Wednesday, October 25, 2006

All you need is Radio Jacka!

So I decided that if I wanted to have a radio show - it really was now or never. I'd been meaning to get involved with the student radio station for ages, but now that I'd reached my final year, I decided that the time had come to finally do something about it.

Now the radio station, as with many other student organisations, actually isn't very organised. So after turning up for 2 training sessions that didn't happen, and then not getting up in time to attend the replacement training sessions, I found myself sitting in front of the control desk, in the studio, broadcasting my first show, with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Having said that, I think the show went quite well really. Admittedly the first half hour did mainly consist of dead air, with the occasional fading in and out of music as I tried to work out what all the knobs did. And in my defence there were some rather misleading objects about the studio, such as the red 'On Air' light, which refused to light up no matter what combination of buttons I pressed. This also meant that my first words to the listeners at the University of Sussex Campus, and indeed across the world were:

"Er, yea, hi... um, now I'm not quite sure if I'm actually broadcasting here, but I think I'll just get on with it anyway..."

Thankfully it later transpired that I was broadcasting (well for the second half hour at least), which I discovered through the wondrous 'listen again' feature on the station website. And I do feel reasonably capable of doing a show now, even if I do only ever push no more than 4 of the hundreds of buttons available to me. But the one worrying element that now remains is that now that I've done my first show, I've used up all my material. I've already played my favourite songs. I've already shown off all the new albums I'm listening to...
I suppose there is an obvious solution here, that being: This is a weekly show - who's going to care if you just play the same stupid stuff every time...?

Who indeed...

Friday, October 06, 2006

Gender Stereotyping

Well, life is continuing as usual. Living in a house full of girls has taken a bit of getting used to but I'm now starting to learn how to adjust to this new environment.

For example - if we're heading out to town, I have now learned that the statement "Ok, shall we get going then...?" does not mean that we will imminently leave the house - but instead it simply causes everyone to quickly stand up and say "Ooo, just give me a minute," and before I've had enough time to even register the sound of bedroom-doors slamming, I am completely alone in the lounge. I then have approximately twenty minutes to wait before I can expect the gradual return of newly fragrant flatmates.

I will however complain that not all such aspects of being the only guy in an otherwise all-girl house are so easy to adjust to...

It just tickles my ear every time...

Sunday, October 01, 2006

The Student Lifestyle

Indeed! I am now all moved in to me new place, and have had a wonderful time getting to know the new flatmates (see Eric, pictured to the left).

For the last few days the house has been filled with merriment, and song... although when it comes to 'song' in a more specific sense, Julia seems to have a tendency for getting lyrics extremely wrong:
"How do you like your eggs in the morning?
I like mine with a pie..."


Freshers' has been pretty cool, and sazzl came down to see me the other day, which was fab. We lived up to the touristy expectations - went to the pier and got knocked around on a rollercoaster - but wait there's more - as we were just walking along we only happened to run into a disgruntled looking Jeremy Paxman – how cool is that!

Anyway, no more slacking now - as this week the Student Lifestyle Proper beings, as that's when the work starts.

Hurrah for Education!




Blog

I know this seem really quite stupid - I never even wanted one of them 'blog' things, but now here I am, setting up a new one, because I just got too pissed off with 'msn spaces' constantly pissing me off...

So yea, basically - this is the new home of the occasional rambling of jack....

Enjoy!