This is London

Août, I always think that's the weirdest month in French. Anyway, it's August, it's England and yes you guessed it it's raining.
The week ending July was fine, and the beginning of August was sunny, but now the winds are cold, the rain is unending, and the wind has already claimed a life, felling a tree on a car at Clapham Common.
I'm still hustling, having to wake up at 6 (Yes I'm complaining, in Uni the average wake up time is 10) travel for 1 and a half hours, watching folks go about the daily grind in the City known as London. Get on three different trains, commute with hundreds of people, all minding their own business, reading a copy of the Metro, white earphones hanging from their ears, some have their music turned up too loud, but nobody says anything. We are in London, no time for small talk, people only react in case of an emergency, we are arguably in the capital of Europe, where you are guaranteed to hear a foreign language spoken on the trains. We are in London, each person to himself, busily shuffling to work, and at five shuffling back. Oyster cards swiping, tickets entering and ejecting, people mutter on their cell phones, some divulging rather personal information.
We are in a city, networked with what must be miles and miles of rail track, Underground and Overground, countless engineering works, and many fatalities on the track.
We are in a city deluged with tourists, you can spot them, all sorts of cameras in their hands, walking slowly looking at buildings. Some go for large high-tech Canons and Olympuses, other prefer compact versions, while some snap away on their phones.
I love this city, I loathe this city. It's brilliant, and it's boring. It's uniting, yet also very fractioned.
I've been giving a lot of thought into moving to London when I gruaduate next year, surely working in PR in the capital would be many people's dream, and it is mine, yes, one of my dreams, but I'm stuck in a paradox, there is something appealing and unappealing about big city life. The drone-like routine bores me, the choreographed commute, the lifeless souls. I don't know if London is for me, but time will tell I guess.
An island is what I always dreamed of, a small island, not like Britain, a small island like Fiji, like Bermuda, Barbados...but if I lived on a small tropical island I doubt it's public relations I'll be doing.
This is just the ramblings of a young man, currently tuning his dial to the final frequency at which his life would be set at for years to come.....I'm still tuning

Essay Spirit

Essay season brings out peculiar behaviour in me. I become rather superstitious or ritualistic, I have to perform certain activities before I can begin studying, note-taking or writing an essay.
The first ritual that had to take place was the acquisition of a 60 Watt bulb for my tablelamp. My tablelamp had been bulbless for a while and I felt that the central room light was just not enough for my studies, I had to wander around town looking for a bulb (Tesco has an aisle clearly stating 'Bulbs' but there are no bulbs there) I finally found my bulb and studying could commence.
Second ritual is that I need to eat first before I start working. I go down and prepare a large meal, eat, watch something on BBC iPlayer and then begin making an essay plan.
Once the essay plan is done, it's time to begin writing the essay, but first I must take a shower. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, just before I start an essay I take a long cold(ish) shower- I feel it helps me focus better. I get lotioned up, comb my hair and sit at my laptop- play a randomly selected song and then begin the writing process.
My breaks are often 5-10 minutes long, and I can do a various activities ranging from simply staring out my window, to reading about a country on wikipedia, to grabbing Sophie (my camera) and actually going outside to photograph a seagull eating a crab (a photo-op I spotted from my window)

But essays are done, and boredom sets in..a boredom that is relieved by watching programs on iPlayer or reading random facts on wikipedia..yesterday I was reading about- Bermuda, Bora Bora (French Polynesia), The Odyssey, Paul Robeson...Wikipedia is a great source of knowledge, and I urge everyone to go on it everyday and pick up a random bit of knowledge, I know it's easily vandalised, but it's still quite reliable in most cases.

Let's get down to Busy-ness

Alright, for those of you doing PR you'd know that the days ahead are plagued with essay deadlines. The last essays are due on the 22nd of May, but I have told myself that I want to be done with everything before May 10, leaving me with 12 days in excess. I have made such demands of myself before (never really kept them) but I figured that perhaps by blogging it, I would have my self-promise in a public forum and it would cause me to work and update my progress.
Anyway, here it goes:

MAC 266 PR Strategy (2000 words) due May 15

MAC250 Weblogs(1000 words & 1250 words) due May 16

MAC 264 PR Ethics (1250 words) due May 22

MAC 204 Placement (1500 words & 1000 words) due May 22

So..I'm off to work, I'll be crossing off things I've completed as the days go by.

PR in London

Just finished my placement in London...picked up a few things on the way

PR is unpredictable..very unpredictable

The Guardian journalists are on permanent coffee breaks

The Times journalists don't exist

A certain Mail on Sunday journalist gets on my nerves

PR frims can push-out about 200+ e-mails everyday

The phone is always ringing

Whenever you wanna go on your lunch break, the elevator is always going up

You never really finish for the day