Half Time Whistle

Where do I begin? The last twelve weeks have been crazy! I seriously underestimated the complexity of final year! But I know that the Christmas holidays are just around the corner, so things will be fine has the 'Half Time Whistle' sounds for this part of my final year at University. It's not all been stress and deadlines for I have been busy with other ventures that seem to be improving this blog as each day passes.

Returning back from the summer I had many plans to see another side of Birmingham for my time as a student in this city is dwindling, I wanted to experience Birmingham's Balti Triangle. Being curious about discovering Birmingham's most famous dish I found Sparkbrook to be like a scene from 'East is East!' I chose to eat at Shabab Balti Restaurant where I had a delicious Balti dish, which was worth the price as I certainly ate well during my Balti session. Getting to Sparkbrook was a memorable task for the walk from the Maltings showed me the lively neighbhourhood of Highgate, so it was an eventful evening for sure. I'm glad that I hadn't discovered the Balti Triangle until this September for it showed me Birmingham has many different international communities that always open my eyes to a new side of this vibrant and emerging city. I plan to make one more jaunt back down to Sparkbrook before I pack up my uni-life for good!

Getting back to Chinatown, Birmingham gave me a new found zest for this blog, I subconsciously created my 'Chinatown - Birmingham's Oriental Heart' blog from a simple visit to Birmingham's Chinese Quarter on the 4th of November with my friend Kelly. We do try and make time for a Bubble Tea or two at Caffe Chino for all this academic reading for our Dissertation's can get very tedious, so a little break down Cathay Street sorted us out perfectly. Getting to grips with Day In Supermarket proved to be a lesson of discovery for I learnt about some of the different products that sat on the shelves ready for purchase, compared to the usual visit to Tesco it was very interesting to see another culture go about their grocery shopping ways. I look to Birmingham's Chinatown as my first stepping stone on my way to visiting Hong Kong and China as I have learnt a lot about the Oriental cultures from this part of town and real-life stories from my dear friend Kelly. I found Oolong Tea, I had not found this tea for a long time for it was in loose leaf form and it only cost £1.50 per box so I jumped to the chance to buy two boxes. I do hope that me and Kelly go for another Dim Sum extravaganza before our final University year finishes, for its always great to try something out of the ordinary!

From an academic point of view this semester has been crazy with the constant barrage of new assignments that quite frankly have too many words! I must admit that things have been tough but I'm learning that pushing through the stress works a treat because there's nothing more fulfilling to finish or formulate a piece of final year coursework. The dreaded Dissertation hasn't been too brain-taxing so far, I'm actually enjoying the process at the moment so I hope that positive term of phrase sticks for the remainder of the year. I'm currently putting the finishing touches to my draft Literature Review, my experience so far with this research project has rubbished the whispers of previous final year students as they always put the fear in me for what terrible stress that final year would bring us. I suppose this final year brings stress to people in different ways so I know that being blasé works for me just fine. I'm not stressed!

At this stage in this semester I can see the Christmas holidays insight, for the last few weeks have been a struggle to say the least. Aside from the Dissertation I have been studying two other level six final year modules, Operations Management and Strategic Management have been the highlight of my semester! I will be honest that Operations Management has so far been really quite interesting for its allowed me to focus on functional practices from my placement in Newark last year, so I have a lot of material to utilise for my 3,000 word essay that's due after the Christmas holiday. Whereas, Strategic Management has been the bane of my life just recently for it can only be described as 'laborious!' Strong words I know, but the presentation that me and my group presented yesterday took some stress to complete. Our focus company was Merlin Entertainment, basically the organisation that owns Alton Towers and Thorpe Park so we had a lot of work to do for us to grasp the subject let alone be familiar enough with the company in the first place. I have to say the whole experience has been a worthwhile process for we had conflict as a group but prospered in the end as I believe our presentation was top dollar! Let's hope the marking reflects my optimism! I'm looking forward to my next semester for the two modules will hopefully be tourism focused for I wouldn't mind being a Destination Manager in the future, so watch this space!

 I would like to think that my blog has reached new audiences throughout the last three months, further broadening the types of visitors that boost the overall viewing total of my blog. Using social media platforms like Twitter has gained the support from 'Visit Birmingham' for my Birmingham orientated blogs have been a hit with their social media team well most of the posts have been retweeted so I see that as a positive step. I recently took part in a promotional video for 'Visit Birmingham' for their Christmas campaign to highlight one of my favorite things to do in Birmingham at Christmas time. I hope to remain in contact with Birmingham Airport's 'Young Blogger Scheme' as I was delighted to be contacted by their social media team after posting some of my Birmingham focused blogs on their Twitter feed. I'm really thankfully for these new opportunities as I do hope that my blog will be have then material to push further into the future, I'm going to work as much as I can to achieve my goal! Not bad for only being a Blogger for eighteen months?!
Captured to the left is the promotional bag I received from the event that I attended on Thursday, which was hosted by 'Visit Berlin' to showcase its new brand of 'Pink Pillow Collection' hotels in Berlin that cater especially for Gay and Lesbian guests. I remember checking a strange looking email to find that I had been cordially invited to an exciting event, well I was very surprised for I never get invited to fancy events like this one! I made use of advice given to me by a fellow Blogger and friend to design some Blog business cards in-preparation for the event to publicise my Blog website further. I exchanged business cards with several of the spokespersons from 'Visit Berlin' and 'Out Now Global' to see what opportunities may arise from attending this event. I was very impressed by the evenings presentations and I shall certainly be booking a trip to Berlin in the near future to experience the city whilst staying at one of the 'Pink Pillow Collection' hotels.
I better keep on working for the good times haven't arrived just yet!
Joseph Harrison