By Jemma Burgess

Classic self-doubt. 

This isn’t going to be a well thought out story. I’m not going to try and use similarities or funny anecdotes to express my feelings and I’m not going to try and be clever. This is a rant. A self-doubting, shitty rant. 

Because right now I am sitting on a train with an infected jaw, drugged up on antibiotics on my way to a perform at the Old Red Lion and instead of being physically sick I’m just going to word vomit all over this page. 

There are 381 hours until we start and boy is the self-doubt hit me right smack in the face. Firstly, It feels like everyone that’s been accepted in this year’s intake seems to have done something to do with advertising before. Whether their family are in the industry, they’ve already been to SCA or they’ve currently worked right smack in the centre. I know you shouldn’t care what other people do but it’s freaking me out. I have no background in advertising at all. I feel like I’m already behind before I’ve even started. I have so much to learn and although I’m buzzing to start I’m already thinking how the fuck am I going to survive let alone succeed. I know its not a competition but no one wants to be in the twenty per cent that doesn’t get a placement. I know its not about winning an award but let’s be honest. If you don’t win a fucking pencil, your gonna be gutted. 

We were told to start a new habit. And mine was going to master the whole morning and evening routine shebang in order to be prepared for the first term. My morning routine involved waking up at 5.  I thought it would be simple. I used to wake up at 5, walk half an hour to the gym, work out and then walk to school for 8.  But now thinking back to my 18-year-old self I’m like, who the fuck was I! Was I on steroids! So ye, I tried and tried and then I failed and failed and failed again. Maybe I’ll just fail my way to through the year until I finally hit gold and create something that’s good. Possibly great. We’ll see. 

So Mark, if you’ve read my survey then you will know that I lied. ( but its fine, you’ve lied to me) I didn’t even realise I lied. I zoomed through it, not really thinking and to be fair, I thought everything was dandy but really, It’s not. I still need to finish my passion project, have I started yet? Who knows. I’ve yet to delve into the memory book. I’ve failed multiple times on my new habit. I still have 20 hours of youtube videos about photoshop/illustrator/after effects to watch. BUT IM SUPER CHILL BECAUSE I HAVE IT ALL UNDER CONTROL! OKAY!! 

I’m at my stop now so I better wrap this up. Let’s pray I don’t throw up on stage. #prayforme.