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.
