So.

Having now both researched a two stories and written them all on my big grown up self, am I officially a journalist now? Ooooh how exciting!

Yeah I have been assigned my patch (which is the one I requested Walkley) which means next year I only have to go outside the front door (or rather back door - people dont use front doors in Sheffield apparently) to get stories. Yaaaaay!

Last Wed I was assigned a Council Cabinet meeting to go to where I had to get 2 stories and follow them up so I could write some copy and hand it in for marking today. I looked up the agenda in advance on the t'internet and guess what? They were going to make a decision on the Myers Grove/Wisewood schools! Oh what gold!

For the vast majority of you that either do not live in Sheffield or don't care about local news enough to notice, there are two schools in Sheffield that have falling pupil numbers. One is a pretty good school called Wisewood and one is a bit run down with rather poor results. The Council can't keep both schools open because the lack of pupils would mean a reduced curriculum and a decline in the standards of teaching.

The Council (I keep on wanting to write the shorthand symbol for council but then remember I am on a computer!) want to build a new state-of-the art-school with a vocational training academy for the pupils that have low attainment so that they can get some job skills. Sounds fair enough to me.

The problem is the people that go to the schools (particularly Wisewood) are understandably a bit upset about having their school knocked down and are finding any excuse they can to tell the Council they are making a massive mistake. Hum.

Thing is keeping open both schools would cost loads and do the kids no good. The government wants to give the Council £28 million for a new school so long as it has some vocational stuff too. Fair enough. The Myers Grove kids could do with something like that because it is quite a deprived area and attainment is low.

Try telling this to parents of Wisewood kids though.

Ah well I might well feel the same if somebody wanted to merge say, Hungerhill with Armthorpe in a big new academy thingy. But thats why we have councils - to do what is best not what is popular.

Anyhoo. I thought I would get my vox pop out of the way (you know when you get loads of opinions from people) as I had to do one this semester and if this wouldnt get people talking then nothing would.

Sooooo. I got out my A to Z and set off in the direction of Myers Grove. I thought I would make a bit of an occasion of it and get dressed like a journalist with boots and a skirt and stuff :D I popped into the hairdressers on the way because I have wanted to get my hair cut for a while and the hairdressers (one of about 10 on my road. How random!) looked empty.

I was served by an extremely camp Scot with the most fantastic neck hair you have ever seen. You could actually see the line where he stopped shaving! He was very talkative, in fact I could hardly get a word in so I asked his opinion on the schools and off he went.

Quote number 1 :D

Btw this is what I showed him as a reference for how I wanted my hair:


and this is what I got:


Not quite the same but I still rather like it. IT is refreshing to have hair the same colour as my eyebrows for a change. Well for now anyway I am sure I will get bored in the not too distant future and have some random urge to dye it orange or something. It actually has millions of layers in it for once too- something I ask for but never seem to get. Having said that I do normally go to the ultra cheap place in Donny....

Again, I digress.

So there I was going down the most ridiculously steep roads you have ever seen in your life in high heels on my way to the school. I live on one side of a valley so there is a fab view on the way down and a pretty stream at the bottom which was nice to see when you are used to tall buildings and tarmac. Getting up the other side was somewhat more effort but luckily, the benefit of being a girl wearing heels is that they kind of level things out up hill and make it like a normal flat walk. Hooray!

I finally arrived at Myers Grove. The streets were deserted. It started to rain. Woo.
So I trundled up the road and sat in a bus shelter waiting for home time when I could pounce on unsuspecting members of the public and pressure them via embarassment and uncomfortableness to speak. Yay!

I waited for a while.....

*******************************
Oooh someone is coming. This is my chance!
"Excuse me madam could I have a moment of your time"
*looks slightly uncomfortable*
"I am a student journalist with the University of Sheffield. Are you aware of the merger plans for Myers Grove and Wisewood."
"Oh god yes. I work there in the kitchens actually. The school does need a lot of work some of the classrooms are disgusting and....."
*Yaaaaay good quotes!*
*******************************

It was really quite easy. Just act all confident and people feel they are on the spot and that they have to say something :D

I couldn't ask the kids anything when they came out unfortunatley as they have to be over 16 or have their parents permission. Oh well. I tried asking some teachers but they wisely declined to comment so I stuck to bothering parents and a grandma stood at the bus stop. She didn't half get angry about the schools....

