Don't Quit

While using the internet the other day, I came across this poem:

It's one I was already familiar with, as my Mum had copied the whole thing into a text message from a fridge magnet she has with it on and sent it to me once when I was devastated over the break up of a relationship. (God bless her!) It helped to cheer me up then, but it feels even more relevant now.

Making a change in your career is not easy, but if it's worth doing and it's something you believe in, then you shouldn't give up.

I have had a lot of NOs during this process, far more than I have had yeses anyway. But, it's funny how things work out. On the same day as I was rejected for something on BBC Breakfast, I got work with Dragons' Den, and on the same day that I was rejected for the BBC's PTP scheme, I got some shifts on the X Factor. It has gotten to the point where a "no" doesn't feel like the end of the world anymore, it just means that wasn't the right opportunity for me at that time and something else will come along.

Twelve months ago, I was working as an English teacher in the south of Spain. Now, I am a freelance runner and have credits that include Mastermind, Dragons' Den and The X Factor, and have some work coming up on The Edge and The Voice.

Getting a "no" doesn't have to mean never. It often just means not right now. Keep at it :)

BBC #GetIn

Today I went to the BBC's Get In event, an informative session designed for people who want to apply for their upcoming trainee schemes or, as the name suggests, for people who simply want to find an "in" to the best broadcaster in the world. (No bias whatsoever, obviously).

I have joked to people that if all else fails, I may just "get in" with a crow bar, but after today I have a feeling that that won't be necessary.

During the afternoon, we got to hear from both past and present trainees, who by all accounts are successfully living the dream. The most important pearl of wisdom they shared with us was to "be yourself". When they first said that, I have to admit, it felt like a cliché, something that people say when they aren't really sure what to say, or something your Mum reassures you with when you are headed to a new school and feel that the first day is going to be an absolute nightmare.

However, as the day wore on, I came to realise they were right. It is very easy to get spooked by the numbers - there were about one hundred of us there, and we were the lucky ones as the free tickets "sold out" in under three minutes. Last year alone some 3,000 people applied for the JTS, which goes to show how sought-after these places are. If all the people applying are even half as talented and enthusiastic as the people I met today, then the competition really is fierce. Everyone was extremely motivated and had lots of different experience behind them, from lawyers to art history lecturers, to shop assistants and bloggers. But it was precisely this that made the event so great.

Indeed, Ms. Cheryl Varley summed it up perfectly when she explained that ideas and creativity stem from diversity and that is the most important thing you can bring to the BBC. YOU. Your life experiences, family history and social background are things that have uniquely shaped you, to make you who you are and will influence your perspective on things.

So, rather than feeling intimidated by the other people there, the feeling of being "up against" each other was taken away. People that I was impressed by, who may have more journalistic experience than I do, were in turn impressed by me, and my history as an English language teacher in Spain (especially by the fact I am fluent in Spanish!). It was then that I realised that I do have something to offer, as does everybody else.

When the time came for group work to pitch an idea for a TV or radio programme, it wasn't so much a competition any more, but a brilliant collaboration. In fact, we complimented each other beautifully and were bouncing ideas around.

In short, the event was more than worth going to, even if it were just for that realisation. I have left with some great advice and met some genuinely wonderful and talented people. I would be gutted if I didn't get onto the scheme, that goes without saying, but I would be very happy if any of those who I met today did.

Thank you

Since my last blog post, I have received several messages from people telling me to keep at it, that what I am doing is admirable and more importantly that I am not alone... that several people my age are trying to break into their desired industries and that things will fall into place for me too.

It really touched me that people took the time to write to me to help cheer me up and motivate me to keep going. What was particularly moving though, was that some of the people that got in touch were people I haven't seen or spoken to in years, but they still took the time to write. So, for all of you who wrote to me, you have my sincerest thank you.

