Living the Life I’ve Imagined

It’s been a few days since the end of the conference, actually close to a week now, and everyone is back to the daily grind of whatever they do during the summer. After I slept 13 hours to make up for the sleep lost during the conference, I effectively messed up my sleep schedule making it really hard to get up for work. I slept until 3, and then stayed up until nearly 3, then didn’t wake up until 12 and so the bad sleep cycle started. I fixed that yesterday by finally waking up at a normal time – 10 AM, and going to sleep at midnight.

Well after a few boring days of sleeping in, watching TV and going to work, I finally have something fun to do today! Write college essays! Well, I figured I would get started on them since I have to hand in 3 for English as summer work and I’m not going to work today because I have bowling practice/ camp for school! The real reason I have something fun to do, I love that team! 🙂 Anyway, for some of the questions I wonder how anyone can come up with an answer and make it a page long, or how anyone even came up with the question! Some of the most…imaginative: “If you were to describe yourself in terms of a fictional character, who would it be?” and “Imagine the year is 1881. You may expect to live another fifty years. What person would you most want to know and why?” I actually like the second one, I was thinking Teddy Roosevelt, but I’m not sure why yet. Yeah I was just thinking about this because of Dean Flagel saying how ridiculous some of the questions are like “If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” to which I would say I’d be a Palm tree, because I’d always be in the warm, tropical areas, but that’s not exactly a page.

This summer looks like it will be a busy one for the rest of the way. I’m going up to Boston for a week to visit a few more schools, then down the shore the week after. I’m also working 3 days a week, have 2 bowling camps, college essays and applications, summer reading, getting my license, and if my mom lets me play tennis, tennis practice. There is a lot more stuff I want to do this summer, like go to a few Phillies games with my friends, and of course have everyone down to my shore house.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t want summer to end, even if we are going to be seniors. The school year isn’t exactly going to be easy, even though it will be really cool to finally be seniors, because we get to own everyone on field day, go on senior trip, senior prom, get to use the senior picnic area and wear the blue lanyards! (lol) High school has really gone by fast! I have to get back to thinking about and writing my essays now. I’ll try to continue to blog even though I’ll be very busy for the rest of the summer and the school year.

Today was a very boring day compared to the past week. I took a long nap when I got home. I don’t even know how long it was, I don’t even remember falling asleep. Well, this gave me energy to stay up until 2 in the morning doing everything from watching TV, unpacking and looking at pictures from the conference, and then slept until 3 this afternoon.

I got more sleep in one night than I did half the conference and it was great. But when I woke up, I wasn’t at George Mason, it wasn’t 6 AM and I didn’t have to go over to breakfast. It was weird. We didn’t have to board the buses or listen to a speaker or visit someplace in DC. I was walking around and didn’t have my press pass around my neck or my GMU bag on my back. It made me really sad. I continued to look at more pictures from the conference and I missed everyone in my group and my roommates and the staff and everyone there!

I’ve mentioned this before, but I really enjoyed the conference. It was so much more fun than I imagined. I wasn’t really really interested in journalism previously and I wasn’t adamant about becoming a journalist. I went just to check it out and see what I thought about the field. The first day everyone was talking about how much they watched CNN and how they were editor of their newspaper. I got this feeling that everyone there really wanted to be a journalist and that the conference was going to based on that. That night, I thought that if I didn’t learn to love it before the conference was over, that all the speakers would bore me to sleep.

This was not the case, there were other people like me, and the conference did not leave us out. The conference peaked my interest in journalism and with each speaker I was more interested in what they had to say. One thing I loved about the speakers was how they all told their stories and gave advice of how they got to where they are now. None of them really planned on becoming a journalist, they pursued other things and found what they really enjoyed doing. This made me feel so much better about not knowing what I want to do, and even if I don’t exactly figure it out during college, I still have more time to figure out what I want to do, whether it’s journalism or something else. I really loved meeting people from all over the country, too. Hearing everyone’s accents and talking about the differences in schools and states was really interesting too.

