It's deadline day at the Champion office and it's also my last day of work experience. I'll have a few stories in the papers, so that's alright, although I was only here for three days as they needed a helping hand to get copy written and proof read. Good thing then, that my boyfriend is actually a staff reporter with them and convinced them that I would be the right person for the job.

It was good though. English papers work completely different from the Solinger Tageblatt which I got used to now. First of all, the Champion papers come out weekly on Wednesdays. This means, that for an entire week, the reporters collect stories. They have time to follow up leads, check press releases etc. On the Tageblatt, which is (as the title would give away) a daily, you don't have that kind of luxury. In the morning you are told which events you have to cover. If you're lucky, you get 3 or 4 stories for the day. You drive out there, meet the people, interview them face to face and then come back to the office and write your story up. If you've got spare time after that, you write up press releases to fit them into the "Kurz Notiert" column, write previews of shows and events coming to town or go out to do the vox pop "So seh' ich das".

I got a few stories at the Champion, for which I had to ring people and get phone interviews, but it's not the same. It's great though, that I've finally managed to get published in a British paper, and can't wait to get all of tomorrow's editions (they cover Southport, Skelmersdale, Ormskirk, Formby etc.) to see which ones I made it into. Another feature about my view of Southport will go in next week. It's like the one my boyfriend wrote about Solingen for the Tageblatt in German which I translated from his original English story. Basically, it's an outsider's view. Since we both grew up in the city we work in, we might see things sligtly differently.

I was told that today would be really stressful, as deadline is approaching, but so far it has been quite realxed. Friday and yesterday, I wrote about 10 articles per day. Today, I've written one so far and it doesn't look as if I'll get anything more to do. To be honest, it was more hectic yesterday. And I don't seem to be the only one feeling like that today. A lady sitting diagonally across from me is playing Solitaire....