Careering Ahead

i'm a deli assistant!

woo yeah 5 years at Uni = me doing the washing up for 8 hours a day (not including the time at the end of the day when i do it for mum and dad as a token of my thanks for them still caring for me at the age of 23!!)

it's not all bad though i get free lunches and out of date meat that might make me properly sick.

woohoo and the government wants 50% of the population to spend 20 grand so that they can be like me!

madness!

if this doesn't make you want to go out and find the job you want now you're probably a bit unbalanced.

i might sound bitter but i'm not. i'm doing what i want i'm writing and i'm being creative. and noone pays you to be creative until you've actually done something and got people's attention in the first place.

i just read ann's blog and i love the chinese saying

"you can't become chubby with just one bite"

but it can also be taken to mean 'if your desire is to get fat then you've got to work at it and keep eating!' well that's what i'm doing and that out of date meat might be dodgy but it's definitely making me stronger.

I had always considered the question 'What do you want to do in life' one of the hardest to answer, for that there were too many possibilities and I didn't know if there was one perfect answer.

But not anymore, because I have the answer for myself now.I can't really say it is the perfect one, but at least I have found a fairly satisfying answer for now.

I want to be a newsreader on TV, presenting in English.

Two weeks into my internship at Phoenix TV, still unpaid, still just an intern, I have realised how lucky I am. I'm actually doing something I like, and I feel positive about my future.

I've been working as an assistant producer (and they actually put my name in the end credits of the daily news programme too!!) for the daily 20-minute news programme, writing news scripts, editing video footages and doing news voiceovers. I enjoy it because I'm learning something new from the news everyday and I see my accomplished work broadcast.

However, I want to do more. It is fantastic working on the multimedia side because it is almost exactly what I learnt from my degree, but it's not enough for me. As well as editing news, I also want to make my own news, come up with ideas, go out to find stories and interview people. Unfortunately as an intern that is something I cannot either control or demand, but I do spend a few minutes everyday slouching in my chair starring into the sky out of the 7th floor French window next to my desk, wishing that I was out reporting.

And then the ultimate goal is to be a news reader on TV. But everything has to come at a time, as a Chinese saying goes, you can't become chubby with just one bite - I suppose it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in English, but what it means is that you have to take time to achieve what you want, not that I actually want to put on weight. Of course not.

It is now September again. But no longer a student I am. Things are about to change.

On the train to London, I found myself starring into the trees flying past the window, so fast, they looked like hundreds of parallel lines.

It was an interesting moment. I was as if completely sucked into a space of nothingness, but also, enjoying it. It wasn't exactly a moment of quietness and peace, but something like that.

After an exhausting summer - doing a fulltime 12-weeks placement, looking for jobs, not getting jobs, getting very depressed about not getting jobs - I was here, on the train to London, where I'll be starting another unpaid fulltime internship, I found that finally, here was a moment I could sort of relax, or rather, to stop worrying, fearing, and stressing. Actually, I could stop thinking altogether - because the decision is already made.

I was thinking nothing. And believe me that felt good.

I'm glad that I made my choice. It might not be the best, but I'll hope for and try the best.

And there is pressure, always mounting pressure.

For me it's hard not to compare with others. I graduated a year ago with a Bachelor's degree, and decided to go on to do a Master. Whereas some of my then university friends have been working and changing for better jobs since graduation.

Others like me, who continued with their education, some are lucky enough to have found jobs already; some will have a very promising degree-related future; and some are still struggling, sort of like me.

Everybody wants to move on with their life and enter the next phase fairly quickly. Well at least some of us do. And I can't help thinking that somehow, I'm already left behind.

However, having experienced so many uncertainties and difficulties, there is one thing that I do not regret. That is I completed a Master's degree. I'm actually proud of it. I did what I enjoyed doing, and I made the most out of it. Some others may have been one step ahead of me in many aspects, but I wouldn't change my choices for theirs, because it is my life, and I make my own future.

...there is a way. How I wish when there is a will, there is a JOB!
Oh well, so here is my way - going to London.

After having constantly felt depressed about everything in my life - job, money, future...and job, and money...I finally found something -

A two-month, unpaid, full time internship.

It is for a Mandarin TV channel based in London, and they are in fact the only company that responded to my desperate job-seeking emails.

And for that I am extremely grateful.

My London choice will give me difficulties of course, let alone accommodation, visa and finance, the most important question being where this internship leads me to in two months' time?

I don't know.

My friends are very encouraging and they all tell me it is a good start. Yes it is. But will there be a good end?

The truth is, ability is something but really NOT everything in the real world. Having experienced and heard of so many stories, I now have to admit that luck does play a very important role, from time to time.

But anyway, what's going to happen next, I'll have to see for myself, in London!

By the way, I did enjoy my degree very much - international multimedia journalism. Of all the skills I've learnt, one of my proudest is this -

www.aiyangmedia.com

I'm applying for the national and local newspapers and everything in between.

Here's what to do:

1. Read the paper where you're applying to work and get a feel for it.

2. Telephone the paper and ask for the name and job title of the person who deals with work experience applications. This is where you will address your application and it will give you bonus points.

3. Send a letter of application (including dates of availability) and a "journalism" CV (one that shows relevant experiences/achievements that will show you're a good candidate).

4. Include with your CV cuttings of your published work. If you have none write a review of a film/book/tv programme/concert or write a comment piece about a subject that has been running in that newspaper.

Good luck! Maybe I'll see you on the other side.

PS. While you wait for a response keep busy writing. I like to watch football games and write my own match report and compare it against the one that is in the paper the following morning for tips. At the moment, though, I'm writing a sit-com and you never know it might mean I can skip this tedious stage out!