This conference was really amazing. I know that the advance team, faculty and coordinators really worked hard to make everything flow, and they did a lot of work behind the scenes to make everything perfect for us. One of the biggest surprises was when we got to the National Geographic and there was an ice sculpture! I really hope I have the time next summer to come back to Mason and help make another conference as amazing as this one was, so that another group of rising journalists can learn what we learned, get advice from professionals and network with all kinds of people all over the country. I want to help with anything that will make the conference run smoother from handing out water bottles and snacks, to organizing chairs and setting up for speeches/ dinners. When I look back on this conference I hope I will remember all the faces of the amazing people I met, all the advice from the different speakers, all the places we visited and all the fun times we had.

Since this was the first and only conference like this in a while, there is only going to be a conference once a year and we are a relatively small group, I felt like we were all really close – a family if you will. Even the staff who weren’t always with one particular group also bonded with everyone. It really surprised me when Dean Flagel commented on my blog because I didn’t think that the faculty had time or wanted to read the blogs. It really let me know that we were all connecting as a group and we all are sharing this experience together. It was different than other conferences I’ve gone on, and I’ll always fondly look back on these times.

Today was a bittersweet day. I know that many people did want to go home for different reasons, whether they missed their family, their friends, their pets, their bed or their favorite food. But no one wanted to leave so soon. Everyone was planning on having until noon to hang around, but many people were shuttled to the airport at 10 am! I know that everyone felt a bond with their roommates, their group, their faculty member and everyone at the conference. We all experienced the same things: the lack of sleep, the lack of water, the food (which I really didn’t think was that bad…). We all have the same interests: journalism and media, whether we were born to be journalists, or we are just exploring the field. I am still not sure if I want to go into journalism/media, but I realized that it is definitely something I am interested in, whether I go into print, television, or radio.

Charles’ group – Group #2 – was definitely the best group. I can not imagine what my conference experience would have been if it wasn’t with all my brothers and sisters and our awesome Papa! All the things that we experienced together: Andrew’s lost luggage on the first day, not knowing who or where Omar was, that annoying “bird” chirping in our family room, watching Simon and Tyler debate, bonding as a family, Tyler’s grandma’s biscuits and Fatz burgers, learning about Cowboy pinball, listening to Charles’ stories, planning a reunion at Tyler’s house in South Carolina, always letting the other groups know that we were better, yelling “YEAH!” and all the singing on the bus, and all the rest of the times we spent together! I hope I never forget any of you or any of the fun we had here at WJMC.

The Charles Smith Family on the Last Day:

When I was at the train station in Philly, I had my green Mason bag with me and the Mason sweatpants I bought on. I needed to cross the street, and the car that was coming was a Virginia license plate – a familiar sight for the last week. He lets me cross, and then when I get over to the sidewalk, he rolls down the window and says “Go Mason!” I guess it’s a pretty small world. I think I might have more Mason clothes/stuff than I have stuff from my high school. If not, it’s very close! I have the t-shirt and polo, the bag, the pens, the window stickers, the sweatpants, a Mason email and blog, and all the other things we got that say George Mason on them. I feel like I go to George Mason now, because when we were out people would ask like what program we were with or if I went to George Mason. Just thought you guys would like to know, the first thing I had when I got home was WATER ICE! haha. I love all you guys, thanks for making this an amazing week!

I came into the WJMC, and I was not sure what to expect. I knew it would be a group of students from all over the country who had some interest in the field of journalism. It was so much more! Everyone especially the Smith Family, was great and we had so much fun together! Dean Flagel, the Amys, the group leaders and all the other staff worked so hard all week to pull off a really fun and informative conference. Thank you guys!

