Orwell's Message

Now I was going to leave all my blogs on the reading until the New Year and enjoy the Christmas break but whilst at midnight mass last night with my gran and great gran I was reminded of the main theme's in George Orwells ground breaking book, 1984.

Most merciful God,
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
We confess that we have sinned
in thought, word and deed.

Kneeling in church the people around me were praying to God for forgiveness for not only deeds they have done and things they have said... but also immoral thoughts they have had. In religion not even your thoughts are your own. This ties in heavily with Orwells themes in 1984. Orwell suggested that by 1984, (he had written the book in 1948) that the government would control our thoughts by changing language. He suggested that if you take a word away then you not only take the word but everything associated with it. In 1984 if you thought about something that had been 'removed' then you were commiting a 'thought crime' and in time you would be killed... no wait not killed... also removed! Anything to do with sex was a "sex crime".

It seems that today in a way, Orwells predictions have materialised after all... for those who attend church regularly, albeit very few. The people in that church were begging to be forgiven for their unpure thoughts which shows a sense of fear of a higher figure, in this case God which contrasts with the government in 1984. I once suggested that some people go to church to give themselves standards and morals to live by but now I wonder if this is somebody elses intention. I will leave you to come to your own conclusions of what I mean by that.

Anyway... it's Christmas Day and on a lighter note, my father went to put the turkey in the oven earlier and the oven had broken! He refused to see the funny side like my mum and I. I can't help thinking it's the ghosts of the turkeys I saw being killed on BBC's Kill It Cook It Eat It, making a stand. At least this is a Christmas we won't forget in a hurry. Our next door neighbour Joyce, (pushing 80, swears like a trooper... envision the nan off of Catherine Tate) has put our Turkey and spuds in her oven, so it won't be Christmas beans on toast like my dad joked about. I love Joyce... yesterday she asked me if I had a boyfriend and when I answered no she told me "Good girl, have sex and stay f***ing single!!" I would like to end this festive blogpost on those wise words from Joyce!!

* Merry Christmas 2009 *

Looking Back...

2010 is approaching fast and here I am trying to think of one thing I would change if I could... and for once I can't think of anything! I'm not saying I've had the perfect year but 2009 has seen me make new friends, a new job, good memories, a couple of regrets and a lot of baked beans on toast and I honestly don't think I could have had a more colourful year. Perhaps there are some situations I could have handled differently but in general it's been great!

If I have spent some time in 2009 with you whether it be; watching disney, playing frisbee at Southampton Common, Chinese Buffeting it at the Water Margin, playing tennis until the pros came and showed us up, watching Hairspray in London, spending the day taking pictures in Bournemouth- laughing until our sides ache, fishing for caffe latte jelly beans, playing roulette in the casino at 4am, dancing at Lennon's on a friday night, GO APE... then you have made a part of my year! I learn a little about myself through every person I meet and befriend... each and every one of you, I appreciate you all! :) I hope to make many more amazing memories in 2010.

MERRY CHRIMBO AND A HAPPY NEW YEARRR <3

Euthanasia

I would like to talk about something that has touched me this week. I phoned a friend from home to check in like I do every now and again and when I asked the standard opening question "how are you?" I did not get the standard reply I expected. She was not in a good way. It turned out her auntie who suffered from Motor Neurone Disease had come to the end. For those of you who don't know, Motor Neurone Disease causes all your muscles to stop working until eventually your vital organs shut down. It is also the main cause of euthanasia (which I will come to later). When this disease takes over, your brain is the last thing to go so even after victims speech is gone they can feel every bit of pain but can not communicate it to those around so often family are faced with a situation where the patient wants to be taken away to die, as 'unethical' as that is... you would not allow an animal to live in excruciating pain would you?

Anyway back to my story, my friend's aunty's heart had stopped but they managed to resuscitate her long enough to take her home and have her oxygen mask removed around all her loved ones, so they could all say goodbye in turn. She had already told her family several months earlier that when the time came she did not want to be kept alive.

It made me wonder how I would handle such a situation. Would I selfishly want a loved one to be kept on oxygen and have their painful life prolonged for my own benefit or would I allow them to pass away when the time had come. I hope the latter but it must be heart-breaking and I can't bare to imagine myself in those shoes. 

The long winded point I am trying to make is... if I was in so much pain that I could no longer even tell people. I would want to die. No question. I believe that a person has the right to die with dignity and I believe in Euthanasia. Any thoughts?

End of WINOL.... for now!

I'm in the newsroom right now... and the first time I have made it in for 9am happens to be the one time I didn't need to be so I am the only one here! But it has given me a great opportunity to write a bit about WINOL and to reflect on the last couple of months gone by.

