Another week

Things are calm and fall is here.

Seriously, fall just showed up. It's like fall came up behind summer and pulled an "Et tu Brute?" And I am so glad it did. While summer is my favorite season in California, summer in Virginia equals humidity and humidity does not equal good times. But fall is nice and dry with warm days and cool nights that let me cuddle up in my bathrobe with my tea and read a book. But it also means my feet are often cold. Uggs, here I come! (Maybe, seeing as I'm a poor college student and Uggs are about $160...)

The Collegian this week was also good times. We got out later, 3 a.m., but the paper looks great and I got to cover a breaking news story. It's not up online yet but when it is I will post a link. I also had a story printed that I turned in last week for Practicum, viewable here.

And now, because of Fall Break (four day weekend next week), we won't put out a Collegian two weeks from now so no Practicum story! While I love writing and reporting, it's nice to have a few weeks off to relax and take care of mid-terms, which are the next two weeks. I am giving a speech for Rhetoric and Public Address on Thursday, praising newspapers and newspaper journalists. I'm still working on the manuscript but I think it will be a good one because I will be able to speak from personal experience and journalism is definitely something I'm passionate about.

The next week I have a Copy Editing mid-term which will not be too complicated but I want to do extremely well on it so I can get an A in the class. While it's not necessary and grades really have no bearing on whether or not I get a job when I graduate or much else, I would like to keep my major GPA at a 4.0 just for my own sake. I don't get Bs.

And now I get to enjoy a relaxed, minimal work weekend while in my bathrobe, drinking a hot cup tea.

The Collegian is slowly taking over my life...

...and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Especially when my story is on the front page two weeks in a row!
Week 1 Week 2

I'm writing a story every week for Practicum which takes up a good chunk of time with all of the research and interviews and then finally the writing. Then on Monday and Tuesday I spend a few hours in the office getting some of my pages together. Then Wednesday I am in the office from 7 p.m. until we finish the paper. Last week we set a record by getting out at 1 a.m.

And yet I am enjoying the work so much that it doesn't feel like work. Sometimes the lack of sleep catches up to me but that's what naps and weekends are for. Like last night when I slept for 12.5 hours.

The Collegian

Here is this weeks.

I wrote three campus briefs that are not online unfortunately. Still a good paper.

For the upcoming and last issue of the year I am writing a long story about the upcoming tuition increase. We'll see what happens with that.

I'm Back in the News Room Again

And it is good times.

Last week we were done with the paper at 4 a.m. Righ now it is 4:04 a.m. and I am waiting for approval on my last page and then I can go to sleep. At least this week I don't have to get up in the morning for any reason. I could probably sleep all day...

Minus the fact that I have homework and two tests on Friday and a weekend retreat to prepare for.

Good times.

PS: I'll put up a link for the paper tomorrow and none for last week. And I will have new puppy pictures probably Sunday. She is so cute and I get to bring her home in less than two weeks!

In the Newsroom

I am sitting in The Collegian newsroom at 1:05am Thursday morning waiting for my page edits from the editors.

I feel like a journalist. A very tired yet satisfied journalist.

I'll post a link to the paper when it comes up online tomorrow.

Front Page #2

Heck yes!

An article about Tuesday's primary and the party thrown by the school. Good times.

Mid-Terms...

suck.

Don't let anyone tell you any different.

My English mid-term this semester will be on Ralph Waldo Emerson's view on education and how that contrasts with Edward Bellamy's idea of what education will be in the future in Looking Backward.

While this is all very interesting and I have no qualms with studying the subject, I also have a Journalism, Elementary Programming and Music mid-term as well as all of my regular homework.

Yay college...

Publication Number 2

Heck yes.

Page 3 of this weeks Collegian.

This story was amazing to research because it involved a docent-led tour of the museum and then, dinner with Holocaust survivors.

It was beyond words.

You can read the full article here.

And here is last weeks, since I just found The Collegian online.

Front Page

That's right! I mentioned that I wrote and submitted my first article to The Collegian and got a "nice work!" from my News Writing professor.

Well...

It's being published! And not just published, it's being published on the FRONT PAGE!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

Ha ha ha!

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. I'll take a picture of it and post it so you guys can see it.

I feel so accomplished. I have actually found something I am passionate about AND good at. I have a possible career... This is really strange and going to take some time to get used to.

Go college!

They Like Me...

They really like me!

I wrote an article about a Super Tuesday Results Viewing Party put on by the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement and submitted it to the school paper, The Collegian. The party ended a little after midnight and I e-mailed the story around 2:30am.

I have no idea if it will be published especially since this is my first article, ever, I've never written for The Collegian before (obviously if this is my first article...) and they might not have enough room.

But! My News Writing professor said, "Nice work! I hope they use it." And that was all I needed to hear.

My first article got a "nice work!"!

I think I need a nap now...

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I am excited, very excited, about Journalism right now. I am doing well in my class and look forward to learning more about the subject. I can see a possible career, a possible future for myself.