And talking of being sincere, as I skimmed over in the last entry, I haven't been writing as much recently because I have been a bit down and I think it would be good to get it off my chest. I don't think I expected trying to change careers to be this emotionally difficult. I'm not stupid, I knew I would have to start at the bottom and work my way up and work hard - which I am more than happy to do - but I don't think I was prepared for the general 'joblessness' bits in between; the long periods of inactivity, having your emails/CVs ignored and the fortnightly visits to the job centre. Having to contend with 16 and 17 year olds for the job you want doesn't do much for your self-esteem either.

To use a cliché, it's an emotional rollercoaster, there are moments of great exhilaration when you get an interview or some type of opportunity, but great disappointment when you are told you don't have enough experience or the right qualifications. (The experience thing is a bugger... if they gave you the job, you would gain the experience you need to do the job well!) The qualifications thing particularly hurts too as I always excelled at school and university and got top grades, and so I end up kicking myself saying I should have gone to a different university, I should have done things differently. So, recently I have been focussing on the negatives and thinking about all the things I don't have and didn't do. I don't have a job, which means I don't have any money, social life or car. I didn't do a postgrad in broadcast journalism. I am probably not going to get married soon like all my friends are, and babies are certainly out of the question.

But then I think of all the things I DO have. I have a wonderful, supportive boyfriend who treats me like a princess and worships the ground I walk on. I have a father who has let me (and the fella) invade his home once more, rent free, while I achieve my goal. I have an 11 week old nephew who is just adorable. I may not be 18, but I have life experience behind me and have lived abroad.

So, thanks to your messages of support, I am going to try and make the transition into 2014 a positive one. Things are already looking up, I am seeing this year out in Spain and have had to cut the holiday short and change my flight back home to an earlier one because I have an actual face-to-face interview at the BBC! Can you believe it?! Fingers, toes, eyes and everything else that you can crossed!

Another thing I am taking out of this experience is that it has helped me to contribute to an important project that Key 103 are working on. On the 2nd of January they are doing a news special concerning the increasing number of young people suffering from depression as a result of unemployment, which has, in some cases, sadly led to them committing suicide.

I interviewed a clinical psychologist for the special, and then, I myself was interviewed. Now, I am not claiming to be actually depressed, but I offered my perspective as someone who is unemployed and can relate to how fighting to "make it" in the industry you want can leave you feeling worthless at times. I can only imagine how much worse this is if you have the stress of rent to pay or even children to feed. I think the transition from uni to work is a difficult one, and is one many people struggle with but don't really want to talk about for fear of seeming weak.

If anything good can come out of me feeling this way, I hope that at least one person will hear that interview, realise they are not alone and talk to someone about it, as I do with you. The support you have given me, I have been able to pass on, in the hope that it will help others. You should feel very proud of yourselves! ;)

So, again, my sincerest thank you. Let's make 2014 a good one :)

Merry Christmas!

It's been a while since I have updated the blog, so I thought I ought to let you know how things are progressing. The problem is, I am always waiting for something especially wonderful to happen, worthy of your precious time to read about or at least for inspiration to strike for me to write something humourous or profound that might strike a chord in you. Sadly, nothing like that has happened.

In fact, if I am honest, I've been a bit down lately. I don't want to dwell too much on it as my intention isn't to bring you down, but I have to admit that sometimes the job hunt feels like an uphill struggle and that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It may just be the time of year or it may just be me, but hey, I guess sometimes you just gotta keep on swimmin'. (God bless Dory from Finding Nemo!)

I am still volunteering at Key 103 once a week to "keep my hand in" which is great and have even been back to help out for a day at the production company I was at previously. A couple of weeks ago I got all excited as I thought I had the opportunity to interview Gary Barlow - now that would have been something to blog about! - but obviously it didn't happen.

In the meanwhile, I have some potentially important meetings lined up for January, I have applied to a few jobs which I am waiting to hear back from and I have a few more ideas up my sleeve, so here's hoping.

I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to read this and for your continued support over these past few months. I really appreciate it and wish you the most wonderful and Christmassy of Christmasses. I think 2014 is set to be an incredible year. 13 is meant to be unlucky anyway, so I hope that your 2014 is filled with love, laughter, success and happiness and is everything that 2013 wasn't... in a positive way :) xxx

My first week at Key 103

I guess it's called work experience for a reason... and what an experience it's been so far!

