My articles

Some articles written by me can be found at the following links:

http://theomega.ca/article/19094

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/archive/2009_04_01_narchive.html

http://theomega.ca/article/4859

http://theomega.ca/article/5283

What experience?

As summer draws to an end I begin to draw upon my experiences for help. Help in my future, help in my present and help to understand my past. As an assignment for one of my third year journalism courses I was required to complete an internship of some sort that will help me in my future career, wherever that may be. I am currently undecided if that career will take me to a newspaper, a magazine, radio, or even television... at this point I am not certain it will be related to journalism at all. Certainly a good way to waste 4 years and 20,000 dollars wasn't it. I admit I had every intention of gaining a career in the journalistic field when I entered the journalism program, however with the recent recession and losses of jobs in all fields, including my field of choice, my future does not look so amazing. The point is I have no experience I could not acquire an internship. This was not due to a lack of trying I certainly tried to the greatest of my abilities, or in my own opinion I did. I sent out resume after resume, emailed editor after editor, re-emailed these people over and over again as they led me on to beleive that there may be a chance for me within their company, but in the end I acheived nothing. I have a list of dates on which I contacted potential employers, dates on which they responded to my enquiries, the list goes on for pages, four to be exact, but I have no useable experience to show for my efforts. I assure you my lack of an internship was not due to a lack of effort, I tried. Now our other option that was given to us by our teachers was that of freelance journalism. Freelancing is an idea that I can comprehend I am more than capable of writing and submitting freelance articles, but please someone explain to me when I would have the time to freelance. Over the summer I have worked at not one, not two, but three jobs. It's expensive going to school. I took it upon myself to work as much as possible over the summer, to save as much as possible, so that I can concentrate on my studies in my final year of school. The reasoning for this is that I did not do very well this past year in school as I was working 32 hours a week on top of my 5 courses. This year I am cutting myself down to two shifts a week in order to concentrate on school. As a result my summer was given up for the purpose of work, work that will allow me to concentrate on school when the time is right. As such I had no time for freelance. I did manage to do some photography work for one of my employers over the summer.  For advertising purposes we are creating a coffee table book to give to clients filled with photos (taken by me) showcasing fences the company has built and what it is they offer. Yes that is correct I said fences. My summer was spent building fences. Ironically enough one of the fences was built on the property of the very teacher that is expecting me to complete an internship. If that wasn't enough I built a fence for Mel Rothenburger, the editor of the kamloops daily news, a potential employer... a man that turned myself down for an internship... Where is the justice in that. As it seems I am untrained, unexperienced, and unable to complete my course.... For now my future does not look very bright, but with a positive attitude all I can hope for is the opportunity I need.