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

The Door Locked

Tuesday January 5, 2010.

I'm not going to bore you with a really long blog, just a small update on my day.

I sepnt most of the day ringing around peopl and booking my London Trip. I'm so excited for that, me and Zoe - friend from Uni - are going by train to London for one night. We are going to see Sister Act at the London Palladiam.

I also spent most of my time hoping I would get a phone call from work to say I didn't have to come in because of the weather. That didn't happen, so i had to drive in this awful weather really slow.

They then decided at 7.50pm to send us home. So I rushed out to my car, turned on the engine to warm up the car and scraped the snow off my windscreen. I then got in my car and drove off missing the traffic to get off site. Actually that last bit isn't true. I would like to say that but unfortunatly it went more like this: I then tried to get into my car and drive off to miss the traffic to get off site but found out I had locked myself out of my car. Yup, I'm sure it had to happen at sometime, but
did it really have to happen when I had been let go early from work? I waited 15 minutes for my dad to come with my spare key, at least then the inside of my car had warmed up.

I'll leave you with this: Why is it that Great Britain are always fascinated with the weather?

g'night
x

Post-Celeb BB launch night

So the Pamela Anderson rumour wasn't true. That is a disapointment.

Alex and Dane, what do you think? I mean to me it's all so false. Dane: "I did a boo boo." Are you kidding me?! Really? He looked shit scared when he saw Alex. I don't know, maybe I'm just being niave and believing the newspapers, or maybe I'm trying to think that as a journalist we all tell the truth?

First impressions are that i like most of them. Stephen seems funny, he makes me laugh. But not as much as Sisqo, OMG he cracks me up. Sisqo: "I'm a lot taller when I stand on my wallet."

I LOVE Stephanie Beacham. She is so beautiful, for her age as well...she amazes me. However, I think she may start to annoy me with her poshness.

Not too impressed with Katia. SHe is not a celeb. She even said it herself. Katia: "I was in a public relationship."

Even though I don't know her, I like Nicola T. When I first read about her my first impression was, "How dare she have my name." But I think she could surprise us - she's really sweet. She also looks A LOT like Lucy from 2009 X Factor.

My prediction is Katia evicted first, and the winner...I'm still not sure but I say Vinnie Jones is a massive condenter.

Pre-Celeb Big Brother

Well I have just read on the Daily Mail website that Pamela Anderson and Basshunter are rumoured to enter the last Celeb Big Brother house later on tonight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1240146/Celebrity-Big-Brother-brink-collapse--24-hours-go.html

This is an interesting turn of events - I love that saying - usually big brother provides us with washed up former so called celebrities or non-celebs who's claim to celebdome is usually being somebodies partner.

However, unless it's just me I think Pamela Anderson and Basshunter are still on top form. I think the big producers at the Big Brother headquarters wanted one last shot at a good show.

And I wonder what will brew up with Dane Bowers and Alex Reid together there.

Lets watch and see...

Byee
=]
x

2010, Snowmen and Christmas Presents

It's 2010! The end of one decade and the start to probably - hopefully - the best decade of my life. In ten years I will be 30.

New Years Resolutions. Every body makes them, not everyone sticks to them. Mine usually last about ten minutes. That's because it is usually "eat less". However, saying as on most new years eve's I have a bit to drink I usually get the munchies in the early hours of the morning.

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.

Snow Snow Snow

Can you believe the weather? Apparently this is the coldest winter since 1979: I can't comment on that saying as I wasn't born then.

What I can say is I built a snowman last night with my sister and her girlfriend. I hadn't built a snowman in about 10 years.
 

 This is Pat the Snowman =] I never was a good artist. It was fun building him though, I reverted back to being a child again.

The Best Christmas Present

I finally started my university work today. I used one of my christmas presents to help me, it was by far the best christmas present I recieved...

Yes that's right, my favourite christmas present is my 500 sticky index markers. How cool are they?!

Anyway I am off to get some more studying done as it is one of my New Years Resolutions.

byee =]

x

Credit-crunch holiday disaster

My holiday story as promised, I had already written this up as a university task so here it is...

It was mid-July, the grass was a luscious green, the birds were chirping and the rain was pounding.

­

I was in North Devon, in a tent at 3am on a summer’s morning, however the birds weren’t chirping because of the sunshine - they were trying to find some cover from the gale force winds. 

The field around me was becoming more like a pond and there were bits of awning flying around in the wind. I could see the waves lashing against the Devonshire cliffs even in the darkness of the early morning.

We all know the credit-crunch is affecting everyone’s pockets, and many believe this is why we have seen the increase of camping and caravan holidays. But after one-too-many holiday disasters for me you can count me out.

