It seems I am still able to post on my blog, so I will add my Laos entries here soon. I tried to do so when in Laos, but for some computer-related reason, trying to access this site made my borrowed laptop crash.

One more week to go. Oh god, the documentary is still not finished *groans, holds head*.

Though I am certainly one of those people who needs a deadline in order to produce their best capacity of work, I protest that I’ve learnt by now to anticipate the terrible stress they can bring, enough to try very hard to avoid it. It’s infuriating to find myself pressed up against one here. In my point of view, it’s largely from problems with working with someone else, but what would be the point of complaining about another person here. C’est la vie. Que sera. Buggerit. Mai pen rai. Too late now, head down and keep plodding on.

Erm, well, anyway, I suppose the time is ripe for a sort of ’round up’, about where I am now and where I was about a year ago. We had our end-of-year hooha on Friday, cue hangovers on Saturday. It was great to kick back together, a handful of lecturers and students alike. Shame that work had to continue for me on Saturday, but a little paracetamol is a wonderful thing. Although still feeling terribly underprepared- I haven’t packed, I haven’t got an up-to-date travel guide, I’m still waiting for confirmation on my flights- I should be in Laos rather terribly soon. Which in its own way brings me full circle… the last time I left university, I went to SE Asia and backpacked. Then I went to Korea. The same prospects face me again. Er, I also went to a Chinese martial art school for a bit after Korea, and, well, I’m considering doing that again in Kuala Lumpur.

It’s not that I don’t want a science communication or media job in England, but mostly that I’m still attracted to drifting, to travel, and I’m terribly afraid of not being able to find a job for a good while. Having done this course and having made up my mind to do this course and go into this sector, I’m not going to give up- I will take work experience, applications, wonderings, unemployment, and the continuing diet of cheap canned foodstuff as long as I have to. For as long as I can hold out. Yet there’s still a lot to be found outside of England, I think, if I can let myself be a drifter between categories for a little longer. Or if I let myself be just indulgent. Or just plain odd. There might not be any shame in finding a job abroad while pursuing creative projects in my own time, and as my mum’s Korean but I’m horribly British, there’s always the draw of going to Korea again to gain a little Korean culture. Maybe. It still can be a little strange, to be in charge of one’s own life choices. However I remember that when I was doing my undergraduate degree, I was much more stressed about life choices, and full of self-criticism for what felt like a lack of direction and too much indulgence. ‘I might do this, I might do that…’ Meanwhile I had watched my parents work and work throughout my childhood. I couldn’t imagine that they had ever been as directionless as me. Yet now here I am again, after a degree, and I care much less. Mentally, this is much better.

I’ve caught up recently with a few friends from my undergraduate time, and we’ve briefly shared experiences. Many are disillusioned or restless with the corporate world already, though, well, nothing comes easily anywhere, and I certainly seem to like my restlessness and disillusionment wherever I can generate it. Some are heading back into university on the Phd route, seeking personal fulfilment. Both have always been options, I guess. I am curiously curious about working for a corporation, for one of those companies that deal in business and figures and office hours, open to anyone with a yen and a university degree. And goodness knows, a salary one can save on would be great. But I’ll still happily avoid that for a while longer. I’m enough of a nerd to like the idea of a Phd, but not driven enough to hunt out a chosen subject yet. So I guess I’m still in a similar mindset to how I was pre-Imperial, yet with a nice helping of experience and a few more skills, and a handful of good people.

And… London was, and is, very fun to live in. Especially in the summertime.

I wish I had an adventurous road trip to blog about like Natalia, but for my documentary, the stories are still rather boring. We’ve interviewed a mixture of councillor, psychologist, geographer and journalist on the topic of shared space, and meanwhile, the other things to be filmed are just general street scenes in London. I still hope that my brother, entrepreneuring businessman and classic speedy driver of a white van might let me sit in with a camera while he drives confidently round London one day, but that thrill of being an un-driver squeaking in terror as someone else negotiates hair-pin turns with colourful language is as exciting as my filming experience is likely to get.

Nonetheless, we have our interviews, and our lecturer seemed remarkably amiable about their nature, even largely unedited and deliciously waffle-ey as they are. I tend to go in nearly every day to the department (and stay embarrassingly late…) yet only got to the stage where I could start editing sequences in earnest on Tuesday. Man, editing takes ages, just the very nature of having to watch minutes of footage over and over again every time its reshuffled, catches me by surprise every time.