Here are my favorites of the Conference:

Favorite Speakers

1. Hugh Fink
2. Chuck Todd
3. Dean Flagel
4. Kathy Orton
5. Josh Earnest

Favorite Panels

1. Young Journalists Panel (Lauren Anderson, Kevin McCarthy, B.J. Koubaroulis, Josef Sawyer)
2. Panel on Political Journalism (Vaughn Ververs, Chris Cilliza, Jim Brady, Jonathan Martin)
3. Other Side of Journalism Panel (Chistine LaPaille, John Blacksen, Courtney Dozier, Ed Prugh, Stephen Farnsworth)

Favorite Events/ Visits

1. National Youth Correspondents Gala
2. Tour of the Capitol
3. Monument Tour at Night
4. Newseum
5. Smithsonian Museums

Even though they were long days and short nights, it was all worth the amazing experience.  I learned so much and took away a lot of advice and experiences.  I hope I never forget all the fun we had this week and all of the amazing people I met.

Thanks for reading my blog, I love you all!

I’ll be honest, before this conference I never heard gala pronounced “gay-la” (and apparently a lot of other people didn’t either), I was always unsure if it was “gah-lah” or “gall-ah” well, anyway, today was even better than yesterday. First we traveled to the USA Today Building, which is an incredibly cool looking building, to listen to the day’s speakers. I thought that the Press Conference on White House Domestic Initiatives with Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was really neat, even though I don’t really know anything about Obama’s policies. We learned the working of a real press conference, and I learned more about Obama’s policies.

The Panel of Young Journalists (Lauren Anderson, Kevin McCarthy, B.J. Kouraroulis, Josef Sawyer) was one of the top speeches/panels of the conference. It was really reassuring that the panelists (and some other speakers) weren’t sure what they wanted to do when they were in college, and that they do many different things that they are interested while on the way to doing what they eventually decide they want to pursue a career in. As I mentioned before, I have an interest in sports and film making. This panel included a sports blogger, a producer and a radio personality who is pursuing a career in film. I think everyone felt more of a connection with this panel because we were so close in age and they were really open to answering questions and giving out business cards and emails.

After a short visit to the Mac lab with my family, we got ready for the gala! We had almost 2 hours to primp and get ready for the gala, and it was great having the time to relax and get ready for an awesome night! The Smith Family was the first family to assemble and we got on the bus first and took over the back of the bus! We had a lot of fun talking, but soon we arrived at the National Geographic Headquarters. We walked in and the dining room was decorated with Mason colors and an ice sculpture! We began our dinner while listening to Mark Bauman, VP for National Geographic TV and Hugh Fink from SNL and D.L. Hughley Breaks the News. He was such a funny person! His speech was so interesting with all the crazy stories he had and I say this for most of the speakers, but he gave his insight into the business of journalism. He also showed us clips from D.L. Hughley Breaks the News and explained why CNN decided to cancel it.

After dinner, we began to dance! DJ Smokey started off the night with Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” which got a lot of people in the mood to dance. Even Dean Flagel and the faculty made appearances on the dance floor! After the long night of dancing, our family got together for a family portrait. We needed to let everyone know we were assembling, so we started screaming for our group (CHARLES! CHARLES!). This started a sort of group pep rally and everyone started screaming for their groups. It really energized our whole group because we all sang the whole bus ride back to Mason. We sang some country, some rock and some classics. I think the rest of the bus wanted to kill us!! When we got back to Mason there was pizza!! Everyone is so tired, but right now I’m feeding off the adrenaline. I don’t want to leave tomorrow! 🙁  All the people here are amazing, the faculty is great and it really was a whole lot of fun! I will never forget all the advice and the things I learned from the faculty, speakers and fellow correspondents.

Charles’ Family at the Gala:

Dean Flagel on the Dance Floor at The Gala:

Since I’ve been here, people have pointed out to me all the weird words/phrases that apparently only people from around Philly and South Jersey use.  So I’ve decided to compile a list of these things that people from Philly and South Jersey say and translate them into “English” so people from the rest of the country can understand what we mean and don’t stare at us like we’re insane.

I’ll also explain why certain things are best when from the Philly area. I know almost all areas have certain things like this, but I thought this would be a fun blog to write. Also, some of these things I don’t personally say, but I know what it all means just the same. You guys can use this as a guide to the area when you come visit!

