By Danielle Eid
Firstly, a note to all adult and full licensed Almanackers- PLEASE DO NOT BEEP at Learner drivers! The BIG YELLOW L means that we are LEARNING and we don’t know what we are doing! I’m doing my Ls and have been driving to school and stuff with my instructor. On one occasion I made a mistake and was beeped at; I felt awful and it didn’t help the situation causing me to get pretty anxious! So please the next time an L- platter makes a mistake or stalls for too long don’t beep at them.
And now to the real stuff.
The school holidays are over (if you call them that since I was lost under books the whole time) and it’s been a week of year 12 or as I like to call it, Hell.
You might be thinking, gee Danni is such a drama queen and she’s over-exaggerating, but I promise you I’m not. If ever I have a ‘free period’ I use it to revise Business or History.
Frees are not for chillaxing in year 12, its 40 minutes of revision that I get can done.
While others are texting and gossiping I’m revising and throwing in a word so I don’t seem unsociable. I like to think I’m organized – I pack my books the night before, I write down my homework and cross it off. I wear glasses because I’m short-sighted and when around family I get, “look everyone, the lawyer is here!” Glasses make me look smarter times 10. For the last week I have been doing over six hours study and only getting five hours of sleep and yet I still feel behind even though I’m ahead! Not to worry, I have penciled in my nervous breakdown for sometime in the next week or two.
So if I have all these nerdy values then why is it that I don’t look like a person who loves footy, or a future sports journo?
Example –
My cousin (about 26-27 years old) comes over for a visit with her friend. I’m dressed for the year 12 information evening and it’s bloody hot weather outside.
Her friend asks me about year 12, comments on how ‘cute’ I am and then my cousin blows my cover.
Cousin: “Danni, tell her what you want to be”
Me: “Ohhhh, well I want to be a sports journalist…”
*FRIEND’S JAW DROPS OPEN IN SHOCK*
Cousin: *laughs*
Me *laughs nervously*
Cousin: “she’s even got work out in a book, I read it, and it’s really good!”
Friend: *HAS CONFUSED LOOK ON HER FACE*
“Really? YOU want to be a SPORTS journalist?”
Me: “yeah”
Friend: *STUDIES ME FOR A BIT*
SILENCE
Friend: “you don’t look like someone that would be interested in that, I can’t really picture you as a sports writer, fashion maybe, but sports?”
For some reason I get that, A LOT! No one pins me as a footy fan or a future journalist, so now I’m asking the question:
Is there some special criteria which, when matched up to teenage girls, identifies them as footy lovers or future sports journalists?
I would love to know your thoughts!
About Danielle Eid
Im 23, cute and most importantly im the Collingwood Football Club's very own PRINCESS!! :) A Latrobe Uni graduate from Bachelor of Journalism. Admirer of Samantha Lane and Jon Ralph. Not your typical 'Robot Journalist' Loves Alex Fasolo
Good read Danni, and i’m sorry to say but you just don’t look like a girl who would know what a football is. That’s not a bad thing though as you can surprise quite a few people in your life.
Now, your the only girl i know that is a teenager and loves her footy as much as you do, so i can’t really answer your question. But, looks doesn’t matter, as long as you got the brains for it, which i’m sure you do.
Good luck with your final year of school, i know i’m going to miss going to school, yet i can’t wait to finish. Exciting times ahead.
First of all Danni, don’t worry about drivers horning you Danni. You’re only a learner, and there are plenty of fully licensed drivers who make dumb mistakes on the road. My dad reckons most people don’t know how to do hook turns properly, for example.
Second, it doesn’t matter at all if you don’t look like a budding sports journo. If I’d never seen Sam Lane I never would have picked her as one. Caroline Wilson I would have picked as a grumpy assistant principal at a private girls school. What DOES a female sports journalist look like anyway?
I suppose a female with some hint of football allignment? Like at the launch, us guys wore footy jumpers while Danni wore a dress, was hard to see her as an upcoming footy journo but had she worn a Collinwood jumper i would have seen the light a bit more.
Agree about Caro Wilson looking like a grouchy assistant principal, spot on.
Danni, I feel your pain. Unfortunately, other than donning your footy guernsey, as Josh suggested, I don’t there is any way to stand out as a future footy journo.
With me, everyone I know knows how obsessed I am with footy – it comes of someway working Geelong into not only our introductory conversation, but every conversation thereafter.
But just think, if you make it as a tv sports journo, especially, people will recognise your face as that of a footy journo. Then you’ll look one one, because you are one … if that makes any sense …
If Michelle Grattan can comment on politics, you can comment on sport.
