest of the game.

A truely fantastic game was played.

Now to the coach. Like I said the bus is boiling, small and uncomfortable. I've been travelling home for about 3 hours and I still have about 4 hours left.

I really don't know how long it will be before I crack up from heat exhaustion.

I really want to be in bed at the minute.

That's it for tonight.
Byee x

Can Money Buy Happiness?

(I know I havn't blogged in a while, so I thought i'd upload this feature I wrote)

 

Money is part of our language, our everyday life, our future. People find it hard to survive without it; some people never have enough of it. It is used to buy chocolates and crisps – a house. Some people beg for it and some people just throw it away.

It is a word that can bring many emotions to the surface, worry and sadness, anger and regret. Why is this? Money is only lumps of metal, pieces of paper and figures on a computer screen after all.

However, the love of it goes on. Everyone works all their life trying to earn as much money as they can so they can have a better tomorrow. But then, won’t they be working tomorrow?

One thing that has never been clear is; can money buy happiness?

The answer to this is nearly always no. How can it? Money can’t buy something that isn’t a solid form can it?

Professor Andrew Oswald, Warwick University, has done some intense research and revealed that money can in fact buy happiness. He said: “We found a strong link between financial windfalls and being happy and having much better psychological health.”

The study says that winning just £1000 is enough to make someone happy. It seems that even smaller amounts can work too. Fay Crowley, a first year university student, said: “I'm always buying scratch cards. I keep thinking that I'm going to win loads of money, but instead I win small amounts, so I keep on buying more.”

Small amounts of money may make you happy for a short period of time but the study has proven that it is the larger amounts that make a significant difference. Oswald said: “Overall the more you get, we find, the cheerier you'll become. Large sums are better than small sums.”

Most people think of money the same way, whether you are skint or loaded. Fay lives on a student budget and works 20 hours a week to earn enough money to get to university. She said: “I do feel much happier when I have money; I feel like I have more freedom to do things, I also feel much better when I am able to buy new things.”

Kavita Panesar, a Civil Servant, comes from a wealthy family and only moved out of her parent’s house at the age of 30. She said: “Money means choices and freedom.”

Kavita never had to pay a bill until the age of 30 when she decided to get married and live with her husband. She said: “I had to learn a lot because my parents used to take care of everything.”

 I was really content at home, because I didn’t have to worry about money and bills. I felt much happier.”

The study showed that it isn’t just money that can give you happiness. Oswald said: "There are lots of other factors in life, especially personal things like getting married and so on."

Sometimes money doesn’t instantly bring happiness to your life; in fact often the happiness you do get is short lived. Fay said: “I get really down when I don’t have money and I get stressed out because I think that my bills will mount up.”

In Dorothy Row’s book, The Real Meaning of Money, she says: “Money isn’t always fun, and the fun and the misery are intimately entwined.”

Yes, money can buy happiness but for how long? The answer always depends on whose hands the money falls into.

The Snow is still here

A month I was saying how wonderful the snow is. It looked so beautiful on the last day of term in Sunderland. Now my feelings towards that white fluffy stuff has changed just a bit - GO AWAY! I'm sick of not being able to see the path, I don't like having to walk to work because my car is snowed in and it would be too dangerous for me to drive anyway. Although, I still thinks it looks beautiful.

That's all for now
Byee x