The Organised Friend vs. the Disorganised Friend

We all have that one friend that’s over the top organised and always planning their lives out, right? I’m that friend.

The PURE Presidency 2015/2016

Lynsey Brady: And just like that, we blinked and summer is over!! Who else was in complete denial for weeks and weeks, telling yourself the long days and warm nights were going to last forever?! Well I can say I am 100% …

My Favourite Place to Escape Has No Tangible Location

Unlike a lot of people I know I still appreciate those rectangular objects with paper in the middle of them and a hard shell holding it together. Yes I am talking about books, those things that hardly anyone reads these days!

I don’t know if it’s just my inner nerd shining through but I think people need to appreciate books, novels and stories more than Facebook, fake tans and cats (totally kidding cats are highly important and should be given full attention).

Seriously though there is no better (or worse) feeling than holding the last page of the book you have just spent the last couple of months, weeks, or hours reading and finally knowing who dies, who falls in love, who wins, who loses or learning that there is definitely a sequel.

The pages are probably curled and ripped due to ferociously folding it in ways it should not be folded. They probably have dirty finger prints on them from when you were eating some greased up, deep fried, ‘diet starts Monday’ kind of snack and a couple or majority of the pages probably have make up smudges from the tears you shed out of sadness or joy at the journey that book has taken you on.

No worse feeling you ask? Well yeah duh, what are you going to do with the rest of your life now that the series you have vested all your time, emotions and sleep into has ended?

Numerous times before I have closed the final pages to a book, reminisced the good times I had, the places I went, the people I met and then it dawns on me, what do I do now? I’ve been in a whole other world since picking up that book and now its over.

It doesn’t matter what kind of book it is whether it’s an extremely long and confusing series about wizards or a steamy series about some sexy rich man who wears grey ties (let’s not get distracted now), regardless of what book you are reading: You. Will. Get. Attached.

Those characters have become your best friends, you either want to be with them or be them. It all seemed so real and now it’s over, the end of an era… even if it only took a day to read it seems like a lifetime.

But at the end remember: don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened… and then start reading it again.

/Zoe Keenan

What not to do as a Journalist during Interviews

I was vigorously reading my uni textbooks yesterday (see translation: I was scrolling through my news feed yesterday with my uni books pushed aside) when I came across an interesting video. I study journalism as well as PR and after watching this video I was so irritated and angry I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I was so close to commenting on the video when I thought no I’m better than this. I don’t comment on videos that already have millions of offensive comments.

No, I’ll just write a whole blog post about it instead.

The video was the cringe worthy interview between model-turned-actress ‘Carla’ Delevingne and US morning show Good Day Sacramento, discussing Cara’s most recent movie ‘Paper Towns’ which premiered July 21^st

So here are 3 things you should not do as a journalist during interviews, credit to the crew from the Good Day show.

1. Do NOT come into an interview unprepared.

Not the best start to an interview if you don’t even know your interviewees name. You could probably expect them to seem a bit ‘irritated’ if you show up knowing little to nothing about them as the female anchor mistakenly had done for this interview, referring to Cara as ‘Carla’.

No matter whom you’re interviewing whether it’s a manager of a restaurant or a well-known model/actress… you MUST do your research prior to the interview.

2. Do NOT ask stupid questions.

Well that’s an extremely obvious one but apparently not to the hosts of Good Day. I mean if you’re interviewing a movie star who was one of the main characters from a movie based on a book then… I think they might have read the book! Cara sarcastically answered that no she had not read the book or even the script because that’s what they may as well have asked her.

So as said in point 1 do prior research to avoid asking questions that you should already know the answer to… or in this case just use some common sense yeah?

3. Do NOT taunt your interviewee.

Telling your interviewee that they seem a bit irritated will probably not render a good response as one of the hosts discovered on the show.

Cara did seem rather irritated though but that was probably due to the rude comment made by another host that told her she didn’t seem as excited about the movie as she had in previous interviews.

She admitted she was emotionally and physically tired after months of hard work and the movies premiere the night before (probably hungover too, give her a break!)

Not everyone you interview has been in an interview before; it’s your job to make them feel comfortable with talking to you in order for them to give you fruitful answers.

And no matter who it is you’re interviewing, as one of my lecturers repeated several times before to us BE POLITE. It’s not that hard.

So there you have it, seems pretty straightforward hey? Trust me from personal experience (even as a second year student) it actually is very straightforward.

As always practice makes perfect… except of course for the Good Day hosts I guess.

Watch the video here; Video

/ Zoe Keenan