The End of #ESES2014

The past couple of days have been enormously stressful. I've not been active much, and I apologise for that, but it's been an enormously steep learning curve. I joined the ESES2014 team as a video editor on a single project - I was in the right place at the right time, and I spoke to the right person, and I did the thing I was supposed to do. And then I did another video. And then all of a sudden I was directing and shooting my own two minute video, and now I have about 8-10 hours of footage to review and edit. All of this footage is from cameras I positioned and was filmed by people to whom I taught everything I know.

Look in the other end. Point. Press the red button.

I didn't know an awful lot about this when I started but - there's an enormous benefit to having all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips. Of course, that means that the world has all the knowledge of you at its fingertips, but it's a trade-off. After all, what could possibly exist that could embarrass me?

That picture has absolutely nothing to do with the above statement.
I just wanted to remind you that I'm fantastically good looking.

Learning theory the night before and then getting to apply it the next day is an amazing opportunity, and one that I wouldn't get the opportunity to do anywhere else. The fact is that while I absolutely want to do my best and create a finished product that everyone can be proud of I, like every other member of the team (save one, who saved everyone at the last minute) am not from the discipline in which I found myself.

And yet we still threw ourselves into the approaching storm like spawning salmon, ignoring the enormous great grizzly bear of failure in the hope it would go away if we pretended it wasn't there.

And weirdly...it worked.

If you're actually a salmon, this may not work. It's a metaphor.
Also, thanks for reading. Even though you're a fish.

The whole thing came together. Don't get me wrong, there was one point when I thought I'd misplaced 32GB of footage and very nearly swore. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but there were more microphones than there are normally around me and while some readers - some dear readers - find it charming to hear cursing in an unnaturally English accent, I rather suspect it would have put a dampener on the whole thing.

In any case, I've now got a totally full hard drive and a totally awesome amount of work to do. I can review the footage, I can find out if any of it's useable (please, please let some of it be useable) and I can jam it together with the sound my colleague dutifully recorded and I can watch the sessions I couldn't be in, owing to the fact that while my electrons exist in a quantum superstate I, unfortunately, do not.

This is a nerd joke. Carry on.

But the sessions were great, and a lady from the UN did what everyone from the UN does to me - inspired. I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the room who felt it, which is going to make going for the jobs there even harder, but hell - what a chance. What an opportunity.

There was also a session on nuclear energy and, while I can't show you it (as the footage is not really mine, and I'm doing this work for someone else, and so releasing the footage is really not my call) I made a brief speech in support of nuclear energy that was light on figures but heavy, seriously heavy, on pathos. If I do get a chance I'll show you, but I'd like you all to remember that the camera adds pot bellies. This is a true fact.

In conclusion, then - what have I learned? Plan well ahead. Buy more SD cards than you think you'll need and buy the hard drive that makes you go "What? This much space? I'll never use this much space. Never."

Because if you film something, you will. Because it gets in your blood, and soon you're filming everything...

and that, kids, is how I became head of CCTV.

My ongoing quest to do everything there is to do

I have been a little busy this past week, and so the blog has been void of content. You have for that my sincere apologies. I wrote an opine piece about David Cameron, which I may put up here so you can enjoy/disagree violently with me; I checked a dissertation about International Human Rights Law and am currently doing the same for one about women educators in the field of science which is awesome; I am editing two videos and drafting a script; I have been elected VP Employability at AUSA, which means I can start roaring about workers' rights, sexual harassment in the workplace, discrimination and nobody can tell me to shut up about it (cos it's my job now) and I have watched a lot of West Wing and reignited my desire to go into political science and communications, a Masters in which at LSE costs only...£17,880.

Spare a dollar?

I'm slowly getting better at work; remembering the cocktails is something that would come quicker if I sat down and learned them for even half an hour a day, but quite frankly I'm struggling to find half an hour a day to eat, shave, or do a shi-

-take mushroom risotto. You thought I was going to be crude there. Shame on you.

So for now it's muscle memory and constant revisions by looking in the book, though I've now got down daiquiris, long islands, Haymarkets, slushes in a variety of eye-watering colours and milkshakes, which I struggled with because I can't associate them with any feeling other than being quite ill. Oh, and frozen champagne bellinis, despite the fact they're not on the menu, because I'm a good friend.

I ran into the Woman the other day, who was carting a snowman around. An odd scene, I suppose, but it's always nice to see her as she drifts, comet-like, across my galaxy. Soon she'll be out of mine and I strongly suspect other people will stare as she brightens their sky.

Dinosaurs of the 21st century, at this point I recommend you read up on your history.

That was a metaphor. This may aid you in working it out. Or not.

My current university writing assignment (just to completely change the subject) is a synthèse, a sort of amalgamation of several articles with a specific brief. That brief is to present a neutral point of view on the "new family," the destruction of the so-called nuclear family. Writing neutral articles is something I need practice with because I am not very good at it; I like positions. If I had to write from the idiotic point of view that somehow gay parents are destroying society I would need a long shower afterwards, but I could do it. This neutrality is a bit trickier.

Money has been troubling me lately, but I think what's really troubling me is the lack of certainty about future events. For example, if I get one of the internships I've applied for over the summer then I should have some pennies to rub together, and won't need any money at all from the maintenance loan I get - which means in theory I have more money per month now.

But if I don't, and am instead living at my parent's house eating lactose-free ice cream and crying, then I'll need some money. Mostly because lactose-free ice cream is really fucking expensive.

So I need to know, internships that I've applied to! If not, it'll be a bar job, and I'm only just getting the hang of this one. I'll need to start hiring myself out as an events cocktail bartender: I'll come to your house if you're having a party, make some smashing cocktails, steal some food from your fridge and disappear into the night (to wait for the bus).

And of all the places, one has done something awful: I think they've put a little counter on my entry, to show how many people have seen/read it. There's no info about it at all on the site, so I'd like to try an experiment: please click here and then comment below that you have. That way, we'll see if it goes up when you read it. If it doesn't, then it's going up when +Hill+Knowlton Strategies UK staff only are reading it, and that's terrifying by itself. If not...then I suppose it's good other people are reading it.

Currently: 16. Oh yeahhhhh.

I think that's pretty much it. For the moment at least; my timetable fills up but luckily (sort of) some space is being created because a few of my lovely students are leaving me: exams are fast approaching and once they're done, it's likely I shall not be needed any more. They will move on, and there's no doubt I'll move on, but it's a shame. You come into their lives, and they come into yours, and you change each other and then drift off again.

That's true of friends, and it's true of the Woman, and it's true of all the individuals one meets - and having all these extra things to do means I can make an extra difference, and so I'm trying to make it more positive. People have pointed out recently that I can be a little negative and difficult to get along with, so: here's to being a better person.

And more patient. But not much.