We’ve a couple of weeks till the deadline and I feel pretty constantly stressed or absently worried, but it’s kind of cool, a constant prickly adrenaline high that mangles my dreams and ups the amplitude of comfort eating. For the Bank Holiday weekend, I guiltily went to Creamfields as part of my Oxfam festival volunteering thang this year (don’t go, it’s overhyped and / or just plain rubbish) and to compensate sat up half the night, before I left, rewriting the documentary script to the nagging voices of Panic and Conscience in my head, who like to turn up the volume at night. Incidentally, for those who may make documentaries or films in the future, one good bit of advice is to find work colleagues who have as similar a work style to yourself- especially if you have to work in pairs. For instance, if one person likes to plan lots while the other prefers to be spontaneous, or if one person prefers to work only at certain times and never outside while the other likes being flexible, there’ll be a long and arduous period of getting puzzled / annoyed / wearily tolerant of each other.

As mentioned before, the comforting cushion of what-to-do-After is for me a short internship in Laos at the end of September. It’s unpaid but with perks such as being in Laos, and I’ll blog about it somewhere, hopefully on that website I keep meaning to create once I find out how websites are created, instead of pretending I understand that sort of thing. It’s pretty highly recommended to construct some manner of website or web presence if you want to work in the media, anyway, but mind you, after recently watching an episode of Nathan Barley for the first time, I’m a bit worried that it also might turn me into a mediatwit. Still, watch this space, erm, on both counts.

Oh and I did film the Michael Jackson Leicester Square tribute! I stuck it onto Youtube here. Reckon it’s long overdue that I joined in with the Youtube revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcAOHP7Hq00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c3zjv0shv0

Not just early August already, but the 12th of August. How swiftly time seems to be trotting on now… it felt like July was quite a long stretch of fairly sunny days, with the comforting cushion of two more months of justified studentdom between then and the end.

Docu-partner and I are still trying to get hold of interviewees for our documentary. Currently, he’s also in France and sans internet- though really, what person wouldn’t want to spend their vacation worrying and researching about roads, traffic, shared space, accidents, and driving psychology? A sane one, possibly. It’s not been difficult to get people who are willing to be interviewed- the allure of the camera / media communication / just happy to talk about their area of expertise- but getting an exact date and time from them tends to be more complicated. Which leaves me here, spending really quite a lot of time in the department for one who doesn’t really have a lot of footage to edit yet. I generally go in quite a lot to just get myself into mental work-mode, and because I have a poor internet connection at home coughandmyroomisusuallyashamblescough. Am starting to turn up at the department later and later, but happily the security guards are not allowed to chuck anyone out until it’s after 11pm, even if I am the only person there.

Anyway, to get some general roads in London footage, I spent most of yesterday on various buses going through central London. Actually was quite good… plenty of time to spend reflecting on the times years ago when I’d never been to London, but really wanted to go to London, except my boyfriend hated London and didn’t want to go, and I didn’t see the fun in going by myself. There’s still lots to see here that I take for granted. Hoisting a video camera about the place does tend to get a person noticed, though, ranging from people asking me for advice on buying one themselves, asking loudly if I’m filming anything good, walking right into me when I stick my eye into the eyepiece to try and look busy, or taking a good hawk and loogie at whatever I happen to be filming in case a little phlegm will add some dynamic action. All captured on tape, peeps, for my reminiscing pleasure once I’ve uploaded it onto the editing Macs.

In other news, I’ve also been ill for a while, which is lousy. I’m not used to being ill. It’s some kind of cold, but with the general symptoms of two days of a stuffed-up head followed by a week of feeling physically weak and oddly mushy in the brain, like a hangover that won’t shift. (Un)fortunately, for me / others, I don’t really have anyone to complain about this to, seeing as most of us are engrossed in our projects and dissertations.

We’ve also finally heard confirmation that three of us, including fellow bloggee David, will be undertaking an internship under the Mekong River Commission in Laos!

Finally, I’ve heard on good authority that there’s going to be a massive Michael Jackson flashmob tribute in Leicester Square this Saturday at 2pm. I’ll be there with a camera to try capturing the cool madness.

Blast. I lost the footage of Imperial’s International Night, something I’d been meaning to edit and put up online for ages, but kept delaying due to forgetting / unsure of how to edit and upload / no time. What little remains, I’ll put up on Youtube as soon as I get to grips with Final Cut film editing program again. I’m really annoyed about it, though… there were some excellent performances that night, and I was glad I’d managed to capture it on tape. I was hoping to get the footage online or in DVD format sometime… Oh, dear, massive fail for me as an independent filmmaker!

I’ll blame it on procrastination, that swamp of no return. If something is put off for tomorrow, a week from now, or a month from now, when it could be done sooner, the chances of actually getting round to doing that thing diminish markedly. To any students who would like to dabble in film, make some useful CV material for themselves in media, or just want something different to do, I’d recommend you join Stoic TV or hey, sign up for the MSc in Science Media Production / Science Communication. Once you’re in, you can borrow the cameras any time, time permitting, and film any of the events that happen to happen at Imperial. There’s always that glamour about a camera, as well as it’s intrusiveness… most societies or college goings-on are happy for their events to be filmed. I wish now I had done more filming during term time- in all honesty, though, this course has been a busy one, and I’d like to think I haven’t wasted too much time that could have been spent usefully.

