SMUT I TELL YOU!!! SMUT!!!

Half way through my second full week at the express. WOOWOO!

Actually. I'm really enjoying being here at the moment. This job is a whole lot more interesting than my old one. Yeehah!

TOTALLY AWESOME STORIES I HAVE COVERED RECENTLY:

- The Ingham GOLD CUP! Annual race event, held in Ingham, big deal for the locals. And I got to interview the winning jockey. Personally I thin it's just coz the senior journalists wanted to have a chuckle at the 177cm new girl inteviewing a man child but meh. DOWNSIDE : working on a Saturday.

- Ingham "Carols in the Park". My first night-time photography assignment. What a disaster! Note that this was "Carols in the Park" not "Carols by Candle light". That's becoz they BANNED candles this year. Whaaaa? So - there was no light to take photos by because GLOW STICKS give off virtually NO LIGHT!! Also - more after hours work.

- Vox Pops! For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is when a paper goes out, and asks the locals to briefly answer a topical question, (eg - what should be done about the croc sighting at the local beach?) and then takes a snap of them. Note: nobody ever wants there photo taken. And they don't tell you until after you've taken a page of notes on what they've just said. My first vox pop assignment was the above-mentioned croc question. Interviewed local drunk who proceeded to give me a big hug and ogle my boobs.

- The end of the lychee season. Yup, along with sugar cane Ingham has a huge lychee farm located just out of town. Yesterday went to take end of season pics. Was expecting to get happy snaps of the local teenagers working their holidays in the packing room etc. Turned up just some huge disaster happened with there cooling device and got scowled at for half an hour. Decided to take some pics on my own and do a phone interview later that night. But pix of a bare lychee field are not much fun are they? Am quickly realising that to be a good journalist you have to learn to be ok with making a nuisance of yourself. So went and woke up the leading hand (who was asleep in bunk house) and made him pose for photos.

Anyway... that's just a few of the highlights so far. Have done lost of other not-so-memorable stories.

Tonight I am off to a meeting of sugar cane growers, havesters and mill owners to discuss sugar cane "smut"... Smut is a disease which damages crops with a blackish kind of stain, that lowers sugar yields. Big important issue for the locals, 70% of which work in the industry.

Despite my whingings though I'm actually really enjoying it. Always busy and out meeting new people. It's cool.

I think I could get used to this gig :-)

xox tegz