Last Day, Last Blog

Well ladies and gentlemen this will be my last blog for my JOUR1111 course at UQ. I thought I'd take the time to reflect on some memories and also what I have learnt since starting back in February.

This semester has been my first of university and after a year off after high school it was a shock to the system. On the first lecture for JOUR1111 I can remember Bruce Redman telling all of us about our assessment pieces for the semester and what we would be studying. I'm not going to lie, I was daunted by it. Particularly as to this blog. We had to reflect back on our lectures each week and post online! Serious?! I'd never looked at or made a blog before this one and I was pretty nervous about it at the start. I can remember sitting at the keyboard not sure what I should be writing. Reflecting on lectures was one thing, but then putting personal stuff on as well?

Well as you can probably see over the months I've posted a lot of random thoughts/ things that have interested me while I've been undertaking journalism. This blog has turned into a diary of sorts, or a place where I can write down my thoughts on whatever I feel like. It has become so much easier as I've become more comfortable and familiar with it. I even know how to upload video clips on here now! This was something that had me stumped for a while.

What else have I learnt since I started journalism? I've met some really great people in this course and had a lot of fun doing the Factual Storytelling Exercise. I've also learnt there are so many branches of journalism: investigative, photo, political, scientific, international. There are several that spark my interest already. I am thinking my dream job would be to work as a science journalist for National Geographic or something similar.

I have also become more aware of how journalism is evolving through technology and what a huge influence this has. Not only do we find journalism in newspapers, radio and magazines, but endlessly online! The new Web. 3.0 is the next step in journalism's evolutionary journey. News travels faster than fire these days. As fast as the click of a mouse and there is an ever growing audience of like-people to contact.

I'd really like to thank all the people who have helped build this course into a very enjoyable and interactive introduction to journalism. The lecturers, tutors and fellow peers have helped give me a great grounding in what will be an exciting few years ahead!

Lastly, I'd like to reflect on my most vivid memory during journalism. It was during one of my tutorials with Ali Rae. We were covering the topic of ethics in journalism and she brought up this picture: 

This photograph showing a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture won Kevin Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

This photograph really made me think about my morals and what would I have done in Kevin's place? There is no right or wrong answer. Do you have ethics as a journalist that are different to your ethics as a person? I still don't know if I have the answer to that question. The discussion in our tutorial afterwards was fascinating to me. Hearing different people's opinions. Should Kevin have saved the child? Should he have not photographed the scene? Should he have waited for the vulture to come closer? I have thought about it many times since!

Once again thank you to everyone involved in organising JOUR1111!

The Manslater

This is just a really quick blog. One of my friends posted this on Facebook and I found it pretty hilarious so I thought I'd put it up here.

Miss Universe Australia 2012

Having not watched TV or read much news for the last five days (I've been camping) I turned on the TV news this morning to find out the winner for Miss Universe Australia 2012 had just been announced last night. I've never been a follower of the beauty pageants or Miss Universe (Jennifer Hawkins is the only winner I know) and I have generally had the opinion that most of the competitors are blonde bimbos with little personality or intelligence. Harsh? Well this morning I decided to give the latest Miss Universe Australia a fair chance so I watched her interview with Mel and Kochieon Sunrise.

I'm sorry to say that she looked every inch the blonde bimbo I had expected. What can expect though if its a beauty pageant? When asked what she wanted to do she gave the answer that she couldn't 'wait to travel the world' and represent Australia in the international Miss Universe 2012. So original....

On the plus side her voice wasn't the whiny, 'I'm so cute' sort that so many models put on. Unfortunately I found little originality about her and it leads me to wondering what the criteria for winning a beauty pageant actually is. Obviously all the girls who enter it must be beautiful, skinny and have long hair and tanned skin so what makes a girl like Renae Ayris stand out? I certainly didn't pick it during her Sunrise interview.

Well according to the Herald Sun 'Ms Ayris impressed judges, including actor Vince Colosimo, designer Wayne Cooper and Dancing with the Stars choreographer Jason Coleman, in her glittering silver and white evening gown and purple bikini.'

So, it wasn't Renae who was the winner, it was what she was wearing? That's what it seems more like to me. If someone else had worn her clothes would they have won instead? Many beauty pageants claim they choose their winners on 'inner beauty' as well as their good looks but I didn't see any mention of that. Surely if we are choosing someone to represent Australia we want them to be able to speak well and have an attractive personality. For now I'm still at a loss as to why beauty pageants are run and what makes a winner.

Looking to the sky!

The first partial eclipse of the year appeared in the sky last night for those lucky enough to witness it. For residents of Australia, Asia and and North America it was amazing to see the one third of the moons surface go an eerie black. It makes us remember how small we really are.

 Partial Lunar Eclipse

Tomorrow there is actually a transit of Venus across the sun that won't occur again in our lifetime! Australians are in a good position to see this rare event that won't occur again until 2117. Because Venus is such a large planet its transit across the sun will be more impressive to watch than the smaller and more common transit of other planets like Mercury. So get your sunglasses on tomorrow morning and have a look!

A planet transit across the sun

All this talk about transit and eclipses got me interested in finding out just how rare these sights are and what is the difference between the many different eclipses, transits, etc.Well according to (Earthsky, 2012) there are about seven eclipses per year. Some, like the one witnesses last night are only partial eclipses, but there are also lunar, solar and total eclipses too. Of course where someone is located on the planet has a lot to do with whether these events can be seen. Different eclipses can only be seen in certain parts of the world. For Australians we are lucky to enough to be able to see two eclipses this year. One was last night night and the next is a penumberal eclipse on the 28 November (Earthsky, 2012). Penumberal eclipses are unfortunately deemed the least impressive of the eclipses with many people unable to see them with the naked eye. If you want to see the more impressive total lunar eclipse I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until April 2014 and then buy yourself a plane ticket over to North America.

References

Earthsky. 30 May 2012. The next eclipse is a partial eclipse of the moon. Retrieved from http://earthsky.org/