Still working on the project-documentary…. no updates about that yet A challenge that I think we’re all facing is how to work together with our docu-partners!

I have been trying to make myself face the question of what I’ll do once the course has finished. This is, naturally, a big question that can be only partly answered… most decisions about what the future will be like can’t really be answered, you just find out as you go along, muddling through a multitude of small choices that lead you here and there along the general pathway of your own life. I’ve been very disheartened by the bad-work-experience-placement experience, and somewhat wryly disheartened by a few of the seminars we had in June. We were both encouraged to strive for media work after the course, while being warned that it was going to be very competitive, particularly difficult given the recession, and that we may spend a lot of time doing unpaid work experience, or simply bashing out our own independent projects while being unemployed. I’ve been toying with the prospect that I won’t stay in London, that I might go abroad and work on print media projects more, or that I’ll even end up studying more while trying to produce media stuff on the side. Still, losing the footage made me think that I do like to film, photograph, write, think, produce. I should think there are worse things to do than to work at that, in any way I can, over the next year… even if I don’t do it as part of a production company. Which might be a bold sounding but irrelevant statement, mind, as most people working for companies seem to be freelance anyway, except for the top dogs.

Something I particularly value is sharing the company of other like-minded, interesting, or just friendly people on this course.

And to round off, a few Glastonbury pics…

I live! Actually, I’ve just returned from my parents’ house, where, using my dad’s treacle-slow computer to access this webpage causes the whole thing to begin to implode. It was best not to do that, really, so I stayed away from the blogsite, even though I felt ready to blog anew. Now I suspect I updated a month and a bit ago, so forgive me if I should repeat any bits and pieces of news about me which have already been so gratuitously written about.

I am just sitting in my new flat, enjoying a glass of mulled wine. Going home has benefits that include taking away items of food or drink that parents no longer want, this included, this time, a dusty bottle of unopened mulled wine.  It smells and tastes of Christmas. So much has happened since then, yet so much seems to be going on now that I can mainly avoid bittersweet nostalgia. But it is good to have markers of time and memory- physical souvenirs, foods you used to eat, scents you haven’t encountered in a while, photographs, old emails, facebook messages. It’s good to be able to unlock the memories that are there somewhere in your brain.

Having finished most of the seminars aimed at educating us media young’uns about the professional world of making TV, I went to Glastonbury festival for a week. Here’s how:

You sign up to volunteer with Oxfam, which means working several 8 hour shifts at various festivals, and not having to pay for a ticket. Very good. I haven’t been camping since… well, the last 3-day festival I suppose, and I was just a shy newbie 18 year old then. Stewarding was fine, the weather superb for Glastonbury, the mud not *too* cowpatty, and the crowds heaving. Ahhhh I mean busy, not… vomiting. I may make another post about Glastonbury after this one- this is the ‘update’ post, not ‘rave about Glastonbury to everyone who doesn’t want to read about Glastonbury’ post.

Anyway, I came back to London on the 31st. This summer is dedicated to the final project, which is the documentary. I had been guiltily tossing ideas about in my head before and throughout the festival, but in the end it was my partner who hit upon an interesting topic. He sent me these articles regarding the concept of ’shared space’.

I was dubious as to how interesting a documentary about, broadly speaking, traffic, roads, and road accidents could be. Nonetheless, I particularly liked the comments about the theory which seemed to allude to different perspectives and broader views- Susan Greenfield, neuropharmacologist and favourite of the media, remarking that traffic lights are a metaphor for disenfranchment. Professors declaring the road makes us act against our natural human behaviour. It had been surprisingly hard to settle upon a documentary topic. Although the nature of the final project was a strong impetus to decide to do the Science Media Production course and not the Science Communication course, I had felt incredibly conscious that time was short and it seemed thus that many topics were easily ‘interesting’, but not practical. Reading these articles, I felt a few cogs in my brain shiver, and start, hesitantly, to turn. So there was our topic.

Alongside planning for the documentary, I’ve also become an infrequent columnist or writer for Conservation Today, a website that provides conservation-related news and opinions for all sorts of interesting topics around the world. With several writers on board from both Sci-Comm and SMP, it’s bound to be a diverse and intriguing source of info. Check it out at:

I also volunteered to do some weekly research for a small, smart sounding company over in L.A. It gives a good excuse to go delving through science journal websites again, even though trying to reconcile the nature of scientific research (slow, complicated, careful, contextual) with what might appeal to the media (instant appeal, intrigue, excitement, relevance) is a bit of a clash in the head. I wonder if doing work might ever result in an all expenses paid trip to L.A… ha, ha…. hmm are they reading this?

