Feeling numb, numb, nu-nu-nu-numb?

Most people enjoy talking about themselves. To a person, their own name is the single sweetest word in the English language. I think that’s why I can sit down and churn out page after page of my own ‘factual story’, also known as a depressive look into my life, with a tackily humorous twist.

While I like the 90s for what they saw – Angry Beavers, Polly Pockets and reenacting A Bug’s Life with a few decorative rocks and some guinea pig seed – I think deep down, I’m fond of them because they were the most relaxing, carefree days of my life. And while everyone says that, it’s a bit extreme in my case, as my mind doesn’t allow me much down time between stressing about everything and concocting some fun new voices for me to hear.

Maybe again why I like grunge blogs. While they don’t promote mental illness, they don’t shun it. If you were to tell the owner of a Tumblr filled with orange tween girls with vans what you’ve hallucinated about, they’d probably cry. But not the grunge kids. We take what we’ve experienced, type it in a goopy font, and whack it on a pastel background for the world to take in. No nonsense, take it or leave it. WE R WHO WE R.

 Preach it, sista

 

And while Ke$ha’s catchy hit may seem similar to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, people with mental illnesses often aren’t born with it. It’s their environments and stressors and the people they deal with. While there’s a slightly increased risk of developing depression or anxiety if your parents had it, you’re not ‘born that way’. After all, Ke$ha used to be fat.

Eat it, sista

I think it’s worthwhile taking the time to release your inner journo and write a factual story about yourself if you haven’t. Not a whingefest, just an anecdote. In my case, the added bonus of releasing my inner turmoil (terribly dramatic) was that I completed an assignment over a week early. There’s a first for everything!

So hot right meow.

 

Cats! I discovered a shirt somewhat similar to this in a thrift store a few weeks prior to starting uni. I imagined I’d sport it proudly, and everyone would bask in the wonder that was that girl with the spiffy 90s-bargain-t-shirt-with-the-sleeves-cut-off. Disappointingly, no-one really cared, but at least I didn't distract anyone from discussion of paywalls. With journalism costing several clams, and consumers reluctant to hand them over in return, my writing's going to have to be impeccably professional, entertaining and individual if I’m going to eat in the future. Luckily, I’m in the write place (pun intended).

I'm not a stalker, I swear.

As I waited outside my reporting lecture - in which I knew no one – I observed all the regulars. Slightly Creepy Guy, Alice (not her actual name, she just looks like the character from Twilight), Red Afro Dude and Joe all appeared right on schedule. Curly Quiet Girl ambled down the hill.

So this is a shout out to all the others doing both JOUR111 and JOUR1112 (Reporting). Are you observing and writing about Ombre-haired Girl With The Parrot Bag? It’s self absorbed, but I’d like to think you are.

How to overthink generally everything.

When I enter the lecture theatre for JOUR1111 on Monday, only one thought is circulating in my mind: "Good god, my giant novelty pen is amazing." Fifty minutes later, the pen is somewhere in the depths of my bag and I find myself fretting over what I could possibly make my blog about. It'll be creative! It'll be aesthetic! It'll be so amazingly witty!


But this thing is being ASSESSED. If I screw this up, my dreams of working for a super-duper-alternative-culture magazine will be foiled, I'll become homeless and lonely and ashamed, and the only publication I'll be near is the Big Issue.


After wading through 21 pages about blogging, courtesy of 'The Online Journalism Handbook', I know I need a niche. Paul Bradshaw and Lisa Rohumaa are onto something. Yes, my lecturer did tell us that we could focus on anything we like, from his favourite example of motorbikes to tea cozies. And yet somehow these focuses he talked about seem less attractive than a niche. NICHE. Even the word is pleasing. Anyone can focus on something. Hell, I could focus on the Tuesday bingo sessions if I wanted. But a niche demands success. To have a niche, is to know what you're talking about and talk about it well.


So what is my niche?


My mind flickers. From my desperate job hunts and filling in applications I'm old hat at writing down my talents and interests: graphic design, exercise, fashion, and photography.


I've hit a brick wall. Taking into account that a blog is created every half second, I think the market gaps for graphic design, exercise, fashion and photography are non-existent. Am I really that boring and generic? Everyone likes pretty things and taking photos and dressing up and pretending they enjoy physically exerting themselves.


I'll have to zone in and be so incredibly specific and uber-niche-y that my blog will be the breakthrough of the century. After slap bands, of course.


Graphic design and photography, I can combine those. Exercise I do, but if you try to talk to me about it I'll get bored and efficiently jog away. Fashion's just a piece of cloth without photography, so I can merge all three to broadcast my views on alternatively designed photography of fashion.


The wall's smaller, but still there. I don't know what alternatively designed photography of fashion means, and it doesn't sound too engaging. The merging was fun though... there's an idea. I'll just compile a few things I like that are unique and interesting and pull the ol' merge-aroo.


I already have a blog, but just a Tumblr so I'm mostly browsing through photos and redistributing them. It does have a focus, though, on the sort of 80s/90s grunge phase and the styles of photography that were connected to it.


And just like that, a little cartoon light bulb pops up above my head. I will MERGE my interests of the gnarly 90s with my experiences in my journalism courses. I will write about writing, and about how - although I'm obsessed with all things modern and hip and NOW - I love those dope days of the slightly-recent past, I love my courses, and somehow I love both simultaneously and symbiotically.