Some companies let you shadow their workers and ask a few questions, while others make the most of your presence to get the tasks done that nobody else wants to do (i.e. photocopying, tea-making and general cleaning). Key 103, however, has been completely different. From the get-go, I have been thrown into activities at the deep end, which is really how I function best, by doing.

Without wanting to sound like a rubbish version of a rather popular Craig David song, here's how the week went:

On Monday, I went out onto the streets to collect some voxes about how some ladies feel about breastfeeding, and whether they think a new government scheme to encourage mums to do it for longer is a good idea. I had a mini panic attack when I got back to the office and couldn't find the file on the dictaphone. I thought that maybe, by pressing stop, I had somehow deleted it and thought that all my hard work would be for nothing. (It's not easy trying to get people on the street to talk to you when you have a microphone in your hand, people are a lot shyer than you'd think!) Luckily, it was on there and everything was fine. Phew. A woman did start talking over me though before I had finished asking the question, and I was told I had ruined a really good sound bite there. Lesson learned: Keep questions to a minimum!

On Tuesday, on the way into the office, I heard the voxes I had collected being used in the news bulletins. Happy days! In the news that day, the aftermath of the typhoon in the Philippines was taking precedence, so I was asked to find if there were any Filipinos in the Manchester area. I found the details of a gentleman called Ramil, and organised an interview with him for 1pm that day. He came in, with a colleague, and I interviewed the pair of them. It was an incredibly moving interview as they had at least 14 friends and relatives over there and they didn't know if they were safe and well due to the lack of communication. During some parts of the interview, they were on the edge of tears. I had another dictaphone dilemma when the batteries died halfway through, but luckily, the machine is apparently cleverer than I am and I didn't lose any data. I started learning how to edit audio, and I then wrote up the interview, which is now online at Key 103's page. They were so grateful for the coverage and he sent me some text messages thanking me for the opportunity. Best of all is that later on that night, he got in touch to let me know that all of his friends and family had been located and they were all now in a safe place. It was so sweet of him to let me know, I was really touched.

Wednesday was by far the scariest yet most exciting day. I was signed off to use Key 103's company cars, and was told to get some voxes from some firemen who were on strike over their pension dispute. Fine... in theory. I was given the keys to a smart car, and I had never driven one before. It's a semi-automatic, meaning that it had no clutch, and I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to put the blasted thing into reverse. I invited another work experience girl to come along for the ride, and I bet she wished she hadn't. I don't think 'fearing for her life' would be too extreme a term. Granted, I didn't crash or kill anyone, but I got lost a couple of times. The firemen had a good laugh at me when I couldn't figure out how to reverse it. Women drivers eh? We recorded the voxes, and the plan was to send them directly from an iphone to the studio, but we had technical difficulties, so it didn't work. So, I was instructed to go back to the studio asap to drop it off.

The bad thing was, I was expected to be across the other side of the city for another interview in about five minutes. I phoned the contact and told him I would be there, and he told me not to worry. I got a little lost (again!) and was hampered by heavy traffic and roadworks, meaning that I got there late. Oops.

Still, I managed to get there in the end (a minor achievement in itself!) to interview...

STOOSHE

They had the song "Black Heart" in the charts not long ago, and they came to Wythenshawe to help the kids at a local primary school write a song about growing up in a deprived area. They were lovely to interview and are extremely talented ladies. I also got to interview a couple of the kids about the day and the organiser. So, I headed back to the office and practiced my editing some more on the pieces I had just got, which were used the following day. In the meanwhile, I wrote up the story for their page again.

That evening, I got a phone call from a guy I had met there from ITV/Granada who said he was really impressed with me, that I wrote extremely well and my attitude was excellent. He then told me to save his number, and said if I ever needed anything to just give him a call. So, rather cheekily I said "Well, I need a job...!" to which he replied "If I were in charge of handing jobs out, I would give you one in a heartbeat, but I will definitely sort out some work experience for you". How good is that?!