Then there’s another possible internship that might be going ahead this autumn. I won’t give more details till it’s confirmed to be definitely happening, but it’s in a fairly unusual part of the world, in so far as internships go.

Ah, and one more thing. I’m also hoping to construct a short comic for a competition this autumn. It’s not really related to science, but the information was provided for by the Sci-Comm department. Hopefully now I’ve mentioned it, I will feel even more compelled to start the thing sooner! I still hope that I can produce science comics, or science artworks, one day. I’d like to be like Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Ware, David Attenborough, and Ian McEwan rolled into one. Except… female, and… etc.

Anyway- the point is, though, that none of the above things would be happening if not for the emails which are sent out around the Sci-Comm and SMP email lists by our lecturers. There’s really been quite a diversity of opportunities, from jobs to volunteering at science festivals, to lectures, to internships. No, they’re not paying me to write this sort of stuff (though… hi there… you *could* be… hmm? Just saying. I need a job…). I just feel quite appreciative in the wonderful summer climate.

Photographs of Glastonbury, London, and Kew Gardens (where we did a sort of field trip and one of our lecturers bought us all extremely good ice creams…) forthcoming. It’s a fine summer in London, and I’m happy that the course hasn’t ended yet.

Rightio, let’s see where to begin…

As part of the SMP course, we’re all meant to do 4 week placements. Sci Commers will also do placements, though theirs come later, in the summer. Four choices are selected from a provided list of companies, of various backgrounds and specialities- news, general documentary, nature documentary (difficult to get), radio, even a placement abroad in Germany. We provide our CVs to our genial lecturer, who sends them off.

Most of us got replies from two companies. One of the best placements is said to be with Time Team, who are reckoned to be very friendly and informative. I applied to them and had an interview (see an earlier entry) but wasn’t chosen out of the prospective three candidates who were contacted. Meh. Our lecturer was contacted by the second company, who were willing to accept two of us. I sent an advised email to them, and got a quick, casual reply. They seemed unassuming and happy to take SMP students on the strength of the Imperial reputation, or our CVs.

Establishing a start date was delayed by my waiting to hear if I would go to Time Team or not, plus I suppose I kept politely hinting about the sorts of things I wanted to know- like, when to start and where to go- rather than directly asking. After a bit of help, I got a start date and went along.

The company had a very good looking website with a variety of shows on. I liked the topics of the shows, I had heard of a few and noted them idly in my memory as sounding interesting, and I’d watched some older series’s years ago. So, one Tuesday morning, I went in at 10am (the official hours seem to be 10-6 for a lot of TV companies), was swiftly and amiably shown around a couple of places in the office before being left with my email correspondent and person in charge of me. Meh, it’s not original, but let’s call her X.

X introduced me to a couple of other important people on the floor we were on. “This is Annabel, she’ll be joining our brainstorming sessions from hereon,” she told one of them. -Hooray!- I thought. -Sounds terribly exciting and intimidating- supposing they ask for my ideas? Supposing they like them? Supposing I just sit there eating biscuits?- X told me of a proposal they’d sent to one of the TV channels recently, gave me the popular science book it was based on, and asked me to have a look at the proposal and at the book to see what I thought. That was about 11:30, I suppose. So far, so good. The office was a big, open plan office, many clustered desks, and people casually sitting at computers, or on the phones, or chatting to each other. I got a free space on one desk opposite a vaguely friendly but very busy woman who had to make a lot of phone calls. X had a meeting after lunch till 4pm so I generally stayed at the desk, reading the book, wondering if or how I could or should insert myself into the office life. Hmm, it’s often felt, isn’t it… that feeling of being once again, the youngest, or the most inexperienced, or the most totally out of place. Whenever a new school is joined… a new company… a new level of education… Such is the structure of our society.

X came back and I told her what I thought of the proposal, and the book. “Sounds like you’ve come to the same conclusions as us,” she agreed, and asked if I would write my ideas down. Even just visualisations of scenes, it didn’t have to be a full proposal. She also added I could go home when I liked, and- confusingly- that I could come in when I liked. I decided to disregard that as much as possible, in case she was testing me, and stay 10-6. It’s what we were meant to do, wasn’t it?

