Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
Jesus, it’s been a tense couple of days. The Board of Education decide my final university grade this week, and the letters started being sent out today or yesterday. I’m literally 1% off a 2.1 in my submitted grades from Greenwich, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the Board decide to bump me up or not, as I was on a 2.1 average the whole way though my final year, 75% of my course grade.
It really makes you wonder about the university system, and how we’ve all graduated at a time where jobs are completely nonexistent. I’m four days into my Money Marketing mini-internship and, quite frankly, I don’t actually want to leave, I’d do this for a living. Journalism is never the highest paid job in the world, but I really do think financial journalism holds excellent potential for both further education and advancement. It’s also nice to see my previous work section fill out a bit after a dismal couple of months, though there’ll be gaming content in there for Hi-Score and Big Red Potion next week regardless.
Novel is still coming along well, just developing a couple of supporting characters along the way, some cannon fodder and some that will become slightly more crucial to the advancement of the plot as time goes on. At the moment I’m about 10% in, fully-edited, and quite happy with it so far, considering I’ve been working on it for only a few hours this week from scratch. I’m also pondering decisions as to whether or not to name the city, and also where I want to take the plot in terms of a particularly important character who’s developing a lot better now he’s not simply a mindless bastard, really.
Planning on going to see Dorian Gray next Wednesday if I can, and so will T-Mobile customers when they combine forces with Orange. I think the Orange Wednesdays idea is genius, but I think O2 customers would benefit even more from a merger, combining all these brilliant cinema and dining offers with the accessibility of the iPhone to consumers. I don’t really want one, as the battery life sucks and it’s another iTunes money-sucking program (iTunes used to run me dry on a regular basis), but it’s a nice idea to give the consumer some added benefits after asking them to lay down a minimum of forty smackers a month in order to have one of the damn things. De-chip it and bam, no more updates. It’s ridiculous, and another bit of proof that, as Microsoft sell rights to MS Word amongst others, lessening their monopoly on the OS and software market, Apple are steaming forward with their own slice of paradise in mind. I spy a Bill Gates shrine in the office of Steve Jobs. Possibly with a pentagram ring drawn on an iPod ScrollWheel.
Finding an agent is going to be a bit of a nightmare, but what the hell, really, if it works, it works. I’m seeking jobs in publishing at the moment as a way of getting my start in the bookmaking industry I love so much, and it’ll be fantastic if the publishing house I’m applying to decides to take an interest, as I love their authors and their imprints, of which there are many of both. Working in Central London is expensive, but a lot easier if you, like me today, give up Starbucks for homemade lunches. There’s nothing like a corned beef sandwich at ten in the morning, let me tell you, though I do miss my chocolate cream frappucinos.
Anyhow, back to work, and I’ll keep you posted on results and novel progress over the course of the week and the weekend. Ciao.
Good luck! 1% off is so frustrating. I had the same and I really wish I’d appealed over it at the time as I’d also had a 2.1 average the whole year, so it was silly of me that I didn’t.
And good luck with job hunting :)