.......

Well.....much as I whinge about my massive work load for Utopia FM i do have the best time with the radio crew. I am currently sitting in the studio with three of the lads who are supposed to be listening to demos but are mostly just trying not to laugh at Rob falling off his chair and quoting from the inbetweeners.
However, the work load is mounting and I have so little motivation but I know it will all get done it's just a case of prioritising my life.
On a lighter note, this weekend I am going home for my friend's birthday and I am so excited to see my girls. Also, on a slightly more frightening note I am meeting my boyfriend's family. I think meeting the parents is far more terrifying than taking on the huge workload that really needs to be done.
Anyway...will blog more later....
Stay tuned.
Miss B

Deadlines, Deadlines, DEADlines!

Well, it's come to the time of year when all us students have so many deadlines it's hard to know where to start. 

I am most definitely at that point. With a new loan and having not seen my university friends in nearly a month. It is even harder to find the motivation to actually do the work. I love my course, i love talking about how to do things I love the practical parts like blogging but the essays just seem to drag. I know we all have to do them but at the moment it just seems like a huge expanse of words that will never help me as much as all the practical work i would far rather be doing. 

I guess this is part of the reason why i am so looking forward to doing my practical project.

I have just completed my second year placement and have to say I really enjoyed it. Getting involved in a real PR agency and being in an office environment has taught me so much. 

It is certainly very different to what we are taught in our lectures and seminars, the briefs we are given for assessment are so detailed when in reality this is entirely different. I was given the task of writing a news release with only a very brief description of what sort of style the company wanted to go for and exactly what sort of company they were. Obviously this was harder for me because i had no idea of the sort of clients the business dealt with.

But, it has taught me that the reality of working in a PR agency compared to all of the work that is coming my way at the moment is very different. 

Anyway, that's it from me, back to the essays!

Miss B 

I think i am probably a geek!

Hey,
Sorry it's been so long since I wrote. I've been home now for just over a week and I've come to the conclusion that I've led a rather sheltered life.
As you probably know from previous posts I live in a tiny corner of Norfolk and when i moved to the North East things became very different. Things that I find so normal, I have discovered are probably not as normal as I think.
My friends and I, have always found it completely normal to be in school after everyone else left, for rehearsals till five and six every evening. Some of us, even used to come in at the weekends to set up sound levels for upcoming concerts and performances. Not, one of my friends finds it strange to have all the teachers that taught us as friends on our facebooks. Now, looking back on it and seeing it from the other side I realise that doing this is probably a little strange.
Don't get me wrong, I love my friends to pieces and wouldn't change them for the world but I really think we're probably a little geeky.
However, we're all doing rather well for ourselves I think so being geeky can't be that bad. Almost all my friends are now at university or college, some at rather prestigious places around the country, so this tiny corner of Norfolk can't be that bad.
I think maybe I have probably continued this into my University life, I always seem to be at uni doing things, that I choose to be doing and not that are part of my course.
I love being a geek! And I will be forever, through and through.

Miss B

P.S. Utopia is coming very very soon and i am getting very busy and very excited! Stay tuned.

My Girls

This is a little blog for the girls i love to pieces.......

Miss Hannam, gets me through life at the Dabbler relatively unscathed! haha!

HAHA! Hilarious pic! Love these girls, actually devastated they are leaving soon! The older and wiser friends hahaha!

My uni girls! My best friends in the North East! Ilove them to pieces!

My best mate in the whole world, Miss Rachel George! We've been able to finish each others sentences for years and i hope it will continue that way!

A nice photo, one of very few nice photos of the girls that make me happiest! I utterly adore them! Collectively and individually!

Moate, because she's amazing, and regularly takes the piss out of me for being rubbish, however she can hardly talk she is the dumbest clever person i know!

Char, beautiful in every sense of the word!

Horni, just hilarious and always says what everyone else is thinking!

Kat....so wonderfully weird (i know she'll hate me saying that) so...she's the token alternative!

Mini Moate, just a good craic in general!

So Girlies.....i love you all to pieces! boys.....don't get upset your pretty amazing sometimes too!

Miss B

The Holidays

Remember when you were a kid and the holidays were weeks of time to play games, mess around in the sunshine go to places that just seemed so amazing (in my case it was the Butterfly Park and Jungle Wonderland, that i used to love the most).

Then you get a little bit older and the holidays are a time to stay in bed until midday and then mess about with your mates, go to town and shop for things you have no use for.

Unfortunately, now though the holidays are just another time to work only with slightly less pressure.

I'm writing this on the train home and much as i'm looking forward to having lunch with my mum and then seeing the rest of my family tonight, i know it's only a matter of time before i have to start thinking about actually doing some work.

I guess with the comforts of being at home with all the things and the people you love makes the whole thing so much easier to bear. I know my girls (my best mates) will help as much as possible but they all have their own stuff going on.

I'm going to spend the next two weeks constantly on the phone to people trying to get everything sorted as it's frighteningly nearly going to be May when i get back! I've not only got Utopia work to do but also my second year placement plus all my other essays! The holidays are becoming less and less appealing as i type this!

Any help....please?

Miss B

Getting stuck in!

Well....i've been in the North East now for the best part of  two years, and much as i moan about missing home i do absolutely love being here.

Coming to Sunderland was a massive culture shock for me, i come from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk. My primary school had less than sixty pupils and in my village everyone knows everything about everyone. 

When i first suggested to my family that i wanted to not only do public relations as my degree but also come to the North East to study i have to say they didn't seem to keen. 