It's kind of like the light at the end of the tunnel. It's there and it is bright and inviting and freakishly scary. It reminds me of the scene from A Bug's Life when the one bug says to the other, "Don't go towards the light" and the other replies, "I can't help it" and gets burned by the bug zapper.

I feel like that second bug. I can't help but go towards the light even though it's scary and unknown.

Yet unlike that bug, I don't have a choice. Time will bring the future whether I like it or not and that speeding train is going to smack me in the head, head on. So now I have the choice to either stand there like a deer in the headlights and get squished, or I can jump on the train and enjoy the ride, bumps and all.

I think I'm going to go with the jumping.

Freedom of Speech

I have a question for everyone. My journalism professor (who is also chair of the department) told us in class on Friday that "free speech is regulated by time, place and manner". He used the example of the classroom. We, as students, could get up and dance on the tables and say whatever we felt like saying and that would technically qualify as free speech. But he, as the professor and authority in the room, could tell us to get out and we would have to obey or face consequences.

I still haven't completely processed this and figured out what it means and what I think so I wanted to ask you to help clarify.

What does the first amendments freedom of speech mean to you? Who owns freedom of speech?

Lede's

Wow, at this very moment I am madly in love with Journalism and feeling pretty darn good about myself.

We had to write a lede (or lead), which is the first sentence of a story used to capture the readers attention, for News Writing. Some people received "F"s but not me! I got an A+/100, V(ery) Good!

Yes! Touchdown! Time for a happy dance! (I haven't done one of these for a while...)

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh uh huh uh huh! Woo! Ya!

Here's my A+ winning lede:

Two 12-year-old girls on their way home from CPR class yesterday revived their godmother, who was choking on a piece of meat at a cafe on West Broad Street.

Now don't you want to know more? I certainly do...

This was an awesome confidence booster for me. I've been worried that I wasn't going to be any good at this journalism thing and then all hope would be lost, etc, etc. Now I know that I at least have a chance and might actually be good.

Hurray for "A"s! And "+"s! ; )

Jouralism Dont's

In the book we're reading for News Writing, Reporting for the Media, the lesson on "Don't Write Like This" had a few examples that I thought were pretty hilarious. These were taken from people's descriptions of their accidents on insurance forms.

"I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it."

"In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."

"I was on my way to the doctor with rear-end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have engine trouble."

"I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him."

"I saw a slow-moving, sad-faced old gentlemen as he bounced off the roof of my car."

"To avoid hitting the bumper on the car in front, I hit a pedestrian."

And my personal favorite:


"The pedestrian had no idea which way to run, so I ran over him."

First Week

I told you I would give an update on my first week of classes so here it is.

Good times.

I am really enjoying my classes, even Elementary Programming. Our first project for that class is going to be to re-create a scene from our favorite animated movie. I'm either going to do Finding Nemo or Madagascar. I haven't officially decided yet.

News Writing is AWESOME! Hopefully by the end of this semester I will be writing some real newspaper articles. Anything I write this semester has a possibility of being published in the school's paper, the Collegian, so we'll see.

American Lit is going well. My professor brought is coffee on Friday which made my favorite English professor of all time. He's also my academic adviser so I've known him for a few months. The readings are not too long and I've been enjoying most of them. I'll have some good quotes later.

Fundamentals of Music was also good. I'm learning new things yet I still know enough to have it not be difficult. Or at least, extremely difficult. And I signed up for piano lessons with my professor! I'm finally going to learn how to play the piano! Yeah!

And now I am officially stoked about my future as a Journalist. I spoke with my Colloquium professor on Friday and mentioned that I wanted to be an International Correspondent of some kind. I also mentioned my time in Japan and he told me about a connection he has with a paper there, etc. I actually feel like being a Journalist is a plausible reality and it makes me happy!

Yeah school! (Don't get used to hearing that, its only the first week.)

Tuned Out

For Journalism I am currently reading a book titled "Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News" by David T.Z. Mindich. I think the title is pretty self evident.

In our discussion on the book today my professor said that a large reason for why people under 40 are tuned out, is that the media itself is tuned out. They complain that they don't have an under 40 crowd when what they're giving us is this: RedEye from the Chicago Tribune. RedEye is the young adult version of the paper. It's lead story today: The Wonderful Life of Jennifer Hudson.

What the heck does Jennifer Hudson's wonderful life have to do with me? Why do I care if Avril and Perez were battling it out online? "'Mr. Toilet' builds a commode-shaped house"? Are you kidding me? Do these people seriously think that college students and even teenagers are at all interested in this nonsense? As my professor stated, more and more students are scoring higher and higher on ACT's and SAT's and they think this is what we want to read about? And the fact that each story is maybe four paragraphs of two or three sentences each. Do you think we're illiterate and have ADD?

I know I'm ranting a bit here, but seriously. Think about it. RedEye is what media companies think young people want to read about. Celebrities and houses shaped like toilets are the only things we're interested in because we're ignorant boobs who don't care about things that actually pertain to our lives.

I want to read about what's going on in the government. I mean, we will be voting for the next president of the United States. The person who will make huge decisions that affect my life like whether or not we should stay in a war. I have several friends who are or have been in Iraq as soldiers. This has been the deadliest year in Iraq and you want to tell me about Twista and his "fight against corporate America"?

