Cherry Blossom Festival

Today, Cassie, Vicki, Eric, and I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival. We met up at different points on the metro and got off on the Smithsonian Metro stop, with about a zillion other people. There were so many people crammed in there it was amazing we could even get off!

Everyone was gravitating towards the Washington Memorial. There were little tents set up for food and t-shirts and stuff like that, but pretty much I really didn't see much "festival" about it. It seemed a lot more like an invitation to the general public to come see the trees all at the same time.

There were people on the paddle boats out in front of the Jefferson Memorial, and ducks and seagulls were all over the place. I don't think I've ever seen so many porta-potties in a row!

Mostly the vendors were food. I personally went in for the "cinnamon and sugar toasted almonds," which was a four dollar baggie of nuts. They were hot, which was good! Then the four of us went looking for Fuddruckers but ended up at some place called Henry's instead. It was weird in there because there were so many TVs turned to sports at the same time, it was in stereo!

The trees are gorgeous, and I thought it was sorta strange that it could be predicted so accurately in advance when they would start blooming. I think I noticed them blooming about a week ago. My roommate Cassie noticed too, because she has allergies!

Student Activities

Ah, one should never blog at two in the morning, yet, here I am, sitting on my bed with a tummy full of steamed broccoli, wiiiiiiide awake.

Today I covered an event at American University. At the time of this writing, that means it's actually yesterday, but whatever. The event was about Darfur, Uganda, and other regions that are being oppressed. Specifically, Darfur was spoken about because it is considered to be in the middle of a genocide.

I'd say the biggest issue is the lovely Washington D.C. weather. It was overcast, windy, and drizzling. I originally went to the event without an umbrella, but I bought one from the bookstore because I was carrying around a lot of recording equipment and I really didn't feel like letting it get all rained on!

Fortunately, people actually did show up, and I took some pictures of them:

There are constantly protests, marches, discussions, forums, whatever- going on all over the place here. Sometimes no one shows up, other times, it can be terrible weather and there are a million people there. I guess it's whatever people find to be important!

Whew. I have been up all night, helping my roommate do stuff. She's working on a paper and I'm the sounding board. My other roommate is a night owl and cleaned the bathroom, lol. We ended up as three tired people with the scent of Pine Sol up our nostrils!

Next!

When I went back to college at a crusty old age, I already had two jobs. I was a freelancer, and I worked for a movie company. Decided the best way to get farther in life, was to go back to school :)

It's very, very bizarre to be a working professional, student, AND an intern too. I'm doing it all at once, actually. I'm still working for the movie company, I'm staff at somewhere else, and I'm also poking around as an intern, all while still being enrolled in college! It's amazing, and amazingly hard all at once.

I'm certianly not your typical intern, I guess, but I've discovered that most of the interns with TWC are not typical interns either. Everyone has some sort of story, whether it be working on the side (like me), getting hired somewhere else in the middle of the semester (my roommate Natalie), or being given a job offer for when they are done (my neighbor). I'm one of the lucky people that already has a job and having an internship is just making it BETTER! I really liked being an intern. Being a "student" always made me laugh, because then people got really confused about me. I look twenty-four, LOL. Oh, I'm certainly not, but it's rather fun how much that confuses people.

At the moment, my roommate and I are laying around. I ate cookies for breakfast, and we're talking about walking down to the beach. Cassie wants to stay here, and since I already AM staying here (hey, I work here!), she's looking for a job. The amazing thing is, because she is at the moment an intern, she's already IN. She's got proven work experience with which to either get hired where she's at, or use as a reference. I'm patting her on the head and telling her she's got six weeks :)

I'm glad the crazy weather seems to have un-crazified itself. The sun came out yesterday and I rode my bike all over the place. I'm considering riding my bike all over the place again, but at the moment, I'm feeling like laying around in my jammies all day!

Journalism Heroes

"Oh, ye of little faith."

Actually, my dad says that all the time, usually whenever someone says he isn’t going to be able to do something. “Dad, you can’t learn to ride a jetski. You’re OLD!!” and, well, that’s the response he gives. And yes, my father was riding a jetski around in his sixties.

I bring it up because I was contemplating self-defeatist thinking. How many times have people not even tried to do something, simply because they were already convinced they wouldn’t be able to? It’s probably common. And I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours, meditating about it.

On Monday, I went to the National Press Club to see The Kalb Report. George Washington University had piles and piles of students in there, and so I was in this really interesting live taped show with a bunch of students, and press. Well, I guess we all just wanted to see Christiane Amanpour. I know I did.

Christiane Amanpour is, without a doubt, one of my big heroes. In my opinion, she truly shaped what it means to be a female war correspondent. I really would like to be a globe hopper like Christiane. I uber love politics. Washington and all its idiosyncracies are really entertaining, oh yeah. However, I report on a lot of stuff about the Middle East and got really interested in what is going on outside of my own country.