On Thursday, I saw the whole news story process from start to finish, I went out onto the streets, got some voxes to see if people are excited about the Christmas markets, came back to the office, edited the audios and then wrote up the news stories, ready to be read out. It was such a useful thing to do, and the Head of News gave me lots of useful advice as to how to make the audios tighter and how to make the news stories more to their style.

Finally, on Friday, I went back for the official opening of the Christmas Markets and spoke to Councillor Pat Karney and Fine Time Fontayne, who has been in lots of things such as Corrie, Emmerdale, Heartbeat and The Bill.

I then edited the audios for the newsreader to use and spent the rest of the day organising the office.

All in all, it has been an incredible week! I am so so lucky to have been entrusted with so much responsibility, and they have sent me out to do so much alone.

Let's see what next week brings! xx

"The Famous Work of Art" by Kayleigh Mills... age 8 and a 1/2

Whilst rooting through some cupboards the other day (trying to find some documentation for car insurance), I came across a book I had written when I was 8 and a half. Carefully bound together with coloured pieces of card, I had lovingly handwritten a blurb on the back and information about the author on the inside cover, which claimed that the two books I had written were "very pleasant to read"! (Obviously I was very modest as a child. Either that or I was my own biggest fan).

My style of writing has come along somewhat in the past twenty years and it now makes for rather hilarious reading. So much so, that I think I will serialise it on this blog. (Just in case I ever misplace the hardcopy, after all, it would be a shame to lose something so sentimental).

There are fifteen chapters, all of which consist of about three sentences each! (Interestingly, my ability to 'keep it brief' was stronger back then). Written in the days before the PC, I typed it out at my dining room table on an electronic typewriter Father Christmas had given me, and handwrote the title and blurb on card as it was too thick to feed through the machine! The premise of the tale is as follows:

Michael made a famous painting should he sell it? find out inside!

(Note: I have decided to leave all of the grammatical and spelling mistakes in, as cringeworthy as they are).

Gripping, isn't it? I'm sure Agatha Christie is turning in her grave. I shan't keep you waiting, I don't want you to actually fall off the end of your seat in anticipation. (Current-day thoughts in red)

THE FAMOUS WORK OF ART.

100 years ago a famous painter called Michael (no verb? Oh dear. Not a great start!) He was fed up of his own paintings. Michael wanted to paint something that will be better than any other paintings in the whole world! (Mix of first and second conditionals. Still, good on him for having ambition!) So he got to work he painted here and there after a year his painting was finished.The painting was HUGE the painting was a picture of a sunset with the sun over some hills. Michael called it LANDSCAPE

Mind. Blown. #literarygenius. It does get better though, if you can imagine that. I'll put up some more next week. :)

In other news, I finished work experience at the TV production company in MediaCityUK. I had a great time and learned so much, but it had to come to an end as four weeks in the most you can do legally before it becomes working for free. Luckily, I will not be out of 'work' for too long, because I have been offered two weeks with the news team at Key 103, starting next Monday. Excited is not the word! It's my absolute dream to work there. I am thrilled to have the opportunity and hope to make the most of it. Maybe I'll get to write the news, or maybe even interview somebody important.

As always, if I do, you'll be the first to know...! xx

Keep on running...

It's been a crazy couple of weeks since I last wrote on here. When I say "crazy", I mean it in the most positive sense of the word (if there is such a thing), akin to hectic, busy and crammed full of activity as opposed to being clinically insane or doolally. Still, if I carry on at this rate I may just end that way!

My most important and noteworthy news is that I am now officially an auntie to a beautiful baby boy, Alfie. He took his time - bless him - arriving a few days late, but he is absolutely perfect and doing well. I have seen him a couple of times now and he doesn't really do much yet when I hold him, other than sleep. In all honesty, it makes a refreshing change because I normally don't get on too well with babies. They usually just cry when I am within a yard of them or perform some sort of bodily function either on me or aimed in my direction. Anyway, when he is a little older, I fully intend on being his favourite auntie and win his favour by spoiling him rotten and taking him on cool days out and the like. I believe I am in the running for the title, seeing as his I am his only biological auntie living in the country. (Not taking into account his millions of "aunties" who are friends of my sister or her boyfriend, their next door neighbours or the milkman etc). Heck, I'm the only one on this continent... his auntie on the other side of his family lives in New Zealand! Actually, I would settle for being his favourite aunt in the northern hemisphere I think, so as to not cause problems with his other aunt... It is a sufficiently grandiose title after all. I wonder if Hallmark would make a card to that effect: "To my favourite auntie in the northern hemisphere. You are the best in Europe, North America and most of Asia, but not Indonesia". Anyway, I digress...

