It's half-term... for everyone except us lot on the Prince's Trust. This means that there's been a bit of faffery with bus passes. The passes we have allow us to travel free but only on school days, between 6AM and 8PM - so for the week they've been rendered invalid. The thing is, I had no trouble using mine this morning, on either of the two buses I have to get. The only bus trouble I had was that the first was fifteen minutes late and the second was going from a different stop.

At the end of the day, we were given £10.80 to buy a week pass... except Arriva are adamant that one actually costs £16. Going home, I just spent £4 of what they'd given me because I couldn't afford the week pass. I hope that gets sorted tomorrow, because I remember how much I was spending before we got our bus passes. Two buses, there and back; it could have cost me up to £20 a week.

Today was one of those funny, unfocused days. A lot of it was spent at our desks, doing catch-up on our project folders. We have to write a diary for every week detailing what we did and the evidence we've collected to prove that we've done it. We caught up with our diary for weeks four and five, then filled in a sheet in regards to preparation for our work placement and looked over our personal reviews, to see if we'd met the goals that were set by the Team leaders for our community project.

After all the paperwork (which took much longer than it should have done, as we were all giggly and unfocused), we did two tasks. The first, we were given a large sheet of paper and some magazines. We were asked to flip through and cut and stick examples of good and bad interview outfits, to be presented to the class. It's pretty simple, really - you've just got to find something which shows your individuality but remains sensible. You need to make a lasting impression on an employer, even in appearance.

The third task we did involved being split into four groups. Each group was given a workplace scenario and asked to devise two short roleplays; a good and a bad example of how to deal with that situation. The scenarios were regarding punctuality, other workers being rude to you, being given tasks you're not sure you can cope with and workers speaking inappropriately. We certainly didn't cover all the bases, but we all did well and showed that we can think quite quickly and figure out how we should behave. We were given five minutes to devise these roleplays, but most of us got our ideas immediately and spent the five minutes simply deciding who would take what role.

Thankfully, the chances of us encountering any problems with other workers during this placement is slim. The Prince's Trust is very careful with its placements, choosing employers that have been worked with before. If we do have a problem, we're to let Vicky know so that she can sort it out, rather than have a whole faff break out that could potentially end our placements. Any other problems will be of our own creation, so we should be careful; if we get kicked off our placement, then we won't be able to complete the course.

An update in regards to my own placement - I've still got no reply from the editor of the St. Helens Star. Since our placements start next week, I'm starting to get worried. I desperately want this journalism experience; it's unfortunate that I can't communicate to them how interested I am. Tomorrow, I think I'll have a word with Vicky and Tim to find out what'll happen if he doesn't get back to me in time. God, what if I was given the wrong e-mail address?

I've just checked the St. Helens Star website and the e-mail address I was given was correct. There was a phone number for him as well. Perhaps I should consider giving him a ring to see what's going on.