The Great British Weather is notoriously known as being “wet and dull”, but people still risk the weather when making choices that would otherwise break the bank. This is what happened to my family.

It had been raining all week, but nothing compared to what came on the second last night of our stay in Ilfracombe. I was in my sleeping bag lying awake at 2am, we had got back from the club and the rain wind was keeping me up. I was also worried about the water leaking through where it was making a puddle on the roof of our tent. I opened the zip of my bedroom compartment to find the front of the tent collapsed. For some reason I didn’t tell my parents I just lay awake worrying until my Mam woke up with the sound of my sobs.

Me and my Mam escaped to the safety of the car and were shortly joined by my Dad. Even the car was being shaken by the force of the wind. It started to get lighter at 4.30am and the full picture of the nightmare holiday started to show. There were tents completely flattened to the ground – almost everybody was emerging to try and pack up and go home.

Trying to take the tent down and fit everything in the car was hard. The tent had turned into a pool and was difficult to fold. The rain was beating down on me so hard I couldn’t breathe and I was soaked to the skin even through the 3 layers and waterproof jacket I was wearing.

Even with the little amount of room I had in the car on the way home, I felt a sigh of relief as we drove further away from Devon. I’ve always said the best part about going away is when you come home and see the Angel of the North, but I’ve never been so happy to see her.

Just My Luck!

Just my luck. This saying is used to express angst, annoyance or anger.

My annoyance is I have stayed up until 2.23am - refreshing my online banking page every few minutes. It then tells me that it is "temporarily unavailable". Just my luck.

On another note, it is now new years eve. I have arrived upon yet another mundane end of the year.Why is it that when I want to do something with my friends they already have something planned?

I have come to expect that I wont have go into 2010 with a bang but I hope to make the whole year dazzling. HA how corny was that?

Well this might be my last blog of 2009 so I'm going to do a sum-up of my year. If anyone's interested.

January- Nothing much happened in this month, I died my hair and went to someones 18th who I don't really care for anymore. Who am I kiddin, I've never really cared for her. Oh I also took and miserably failed a statistics exam.

February- My beautiful baby 2nd cousin was brought into this world weighing 5lbs14oz. Erin Gorga Wood. I developed a "friendship" with a mister Daniel Anderson. This was fun while it lasted but I just wasn't that into him.

March- Hmm now I can't remember much happening this month,I'll get back to you on this one

April- ...

May- The summer month. This is when I donned my favourite vest tops and sandals and had school breaks at the park. I sprayed on a very patchy false tan - my own doing - and attended Erin's christening. I then went to Longhougten, spent the day on the beach with a barbacue and drove my uncle's brother's boat. I also believe I went to Birmingham for the basketball finals with the parents and my good friend Ti. Ti is short for Tiger whose real name is Jessica, she gets called Tiger because she likes tigers.

June- The exam month. This month was spend furiously cramming revision in before the exams. Stress, more stress then celebration as I realised ... No more school! I then went to Lightwater Valley with the other school leavers and got burnt by the sun.

July- This month brought joy and sorrow. Leavers assembly was funny and emotional, followed by an amazing Prom. The friends theme tune is now etched on my brain for a different reason than Rachel, Chandler, Ross, Pheobe, Joey and Monica. Then came the holiday from hell, although the first 4 days were brilliant. Myself and my parents went to Osmington Mills Holiday Park in Weymouth, most probably my favourite place outside on Newcastle. We then drove onto Devon. I can't even say the name without shivering. It was cold, wet, windy and more wet. I'll post another blog about that though, I don't have enough energy to write about it now. Then the really bad stuff starts. My Nana was took into hospital while we away, at first for nothing serious. They then found ulcers in her stomach, the results came back as stomach cancer. The last time I saw her she had tubes everywhere, she couldn't talk and my Dad even had to spoon feed her some ice cream. I cried when I left her, because it was the first time for the whole 2 weeks she had been there that  I let myself believe she might die soon. It was the next day. That was the first time I've every wrote about her death, it was harder than I thought.

August- Although my Nana's death was deeply saddening, it also brought me and my family some happiness. Myself, my sister and my Mam all remembered our love of speedway seeing people we knew from there at her funeral and we also gained more family members. Well ones we never really knew before. I had never met my dads side of the family before the funeral but now I have and they are like a kind of replacement for my Nana. No not a replacement, a reminder.
I also failed my first driving test this month and passed my exams to get into university.

September- For most of september I bummed around doing, well not much. I went to Uni, Freshers, new basketball season ,passed my second driving test and bought a car. Ok so maybe I didn't bumm around for most of it.