1. New Jersey is always called “Jersey”, specifically “North Jersey” or “South Jersey”.  No “New” needed. Also, it is pronounced JER-ZEE not JOY-ZEE. 😛 (Seriously, don’t say it, it’ll make us hate you.)
2. Philadelphia is referred to as just “Philly” and Pennsylvania is “PA” pronounced PEE-AY.
3. “A whole nother” is a phrase meaning “completely different” or “another thing.” (Example: “That’s a whole nother story.”)
4. Most sentences are started with “Yo!” and ended with “yah know?” (yah know?)
5. When we want to know what you’re doing, we’ll ask you with a quick “Wassup?” or “Waddup?”
6. “Youse” or “Youse guys” means “you guys” and is commonly used after “Yo!” and “Wassup?”
7. When we are going to the Jersey beaches, we say we are going “down the shore” and when we go home we go “up home.” (Even though the shore is generally to the east and home is generally to the west.)
8. “Jeet (yet)?” is a question meaning “Did you eat (yet)?” (The response is usually a Yes/No and a “jew?” meaning “did you?”)
9. What we call a “hoagie” is commonly known as a “sub.” (What the heck is a sub? Are you eating a boat?)
10. What the rest of the country calls “Italian ice” or “slush” we call “water ice” but we pronounce water like “wooder” or “whadder” (You’ll say how can it be water and ice? Well, does Italian ice make any more sense? )
11. We put “jimmies” on our ice cream, not “sprinkles.”
12. A “MAC Machine” is what you call ATM. And saying you are going to “Tap MAC” means you need to get money from the ATM. (We do use ATM sometimes though.)
13. Seriously, does no one else call the candy Reese’s Pieces “Ree-sees Pee-sees”??
14. “Jawn” is a word used as a replacement for whatever word you need, a filler word usually meaning “stuff” or “crap.” (Example: “What’s that jawn?”)
15. Sometimes we will refer to our bags as pocketbooks pronounced “pock-a-books.”
16. We say “commeer” when we mean “come here” and “gimme” when we mean “give me.”
17. We often put “gravy” on our pasta.  No, not the brown stuff, we mean tomato sauce.
18. Some other mispronunciations: When we say “arr-anj” we mean orange; when we say “rad-ee-a-tor” we mean radiator; a “crick” is also known as a creek; a “beggel” is a bagel; when we say “lecktric” we mean electric.
19. The “iggles” are the Eagles, our football team, who are more commonly called “the birds”.
20. Our baseball team, The World Champion Phillies, is called any of the following: Phils, Phightin’s, Phightin’ Phils, Fightin’ Phils.
21. Our hockey team, The Flyers,  is called “The Orange (Arr-anj) and Black”; “The Fly Guys”; “The (Broad Street) Bullies”.
22. Our basketball team, The 76ers, is more commonly just “the Sixers.”
23. Some people think we say long O’s weird in words like home or phone. But I’ve only heard this a few times.
24. We also call our soft drinks either soda or coke, it’s not pop, cola, tonic or anything else.
25. When we are walking on the side of the road, we are walking on the “pavement” not the “sidewalk.”
26. The “Atlantic” part of Atlantic City is usually pronounced either “lanic” or “alanic.” Also, the town of Reading is pronounced like “Redding.”
27. When we are taking “The El” we mean the Septa Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Line.
28. The Speedline is the PATCO High Speed Line that runs from Philly to South Jersey.
29. If we say “ga head” or “gaw head” it means “go ahead.”
30. When we want to draw a picture prouncned “pitcher” we will use our crayons pronounced “crowns.”

Now there are some foods that are only good when from the Philly/ South Jersey area and they are rarely good when found elsewhere. I gave a few places where you can get the best food so if you ever come visit, you’ll be eating Philly’s best.