Danni,
strive to be Caro before the menopause. She used to write some insightful articles until a few years ago. Sam Lane is a good role model, but she lacks flair and humour. Knowledge of the game, humour, and personality go a long way. It’s seems you have these traits. You go girl!!
Geez Phil, what’s with the Caro beef?
Danni, just remember, even if we all get sucked into the “drama”, at heart they’re all just games.
Looks don’t matter, unless you want to be on commercial TV; in which case that’s about all that matters.
Maybe you need to change your name to one that sounds like it belongs to a star of DVDs that can only be purchased in Fyshwick in Canberra. Like “Tiffany Cherry”…
You could be the Joan Didion of Australian sports writing Danni. She was so quiet around her subjects that they forgot about her and assumed she was a timid young woman – until the article came out and was full of detail. I don’t think you’re a timid young thing from your posts but if the sports fraternity think you’re more interested in fashion instead of a “man’s game” like AFL, you could lull them into a false sense of security then WHAM! Shirtfront them with the big questions!
JB,
Caro’s matronly moralizing undermines her credibility as a Journalist. The older she gets the more she does it and it has become too predictable and tedious.
Good work Danni, but i’ve gotta say that you dont look like a footy lover, but sometimes there are some people who’s faces don’t match with their interest. But it’s whats inside that counts
Gotta love these early Tuesday finishes
By the way, footy news:
Blues have confirmed Mars as their second major sponsor replacing malaysia, and Port have confirmed one of their two new sponsors: My Atm.
Scott Gumbleton won’t play on Friday after a back spasm at training yesterday
Wow…not content with the sponsorship of a country, the Blues decide to go after AN ENTIRE PLANET?
Gumbleton’s a big boy, but he’s a china vase.
hahaha nice one Adam. Yeah he is, Brent Stanton will also not play BTW
Phil I am with you .Caro seems to have taken it upon herself to be the Keeper of the Moral Flame !
I respect Caro but when she just dogs North Melbourne constantly and worries about the little things in the AFL, it can get a bit tedious. I’m glad i’m in bed asleep by the time Footy Confidential comes on Monday nights.
Caro is a brilliant journalist, she knows heaps about the game and she’s good at winning arguments on Footy CLASSIFIED Josh
By the way Josh, have you seen the thing on the Roos website? Pick the starting 18 for the nab cup squad and win a signed north guernsey. I entered it
Seems I’m fighting a tide of strong opinion here.
Phil & Gary, I can see your point, but don’t think she moralises any more than Mike Sheahan.
And at least Caro still has the capacity to be interesting.
Sorry Steve, i don’t watch it so i wouldn’t know the name of it, yes Footy Classified.
Your not the first person to call it that name, why do people call it that? My Dad made that mistake too. Its a good show Josh, you should watch it this year they bring up some great points.
John I agree if the yardstick is Mike Sheahan aka the AFL Publicist !
good piece danni, dont worry, a person’s appearence does not interfere with the chances of becoming a sports journo, people can say what they want, but when it comes to the time when your article is being read in the paper by the person who doubted you, im sure thats the best feeling
Danielle:
Now that this thread’s kinda fading away, I can pop up & give you my 2c worth.
Can’t give you any advise about sports journalism (cos my output here is both meagre and mediocre, and there are some outstanding scribes in our group who are better equipped to guide you), but I can tell you a story that parallels where your path seems to be taking you.
My glorious wife, my passion, my inspiration, my Naur (her middle name, btw) (bells are ringing, right? :lol:) and my habibe’, is Lebanese.
Dark olive skin, black ringletted hair, deepest of deep brown eyes. A true and unmistakenly Arabian beauty.
When she did her Masters’ degree, every other female in her course was blonde, blue eyed & from the North Shore (and you have rellies here in Sydney, so you’ll understand what I’m talking about). There she was, standing out in the crowd: dark skinned, black haired and from Campsie. This was the 70s, and Leb women simply didn’t achieve great things in uni (ok, Marie Bashir – now NSW Governor – preceded her, but generally they didn’t push on like that in those days). She has achieved the greatest success of all of her graduating class, and now is the boss of many who basically look exactly like the rest of her class did way back then.
It doesn’t matter what you look like at all. What counts in the crunch is the size of your heart, the power of your dreaming, and the hunger in the very pit of your belly to achieve those dreams. Looks only matter when you get older and wiser and start chatting up a nice Geelong boy (joke).
It’s what’s between your ears that will count, and based on our incredibly superficial of relationships here, there’s enough between your ears to well & truly see you right.
(And that’s probably a mixed metaphor to end all mixed metaphors, but you do get my drift, huh?)
Good luck. And keep writing!