The Post-MA stuff begins now

Well, it started a while ago but I've been procrastinating on the whole "Hey! This blog is no longer aptly named!" bit. Whatever! But the truth is, although I don't yet have my results (but it's not like they're gonna flunk me), I'm not really in Publishing U. anymore. I'm more like in Publishing limbo (party! I'll get the pole, you get the hollowed-out coconuts with refreshing alcoholic beverages in them).
I'm temping at Elsevier right now, a job I wouldn't have gotten without the help of my friend Emma. The publishing lesson for today is thus: NETWORKING! That and make friends. Noone likes someone they don't know (erm...duh?). Also, hang out somewhere better than Morals, that place does not increase your coolness factor ;) Then again, I've never been "cool" so what do I know? But Bar Aroma on Cowley has nice cocktails. So, it's worth going even if I'm the one recommending.

Mmmh! Cocktails! Now I want a French Martini from Angel's (Little Clarendon Street, in front of the Duke of Cambridge), like a chocolate-cherry truffle in your glass but without the chocolate bit. This is one occasion where I don't miss chocolate. I might stop by after work although drinking alone is saaad.

Oh yes, because I'm at work right now (hence the somewhat hyperactiveness you may or may not have noticed in this post... FREE COFFEE! Also, just had lunch so eh!). Relax, I'm on my lunch break so you people aren't making me shirk (that's a word right? I'm sure I read it somewhere...) my duties. Also, I think I'm suddenly getting too much oxygen. I've been sick since last wednesday and unable to breathe properly since. My nose is unblocked right now so I can breathe. D'you think I might get the bends if I go up or down the stairs? Maybe I'd inspire an episode of House if I did. Might be worth a try, as long as they cast me in the me role. Anyway, lunch break over, well not really but I wanna go on Facebook.

Hope you're all enjoying the course so far, I was really jealous of those of GenAwe 2.0 (go on, I know you want to have that on a T-Shirt) that went to Frankfurt. It's hard to believe that just a year ago, that was me. Hope your feet hurt less than mine kids :) How did you like the Frankfurt red-light district? Fun, innit?

London Book Fair

The LBF was my second book fair ever, the first one being Frankfurt way back when. It has the advantage of being close by but somehow I spent almost as much money in between getting a hair cut and getting there and other stuff I can't think of right now but managed to empty my debit account. Seriously, in two weeks, I ended up going from 100GBP to 0.36! Oh and, American friends (and friends from elsewhere too for that matter) if you need a haircut, don't do it here. Regardless, the fair gave me an excuse to go back to London, which I love (probably because I don't have to live there), and it also meant that I had a legitimate reason not to do any NPD work. That's a big plus. Another one was that as a volunteer and a student, I didn't have to pay an entry fee (£40). Another tip, if you're a student and want to get in for free, you need to preregister online. No one told us this and boyfriend ended up having to pay the full fee to get in. He was so pissed he only went one day.

I think I enjoyed this fair better than the one in Frankfurt. Part of it is that we were better prepared, we know more about what is going on in the industry so we were more interested and knowledgeable about the products certain publishers were exhibiting. Another thing was that we could go to seminars which broke up the hours of aimless wondering through the stands although I found the seminars fairly vague and general and I knew most of what the speakers were saying already (minus the exact numbers of course) maybe they weren't very good speakers or maybe Brookes just prepares us really well. I'll go with number 2 ;) It was also much smaller, as in, a small fraction of the size of Frankfurt. And I still managed to get more free stuff. LBF FTW!

I was doing some volunteer work but that was very light. Just change the paper at the door with the title of the seminar and make sure the speakers had water. Most of the seminars pretty much ran themselves and I didn't even need to do that. After that, I could leave if I wanted to. Which I did only once because the seminars were fairly interesting. Also, my first one was a talk with James Patterson and I got to shake his hand and got a free hardcover too. There was this scary woman managing everything, really scary. I was very intimidated. Also, there was police on the floor, woot, James Patterson is so VIP :) It was the most interesting talk too, about literacy and getting boys to read. I have to say the talks on literacy and getting boys/teenagers to read were the best of all those I went to. I learned about this effort called "Headspace" run by teens for teens that creates library spaces where teens are encourage to spend time relaxing with music, internet and of course books. Apparently, they're quite successful in getting kids to start seeing books as fun. I missed the talk about Spinebreakers which was a shame because apparently it was excellent and everyone was very impressed.

Other than that, I got to try some food prepared by international big name chefs and even chatted with a Peruvian one, yay! I got four free books (that's 3 better than Frankfurt) and loads of publishers bags (which I kind of collect) and other neat freebies :D

Canon Tales was a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone thinking of going to the Fair next year. That's also were I managed to ambush Cory Doctorow and got his card (I want to interview him for my dissertation) so there, I made the day count for something, academics-wise. Of course, I'd had a bit of wine beforehand so I'm afraid I babbled a bit and wasn't very coherent. Oh well, I'm sure he doesn't even remember anymore and as long as I get my interview, who cares?