The next day, X wasn’t around. I sat at the desk, wondering what to do, when the woman across the table asked if I was busy and if I could help her. Casual permission was granted by X’s passing co-worker (the two of them had their own glass box, so I suppose they must be of a similar job title), so I worked on that. It was a daytime show- let’s call it Le House- and it involved a lot of trying to find participants via phone, plus some internet research. I thought it was pretty nerve wracking to make the phone calls at first, since I felt quite unsure of the details of the programme, what exactly I could promise, what I shouldn’t say, or what might be the best approach. But on the other hand, I’d been told the basic information, and I could mimick the other woman’s speech. So, nervously, I got on with those…

The third day, X reappeared and called me into her office to have a chat. She took a look at my documentary ideas / proposal, but didn’t seem too bowled over by it- probably very similar to what they already had planned. She gave a bit of warning information on pitching and development- “It’s not easy, it’s hard.” Anyway, next came the start of my downfall, or maybe it just was my downfall. X tossed off a few questions similar to what I’d expect in an interview- why did I want to make TV documentaries… why did I think I was suited to make documentaries… what had I watched recently? I jokingly admitted I was worried I didn’t watch enough TV- huge mistaaaaaaaaaaakkkkee!!- and found it hard to think of suitable programmes to talk about. I felt like my mind was full of things I’d watched recently to help with the exams- older documentaries, obscure documentaries, famous documentaries- but few things off TV. Sure, I had a trashy addiction to the Apprentice, some cooking programme that I kept finding on, and I casually watched other stuff here and there, yet the names seemed to blank from my head. I could visualise bits and pieces of things I’d watched, yet it suddenly seemed that their names were blank from my head.

Images of David Attenborough, Dr Alice Roberts, and Nick Broomfield came through my head, but unfortunately, they didn’t hold up title cards. In fact, the only documentary I could fully remember was one I was trying desperately not to say- a recent 40D documentary on a transsexual pageant, ‘Tears, Tiaras, and Transsexuals’- which I’d only watched in the belief that it would be amazingly trashy and wonderfully, horribly surreal. -Better not say that- my worried better judgement counselled me.

X didn’t like my sudden memory block, nor that I hadn’t apparently watched many of the company’s programmes. I offered a documentary I really liked that hadn’t aired on TV, and said that I’d been studying for the exams and so was still ensconced in film history, and that I’d been abroad for nearly two years with little to watch beyond bus films and Korean melodramas- none of these were forgiveable excuses. X said she was wondering why I was here- was this something Imperial just pushed me into? Why was I here, when hundreds were clamouring to get in. Maybe four weeks in this place wasn’t the right thing for me. An amazing feeling of panic and pressure started somewhere in my head.

-My God, is she going to suggest I leave?-

She had also asked how I was finding the work so far, and I’d been honest and said that the documentary proposal had been fun, but working on the daytime show was a bit intimidating, a lot of the same sort of work had to be done, like the same sort of phonecall- but I understood it was all necessary. She said it didn’t seem like I was enjoying the work- alarmed, I pointed out quickly that I’d only been there three days. Two, really- this was the morning of the third day!

Anyway, X said perhaps I should keep working on what I was doing, and then move onto another show next week. Feeling somewhat startled and panicked over having apparently presented myself so badly, and not seeming able to salvage it with my words, I agreed.

More days like this. The other work experience person there, who was doing it as part of a job hunt, was very welcoming. A man I met in the tea corner was nice and personable. The lady at my desk was very busy almost all the time, but I did manage to get the courage to ask her at one point- “Sorry, but who are all these people and what are they doing here?” and she told me a bit about what all the people in the open plan office were doing. The work experience person left, I began to wish I’d asked to be moved elsewhere, if I did have a choice in what I was doing. I sent a hopeful email to X asking just that. I remembered TV I’d watched recently, the Hospital documentary series I’d really enjoyed, and berated myself for not being able to say those to X. It was all pretty disquieting and I was wondering what I could do to get myself noticed more. Friday passed.

On Monday, I transcribed video interview footage for Le House into words, an all day task. Come the following Tuesday, and X called me back in her office and said she’d asked the exec of a different series to take me on. It might take a week or so for this to happen, she warned, but I got a quick meeting that day. Off to another level of the building, a much more empty open plan office. My saving grace is that I’d watched an episode of this different series before- let’s call it Le Country- and liked it, and remembered it. The exec was content to talk to me about what I was studying, what I thought of the series, and what they were doing. He was pretty welcoming, and so were the team. It was good to be working on something where my rural background knowledge came in handy for the research they needed… plus the team was small, and seemed genuinely nice.

Funnily enough, they all chuckled knowingly when I told them I’d been working on Le House before. Daytime TV did not seem to have a great reputation. The only problem was that I was a bit of a fifth wheel… though I researched tasks in the morning, I found myself sitting quietly in the afternoon with nothing to do, while everyone stared intently into their own computers and their own work, not talking to each other much. I asked several times, ‘Does anyone need help…” but there wasn’t much response to that. A little re-note writing. A little research. A lot of busy, uncomfy silence. I was starting to feel a bit mousy and uncertain. I was able to ask a couple of questions, at least, about the nature and structure of the company, which helped.