In the meanwhile, I have been cracking on with the job hunt. After jury duty finished, I thought to myself that I had to seriously knuckle down and do some serious networking and research. The question then, however, was where do I want to be... in television or radio? (Cue the "You've got a wonderful face for radio" comments... I've heard them all before!) There seem to be a lot of people who have started in radio and have transitioned to TV and vice-versa, such as Graham Liver (to name a local example... he works on BBC Radio Lancashire and North West Tonight), Vanessa Feltz, Terry Wogan, Dermot O'Leary, Chris Evans... the list goes on. (Note: To clarify, at this point I am trying to get a behind-the-scenes role, not a presenter job, but I didn't know where to start).

I figured, the only way I was going to find out which area I wanted to start off in at least, is to get out there and do it! I have lots of experience with hospital, student and community radio but zilch for TV so I started to aim my focus there.

Twitter has been a great help on this front. A lot of people moan about twitter, but, if used correctly, I honestly believe it can be an extremely useful tool. It is where I find out about most job vacancies and get in touch with people who otherwise I may find it hard to contact. (i.e. important people at the BBC). It was on there that I saw a job advertised as a "runner" in a post-production house in Manchester city centre. This role is basically like an assistant to all the people who work there, and your responsibilities include answering the phones, keeping the place clean and making cups of tea and coffee for the staff and guests. With this industry, you have to start at the bottom and work your way up, which I am more than happy to do. So, I went along for an 'informal chat', (which was really an interview) but I didn't feel it was for me. Post-production is when scenes from TV or adverts are edited and special effects are added or any graphics or CGI. Although I am desperate to "get in", I am definitely not a technical person, and couldn't tell you anything about editing software, graphics or technology. My mind is simply not wired that way, I am a creative person! I don't think going to the 'interview' was a waste of time though, it helped me on my way to figuring out where it is I need to be. I think I'll get there by finding out what I don't want to do (or can't do) first, and then by trial and error, I'll end up in my dream job!

So, that experience told me I probably want to focus on production. A few days later, I saw a tweet which said there was some work experience as a runner going at a TV and Film production company in MediaCityUK and that you should send in your CV asap. So, that's exactly what I did. Within half an hour, I had received a reply saying they liked my CV, and asking me if I was available the following week. Obviously I said yes and that's where I have been for the past fortnight.

The company creates adverts for a lot of famous brands such as CSL, Oak Furniture Land, Lambrini, P+O Cruises and many many more. During the past two weeks, I have been helping out with admin work and answering the phones, making cups of tea and running errands, but I have also had the opportunity to assist with a casting process and also go on a shoot down in Bristol and over in Widnes for DW Sports. The days are very long (I get up at 6am, and travel 90 mins each way to get in and back home, and often get home at 8:30pm) but, it's great for my CV.

It's unpaid, but the boss has offered to pay my expenses which is definitely something. I have been told I am a great help, so who knows what will happen? I am still waiting for my placement at Key 103 to be confirmed, and I have also applied for the November/December round of work experience at the Beeb. The application process has changed though, and now you can either apply for TV or Radio... not both. Not knowing which one to go for, I ended up applying for TV. I have some work experience promised to me from an important radio station, but TV is a lot harder to get into or get experience of in my opinion, so if I could get in at work experience level at the BBC, that should help clarify which one I am better suited to.

Working at MediaCity these past two weeks has been an absolute dream. I know I want to work there, I just don't have clear in what capacity! I'll keep on running, as it were, and see what happens. :)