1. Philly Cheesesteak – “Wit” or “Wit out” onions, the best cheesesteaks are found at Geno’s, Pat’s, Tony Luke’s, Campo’s, John’s, Jim’s or actually most places in the city. **To order, you say how many you want, the type of cheese (Cheese Whiz, American, Provolone) and whether you want onions (with or without). Example: “One whiz without.” Have your money ready when you get to the window, don’t be taking your good old time!!
2. Philly Soft Pretzels – made only the best in Philly can be found at the Philly Soft Pretzel Factory or any street vendor, haha.
3. Water Ice is best when from Rita’s Water Ice and on the first day of spring it’s free!
4. Tastykakes are various small cakes and krimpets, and are usually found in a Wawa. http://www.tastykake.com/
5. A Wawa is  not just a convenience store. They have the best hoagies (Summer = Hoagiefest), they have the best milkshakes and the best Iced Tea, among the other awesome things they have there, like gas!
6. If you need a place to eat check out Chickie’s and Pete’s and be sure to try the crab fries! http://www.chickiesandpetes.com/
7. Other food not commonly found anywhere else in the country: Shoo-fly pie (a molasses pie), sticky-buns (rolled up dough with cinnamon and sweet icing) and Birch Beer (similar in taste to root beer).

If you have anything else that you think I should add, any questions or if I think of anything else, I’ll add them to the list. Goodnight!

Today had to be my favorite day so far. First we traveled to the Corcoran and listened to Chief White House Correspondent for NBC Chuck Todd. He was very interesting and I really liked the insight he gave into covering the world of Politics, and actually made it sound very interesting. He gave a lot of advice to incoming journalists to “show up” and “work hard” and things will fall into place.

After Chuck Todd finished, Dean Flagel spoke about college admissions. He is a really good public speaker and was really funny. But he shed a different light on college admissions for me. He told me things that my guidance counselor never did, like how there might not be only one college that is perfect for you and in fact there may be many. It made me more inclined to check out the lesser known schools on my list, because they might be the ones I like the best, and the success you have doesn’t come from what school you go to, it comes from the work you put into your work. He talked about college admissions from the college’s point of view, even though I know all college admissions people aren’t like him, I realized that the college admissions process shouldn’t be as stressful as we make it. I agreed totally with everything he said about the SATs, and most of it I had already thought of, like “what is the point if we aren’t going to take the SAT ever during college?” and the fact that good students don’t always score really high on the SAT, and just the over all ridiculousness of the SAT being so important. My English teacher always said that grades and SAT scores are only numbers, it’s the knowledge you gain, the work you do and the person you are that will determine the success you have in life, and I think Dean Flagel agrees with that just a bit. I have quite a few more colleges to visit, and I can’t wait to play “make the admissions officer cry” by asking really outrageous questions. Hmm, I wonder how it would affect my chances of getting in if I actually made them cry…haha.

After his speech we went to Pentagon City Fashion Mall. I bought a couple pairs of sunglasses to replace the ones I broke last week. Then we went over to the Capitol. I love taking pictures of the Capitol. I think it is a beautiful building and I love walking around it and taking pictures from all different angles. Taking a tour of the inside of the capitol is something I haven’t done before. It is a gorgeous building on the inside as well. We had a really cool tour guide who took us places that weren’t on the tour. He was really funny, too.

The speaker after dinner that I went to listen to was Tobin Beck. He was interesting, but I was pretty tired so I don’t really remember a lot of what he talked about. He did mention a few things about how we can tell what we people to know and what people just want to know.

The guys singing “Don’t Stop Believin'” on the bus to the Capitol:

The entire WJMC in front of the Capitol, Courtesy of Pat Mazur/ WJMC:

Some of the girls in my group on the stairs in front of the Capitol:

Favorite pictures I took of the Capitol:

Also, it seems a little misunderstanding happened on the bus today. I don’t know how I was made out to be the bad guy in the whole situation. I just want to say that I’m not mad, nor I was I mad at the time, I was just trying to explain my side of what happened as I will now. I was sitting in the back of the bus with the Smith Family (proof: video above) on the way to the Corcoran. When I got on the bus after the speeches, there was someone in my seat, so I moved up to the front to an open seat (I didn’t remember which seat because I had no intention of staying there the whole day) and I had no problem with moving.
After we had lunch at Pentagon City, we got back on the bus, and once again these people were in my seat. I moved forward to another seat, but apparently that was someone else’s seat. When someone on the faculty asked where I was sitting originally, I said in the back of the bus and I was told to move back to my original seat. When I went to the back of the bus to sit in my ORIGINAL seat, the people in my seat were like “no you weren’t sitting here, blah blah” and I said I know that, I had to move because you took my seat. Then apparently I became the bad guy demanding my seat back, and they became all defensive telling me that it didn’t matter and that I should just go sit up front again, which I had no problem with, I was doing what I was told in going back to my original seat. I, again, moved up to an empty seat in the front of the bus. I didn’t mind, nor do I mind now, I thought I would just share how everything went down from my point of view.
Edit (additional info 7/22): You might say that I cared enough about it to post it here on my blog, but I honestly didn’t then and don’t care now. One of the people who took my seat was in the room we had to share a bathroom with, and she didn’t talk to me directly for the rest of the week. I don’t mean to be bitchy, I just don’t want to be walked over, so I stood up and said that I wanted my seat back.

Today was the busiest day of the whole conference, but it was sure a fun one! Visiting the National Press Club was really cool, and so was hearing from President Donna Leinwand. My favorite part of the morning was the Panel on Political Journalism. All four of the guys (Vaughn Ververs, Chris Cilliza, Jim Brady and Jonathan Martin) were informative and intersting. I enjoyed their opinions on the “quickly changing” journalism industry, instead of the “quickly dying” journalism industry.

I have been to the Smithsonian Museums a few times before, but they are always interesting to tour. My favorite was the Air and Space Museum, I enjoy learning about space and the space shuttles and the different stages of flight. There was a point when we somehow “gained” another hour to visit the museums. Part of my group and I sat on the stairs of the Air and Space Museum and listened to all of Charles’ amazing stories. It was so nice to get off our feet and bond with our group!

Our group had more bonding time when we did a “Mountain Adventure” simulation. We had to decide which items were most important to bring with you if you were on your way to get help because a friend was injured and a storm is coming. It was an interesting simulation, but I think one of the smaller groups (they shall remain unnamed) had a bit too much enthusiasm for which items should be brought and which ones should not. Apparently, Tyler thinks that grandma’s biscuits will always be helpful when stuck on the side of a mountain.

When we split up into groups to see different speakers, I listened to Kathy Orton, sportswriter for the Washington Post. She was very interesting and she gave some good advice as to how to break into journalism and all the things she did to get where she is now. She also gave good tips about how to cover teams, get leads and break news.

After the different speeches we went to tour the monuments at night. I have seen all the monuments and memorials before, but seeing them at night was really cool. I’m interested in photography as well and I enjoyed taking different pictures during the twilight and night time of all the different monuments. I took so many different pictures of the Lincoln memorial, the Vietnam memorial and the Washington Monument in the distance with the capitol building behind it, with the sky a grayish purple in the background. Some pictures came out really well. My favorites:

By the end of the day, I think everyone’s theme song was Edwin Starr’s “25 Miles” [Lyrics: http://lyricwiki.org/Edwin_Starr:25_Miles] and everyone was thinking “feet don’t fail me now” because we had been walking around so much. It was really fun to see all the different places, again. I really like to take pictures of the monuments.

I just want to say that Group #2 – Charles’ group/ The Smith Family – is the best group here at the WJMC! Everyone in our group has bonded so well already that we refer to ourselves as “The Family”! Charles has so many funny stories we never get tired of hearing them! Tyler is always talking about South Carolina, so we are all going to go on a field trip down to South Carolina and Tyler is going to take us to Fatz to get some “Fatz burgers”, visit his grandma and taste her biscuits and then we’re all going to watch some Cowboy Pinball!! I can’t wait!

Today started with a very early wake up call at 5:15 AM.  I didn’t exactly rise or shine. I stayed in bed until almost 5:45 when I jumped out of bed and sprinted into the shower.  I made it to breakfast with only 15 minutes until we had to meet with our group.  After we discussed the days events and how the conference would be run, we went to listen to a speech by Wes Pippert, the Washington Director of the Missouri School of Journalism and former UPI Correspondent. I was very interested in what he had to say at first, but I was drifting in and out of a daydream/ light sleep during his speech, because I only got around 4 hours of sleep! Sorry! 🙁

After his speech we broke into our groups and did this simulation called “Courting Controversy” where we split into smaller  groups and each group discussed and rehearsed a court case.  It was a confusing exercise and maybe our group advisor Charles didn’t explain it right, but my group didn’t really understand what to do and didn’t see what the point of the simulation was or how it was related to journalism.