Thursday came along. After doing a research task in the morning, I got an email from X asking me to come in for a ‘chat’ at 12. I finish off a research task and go along…

X asked how things were going on Le Country. Now, as work exp students, we’re advised to be positive and cheerful. I’d swear I am quite a positive and cheerful seeming person in social situations. We’re advised not to make enemies, since the media world of work is a small and incestuous one.  Silly me thought all this would be fine, and since I had really enjoyed my Msc course, and usually labelled myself a ‘creative’ person as well as a person who likes science, and was feeling pretty content and mature this time round in university, that all would be well once I entered the placement workplace.  I’m not sure what kind of lesson this is to me, other than one I find hard to recall without feeling really quite depressed. 

I said I was enjoying Le Country, the nature of the research (looking for farm related business) and I admitted that I seemed a bit redundant at times, as the team had generally just given me 1-2 tasks each day, in the morning, and then afternoons everyone seemed very busy and I was feeling pretty conspicuous asking, ‘Does anyone have anything that needs doing?’. I think sometimes my self-consciously chatty mouth needs a self-administered smack, I should have just lied and made up something purely assured and brazen. She nodded and said that the team were going on a shoot the next week (I had overheard mentions of a shoot soon, but I wasn’t aware of this) and they wouldn’t be taking me.

Now I’m not entirely sure on this point- she made remarks that *sounded* like they weren’t taking me because I hadn’t impressed them enough, ie. she said ‘Well I can’t *make* X and X take you…’, but I wish I could’ve worked up the cojones to email the team and explicitly just ask them if that was the case. So with the team going away next week, she said my placement would finish this week, and really, in my case, that was all I would need. Energy drains. I feel a sinking deep within, and the start of pressure in my head again

She then said I should go and seriously think about whether I wanted to work in television. This is in reference to last week’s disastrous talk where I couldn’t really name recent stuff I’d watched, where she had decided I didn’t watch enough television, so what was I doing there? Conversation gets a bit hazy in my mind after this, but I was upset and stressed that she didn’t want me there longer, or that I apparently seemed so naive and unsuitable.

I tried to say, “Okay, but I would like to know, why wasn’t I interviewed before the placement to avoid this kind of situation…” but the pressure in my head had become a big fat lump in my throat, and I got the words out, but without much charisma. I tried to leave, then I stayed and tried to fight back more. I was not offensive to her, beyond asking why I wasn’t interviewed, then, why I was being criticised when I had done everything that was asked of me. Further on in the conversation she coolly remarked, ‘You seemed quite angry earlier…’ when just moments ago she’d said that this office environment was a bit like the Apprentice where we all have to be competitive and put ourselves forward. I try saying, ‘Well this is a bit like the boardroom, I’m just trying to put my side forward…’ but it doesn’t help. Levity does not help.

(NB- since this experience I have found it really difficult to watch the candidates getting an Alan Sugar tonguelashing in the boardroom scenes, since I feel so damn sorry for them).

I felt like I couldn’t win. There was no changing this person’s mind. X coolly said that Imperial students didn’t normally need to be interviewed. They have Imperial students every year, they’ve always been fine, so they’ve always stayed for the full 4 weeks. She goes on about the media being so very competitive; I get the message, then, that I haven’t been ‘competitive’ enough.

This is a tricky point to consider. In theory, one can always do more in a situation, but it’s only with retrospect that you can really see what could have been done. What I felt was that I’d tried hard to be good, but also to be me, thinking being me would be okay for this workplace. Clearly, I should not have been me. I should have been an android of eternal smiles, rapid fire telephone technique, bouncy steps, avid questions, and absolutely no glimmer of social unease. Hearing all this was to have the effect of making my self-esteem implode like a very big black hole opening up under a fragile sandpit. I began to entertain the possibility that without realising it, I was a dreadfully poor workplace person.

I really feel that is unfair- I have been as polite and smiley as I can. I’ve been confused about what the company would provide for me and what went on in the offices from day one, so maybe I haven’t been sitting at the desk with a huge grin on my face, but I’ve never been rude or blunt when asked to do a task. I always smile when people address me.  I’ve always been as bright and positive as I can when dealing with her- when last week after two days (during which she only spoke to me on the first day) she started saying critically that it looked like I wasn’t enjoying my work, I didn’t understand why she was saying that- I’d been making phone calls for a day, I said positive things about how it helped me understand how busy the office was. Was I supposed to stand in her office and exclaim falsely about how much I loved phoning people? I guess, clearly from her response, I should have. But I don’t think I was negative at all.