Six good quotes woo! Now just to get home. Er... somehow. The journey home took a lot of consulting of the A to Z. Going back up the way I came was not really an option unless I actually wanted to die of exhaustion and dehydration so I found another way home and hoped that it wasnt quite as steep.

Well it was really steep actually. I may as well have just followed the steepest roads and I would have got home. Murphy's law eh? After about half an hour of trekking up what seemed like a mountain of mining villages I saw the 52 bus. Hooray!!! I am saved! I got on happily only to find out that I was about 10 minutes from home. Oh well being a student sponger it only costs 50p.

I was home. Whats more I had harrassed members of the public, got some decent quotes and lived to tell the tale. Hooray!!

I spent all of today writing up that story and another that started out about the Council planning to build new old folks estates but turned into how they were demolishing loads of old ones because they dont meet basic standards. Kind of lucky I noticed a bit in this mountain of Council report paperwork boringess saying that several properties were under "Decent housing standards". Ho hum.

I did a bit of digging and found a phone number that went.... somewhere. I rang it anyway and it turned out it was an info line and that the "Decent housing standards" were actually a government initiatives. Therefore.... I got to write about how the council was to demolish 6 housing estates because they are not up to government health and safety standards and they dont have enough moneyt to do them up. Wahey! How incriminating....

Well I handed it in today. The deadline was 4 and I was there at 3.30. Of course the office had closed mysteriously till 4.30 so I made a makeshift cover sheet and wanged it under the door only to hear it to be blown across the office. Probably in several bits.

So yeah my assignment is now somewhere around the journalism recpetion desk I imagine. I thought it best to E-mail Amanda the receptionist to check that she actually found it. Oh god I hope so or you lose 10 marks and that is hardly fair because they decided to swan off randomly when I was told to go!

Anyways.

Moving on....

Ah the post saga I mentioned in my last post. To cut a very long story short, Keith started sending me all sorts of random junk mail through the post as a laugh. It all started with a chess piece catalogue which I admit was rather amusing. But after we found sites on the internet where you could sign each other up to recieve an array of junk of up to 30 at a time it got a little out of hand.... Roy the porter now looks at me in an entirely different way after sorting several "adult interest" catalogues into my pigeon hole....

Keiths Mum got a bit annoyed when I sent some womens underwear catalogues to Keith. She seemed a bit suspicious too hehe. Here is the total collection of general pants recieved through the mail for me:



Speaking of pants, I got a "free sample" of some frilly knickers in an underwear catalogue. I hung them on a slightly drunk corridor mates door of course. Just to confuse her a little bit in the morning....

Some of the catalogues were actually hilarious. Here are a few good slogans:

• "Making light of lighting"
  
• "The worlds leading supplier of dolls houses and miniatures" In this Dolls House Emprium catalogue are several amusing demonstrative pictures with captions such as this one: "Samantha was so proud to show off her new home to Mark". You couldn't make it up really...
  
  
  
  
• "Your watering problems solved"


• There was one that seemed like a pretty boring catalogue until I got to the back: "To celebrate 35 years of inovative and engaging tours for gay men and lesbians...."
  Ah right.
  
• "Aquaplancton. A natural product that works with nature.
  
  
  
• "The mantis garden tiller is now available at a REDUCED PRICE!!!"
  
  
  
• "Dear Miss Boyle, thank you for your enquiry about the range of ALTON'S FINEST CEDAR GREENHOUSES and FINEST SUMMERHOUSES"


• "The designer choice. Paving, aggregates, edging, walling and driveways"


• "Dear Dr Boyle, thank you for your interest in HSS and for visiting our website" This one was actually quite fun! Lots of courses about learning to use cranes and flourescent jackets and stuff!


• "Chilstone have been established for 50 years and have perfected reconstituted stone with a texture virtually indistinguishable from quarried stone."


• I also recieved 5 "adult" catalogues. *shudder*
  

So there you go. Oh yes. I did take the time to post Keith a lemon. Meg and I found this website on which this American guy posts all sorts of random things and see if they get to their destination. His lemon failed so I thought I would try....

We checked the royal mail website and it all complied minus a Perishable notice which we soon rectified:



Unfortunatley it didnt get there. Maybe the adress wore off or maybe the postman decided that he would feel a bit silly delivering a lemon. As a first class perishable item Keith would have had to sign for it. I was dying for his mum to be the only one in....

Anyway. I have talked quite enough for one day. This has taken me a good 1 1/2 hours and I am sure I have typed enough today. Tatty bye for now :D