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:
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