We then visited the Newseum in Washington, DC.  It is one of the few museums in DC that I haven’t been to at some point, as I’ve previously toured Washington, DC seven times. It was such a cool museum that I wish we had more time to look at everything! We listened to a speech about the evolving relationship between journalists and military personnel during war times. It was actually pretty interesting how the media’s coverage of war has changed in the past 100 or so years.

The panel we saw after dinner was also very interesting. Learning about the relationship between journalist and the PR people, other journalists and their sources was another aspect of journalism I knew little about.  Dr. Stephen Farnsworth was the most interesting panelist to me, I am considering reading his book  “Spinner in Cheif: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves” and he also had a really good quote:  “If only Michael Jackson had done songs about budget deficits…”  All the panelists had interesting things to say, and I enjoyed listening to them all.

We have a lot to do tomorrow! We are visiting the Smithsonian Museums and taking a tour of the monuments! Looks like a long day with lots of walking, I’m going to get to bed because it’s still pretty early!

Goodnight!

Hey everyone! My name is Allison Kenney and I am from Haddonfield, NJ, which is  right outside of Philadelphia.  I am just spending my first bit of free time today setting up my blog and getting moved into my dorm. Today was a busy and tiring day. I have been looking forward to this conference, but after being in the car for over three hours, I was in no mood to talk to any new people, or to begin the conference.  I was tired and just wanted to take a nap.  I soon met my roommates and my group and got settled into the conference.

After all the new blogs for the conference crashed the server, I have finally set up my blog and I am excited to post updates during the conference. I have never consistently stayed with a blog, so hopefully I can find time during the conference to write about this hopefully wonderful experience.  I plan to cover events of each day and I also plan to add photos and videos from the conference activities and hopefully have time to try out different types of journalism like articles about what I have learned or interviews with people I’ve met here.

I am a pretty quiet person, but don’t be afraid to talk to me. I think I first come off as not wanting to talk to you, but I’m bad at starting conversations, so I’m much more comfortable if you start the talking! I’m not exactly sure if journalism is the right field for me.  I know at different points when I was younger I wanted to be a reporter, but as times change so do interests, but journalism has been a recurring base of some of the careers I have had an interest in. I started with wanting to be a meteorologist on the news, changed to be a field reporter, then I had an interest in being an anchor.  Right now, I feel my main interest is covering sports, but I am also interested in learning more about politics. One of my favorite sports writers is Todd Zolecki, the Philadelphia Phillies beat writer for MLB.com.  I read his blog “The Zo Zone” everyday, and also follow his twitter feed.

I recently also became interested in going into film or TV production, but I’ve also thought about broadcast journalism or producing newscasts. I am not sure I want to be in front of the camera, I think I would rather be behind the camera or behind the scenes editing clips and sound and putting the final project together. I hope that I will learn more about the field of journalism and media from this conference and it will give me and idea of whether or not I would consider being a journalist in the future.

We started off the conference tonight with a speech by C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb.  I really enjoyed it because it was different than what I was expecting.  Mr. Lamb is older and I was expecting him to give a boring lecture, but he kept everyone’s attention by involving some of the correspondents by calling several students to the stage and asking thought provoking questions.  He asked questions such as “Why are you here at the WJMC?”; “What do you want to accomplish at the WJMC?”; “What is your definition of journalism?”; and “Where do you think the future of journalism is going?” He made me really think about why I am interested in journalism and added some good insight into the field of journalism and how he got to where he is now.

I’m running a long post here and it is getting late, so I’ll stop here, but I will continue to blog throughout the week and I am really exicited for the rest of the conference! Follow me at www.twitter.com/jerseygirl3033 — Warning: I tweet a lot! 😀