A day of Journ

Yes, today I spent the whole day working on my Journ. It was tough. It was ugly. But I think I'm getting somewhere. It's a pity we had to leave it so late, but honestly I don't think I could have made the time to do this lot during the term. And if this is how us W&E people feel, I can't imagine how bad it must have been for people in specialisations like Design and TV where the assignments come so much thicker and faster.

First thing this morning I sent off my water software piece to Grocott's. I'm pretty proud that I was able to explain all the technical details in it as well as I did, but feel I didn't quite get the "so what" factor right: explaining in the lead why this story is so important and interesting. And my first headline, "Rhodes scientists updating water management software" was rather lame. My latest idea is "Homegrown software helps manage water".

Then I wrote up my bit of the Size and Shape story. I enjoyed that: it's great to see so much research come together, and I think it's going to make a killer article when we're done. I ended up being allocated a lot to write, because I had done the most research into the topic, but that's OK. I'm excited about it. We tried to share the load of research equally, but the way it worked out, I just was allocated more sources who talked well about the subject.

Then I started with the mass of critical reflections. It was difficult to know exactly what to write. I tended to start each with a narrative style, telling about how we got story ideas and how I sourced each story, but ended with more traditional critical comments about what I could have done better. It's been good to look back at all the lessons I've learnt in the course. There've been plenty. I wish, though, that Sim had given us some extra info about what he wanted in these critical reflections. I'll ask him tomorrow.

So yes, it's been a tough day, but everything's finally pulling together and it's one day closer to when that portfolio will land with a thud on Sim's desk, and I can get back to studying!