Mid-Degree crisis.

You know those days when you wake up and think what the hell am I doing with my life? I've been having them all week. It's by no coincidence that this time has also been spent in the offices of FHM. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed my time here. The people are lovely, it really has been interesting to see how the office is run, watch the features develop and the flat plan spread across the fake-office wall. I love being in London, in such an exciting city full of choice and I've even got some of my own writing published on the FHM website. It really has been worth the commute, the money and the 400 magazines I personally packed and addressed to subscribing customers.

I feel the reason behind my slump, apart from two weeks of exhausting 12-hour days, is knowing I'm leaving the fast pace and fun of London and returning to my degree in Southampton, the city of students. I was on such a high with my degree last year, having such leeway with features, blogs and opinion pieces, and this year seems to be all about design and drawn-out statistical research and it's only going to get worse next year!

If only someone could promise me it was all worth it, the debt, the deadlines but sitting here at my 'workie' desk I have been asked to filter through e-mails, and auto-respond or redirect any feature ideas along with fashion, photography and art submissions with little regard for it's content. As an aspiring journalist, copy and pasting thanks but no thanks e-mails time after time is just dream-shattering.

Having almost completed my time here at Bauer Media I am desperate to gain more experience. I have my placement at The Southern Daily Echo in just 7 weeks and I am so excited to work on a newspaper. Before, I thought glossy magazines was where I wanted to be, but after researching jokes for a lads mag I think maybe the hard-nosed face of news journalism might be more of a challenge. I am hoping to get a response from a number of newspaper supplements, as I am very interested to write about culture, people and news-orientated features. I am still an avid reader of Grazia and find the features and blogs eloquently written. Being a Bauer publication, I am intending to use my newly gained experience and contacts as a way of getting in, however futile my attempts may be.

So this post isn't as dramatic as I possibly made it sound. I can power through the rest of my degree as long as I keep writing about what I enjoy and nagging publications to take a peak. I'm sure one day I'll get a response that isn't just another automated rejection sent by yet another 'workie'.

"Please use other door"

Easier said than done, I won't lie.

In preparation for my work placement tomorrow I, along with a much more technically minded friend, managed to Google Map our way through a practice run of my commute. It wasn't a complete disaster, that was, until we found the building. You know the glass doors like on Elf that spin around and around? Yeah, these doors didn't spin. So I was highly embarrassed to find myself outside of the offices of Bauer, hitting the glass ceiling of my career that was literally a piece of glass. Eventually, much to the amusement of the receptionists, I found the appropriate door and now am more nervous than ever about my placement. I wasn't joking when I said there were likely to be some disasters, who knew I could get one in quite this early!

Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it!