I remember her saying further things like “You may have been successful in your life so far, maybe this is the first time you’ve failed, maybe it’ll be good for you”. I had a brief burst of paranoia that she was talking about the Oxford tag, in any case, I would never say myself that I have been a successful person. I protested strongly that that was entirely untrue.

She asked why I hadn’t thoroughly researched Le Country series beforehand (thank you, I’ve looked at their website, I’ve read Guardian articles on it, I’ve seen an episode), why hadn’t I watched Le Company’s programmes (I share a room with a computer games fanatic, we have rubbish reception, I watch stuff off Iplayer and 40d and Iplayer stores things only up for a week, I watch old stuff, I like picking quality documentaries not general TV, we don’t have Sky or Freeview, I’ve been studying for a month and busy with term before that, all useless excuses that wouldn’t have helped and which only make me feel more stupid). I protested she had gotten the wrong idea and thought I didn’t watch any TV, spluttered out a few programmes I had remembered post-third day. I said that I had had a ‘memory blank’.

“Well why didn’t you say these then? Why aren’t you watching TV all the time, writing notes about it, if you want to work in it?” X asked stridently. I thought briefly of the ‘media log’ notebook I had started at the beginning of the year. It had about 5 entries in it, detailing my thoughts on science programmes I’d seen, before I’d started writing notes elsewhere, or just watching and reflecting without note writing. If only I’d kept it up…

When asking what I might have learned from the work I’d done, I commented that I enjoyed the concept and organisation of Le Country more and this is the sort of thing I’d like to work on- the style of programme, the subject- than Le House (which is less interesting in subject matter for me).

Misssstaaaake!!! The other development producer who has just entered the room immediately launches into a sharp and unsmiling speech about how there’s nothing wrong with Le House, how Le House was X’s concept, and a great show, and how everyone has to start working on small stuff and scaling up into other projects, and how the work always involves phone calls and research and hard graft… so they ask for my opinion on what I’ve learnt and then launch into a lecture about how great Le House is and (by implication) that I’m dismissing the general aspects of the show that apply to all other programmes and the media in general. The sandpit hole widens. I am in it. I have a shovel in my hands and they just keep on moving. 

She says more stuff about the competitiveness of the media, clearly feeling this whole experience and this lecture is being a good lesson for me. She says work experience is a good way of finding out whether an industry will suit a person or not. She says this experience should be helpful to me. She ends by coolly criticising me for not getting in touch my tutor who I had emailed about the placement, feeling worried after the third day disaster, and who had then emailed myself and X.

All this said with a look of mild amusement or detachment. Sigh… my traitorous body had rebelled and the lump in my throat had flowered into some rather embarrassing tears, so physically, I wasn’t much of an opponent in the ‘keeping it cool’ stakes. I said I’d felt like she had made all her judgements about me and there was nothing I could say to change her mind, it really was unfair. It didn’t matter. I get up, and the two producers just turn back to each other and start discussing their work before I’ve even left the room

Afterwards, this nearly 24 year old postgraduate went to go weep in a park and think of all the things she should have said and done. When I did eventually go back to Le Country team, I wasn’t in much of a condition to explain what had happened, other than that my ‘chat’ with X had gone rather disappointingly. After everything, I still don’t really know what they thought of me. I sent emails with apologies the next day, since there was no point going in and making everyone uncomfortable. One person I couldn’t email phoned to check where I was. I quaveringly asked what they thought was wrong about my performance but no definite answer was given. She did say once I made a documentary, I’d find my confidence, or something. Hmm. Maybe she didn’t know I’d already made one, plus frankly, if I didn’t have confidence now, something would be rather wrong with me, and then finally, spectacular fail on what I seem to be perceived as, then.

This is an awfully long post. Conclusions? I’ll do those another time- perhaps when I’ve worked out what my conclusions are. I felt pretty depressed for while after that. While this was all going on, relations were busy breaking down between me and my other half, leaving me to wonder how much of the negative labelling I was suddenly facing in May should I actually take on board. If influential persons tell you that, in some respect, you’re really quite lacking / plain rubbish, what’s the difference between it being ‘feedback’, or being misconception about you which you should simply disregard?  

So, between college and my Clapham home that I soon had to move out of, I lurked. Feeling like I did something wrong. Feeling like I shouldn’t be so affected by this. Feeling like it was embarrassing to tell people I was feeling so depressed about this. Wondering why I spent this year of my life, and all last year’s saved savings on this course, instead of sticking to the more reliable, predictable, and intellectually guarded path of pure science Masters’s, Phds, medical degrees.

Wondering if I should take advantage of the university’s free, provided, counselling services, or if I just needed time. Wondering why I went in thinking I’d learn about all different areas of development, shooting, and production, when actually as it was made painfully obvious, I had no rights to learn about any of those and it was up to them, purely them, about what would be provided or not. 

