The Medium Things
/Part of a series on the things I'm doing. For the other two, see the Little things and the Big Things.
Now that we've covered the Little things that are mostly hobbies I do in my spare time, let's look at the Medium Things, all the stuff that takes a sizeable amount of time and attention in my life.
YouTube
I was at a party with a bunch of Youtubers the other week and the dreaded question came up: what do you do on Youtube? I struggled to find an answer, because there really isn't one!
I've been making videos on Youtube on and off since 2009, a time when Ray William Johnson was the most popular Youtuber [shudders] and HD content was a real novelty. In the last year I've pushed myself to make more videos with mixed results. I started making daily videos in March, but that was cut short by a surprise internship opportunity at the ABC. Weekly videos have failed to materialise and I really struggle to find time to produce a whole video from scratch. Despite this, I've still managed to put together more than 40 videos so far this year.
There's no clear genre or style that my videos fit into, but the sorts of videos that I have produced this year fall into three main categories: discussion of ideas, book reviews and news items. Watch this space, some exciting videos will be coming out in the next month or two.
This blog
This is the newest project I'm working on right now, but it has quickly become a big part of where I spend my time. I've been meaning to branch into writing for some time, but never really got enough momentum behind any public project to keep it running for more than a week.
Just like YouTube, I still haven't quite figured out what I want to do in this space, so I'm going to throw all kinds of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. The current categories - news roundups, book reviews and personal experience - are a good indicator of where this thing is headed. Basically these are the same as my YouTube videos, without all the production hassle.
Church
I've been going to church for about 10 years now, but it's something I don't really talk about on the internet. There's so much animosity toward organised religion on here that it makes me hesitate to even mention it.
It is, however, a big part of my life. Church has been an anchor of sorts in a life that has profoundly changed as I figure out what I'm doing both professionally and personally. I still haven't figured everything out in my life, but one thing's for sure, I can count on this part of what I do never changing.
Work
When I was meeting someone for the first time, they asked me the question, "what do you do that enables your lifestyle?" That's the best way to sum up nearly every job in university, and mine is no exception. I work in a business that combines a newsagency and post office under one roof, a mix that works strangely well. The people I work with are wonderful, my boss is the best person you could ever work for and the workload is pretty light. I get to read anything that's on the shelves - a seriously great perk for a journalism student - and I get paid to talk to people every day. This is the unicorn of uni student jobs, with decent hours and wages, great perks, and and amazing boss.
It's not all sunshine and happiness, Australia Post's delivery drivers cause enough headaches for us that I could write a whole blog post about it (and just might in the future). We get angry customers, entitled customers, smelly customers, all kinds of people you'd hear about on r/TalesFromRetail.
But at the end of the day it's all worth it, because the break room has a free espresso machine.
Interning
A compulsory part of my journalism course is at least one internship in a newsroom of some sort. I have mentioned these internships before, even writing about my experiences on the job.
I have been fortunate enough to intern at two major news networks, ABC and Channel Seven. Even though the placements were about five weeks each and only a few days per week, if you're approaching them properly the workload is like a real job. There's a lot of stress, long hours, wide ranging tasks and everything else that a real job entails.
It's a big undertaking and one that is immensely rewarding. Working alongside veteran reporters and producers has taught me so many things that can't be taught in a classroom and provided me with rich experiences and valuable contacts. Oh, and did I mention how fun they are, riding around with camera crews all day and making the news?
As of this blog post I am the only person in my class to have completed two internships this year. While there might be another internship on the horizon soon, but there's no way I'll break the record number of internships that one student did a few years ago - six in one year.