October- I turned 19, enough said!

November- I had to work on bonfire night. I sat at work looking out of the open window - so I could get a feel of the night. I got stressed with uni deadlines and broke down on my Mam and my tutor, regained my calm and got a 1st on my first essay.

December- finished my first uni term and realised how much I love my uni friends. I think they should be named and shamed. Zoe Cooper, Lisa Johnson, Nic Robinson, Fay Crowley, Daniel Welsh, Karen Turkington, Francessca.
Christmas came and went, and now I am at the present day.

I have probably left some stuff out, on the account it's now 3.02am and I am tired.

So I am going to abruptly end this REALLY long blog to go to sleep

G'night 2009

xxx

Deadlines!

So I'm sitting in the library surrounded by eight books and two notebooks, trying to at least get 1000 words done on this essay.

It's not going very well.

I wish books were magic, you could wave a wand and say the word or phrase you are looking for and walla....it would turn to that page. And not only that it would highlight the bit you need to.

I wish...

The deadline is tomorrow... so is the deadline for another essay.

I'm going to go and do them now...you know...so I don't fail.

Joe McElderry the male version of Cheryl Tweedy?

 Is it just me, or does no one else think Joe looks a bit like Cheryl in the old days?
We might just have ourselves a male version of Cheryl....I hope so!
I absolutly love Joe... he did it for the geordies...go on son!!!!
Anyway this is a rubbish blog, its 12.30am just after he won so what do you expect?

Stress Stress Stress

University is meant to be the most exciting time of your life. Everybody says so. They forget to mention that it is probably the most stressful time in your life.

I've only been at uni since september and I'm already looking forward to it being finished, because of the amount of work I'm getting. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't go thinking I was having an easy ride I just thought I wouldn't find it that hard - because I was doing something I enjoyed. I didn't realise I would have to do modules that involved history or study skills.

The thing is, I am enjoying myself. I get a really good buzz when I get a first for my work, I've just got no self-motivation or belief when I am actually doing the work. Even right at this minute I should be writing 1000 more words on an essay due in two days and another 800 word essay also due in two days. Instead I choose to spend my time moaning about it!

I suppose the moral of my story is: Kids, if you're thinking about going to university think, "can I really cope with it". If yes then go for it, because although I moan I think it'll be worth it in the end.

“Walking with Dinosaurs”

I thought I was witnessing the start of the original Willy Wonka when an old man hobbled through the Cinema doors holding onto Julie Bradford. As soon as Martin Bell started to give his talk, he seemed to spring to life, walking perfectly across the front of the room. He said: “This is the closest you will get to walking with Dinosaurs.”

The ex-BBC war correspondent donned his trademark whitish suit and came up to Sunderland to give us aspiring Journalists an interesting talk. I wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement about his visit. I actually had forgotten he was coming that day. However, when he opened with that joke he had me listening. I suppose he knows how to get people listening, he is a reporter, how would he make money otherwise.

Martin expressed his concern on the future of British broadcasting. He said: “I’m worried we might go down the Fox News way, though Fox News has lost its way.” This was after discussing how speculation has come to be news telling. He said: “Now I know some people, and I love her to bits, Christiane Amanpour, CNN, when the less she knows about something, the more convincing she gets. These are the people that really thrive, I’m being unfair to Christiane she’s a really good reporter.”

Bell discussed how the coverage of the war is censored. He said: “I want to show more not less, they said the images were upsetting.”

Martin then gave hope to the whole room. He said: “Let me tell you, if you want to be a journalist, I think it’s still the best profession, it really is.” When everyone around us is telling us how journalism is struggling and how we are going into this profession at a very hard time, this is a refreshing statement. He then advised: “If you are not willing to take no for an answer, if you are willing to persist, if you will please retain a sense of right and wrong, if you will be conscious of the effect of what you write - especially in broadcasting - can have on people in highly fraught situations, and you've got to be willing to know that you're trying to be manipulated.”

Year of the death of celebs

What will spring to mind when you think back to 2009 in a couple of years?
For me it will be the amount of deaths of celebrities...

Jade Goody
Michael Jackson
Farrah Fawcet
Patrick Swayze
Steven Gately
Wendy Richard

There are much more, on one website I found 5 pages of celebrity deaths in 2009, and the years not over yet.

I only found out about Steven Gately today, he died unexpectly yesterday on holiday with his civil partner. Although I loved Boyzone, he wasn't my favourite member, but his death has shocked me most.He was only 33 with no known illness, that is definatly to young to die.