How are young people, who are the future of this country by the way, suppose to make informed decisions about the future of our democratic country when we have no idea what's going on?

Yes, obviously we have to be active in keeping up with the news if we want to know what's going on. But where are the stories that pertain to us? The last story I remember reading or seeing was on Virginia Tech. Where are all the follow up stories about mental health in colleges or privacy and confidentiality issues inside colleges? (These are mostly coming from my professor by the way.) But he makes a good point.

Media companies as well as young people need to start "tuning in". I don't have a fool-proof solution but I am going to do what I can to stay informed and try to let the media companies know that I care about what's going on in the world; that I want to know so they better get in gear and start printing some real stories. If they think we're tuned out and want our business then they need to stop feeding us crap.

Am I the only one feeling this way (besides my professor)?

News in Blogs

In Journalism today we watched a video of a PBS special about Journalism, its problems and what the internet and technology are doing to Journalism. I have to agree with the commentators about what Journalism has become in that it is more focused on entertaining than informing in many instances. Shows like Hardball, Dateline, Primetime Live, etc. are a bunch of people yelling over each other, trying to cause controversy and gain ratings. But that's a different discussion for another day.

The interesting part for me was when they got to the part about technology and the internet, particularly blogging. Both sides of the argument were presented: those who believe blogs can present news and those who write the blogs are journalists with or without training and those who think news centered blogs present unoriginal and unreliable news. Jeff Jarvis, the creator of BuzzMachine which is a blog about "media and news" (taken from his About Me/Disclosures page). Jarvis also states on this page that "This is a personal site". He goes on to mention how he is connected and therefore possibly bias to various organizations and companies, which I appreciate. In the video we watched in class today he claims that anyone can perform and "Act of Journalism" if they have a computer and a cell phone; if someone is witnessing an act they can take a picture or video of it, post it on the internet and make it news.

I have to disagree with Jarvis and partially agree with the Dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia University, whose name I cannot confirm. The Dean (as I will refer to him) stated that he could not find blog news that was original. I took this to mean that the news in blogs is simply repeating or commenting on news that has already been printed or aired by known news organizations like ABC News or the New York Times. I don't read many blogs, especially news blogs so I cannot comment on that but I can say that I agree because of my own blogging.

Obviously I have a blog and am therefore by definition a blogger. But I blog about my personal life for my family and friends now that I am not living at home and able to share all of that information nor experiences with them. I do not attempt to report news, I may comment every now and then on what is going on in the world but I hope and pray that no takes me thoughts and ideas as fact.

Information on the internet is mostly unreliable. There are many things that I use and trust are true based on where the information is coming from but I do not know for fact that the information is true. For example, when writing a paper for one of my classes I will occasionally use Wikipedia to find dates or names or links but we are not even allowed to use Wikipedia as a cited source. Because anyone can edit and add information to the site, it is unreliable. That is that. Those who edit Wikipedia do not have someone editing their information, there are no fact checkers to make sure what they are saying is what actually happened. The same can be said for blogs.

There may come a day when Journalists will use blogs to report the news (some news stations are starting to) but as of right now, independent bloggers are not Journalists and cannot be completely relied on to provide pertinent, bias free and reliable news.

That's my opinion and its only an opinion.

90%

Yeah! I just got my second Journalism test back today and I got a 90%! I know that's less than last time but there were only 10 questions on this test as opposed to the 20 on the first one so I only missed one. And I'm a little unsure about that one so I'm going to talk to the professor about why my answer was wrong, but anyway...

90%! I am definitely getting an "A" in that class which is good considering I'll most likely be a Journalism major.

95%

Woohoo! I just got out of my Journalism class where I was handed back the first test that I got a 95% on! Yeah! I was a little worried when the professor made comments about grading generously which meant we should be scared, implying that we did not do to well. I am so glad he wasn't talking about me.

In other news, work is going well. Restaurant drama does exist but at the Blue Heron, at least, its not that bad.

I am working on dropping my History class. I know, sad, but the homework is getting in the way of my other classes that count for something and that I am enjoying much more. Unfortunately I have to get a form signed a few times and its going to cost me something like $10 but right now I'm seeing it as worth it.

Tomorrow I meet with a Career Development Center (CDC) counselor to talk about general things like career options and how to go about getting them. I also have to decide my major soon and I am stuck between a rock and a hard place: English and Journalism. Maybe I can do both, maybe I'll do one and then get a job in the field of the other. We'll see. I am thankful for the CDC, they have already helped me to write a resume and now they're going to help me figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life, or at least a small part of it anyway. I also like the fact that the CDC has the same acronym as the Center for Disease Control, makes me laugh. Ha! (That was me laughing...)

And I think I've had too much coffee...

Morphine

A New York Times Article about the lack of morphine in poor countries. (If you can't view it then you may have to sign up which is free, easy to do and well worth it.)

This kind of writing is what I want to do. I want to go to places and see the people that are suffering and inform the world about it so that something can be done.

I just don't know how to go about it.

Any suggestions?