Hello!

Any Placebo fans might recognise today’s title. It is, of course, a reference to the glorious weather we’ve had of late. (any non-English readers: it’s been torrential downpours and galeforce winds and flooding all the way, hahaha)

You’re reading the blog of a very chilled journalist today. Yesterday, we had our shorthand exam. I spent the hour of classroom practice beforehand in a stressed-out strop, utterly incapable of getting anything down in full, even 80wpm passages. So, naturally, I was insanely worked up about the exam. But then for some reason, having told myself I definitely wouldn’t even attempt to take the 100wpm down, for some reason I made a snap decision to just go for it. I actually got most of it down, bar a couple of words in the middle, so I was a couple of words under the wordcount, and I probably have various other errors (we’re allowed nine errors at 100wpm, out of a total of up to 335 words), so I’d say it’s not likely I’ve passed, but I live in hope. The 80wpm went fine though, so hopefully I’ve passed at least that. I can always give the 100wpm another shot in two weeks. To be honest, we should have taken the 60wpm exam yesterday, but our course is moving insanely fast. 100wpm in 10 weeks would be crazy!

I have my Reporting exam on Monday. I feel very very prepared for that, given the amount of past papers we’ve done (as a ballpark figure: 20 million) so that should be fine. On Wednesday we have our Media Law exam (feeling pretty much fine about that) and Court Reporting exam (feeling pretty shaky, so tomorrow is Court Reporting revision day).

Last night I went KERAYZEE and went out for my pal Hope’s 20th. Look, here is some proof that I sometimes leave the house:

The birthday girl is in the middle! The highlight of the night, in classic Brighton fashion, was having a little drink on the beach, sheltering from the wind behind a beach hut. I’ve missed my girls a hell of a lot, so it’s brilliant having them all back from uni! However, when I got home, I couldn’t sleep for AGES because I kept thinking about shorthand outlines. I was listening to my iPod in bed, and I kept seeing the outlines for all the song lyrics. I listened to Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know and there’s the line ‘This could be the end of everything’… just think how much theory is in that. WHOA. I have A LOT A LOT A LOT to do this week, but Wednesday after the exams should be good. I think we’re going out somewhere to celebrate the end of this stint of exams, hooray! I’ll be a busy fig, but I’ll try to update when I get a chance. Kayleigh