New Beginnings

Having tested out the title of this post on a friend, she suggested it might be somewhat more appropriate to publish it tomorrow on the first day of the new year, rather than on the last day of this one. I take her point.

But this is just how life seems to be at the moment. Everything needs to start before the last 'thing' has finished. We dread the moment when we don't know what we're meant to be doing next. As such, my New Beginnings have already started, and New Years Resolutions are already in progress. I have been for a run this week, that's one. The fact I almost died in the process is irrelevant. I have booked a driving lesson, that's two. (Well I've made the decision to book a driving lesson, which is basically the same). I have one lot of work experience already lined up at The Sun, and have applied for another at The Independent. That's three. And I've given a lot of thought to finally making a start on applying for Journalism Masters courses. That's....three and a half. Not bad.

So it's the end of 2011. The year where I taught English to inspired 6th formers, I said the phrase, 'it rains every time I go to Paris', I went to Madrid for a weekend, I went on a date with a French hairdresser and played Uno with his friends, I was a waitress at a gypsy wedding (no, I'm not joking and yes, absolutely everything was pink), I found a packet of frozen snails in the freezer during my summer as an au pair for a lovely French family, I was made to eat aforementioned snails, I spent a week in Turkey, I helped out with a Help4Heroes concert and through a strategic introduction I gained a week's work experience at my local newspaper, and I returned to uni for my final year finally certain of what I wanted the next step to be and completely clueless  as to what to do about it.

Far from making tea or coffee, within an hour of arriving at work experience for the local paper I heard, 'Alex I need 150 words on...' Having never seriously considered journalism as a career prospect and having never written an article in my life, I was bemused to say the least. As confidence grew and my fear of interviewing strangers by telephone subsided slightly (it's a work in progress), I knew by lunchtime that this was what I wanted to do.

2012 has a lot to do to rival this year. Aside from the diet, exercise and mountains of uni work with which every year starts, hopefully it will see graduation; some decent work experience; a bit of travelling; a successful Masters application; and a whole lot of surprises too.