Wondering why even after years and years of education, of treading what you are assured are the right paths, you’re still just as vulnerable to being belittled, or told you’re inexperienced, or hopeless, or your education is entirely irrelevant actually and never enough, or having to fight to start at the bottom, by your supposed elders. Heck, there are always elders, and what a gloomy thought that is. I have no conclusions right now, so I invite you to make up your own…

May was not a good month for me, and June could be perilously in danger of going down the tubes, too- I’ll resist as much as I can, though! Having returned to college after the placement period, I’ve been to two rather good seminars, one on the problem of how to pitch to channels, companies, or just plain people on the internet, given by a documentary maker, and another more general seminar given by a director and an editor. These seminars have been really good- informative, and kind of inspiring again.

After the troubles I had in May, I sat in on the first seminar listening to the gloomy warnings that it is extremely, extremely hard to make documentaries for mass cinema, and extremely hard to convince channels and companies to accept your ideas. But the speaker went on to give solid advice for how to handle this difficult business, plus an interesting exploration of the number of new and even free options available to amateur filmmakers today, thanks to the explosion of the World Wide Web. It was good food for thought. Kudos to our Documentary lecturer for getting the speakers.

Asides from that, I’ve been househunting- well, room hunting really. Sharing a room with a significant other has been ‘interesting’ and certainly a very economical way of living in London, except when your relationship starts falling to pieces. After living here for 8 months, it’s still hard to get a grasp on what is a good price for accommodation or not. I rantily complained on facebook about how little a 100 pound a week baseline seemed to get me here, which made me feel better for a little time, but the search had to go on. (If you are also short of money and want to be reminded of how much it costs for the privilege of being in London, just try searching, say, Gumtree Bristol, and see what 100 pounds a week gets you there). Although the university offers loose advice for people seeking private housing- a list of landlords who they can’t promise to have checked- I resorted mostly to using gumtree.com to find places with pictures and descriptions. Having plenty of useless junk to move, I needed somewhere indefinitely permanent. Anyway, after a lot of cycling around visiting places, missing out on good places that go within the day, changing my mind about moving out to accommodate the significant other, changing it back, I think I’ve found somewhere, but it’s terribly scary to be moving into an already occupied flat with fellows who seem a bit reluctant to let me meet the landlord face to face. If he doesn’t produce a piece of paper with the right words of a tenancy agreement on it, all the advice I’ve read recommends that I flee, ducking and dodging hurled objects and curses. Sigh. That’ll be tomorrow’s drama.

Still, lovely to see college friends and acquaintances again, so June may yet be a good month. I feel a bit like in my preoccupation of house searching, relationship breaking and unpleasant placement woes, that I’ve been asleep for a while. There’s still articles that could be written for Felix or Postscript, more college-ey seminars to attend, activities to be done for Imperial clubs. Can’t stay down and solitary forever. One has to get back into the game.

–

Incidentally, if you’re curious as to hear my experiences in the placement, I plan to jot them down in the next entry. It may be of interest if you’re wondering how a media placement might go wrong. But it’ll probably be pretty angsty and spattered with my angsty life wonderings. You’ve been warned.

Watching the candidates get a severe interview grilling from persons fully exercising their positions of power reminds me of my current experiences in the media industry…

more pending…

My placement ended. And yes, it ended prematurely, and not under particularly good circumstances.

Now I have a week before meetings next week begin. These meetings will be about our forthcoming documentary projects this summer. I’m… lacking in essential things right now to be a successful, competitive student, but I still vaguely hope I can make something a bit offbeat and weird. I’ll just pretend to be Tim Burton or Charlie Kaufman. It’ll give purpose to my inner monologues, and I will save time by never having to brush my hair again.

I’ve become joint creative designer for an exciting forthcoming project- Robogals! Robogals is a student-borne scheme that began in Melbourne last year, aimed to get young girls interested and involved in robotics, technology, and engineering. So all cool with me I wish I were an engineer… as a brief microbiologist when doing a final year project, I never felt in control of the experiments I was doing. I spread microbial organisms I couldn’t see upon plates of sterile agar jelly, seeded the jelly with other factors, then sat back and conceded that nature was in control here, not me, I was just a spectator to see whether they felt like growing or not, or if the results could be called on to slightly prove anything which couldn’t really be undoubtedly proved in the long run anyway. I imagine at least engineers don’t fear, say, their screws abruptly dying on them, or their plans so at the mercy of nature.

Robogals is just getting started in London, but there will be a Robo Gala in Hyde Park, open to everyone who wants to come along and be part of a spectacular performance. That’s on the 11th July… Then there’s also a Robo Gala After Party on the 16th July, hosted by the Ministry of Sound and again, open to everyone! Details on tickets soon…