Sorry I have not been blogging much over the last couple of weeks, my life has been very busy.
Most teenagers have a busy life, although many of our parents don't agree... "Do the washing up, I've been in work all day"... well I went to school, gym and have done 2 hours of homework, so I have not been sitting on my arse all day. I feel some parents, especially mine (I'm dead if they are reading this), believe that we all just sit on our arse watching, Come Dine With Me and Sky Sports News all day.
Last week I made my way up to Nottingham Trent University and I was suprised at how good the Journalism course was there, for anybody looking to apply to university next year to study Journalism I would strongly recommend looking at Nottingham Trent. It is in the top 10 courses in the UK for Journalism and the interview process was lots of fun. It involved creating a news bulletin for a radio station which is right down my street, as you know from my podcasts. The uni itself was right in the city centre which would suit me perfectly, due to a buzzing fast paced life style and great transport links.
I am back at sixth form this morning and it's a sad feeling to walk back into a school environment when you have seen what you could be experiencing at university in september. On the way to first lesson I was walking behind some year 8's pushing and shoving each other and I thought.. for god sake can you just walk in a straight line without causing havoc. Yes, I am turning into an old man at the young age of 17, but after 7 years of walking the same corridors and seeing the same immature children, I think I am entitled to a little moan.
It was half term last week so I decided I would try and focus a bit more on Journalism activities (excluding my blog, apologies), so at the beginning of the week I approached my Local paper (The Lichfield Mercury) about the possibility of writing an article for them in the coming weeks. I proposed the idea of writing an article from a teenagers point of view, as many teenagers lack a voice in the media. After chasing the proposal up, a few days later I managed to secure the article. Over the week I have been planning it and I will be out on the streets of Lichfield reporting this Saturday.
Today following two interviews for Salford University and Nottingham Trent University, I have been offered places at both university's to study Journalism. I now have the difficult decision of choosing my first and second choice as both university's offer great opportunities. I'll let you know my decision when I come to one.
Of course my half term was not all full of interviews and work, I managed to travel over to see my Grandparents in Derby. It was lovely to see them as it had been a while. Some of the stories my Nan and Grandad tell me are hilarious. I was sitting there drinking coke, whilst my Grandparents were recounting stories about their old dog Trudy. She was a Labrador who had the mind and attitude of a mischievous child. One of the tales they told me, made me have a right giggle, so I thought I would share it with you.
Every Christmas my Grandparents put chocolate onto the Christmas tree as decoration. One year they went out for the day and when they came back the Christmas tree was bare. All the Chocolate was gone, but there were no wrappers. Surely the dog couldn't of ate all of that Chocolate and the wrappers?
The disappearance of the chocolate was a mystery for a few days, however my Grandad started to see Trudy munching on pieces of chocolate from time to time. Every couple of days he would see the dog eating chocolate on the rug and it suddenly clicked that she had the chocolate off the tree. However they still could not understand how she had got all the treats and saved them. The whole family searched the house and in the strangest places found these wrappers and bits of chocolate. Whilst they had been out, Trudy had collected all the treats of the tree and hid them around the house, to save for when she fancied like giving herself a treat. A true thief in my opinion.
Anyway enough of my blabbing and we will move on to What's in the news.
England's public health minister wants to ban smoking in cars with children.
Smoking is always a popular topic in the media spotlight. England's public health minister has spoken out today about the need for the ban of smoking in cars carrying children. Now although I agree that smoking is a terrible habit that we should urge everybody to stop, in my opinion there is a clear fault with this story. The government are looking at the story from a health viewpoint. However it is clear to me that smoking whilst driving is of a similar danger to talking on the phone whilst driving, which was banned a few years back. Smoking whilst driving in the car is certainly likely to affect children's health, but if you think about it, smoking whilst driving can cause an added danger to not only children but many travellers. If the government is going to look at banning smoking whilst driving at all, it is obvious in my opinion that they should ban it full stop whilst driving. Doing half a job is not going to solve anything.
Say a driver has a child in their car and therefore they are not smoking. A driver in another car is smoking as they have no children in their car, suddenly they drop the cigarette and go to pick it up, taking their eye of the road. They crash into the car with the child, and the child is injured. Stopping the driver with the child in toe from smoking has made no difference at all.
The over riding conclusion to this story is the proposed ban is fundamentally flawed and in my opinion in order for this to be a success, smoking whilst driving or as a passenger in a car needs to be banned full stop.
Song of the week
Thrift shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
That's all from me this week, hope you have enjoyed the read. Ill be back soon with a podcast or blog soon, let me know in the comments below or on twitter which you would prefer to see from me.
Thanks again for reading :)
Cya Alex
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