City Buzz

Hello! Time for a proper update now that I'm at home for the weekend. It's nice to of had a lye in this morning, but I'm actually getting used to the early mornings that come with my work experience. My train is at 7:30am every morning, which means I'm getting up at 6:30am and it definitely helps that the mornings are much brighter now, if it was still the middle of Winter, I wouldn't be finding it so easy to jump out of bed.

The train journey isn't too bad, just 1 hour 20 minutes, and I spend most of that sleeping. The only thing I hate is that it's so packed with London business people all tap tap tapping on their laptops and mobile phones, and I never get to sit on my own and stretch out, instead I'm squished up against the window as I sleep.

As I mentioned in my quick update during the week, my Work Experience is going well. The office has a nice relaxed atmosphere and everyone is very friendly. I've been put next to the features intern who is interning for a whole year (lucky thing) and she is helping me out if I get stuck. I have a list of daily tasks to do which I've gotten into a routine with now. When I come in, in the morning, I hand out the papers, check the emails and readers letter and update the files until the newspapers get put back on my desks with various pages that have been marked. The pages are marked with Celebrity, Health and General stories that might be of interest to Red magazine readers. Sometimes there are lots of pages marked, sometimes there aren't, but there are 8 papers in total so photocopying all of the marked pages takes quite a while! Once these are all photocopied, I have to make up packs for the features team so there's even more copying to be done, I keep getting extremely muddled up with all the packs and photocopies but slowly I'm getting it right and getting it done quicker and quicker. While all this is being done, the post is usually delivered which I then have to sort and hand out. Again, I kept getting muddled with this in the beginning but I'm slowly learning where everyone sits. At least the office map I've been given is correct, unlike the ones I've had at other Work Experience placements!

This usually takes up most of my morning. Through out the day I have to visit the post room and pick up the deliveries for the Beauty and Features desks. The beauty team get so many products and freebies. It's my job to open the beauty post so I get to have a cheeky look at what they receive and I'm so jealous! There is a little freebie desk opposite my own which attracts a lot of people and I've had a sneaky peek myself and picked up a spray that is supposed to help you sleep. I thought I'd give it a try but it's pretty much just Lavender scented water that I'm spraying all over my bedding!

I get an hour for lunch which I've been spending sitting in an area on Park Lane. The past few days I've been going for a little walk down Oxford Street and popping into Selfridges. I managed to finally find a Glamour magazine with the free Clinique Make-up Remover and Eye Cream which I was very pleased with. I did spot a magazine on blogging but quickly replaced it when I saw its £15 price tag, RIDICULOUS!

I quite enjoy the rush of being in London actually, but when you're rushing to get to Waterloo in time for your train, it's not so fun bashing into tourists and slow walkers! At 5:30pm I turn into one of those Londoners that run up and down the escalators and attempt to run across Waterloo station, darting inbetween everyone to try and get to my platform. While I'm on lunch I quite enjoy just wondering around and watching everything that's going on. I've been taking my own packed lunches to try and save money. The building has a small kitchen and microwave room so there's no need to go out and spend loads of money on an overpriced sandwich when you can bring something cheap from home.

The afternoons are spent doing odd jobs. I keep an eye on the emails through-out the day and file them away as well as flicking through book catalogues and noting down which ones might be of interest to Red readers. At the end of this week I've had to search for press contacts for camcorder companies as the magazine want to hire some. I've had to call various companies and actually came across a really rude man from Practika who was basically horrible to me. I hate talking on the phone as it is so I got a bit flustered and didn't know what to say to him. Typically, I managed to think of something to say once I'd already put the phone down!

I still have a week left which will hopefully lead to some new tasks. I definitely need to stop myself wondering down Oxford street on my lunch breaks though. On the Saturday after my placement finishes, I have an induction at River Island and then start work on Monday! I can't wait to be working again and earning some money! As well as working at River Island, I hopefully have a writing job lined up to go alongside it, which means more money! The River Island job is 15 hours a week, Monday, Thursday and Friday which is great as I won't be working on a busy Saturday!

I'm off now to have a lovely dinner of Burgers and home-made wedges, made for my by Vince. H's been great this past week. I don't get home from London until 7:20pm every dat so he's been making me dinner every night and picking me up from the station! Aw! <3

I'll try and do another quick blog during next week but no promises! In the mean time, if you're not a follower, why not become one?! I'm so close to reaching the 200 mark!