After the taping, Christiane hopped off the stage and stood around talking to those of us that wanted to chat. She is extremely personable, obviously genuine, extraordinarily sincere, and well, really really nice. She’s got all my respect. Because there were quite a lot of us wanting to take pictures with her, we all just jumped into groups and got pictures together. I have NO idea who the other people are in the photo with me, lol. I am also royally lame and got her autograph. I swear. I really did. I got her to sign the program paper and then I put it in a plastic thingie and hung it up on my wall. I don’t get impressed by much. But Christiane impresses me, a whole lot.

When I was a kid I idolized Madonna. Um, no, I’m not Catholic. I mean Madonna, the singer. I was totally in love with Duran Duran while I was at it, and listened to Kenny G even when not hanging out in elevators. I also loved Queen, Phil Collins, and pretty much every one hit wonder out there. I am terrible with names of songs or groups, which drives my friends crazy. I’ll be singing some song and someone will be like, ‘Oh, you like Rush?’ and I’ll just sort of nod, since I never can figure out who sings what.

It was suggested to me that I sign up for last.fm, and I thought about it for about half of a nanosecond. I’m on technology overload. I already have a Motorola Q, a Blackberry, three laptops, two video cameras, a digital camera, a personal mp3 mini-recorder, and probably more stuff hiding elsewhere. I don’t have an iPod. My brain might explode.

So when I was little, after wanting to be Madonna (and memorizing the song, True Blue, so I could sing on Star Search, no kidding……) I didn’t really have any big time hero. I would like a teacher of mine, and aspire to be like them in one way or another, but I think I really wanted to grow up and be my own dad. I’ve got a lot of people in the media that I really like, and I pick an element here and there from people that I think is a great quality, try to find it within myself, and then work on it. I consider people a constant work-in-progress. What better thing to work on, than yourself? Making yourself a better person makes everything better all around you.

I love Tim Russert, from Meet the Press. He’s always asking stuff I would want to know. That, and he is VERY in-your-face. He wants to know, he just asks. No beating around the bush with Tim- he just says it. He’s cool. I haven’t met him yet, but I've got my fingers crossed!

Mmmmm, well, I LOVE Jon Stewart. I LOVE JON STEWART. YES. YES I DO. Can’t really say much more than that.

There was a discussion about the differences between cable news, and well, not cable news. Everything is about to get a bit screwy on that, because of the nothing-analog-or-whatever law. That confuses me. Hey. I deal with radio. I presently do not have to actually know, right? Anyhow, my parents watch Fox, my sister reads Yahoo news, my brother doesn’t own a television and I have Google Reader with which to read a zillion political and/or news blogs all at the same time. My television, should I turn it on, is on MSNBC.

I am very curious who other people find as heroes. It's awesome that I keep running into Congress and other big-deal people over here in Washington. A couple days ago, Bill Gates from Microsoft was down the street. I never know day to day, who I might have the opportunity to meet!

Awesome Photo Op

The Washington Center totally thrilled me by having as a speaker Mr. Kevin Klose, the President of NPR. Some of the schools were in a big group shot with him, but I ran right up there and got my picture with him all on my own :) Awesome!

Running with Talk Radio News is awesome. Just yesterday, another TWC intern, Evan, texted me. He's also at TRNS, and the text was telling me that there was some sort of gathering on the steps of Capitol Hill. I was sitting in the office, typing up something, but I grabbed my camera and trotted two blocks down to the Capitol to see what was going on.

It was actually a rather big deal, and Evan was already there, with his recording equipment plugged into the speaker box so that it could be put up on TRNS' website later. I had a little videa camera and stood there taping the speaker, I mean SPEAKER, since it was Nancy Pelosi. There was also Patrick Kennedy and Mrs. Jimmy Carter. Evan ran up and shook her hand, and then I stood two feet from Kennedy and recorded him answering questions from reporters. Cool.

The weather down here is crazy!! A week ago it was snowing and I wore my big fat jacket and then today I was standing there just in my dress shirt. Who knows what the weather will be today. Going crazy myself, trying to figure that out. Decided the smartest thing to do down here was just wear layers. Since we're really close to the beach, my friends and I decided we're all going to have to go and flop ourselves on the sand at some point. Don't know when, but we will.

Craig is mad at me because I started this idea- we go to a different museum every weekend, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, and THIS weekend I'm going to be in New York City. I discovered that you can get from here to there REALLY cheap if you go by Greyhound. I go to NYC all the time, actually, and told them all that we're going to have to go together in the future. I have informed Craig that Mr. Hat is lonely and wants to see New York. Craig laughed.

I feel like my internship is a real job, and I treat it like one, except the part where I whip out a camera and give Evan bunny ears.

He obliged and gave me his best "oh no I'm on camera!" expression. I took this photo a couple of days ago. I actually just had surgery on my eye but you can't tell because I have a very good surgeon!! I had to go all the way to Philadelphia to see the doc. Actually I am going all the way BACK to Philly so that she can have a look at the results and take the stitches out of my face (ew...). I'll live. I've been told that they'll miss me at work :)