I lost half an article in a computer spaz out at college today and had to type it again. I was so frustrated/irate/destraught that I stopped trying to make an effort not to swear in class. At the end of the day my tutor told me to get a swear box.

Do I really swear that much? I don't even notice it, but I think I hardly get through a sentence without swearing nowadays. I have no idea why it's so bad. But I really let rip today... I was so angry with myself and on the verge of tears after I lost my work that I really turned the air blue. Especially when some people from a news class walked in when we were all working. The classroom is off the common room so people just walk in to use the computers and don't seem to notice when we're actually in the middle of a lesson. I actually did that really horrible "yeah, okay, we're actually in a fucking lesson if you wouldn't fucking mind?" thing. The poor embarassed girl legged it... although at the time I wanted to punch her for making a noise when I was trying to concentrate.

This pretty much sums up the relationship between news and magazine journalists, I think. Certainly at our center anyway.

Fuck a fucking swear box, though. Fuck it up its fucking arse.

I wrote my article in the end though. It's meant to be aimed at a business audience, so I wrote about the Beijing Olympics and about how we shouldn't boycott it because it's fucking hypocitical and besides, we don't want to give anyone ideas about boycotting ours in 2012. Oh and blah, morals, blah, leading by example, blah.

I don't agree with China's human rights back catalogue, and I don't agree with their actions in Tibet, but I don't agree with the war on terror either, so who am I to be jumping on them "they're soooooo much worse than us!" bandwagon.

On a lighter note, I have been listening to some really good new albums lately, which I would like to recommend you.

The Raconteurs' second album, Consolers of the Lonely, is better than their first. It's less pop hits and more The White Stripes. Let me explain. The drums are wilder, the song formats are less conventional, and there's more of a retro 70s-rock feel to the whole thing. There's also a nice country/folk influence that adds depth. Broken Boy Solider was alright, but a bit too safe and no where near dark enough for my tastes.

Blood Red Shoes- Box of Secrets was a super long awaited first full length album release, but now that it's here it's sure to be the cream of the indie rock releases for this year. A more garage punk influenced indie sound with louds of stuff that'll sound sweet on the dancefloor as well as some nice vocals. I'm not much of an indie conoisseur so that's all I feel I can really say... Suffice to say it's good shit.

I also had a listen to Camille's new album whose title I forget. It's sort of Goldfrappy, slightly off-kilter stuff. Some beautiful, husky vocals and some good hooks as well as unconventional sounds looped in there. Camille's obsession with her ability to hit the kind of high notes Mariah Carey would be envious of gets a little bit annoying though, as does her cutesy, "French Karen O" schtick. Having said that, there are a couple of really lovely, enduring songs on here!

OH also I updated my Rainlendar desktop calendar with some cute new skins. I now have one that's, okay, French, but displays a different piece of sushi on my desktop every month. How cute is that?!

Le sigh. Break over. Back to work. I have three more articles to finish today!

Have I mentioned how much I love Planet Rock? They can't close it down, I can't get any other channels on my DAB for one thing!

Other than the amazing Alice Cooper breakfast show (SO worth getting out of bed for), there are the taglines. Oh the taglines. Personal favourites so far include:

At Planet Rock, we want to teach the world to sing. Like this... (cue classic rock song)
We're not rocket scientists, but we know how to rock it!
And the absolutely, laugh out loud brilliance of:
If music be the food of love... stand by for a good rogering!

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Meep. I've almost finished writing my article on lone travelling, although not quite. Although it's getting hugely long. Eep. And it's kind of birthed a second article whilst being written, which is exciting!

In non-journo school related news, I finally finished reading The Testament of Gideon Mack which was interesting in a slow sort of way. It was readable, but I think I missed the point. If there was one. I enjoyed it though, in an interesting, character-study way, but I suppose as an avid sci-fi lover, I read supernatural elements a little too literally by default.

I have an excited pile of books waiting for me now. I ordered a bunch off Amazon, despite being skint. I have:

The Postman Always Rings Twice- James M. Cain
The Big Sleep- Raymond Chandler
Crooked Little Vein- Warren Ellis
A Pretty Face- Rafael Reig

And also Reig's Blood on the Saddle, which I read a while back and really enjoyed, so I though I'd invest in my own copy.

A whole bunch of noir/detective novels to devour. Yum! I don't no where to start... with a classic noir or a more modern book? I'm excited about Ellis's novel, especially, as I enjoy his surreal, dark, gory comic storylines.

Books=squee.

Also, I have started knitting a sleeve for my sick jumper (I'm making my first ever jumper and it's shaping up to be an ill-fitting, Weasley-esque monstrosity. I'm very excited about this fact. I want people in the street to go "ohhhh... Did you make it yourself? How.... nice." and throw up in their mouths a little, but secretly be really jealous that THEY don't have a hideous, candy-coloured, acrylic disaster to keep them slightly itchy). My first every sleeve! I'm excited, although I'm knitting it so slowly because I keep putting it down for ages... Still if I get enough work done this week, which it looks like I might, I can take an afternoon off to watch crappy films and KNIT. Yay!

