Dealing with grieving

Dealing with grieving is something that a lot of people have to unfortunately deal with in their lives. The arrival of 2015 marks ten years since my father passed away and this fact has really hit me hard recently.

As I am doing a journalism course at University, I guess that one of my strengths is my writing.  This has therefore led me to think that I should try and help get things off my chest and express my feelings in writing.

I was 9, nearly 10 years old at the time of my father’s death, and I have many great memories with him that I will treasure forever. I just hope one day, when I too become a father, I can be as good a father as he was in those 9 years. 

The tens years since his passing away has had its ups and downs.  So much has changed in my life in these ten years – I moved from primary to secondary school, completed my GCSE’s and A Levels, and more recently moved to University.

I would just like to say that I have the best family and friends anyone can ever ask for. Whenever I have gone through tough times, whether it be missing my dad or something else, different people have been there to offer me love and support to get me through those times, and to these people I am forever grateful.

If there is one thing I have learnt over these past ten years, it is that you are never alone. However alone and upset you may feel, there will always be someone there for you even if it is not obvious who that person may be.

I have always found that talking to someone has made me feel better and I would advise anyone who is going through anything like this to do the same. However sad I have been feeling, talking to someone and sharing how I am feeling has always helped me take a weight off my chest.

After it happened I searched for answers, as I think many people do after losing someone forever – Why has this happened to me?, Why at this time? I searched for a long time for answers to these questions, and to be honest, I don’t think I found the answer and I probably never will.  This is because I don’t think there is not a definitive answer to these questions. A lot of people say rubbish like this happens sometimes, and I guess they are right.  

To finish I would like to use the lyrics from My Chemical Romance’s song Welcome to the Black Parade which sum up my feelings:

“And though you’re dead and gone believe me, your memory will carry on.”

R.IP. Dad, gone but never forgotten.

Work Begins

Work begins


I’m now five weeks into my first term at the University of Portsmouth and those five weeks have gone by very quickly! I am just about settled into my weekly routine of lectures and seminars, which unfortunately includes a 9am start on a Monday which is annoying, but I have Fridays completely off so I guess it balances out.


So the course I am doing is Journalism with Media Studies, which I am enjoying a lot. On the media side we have so far covered semiotic analysis (the study of signs) as well as narrative and critical discourse analysis, which has expanded what I did for A-level Media Studies, which is good. On the journalism side of my course we have covered the different ways of how to structure an article, interview techniques and where news comes from. The other part of the journalism side of my course is shorthand, which is the way in which journalists take notes because writing in the normal alphabet takes too long. I have found it difficult to pick up but with practice I am slowly improving.

The photo below shows the Teeline Shorthand Alphabet which is part of what I have to learn.

Another part of university I am enjoying is going out with friends. The biggest club we have in Portsmouth is Liquid and then there are other smaller clubs, pubs and bars on Guildhall Walk. It is really useful having all the bars and clubs in close proximity as it means that we can go to several in one night out. 

The photo below is from one of our nights out at liquid

 Now the final thing I want to talk about is my first visit from my family. Two weekends ago my mum and sister came down to Portsmouth for the day to visit me and we went out to lunch together. It was great to see them as I had not seen them since I moved in on September 14th. After they left in the evening it was a bit of a weird feeling as I had not seen them for a month, I then saw them all day, then they were gone again but it did not make me miss home which is good. I will be going home for the weekend for the first time in two weeks, which I am really looking forward to as I will be able to see my family again and see some of my friends from home as well.  

Freshers

Freshers and settling in to University 

So I meant to start this before I left for university but I never got round to it so I guess I will combine how I felt before going to university and how I have got on so far in the first post.

So on Saturday 14^th September I moved from my home in Croydon down to Portsmouth University to start a three-year course in Journalism with Media Studies.

Before I left I had a mixture of feelings about going to University. One was of excitement as I had been waiting for the opportunity to go for a while and waiting for the opportunity to study specifically what I wanted to do which in this case is Journalism with media. I was also feeling apprehensive. This is the first time I have moved away from home for more than a few weeks and I wasn't sure how I would cope with being away from my family and close friends for that length of time.  The week before I left was when the apprehension started to set in as I was seeing people for the last time in a while before I moved in which made me realise how much I would miss people.

As it turns out though I have coped quite well with moving away from home and settling in to University life. My flat mates and I get on well and it has been good so far. We have had some good nights out including a moving in party which S Club live performed at which was great and a bar crawl which was also good fun.  Cooking has not been too bad either and I have found that I cook a lot of pasta and tuna though!

Normal timetable started last week, and it has been interesting as I have had to find my way around but that has been ok as most of the buildings I am in are close to each other. I have found my lectures and seminars interesting so far and I am looking forward to the next few weeks as we will start work as last week was just introducing us to what we will be doing in the units during the year.

Just to round off I would like to say thank you to all my family and friends who supported me during my exams and my time at school – I wouldn’t be at university without all of your support so I am very grateful for that.

Also to people that are about to go to university – don’t be nervous, everyone is in the same position as you so just enjoy yourself and get involved with things at your university and you will have a great time.