We won!

Remember the magazine I was ranting about a few months back, which we were working our arse off to produce?

We got news recently that we've won the Student Magazine of the Year Award 2006! (national award organised by the Periodical Publishers Association, Polestar etc) It's really incredible and like I said to J while I was ecstatically happy: I knew we were good. But not that good! :-)

You can read all about it here: "The Pen is mightier than the sword" and more here on the PPA website

Here's a short blurb:
An innovative magazine aimed at prisoners was named New student magazine of the year at this year's Magazine Academy, a competition dubbed ‘the X-Factor’ of the magazine industry. The Pen scooped top prize out of more than 30 entries from 11 Periodicals Training Council (PTC) accredited course providers.

Feel really sad that our whole editorial team didn't get a full mention - after all, we all worked bloody hard on this - some more than others to be fair. But it was hard work... seems a bit unfair only one person got credited, and the others didn't get to attend the ceremony. I'm so tempted to name our editorial team here, but damn my anonymity!

I cannot be more proud of The Pen - it was such a learning experience for us and I recall the amount of effort put into getting our stories, talking to prisoners, ex-offenders, various organisations... and designing the whole thing on Indesign every single day for weeks in that damn stuffy computer room. The prize reward is that our magazine gets published on high-grade quality paper and printed in full colour, circulated in the industry. Oh I can't wait to get my hands on my copy to see our pages in full, glorious colour!

On another note, I started work as a one-day receptionist today. I've never had to pick up the phone so many times... and it doesn't help that the company's name is so bloody four-words-and-nine-syllable long that I occasionally constantly get tongue-tied! But it's so different to what I'm used to doing..and the people are really nice. And frankly, I've never been a proper temp before - so this is novelty for me!

Transitions

I have been beseiged by a flu and cough and it ain't nice sitting around feeling shite, and doing nothing.

What makes it worse is I have only myself to blame for the lack of self-control and hedonism I have recently indulged in... my body is hating me.

So two weeks have passed since I have finished my dissertation and you'd think I'd be writing more. But there is this incredible inertia arising from nowhere and the wheels of my brain are rotating rustily, in order to find some clarity among the chaos, some direction among the dark.

If there's one thing I've learnt, it's keeping transitions short and sweet. How many times I have prolonged the interim period in hope of finding exciting things to do, prolonging goodbyes and postponing the inevitable; at the end, the memories of the past and the anticipation of the future only serves to fill you with a gaping hole. That's right, filling you with a hole.

I woke up this morning to the soft hum of the fan, smell of the bed... and the phelgm in my throat. Somewhere at the back of my mind, it reminded me of home. The fan, the humid air, the white walls... the future. I cannot articulate the exact emotion but I was metaphorically standing right in the middle of that hole wondering what to do with myself. Don't get me wrong, it's been a blast catching up with mates, being a lady of leisure, partying for 24 hours in a row... but it's the in-between that scares me – especially when I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling thinking of the move and what it entails.

I hate waiting for J to finish with work - I wish he could finish right now and we can move on and bang out all the errands/visits/last-minute plans we have to do and just get on that bloody plane.

Realisations

I don't know if it's just me, but I've always thought the Indy sometimes had a strange way of reporting things... for example,
Steve Irwin's tragic death.

His death (very sad, by the way) was described by the Guardian yesterday as the equivalent of Australia's 'Diana'... and typically, in a report about someone's death, especially an international figure like Steve Irwin (whether people found him irritating, or not) would definitely include a quote about how sad and tragic it is, (especially when it is tragic), and how mournful the general mood is.

But no. In this Indy article, there was absolutely no pervasive mood of mourning or regret... they even used this quote from Irwin's friend and producer who said:

"He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind," he said. "Crocs Rule!"

Crocs Rule!??! You watched your friend die in front of you in a freak accident and all you can say is 'Crocs Rule?!!!'

Understandably, he might have been trying to remain cheerful... but in the context of how the whole story was written, I think it was a highly unbalanced and probably down to bad sub-editing of the original AP story.

I just feel sad, generally. For his wife and young kids, especially. The boys were making fun of his death yesterday, there was apparently an email circulating about a mock BBC report making comedy out of Irwin's death by stingray. The girls were saying it was far too soon to be laughing about someone who just died, but the boys replied 'it's already been 48 hours!'

Boys and their 'humour as defence mechanism'. We were truly disgusted.

***

I've finally finished my dissertation! It was one helluva' nightmare and I did another infamous J-style all-nighter again, barely slept two hours that fateful night, was still writing my conclusion on the train down to London.. and even on the bloody tube from Baker Street to Canada Water to get my connection.

How incorrigible am I.

My dissertation was half an hour late but they didn't seem to make a fuss so presumably it was all good. I think the first half of my thesis was brilliant, and the second half, I have only myself to blame for the drop in quality. On the bright side, I definitely have passed my Masters anyway... so Yay! I am now a fully qualified, post-graduate student! Wait. I was a post-grad student... what do you call a post post-grad student???

***

Celebrated in style in the weekend... went to a legendary Wise Terrace party, got really wasted and didn't sleep the whole night through. J and I danced from 11pm till 9am and it was so beautiful. The night was a happy blur and I vaguely remember dominating the dance floor in a rather embarrassing fashion... thank God the camera was in my bag and no one took photographic evidence of my antics, although I really don't think it was that bad. I took as many photos as I could in my inebriated state... and felt really sad, thinking that this is probably the last blow-out J and I will ever have of this scale. I thought about the few months we lived in that house, all the memories and how time truly eludes you the moment you think you have it truly in your grasp.

J and I slept from 1830hours to 0830hours the next day... how's that for a sleep-a-thon!

It's now definitely countdown time for us... we sat down and drew up a massive plan for our remaining weeks and it suddenly became all too scary. Accommodation, flights, bookings, seeing people, packing, sorting.... arghhhh!

I heard a podcast the other day and heard the infamous Singlish accent in its fullblown glory for the first time in awhile (other forms of Singlish I'd recently heard were diluted forms) and for some reason, my goosebumps immediately rose and I cringed. Not that I have anything against it... but I can only take mild forms of it ever since I left four years ago. Like bitter medicine. In small doses. Full blown Singlish accents seem to incite an internal allergic reaction. Like an unseen rash. Very scratchy, want to get rid of it, but really can't.

How on earth am I going to cope come October, I don't know. Maybe if I focus on speaking to J all the time, I'll be fine. Or maybe I should embrace it. Either way, every cloud has a silver lining... at least I'll be able to feast on all the yummy food I've been craving for all these years.