New Toy
I found a new web toy today… Poladroid. You drag your photos onto the desktop icon and it creates polaroid images of your photos. This could come in handy for Christmas presents.. or wrapping paper. How cool would that be?
For your viewing pleasure, this is Amy and I (gosh.. when was this?… who was I dating at the time that would have taken this photo? No idea) before we went and saw Al Gore speak at the Erwin Center in Austin.
Awesome, huh? Check it out for yourself.
Anna on Media
Cindy Royal shot this video of us at dinner back in September. One correction, though… I’ve since joined the print side of things, though my focus is still online media.
A Weekend
I turned in Campbell’s paper on Thursday, which took a huge weight off of my shoulders. I wrote about investigative reporting trends at the New Orleans Times-Picyune during 1975, 1991 and 2007. This required me to make several trips down to the Library of Congress in order to get the research and coding sheets done. It may have been out of my way, but I actually enjoyed going in there and doing old-school research. No Google searching here, kids. Show me where the microfilm is. Seriously. It was fun.
Then yesterday we had another radio newscast in Olmsted’s class. I got to play the anchor this time, and it went very smoothly.
Ever since I started this program, I’ve noticed certain things improving. My writing, for one, the core of every good journalist. I wasn’t bad before or anything, but now I’m faster and my words flow better. It’s kind of amazing to watch, honestly. My design skills have gotten better, too. Flash and Photoshop are getting easier. As for my tech side… I’m improving on Drupal, but I find myself hungry for more. I want to learn Python, Ruby or Django… but there’s no one for me to turn to in order to get the training. It’s very frustrating. I want to be the best I can be, but perhaps I should just be satisfied that there are certain things I just will not know.
Maybe there’s a training course in the D.C. area? Hmms.
Anyway, my weekend is free, for once. I don’t feel like doing anything but writing and watching movies. Yup.
I Say Hey
Tonight, Michael Franti is doing an acoustic show at Busboy’s and Poets. Justin tipped me off… and though I’d really like to go, I have Campbell’s paper to finish.
The show starts at midnight. Let’s see what I can get done. Rush rush.
What I Hope
Obama FTW
I may not agree with everything he does, but I hope every day that he survives to Inauguration and beyond.
How sad is it that I keep that hope beating in my heart because of a man’s skin color? Why is there still so much hate in this world that I feel the need to worry about his life? When are we as a country going to sit down and have that conversation about race? The elephant has been in the freakin’ room for a long time now.
Gah.
In other news, I’m still producing Flash for the American Observer. As much as I love going after a good story, figuring out ways to visually represent data and stories is pretty thrilling. How much you wanna bet that’s going to play a part in my post-graduate job?
There is a one credit course being offered next semester, on Fridays. It meets at the Washington Post downtown and we’d get to speak with some of the best journalists out practicing today. But here’s the catch… there are spots for only four graduate students. In order to get a spot, we have to submit a two-page essay on, “why you should be one of the eight AU students chosen to participate, and what you would do if you were in charge of both the newspaper and Web divisions in 2009.” It’s a toughie. I have an idea of what I’ll write, but dang… only four spots?
As Russ said, “Someone’s going to be in tears after this one.”
Here we go…
So technically I’ve been a blogger since Fall of 2005, but I mainly blogged about my friends, my boyfriends, and my random thoughts. Considering I’m supposed to be somewhat professional now, I didn’t think that would be the best blog to broadcast to the rest of the world. So I’m starting over. Again.
In case you didn’t get here by way of my website, I’m a graduate student at American University. I’m studying international print/online journalism and public policy. What a mouthful, huh? It’s an expensive mouthful, too. I’m beginning to wonder if grad school was the right way to go, but I suppose I’ll find out a year from now, when I’m in my first post-grad job. Hopefully it will be a good one. Hopefully it will be with WashingtonPost.com. At the recent ONA conference here in Washington, I actually waited outside the bathroom to speak with Jim Brady, the vice president and executive editor. Creepy? Possibly. I hope not.
