16/02/2007

Hallelujah! I am a bona fide shorthandist (if that exists…). I passed my 100 words-a-minute on Wednesday. Quite unexpected, as I had a tiny bit of a hangover, but the squiggles just seemed to flow off the end of the pen. No more early morning Teeline for me, though I think I might try and go to a couple a week still so I don't lose the knack. Our teacher is invaluable and I've realised I won't have her around to hold my hand for much longer.

Had one of the few one-to-one tutorials that we get each term this week. A general catch-up and discussion of lessons learnt from Christmas work experience. He asked me what my plans were for after the course. I said I hadn't made any firm decisions yet, which seemed okay by him ("It's good to keep your options open," he encouraged), but then he looked lost for words.

Perhaps if I go back in a couple of weeks with a more definite idea he'll perk up. February is fast disappearing, so I'm going to sort out Easter's work experience next week. We've got some folk from the Press Association and The Sunday Times coming in next week, so maybe something will come of that. All of a sudden, the graduate scheme ads are appearing in the papers.
Filling out application forms in February seems to be becoming an annual event.

Celebrated Valentine's Day in unusual fashion with 15 of my course mates in a curry house on Brick Lane. Some tenacious haggling and the bill only came to £5 each. It was quite a late one and probably not the best preparation for my feature interview for my specialism. I finally managed to persuade someone to speak to me for my home affairs course.

This someone was from the Homeless Arrest Reachout team, a local centre working with the homeless and rough sleepers who commit crime, in particular visiting and befriending them
whilst in police custody. I was hoping for a trip to the cells as I thought I could get a good case study out of it. This didn't happen, but the team manager gave me a very candid interview about her views on the Criminal Justice System and how it fails this particularly vulnerable and overlooked group of people.

In stark contrast, I also had to write a 'colour' feature about my first experience of something. I cheated a little – I sort of ran out of time and would have needed to find something unique and colourful between half seven and nine on a rainy Monday night – and wrote about an experience whilst on holiday in Morocco. It didn't come off as well as I'd hoped. It lacked the
immediacy that writing from a fresh experience would have created. Plus, I feel like I should have forced myself to come up with some ideas, however small; after all, ideas are the stuff good trainees are made of.

Laura x