I'm supposedly revising. I drank a STUPID amount of Red Bull this evening in an attempt to stay awake and alert long enough to soldier through my incredibly boring shorthand revision tape, where some old geezer drones on in a monotone about football club groundshares at fifty words a minute and I have to resist the urge to a) write in longhand, b) fall asleep, or c) stab myself in the ears with mr biro. My problem is that the Red Bull didn't kick in and I dozed off a bit, so I turned on Planet Rock (my one working DAB radio station that isn't birds chirping infuriatingly- thank God it was one of the classic rock stations! They're the only reason I bought the damn thing!) and suddenly WHAM! the 'Bull hits me with enough force to have me jittering at my desk. Damn those uber cans of Red Bull! I'm now too hyped up to concentrate on anything anymore!

I just emailed the radio DJ. I must be REALLY procrastinating.

I want to write stories about a female PI. I want to read the second collected issue of Y- The Last Man because the first part was pretty good. I want to finish reading The Testament of Gideon Mack because I like it but I have no idea where it's going. I want a spring roll.

Damn Red Bull.

My DAB signal is terrible in the flat here. Bethnal green is rubbish for reception, I have decided. We have combated this on the TV by getting Sky, but I miss my DAB! I can only get a few channels here, including Planet Rock, Virgin Xtreme and Birdsong. Hah! Not good enough! I miss Arrowrock, and Magic! I might have to look into getting a booster. I'm not sure how they work but anything that will improve my signal is desperately needed.

I spent this evening mostly practising my shorthand (at which I am still fairly terrible) and doing one of those blackhead remover nose strip thingies, which was totally gross and absolutely satisfying. Take THAT pores!

What else? I'm on work experience at the moment which I'm enjoying so far. OH and how much do I love that Neighbours is on at seven on Five Life? I teared up at that advert with Harold welcoming me back to Ramsey Street... You know, the one where he laments that us students grew up and had to do grown up things at half five, only now we can watch after our tea at seven! I'd link to it but a quick google reveals nothing...

Erm, that's pretty much it. Time for bed now, I feel. My recent obsession with CSI:NY has taken me into season four, which I'm trying to catch up with at the moment... but it's eating up all my spare time! I'm obsessed! I have loads of stuff to do for college so I'm trying to be really strict with myself at the moment but it's not easy, by any means. Aargh.

I have LJ tourettes, this post is rubbish.

Oh crap, and my paid account expired!

Ugh, do you ever have those weeks where the universe seems to be ganging up on you and you just want to hide under the duvet until it goes away?

Yeah, of course you do. Who doesn't? Well, this week is my week:

- I started my new short journalism course thing and it's a bit slow so far. We're only two days in but I failed spectacularly at an impromptu we-need-your-classroom-for-an-exam-so-go-away excercise in going out onto the street to find a news story. I cannot find news. I am hardwired to find the world boring and mundane, apparently. I found a good feature but sadly since we were looking for news, I failed. And then felt really bad about it and started doubting whether I'll really be any good as a journalist at all. Except, of course, I don't WANT to be a news reporter. Never have. Hmm. Hopefully I'll do better when it comes to the feature writing section of the course.

- I'm moving house this weekend and I hate packing more than anything else in the world. It never fails to make me ridiculously depressed and therefore make all other things seem so terrible, far out of proportion with the very small amounts of terrible that they actually are. My god that sentence made no sense.

- My Creative Zen mp3 player died on me. I think the battery's gone, most likely. Very upsetting- see above. I think I'll try and send it off to the manufacturer to be fixed...

- I have just had two periods in a row thanks to being sick two weeks ago and fucking up my pill-taking and biological cycle or whatever. Seems to be ending now, but really. A two week period is Not Fun.

- I'm stressing about asking my Dad for money. Which I shouldn't, really, because he asked me to tell him how much certain things were going to cost me so he could give me the money for them, but I hate asking for money and it's driving me crazy.

- I'm commutuing to London this week. This is expensive and uncomfortable and boring since my mp3 player died, and makes me very tired and cranky.

- I'm trying to sort out work experience at a magazine but I'm stressing constantly that I'm not cool enough or I don't know enough about music or fashion or art or cinema or politics to work at any of the ones I'm applying for. Why oh why do I have to be the person who knows a little bit about everything but a lot about nothing? Why am I such a stupid fucking idiot? Why am I letting myself get this stressed out?

At least the following things are good things:

- I am moving out, which brings, yes, more stress but is also a positive step towards... uh... not living here any more.

- I am listening to the new Hot Chip album in demo form and it sounds brilliant. I am also doing the same with the new Cat Power and it too is fantastic.

- I'm struggling with a third, here. I have Cadbury's Caramel in bar form and season two of Buffy on DVD in my room for later on, when I can't resist the urge to hide under the duvet any longer.