However, on my Open Day it was sunny in Sunderland and everything looked fantastic. I got out of the car and fell in love with the place. My mum took a little longer to convince, i was so far away from home. 

Being four and a half hours from home, and having to spend the best part of £60 on a train ticket home it looked like i'd be spending a lot of time in Sunderland. I had to throw myself into University life and be busy doing things all of the time. 

Fortunately i instantly loved my course and got involved with the student radio station as soon as i felt i knew enough about the area. 

Much as i am teased for my southern accent in the Sunderland, being a southerner in this place is fantastic. 

Don't get me wrong i miss home everyday, i miss walking in the countryside and the beach and all my home comforts but Sunderland is and i hope will continue to be a fantastic place to study.

Miss B

Home is most definitely where my heart is!

http://www.sandringhamestate.co.uk/  - Take a look, go and visit, i guarantee you will realise why i love the place so much.

Utopiaaaaaahhhh!

Well..as i've been so rubbish about writing these blogs and i've been so busy with other things i thought i could combine the two and tell you a little bit about the radio station that i'm so passionate about.

Utopia FM, will be embarking on it's very last restricted service licence (rsl) in May. It will be my third RSL and my first in management.

Utopia began as Radio Utopia in May 1997, and has taken many forms ever since running an RSL twice a year in September and May.

In September 2009, the station will be re-branding as a 24/7 community radio station. This is a massive step for Utopia. It will now have a huge impact on radio listenership in Tyne and Wear, as it will be sticking around for much longer than the city has been used to. 

This means i have a huge job on my hands, as Head of Promotions it is in my hands to create a whole new image for the station. As we have been known as a student radio station for the last ten years or so, it is going to be quite difficult to move away from this image especially as the station is currently run entirely by students. 

The station has the huge job of making a name for itself in the area, and also retaining it's current listenership. Whilst it is run by students it is a huge job for the students presenting the shows to talk about issues that affect the entire community and not just students. For example the show i am hoping to present is a magazine based show which hopes to cover community issues however not in a way that affects specifically students. 

A massive task for myself and all of the team. 

It's very stressful already so who knows what will happen in the coming months! 

But......stay tuned! (no pun intended)!!!

Miss B

Busy Busy Busy!

AAAAAAAAA!

So much to do and so little time to do it.

Firstly, this should explain why it has taken me so long to write another blog!
Whoever, said that students don't do anything didn't do my course and definitely didn't take on as much as me.

I've always been the sort of person who'll do anyting for anyone and will do anything that gives me a little bit of working experience. Sometimes, though I do think i've taken on a little too much.
I made myself a to do list last weekend, it began at eleven items and has now grown to fourteen. However, I was finally able to cross a few off the list yesterday.

Just, for any of my course friends who are panicking that they've forgotten to do a huge essay or something, you haven't.

The reason I am so busy is because I recently got the job of Head of Promotions, for Utopia FM. The station which has previously been a student station broadcasting for two short stints in May and September will become a 24/7 community radio station in September.

As you might imagine this has made quite a lot of work for myself and the rest of the Utopia team. We are trying to encourage as much interest in the station as possible to pick up as many listeners as we can. The stations coverage can reach as far away as Newcastle and has a huge potential audience.

I don't think I realised just how difficult it was going to be to try and juggle my course, student rep work, and the new role as head of promotions. I'm trying my best to prioritise, so please bear with me?!

I am woman, and I will get it all done!!!

Thanks for reading.

Miss B :)

Take a look at our fan page! If you like what you see please become a fan. Give us a listen in May, I think you'll like what you hear.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Utopia-FM/7386567292?ref=ts

Fantastic Not Plastic!

Well, it looks like I'm a blogger now. It's all a bit exciting.

As you'll probably pick up from reading this I am quite opinionated and I like people to know what I think so blogging is the perfect platform.

I have always believed in the wonder of natural beauty and that the way women are portrayed in the media is mostly unrealistic and unattainable.

I have never been a huge fan of slim girls, I think curves are beautiful. I might be ever so slightly biased, I'm a natural curvy blonde with dark eyes, I dont consider that very beautiful but I know there is a lot of people out there that would kill for what i have. However, i am all too aware that almost all of my friends are striving to achieve that perfect look. I am extremely fond of my curves but I would kill to be that perfect size ten that I haven't been since I was fourteen.

It terrifies me that girls as young as six are being diagnosed with anorexia, I know that when I was six I didn't even think about my body image. I'm positive I didn't even grasp the meaning of the term. The thing is though things don't seem to be getting any better every year the statistics get more and more frightening and the images portrayed to young girls are increasingly more airbrushed to create something completely unrealistic.

I am an avid reader of women's magazines and celebrity magazines and regularly buy Vogue, Company, Glamour and weekly gossip magazines like Look. I have always supported Glamour's views on natural beauty and that all shapes and sizes are just as beautiful and I am always pleased to see articles about the body beautiful. This is why every time i find an image in Glamour or any other women's magazine that has quite obviously been airbrushed I get so irate.
How can a women's magazine that is trying to appeal to a very impressionable audience be so blahsay about some of the images they are showing young women.

I for one, would take great pleasure in destroying all airbrushing programmes. What's wrong with natural? You're fantastic not plastic! I hate that girls feel they have to live up to a certain standard in order to be even considered pretty. Why can't we all just accept what we have and use our natural beauty to our advantage?

Thanks for reading.

Miss B :)

x x x

Take a look at this video, it's a perfect example of why women are striving for the unattainable.