As recently as the end of October, if you had given me a Sony shooting kit I wouldn't know what the hell to do with it. Last year we had some camera training but it was so sparse and in between that none of us really got a chance to become confident. 

However... the best thing that has happened to me at Uni so far is being thrown in at the deep end by being given the role of a news reporter, forcing me to learn quickly. My very first news package was filming the firework procession going through Winchester which Colin from the 3rd year kindly assisted me on. My framing was already ok but I wasn't up to scratch on all the technical stuff so by watching Colin closely and following suit I managed to become quite confident at filming by the end of the semester. 

My second demon was editing. Editing was all just too scary for me. I couldn't pull myself together to get my head around it but slowly I started to learn and now I can do that too.

So the third years are off to work on their innocence project now and the studio is going to be taken over by us. This means all the senior roles that they did so far, i.e. editor, production manger etc, will be taken over by us... are we up to the challenge? I don't know... but I do know we have all overcome every hurdle so far so here's hoping!! 

Behind the scenes of Winol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F_XOrUp3gw

Today I have been filming a news package covering the events going on at Uni to raise money for Children In Need. Controversially I have broken away from certain VJ'ing rules and had a bit of fun with it... this is afterall a fun charity event!

For example, our Student Union president, Jimmy Weighell was performing a 24 hour sponsored silence. I decided to do an interview with him, starting with a voice-over where I said "we went to speak to Jimmy Weighell, but he didn't have much to say..." I shot a few seconds of him looking around and opening and closing his mouth and looking rather lost purely for comedy value. Obviously I got a real interview too, but by putting this in the package I thought it would be a good device to add humour to the day, a day which was never invented to be too serious.

Also whilst recording my piece to camera I had Pudsey stand with me dancing with his arm around me!

I recorded voxpops of staff dressed up as clowns to keep the silly theme going and filmed leg waxing, karaoke and other shenanigans so hopefully Monday will see me enjoy my editing instead of tearing my hair out as in previous weeks.

Remember to donate generously for Children In Need and get yourselves down to Children In Need Flirt tonight at The Vault if you have no other plans!

5 days until Winol...

Beyond The Stars...

Tonights blogpost is undoubtedly going to make me sound like a lunatic but rest assured it's just the week I am having! The theme?

Aliens
Extra Terrestrials
Martians...

whatever you want to call them

From a young age I have had an interest in alternative life forms, I think this is mostly due to the fact that my godfather was somewhat of an oddball and he had a passion for everything space. He once told me that when he was very young he saw a UFO whilst playing in the garden and he remembers being dragged in the house by his mother in fear. I have no idea if this is true... the guy loved his scotch afterall.

I always thought of all the hundreds of thousands of millions of planets, how could it be that this tiny planet was the only one that held life. Well I think it is very naive for anyone to think we are totally alone in the infinate amounts of space. If I point my finger now, am I pointing at the object directly infront of my finger? Am I pointing behind the object at the wall? Am I pointing beyond the wall? What about beyond the stars? Have you ever stopped to think if you point somewhere and you followed the direct line, what would you fine billions and billions of miles away?

Who is to say that on another planet, in another universe, lightyears away there isn't an exact replica of planet earth. There could be another YOU taking a different route in life.

I had never ever thought that extra terrestrials had made contact with us. Even when reading about Roswell and other such stories when people had apparently had a close encounter or been 'abducted'. I thought "haha, funny hoax!"That is until this week...

I can't tell you why but this week little green men have been on the brain. Last night I had the most disturbing dream that this alien, tall and slim with hollow eyes and an antenna (what do you want from me... I've never met one have I?!) kept following me everywhere. At first I thought I was imagining it but then I started seeing it hide behind tree's when I whipped my head around. Then it got braver until it was playing grandmother's footsteps about a yard behind me. In the dream I calmly got my phone out to phone the government, but it stole my phone. Then I woke up... and quickly asked myself if I had taken up marijuana the night before...

I think this has all freaked me out because talk of Uni at the moment is Adrian Hicks, the Winchester based MP who recently claimed that back in January/February time of 2004, he saw an extra terrestrial strolling the Winchester high street. Ok his basis for his conclusion wasn't sound... (he claimed he knew she wasn't human because she walked funny, had very large eyes and her arm movement was strange). But it made me think. How do we know that direct contact hasn't been made? Crop circles are rife in Winchester... are they just massive hoax's or are we missing something?

I will leave you with this thought...

Humankind has been exploring space for years. Moon landing in 1969 and now even sending shuttles to Mars to explore. If there were life form on these planets WE would be aliens. Why are we ignorant enough to believe it is just us? Do we really think we're that special?