UniBlog: A Lecture To Set The Tone...

Good Afternoon!! It's been a while! Wednesday 30th September

Wednesday I achieved mega-laziness - doing nothing all day except sitting on my laptop just browsing Facebook, Emails and Discord.

The only thing notable that happened on Wednesday was a TeamViewer session (remote access) with my home computer - and during this I copied over some old Excel Spreadsheets containing analysis on Kabort Motorsport.

During this session, I had access to my home computer's desktop (and files) - and out of curiosity, I played BeamNG.Drive on my home computer, but whilst in Wolverhampton and on my Laptop...It was an interesting experiment, and one I would say was a moderate success.

Prior to this, I had BeamNG.Drive installed on my laptop - however with limited RAM (no pun intended) - every time I tried to reset my car or crashed too heavily, BeamNG.Drive would well...crash. Kapoot. Die. End. Finito. Close.

So despite lag, I was able to reset my car, and crash as hard as I liked. With Spa Francorchamps now available as a Laser Scanned mod, there were many crashes to be had!

Yes, TeamViewer was mainly made for people to talk to one another, and have remote access (weather for moral reasons or illegally lighten another's wallet) gaming via TeamViewer was certainly not one of their primary goals whilst making the software - so the fact that I could even open (and use) BeamNG.Drive on T.V was a great surprise and I had a great wee little blast.

Thursday 1st October, 2020

OCTOBER! WE'VE MADE IT! 10TH MONTH OF THE YEAR! 2 TO GO!! WELCOME ALONG!!!

October could have started a little better, as for the first time at University, I've been given work to complete!

This, of course, came after today's "Key Concepts Of Journalism" online lecture on well, exactly that - The Key Concepts Of Journalism.

Unlike "News Writing", this was very much more "formal" and less interactive lecture in which the teacher/professor fed us information to use for later on.

The lecture started with the teacher/professor debunking some popular muths about Journalism before going onto "what journalism is and why it matters"

before ending on how journalism has changed over time, bringing up some interesting points such as the new sources and types of journalism that technology/social media has bought.

A big thing I learnt throughout this was the sheer amount of types of journalism there are now - even if I've set my heart on automotive journalism in the future - there's still mobile journalism, (not sat at a desk/on the move) data journalism (making stats/numbers interesting) and even citizen/participatory journalism.

The discussion about citizen and participatory journalism being the most interesting for me as I had never heard of it before prior to today.

Citizen journalism is when a member of public records something on their phone, and should it be newsworthy, the news corporation will use the footage in a news broadcast, however participatory journalism is when the news in question comes straight from news corporations/companies themselves, as opposed to an individual.

This discussion led on to the fact that instead of the reporter usually (and previously) approaching citizens for news articles/interviews/footage - it's almost as if the roles have reversed and now citizens approach News Corporations/News companies and give them footage captured. Take the Beirut Explosion for example...

3/4 of all shots (except from the anaimation map shots and aftermath) are taken by amature photographers/citizens/members of the public and prior to this BBC, Sky and ITV had no business with Beirut, it just started as a normal day - and there was no reason for a team of a dozen or so film-crew to be operating in beirut.

The professional cameras/high-quality drone camera-angles only coming to show the aftermath of the disaster.

Following this Lecture, the teacher/professor told us to read four "sources" (articles) and write a summary on each.

As each is between 4000 and 7000 words, I've got a lot of material to be getting on with!

Originally the professor/teacher said that it had to be done by the end of the day (eek), but then said if that was not possible (which I didn't really feel like reading a several page book) before next Thursday would also be acceptable.

Fortunately, as a first piece, it wouldn't be graded - but would be good material to expand knowledge on journalism and knowledge on Journalistic practices and types of journalism.

So, with that I typed out this blog and then had an idea.

There are four articles needing to be read.

Let's split it up and read one every night.

This Weekend I'm busy seeing my family after a fortnight of not seeing them, And I want to see how my cat is getting on after moving to my brother's house...ah. That doesn't work. I'll just video call him whilst at home (but uni is my home now XD) whilst down south.

Sun Read Source 1 & Write Up Mon Source 2 & Write Up Tue Source 3 & Write Up Wed Source 4 & Write Up Thur Virtually Submit

Now this requires none of the other modules to set large assignments, but as luck always has it, there probably will be. The best way to take life is one day and one step at a time, for all I know, as dark as it may seem, I could be going to sleep for the final time tonight - I never know.... I have Wednesday off, so that will be good chance to get everything cleared up - and if Sunday is free enough, I might even be able to do source 2 as well.

If I were to wake up at 10am and work until midnight (highly unrealistic, I know but it's just for that motivation boost) that's 14 hours of being awake/working - and if there a 4 articles, that's 3 and a half hours on each article - and remembering I have an entire 6 days to have this done, as I type this, I don't think it's entirely impossible - it just requires me to kick myself into gear and motivate myself to work, which as can be seen by my GCSE results, is a massive weak point for me. But I'll manage it. I always do. Other than my parents doing a fair bit of work, how did I end up in university? How did I end up writing this blog? How did Kabort last over a year? I enjoy writing, I enjoy journalism, and If I've got 8D Tunes blasting in my ears and I'm in the zone, it won't be a doddle, and it won't be easy, but I think I'd call it "manageable" - especially since this is the very start of year one and I've got a big storm coming...I just know it!

This'll be good practice for the biggies to come - I can't just shy away from work, that's not how university - or in fact life works - Come graduation day (if I ever make it) it'd sound realll naff if the speaker would just say "Robin shied away from all work asked of him and was scared to complete it" - pretty embarrassing stuff.

A Little Self Motivation For Myself...

The difficulty is knowing the difference between cockiness, self-motivation and confidence - I don't want to sound cocky, but I want to give myself some self-motivation - I don't want to call it easy, but I know I CAN smash this, give it the time, effort and concentration required - I have the ability to maybe not "smash" this course, but I truly believe, deep below all the cars and all the motorsport and the iRacing and the humour and whatever else may be lying inside me, that I have the ability to complete this I love journalism, I've proved that, now I've not only got to prove to myself that I can do it, but to my parents too - this university cost £9,000 and giving up is not an option - what a waste of a huge amount of money! I am here now, and this is now - and just imagine how proud you, yourself, your parents would be at the end of the three years of this course, and you can say - no, shout at the top of your lungs "I just did that. That was me. I just graduated. I just completed a university course. I'm a university student with a BA(HONS) I'm flipping "Robin Truswell(BA)" - So yes, you go out there Robin and show 'em who's boss - Robin Raikkonen may have the skill behind the wheel, but you, you my friend have the skill to write about his races!!

GO SMASH IT BUD!

- RT