2-month update

I've been back in Texas for almost two months and I've missed my blog. The drive from Washington was very, very long. It felt like mom and I were driving forever, especially through Texas. I can remember how I felt driving into the neighborhood for the first time perfectly, and how anxious I was to get home. The second mom put the car in park I opened my door and ran inside where my brother was the first one to catch me. He picked me up and hugged me and I instantly started crying. Marcy hugged me next and to my surprise, started crying too. I felt completely whole when the three of us hugged together. I hugged dad next and then all of my best friends, who came over to wait for me. Seeing everyone after so long felt surreal. It was the best welcoming I could have had. We all stayed up talking about what I'd been doing and everything I'd missed. Tina's mom took all of us (Tina, Emily, Jordan, Marcy & I) to Taco Cabana and we talked and laughed and enjoyed every second of being together. That night was also the last night we'd all be together for a while. Marcy and I left for school the next day and the day after that, Jordan moved to Oregon! Life in Corpus felt like I picked up exactly where I left off. In the next few days I hugged my friends, unpacked my apartment and started classes. Since then, things have been non-stop. My days have been filled with interesting classes and working on the Island Waves and the occasional adventure. The semester is almost halfway over and it's blown my mind how quickly time has passed. Since I've been back, I've witnessed the impact being away this summer has had on me. Aside from my writing and the changes made in the newspaper, I've felt my independence increase and my hesitations disappear. Washington gave me a small taste of what I want to do with my life and I'm excited to figure out the future. I'm already looking at internships for next summer. I'm ready for another adventure.

adios

I am officially out of Washington. This morning I woke up early to go to the paper and write my last story and put together my last video. My mom came to the office to have lunch with all of the staff and they gave me a sweet card and a bag full of Kitsap Sun stuff. I definitely choked back tears saying goodbye to the staff. I'll miss them so much. Mom and I went home and packed up all of my stuff. Unfortunately, my summer family was at a bbq, so I didn't get to say bye to them. I was really bummed about that, but I told them that I was saying, "See ya later" instead, because I definitely want to visit. Mom and I hit the road and drove through Washington. We're staying the night in Oregon and in the morning we'll drive more of the 2,000 mile trip.

last night

This was my last full day in Washington. My mom went to check out Samudra this morning while I went to one of my last interviews. It was a 19-year-old who is leaving on Saturday to spend a year long boarding across the country! He'll travel 6,000 miles with a tent, sleeping bag, small stove, water purifier, a change of clothes and his board. It's his "push for peace" and he'll be stopping along the way to speak to politicians and at college campuses. I told him to let me know if he needed a place to stay in Texas, which he'll be in around December. He was so fun to talk to and it was cool to watch him ride carrying all of his gear in a backpack. I had lunch with mom and took her to the ferry terminal. She went to check out Seattle while I went to watch a 90-year-old woman play the piano with her band in a nursing home. She thought my name was Roberta for the longest time, but she was sweet. I joked with Meegan that we saw both ends of the spectrum of life today. I wrote the article about the piano player and put the video together. I picked mom up and we had dinner and came home to pack. I'm almost done! The picture I'm posting with this blog is an awesome view that Mark, the long boarder took me to. I was kind of bummed to find this view with so little time left to enjoy it, but I'm still glad I got to see it. I'll miss the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

mom!

I was so distracted all day long knowing that my mom was on her way to Washington. In between interviewing and writing my article about rain gardens, I would log onto the Southwest Airlines website and check on my mom's flight, to see when she departed and arrived, how long until her layover took off, etc. I got to the airport around 8 p.m. and finally saw my mom a little before 9 p.m. I got out of the car to run and greet her and I cried when I hugged her, I was so happy to see her. We stopped at I-HOP for some breakfast for dinner and drove to Bremerton. I gave her a mini-tour in the dark of the newspaper office, downtown and ferry terminal and we just got back to the house. I gave a tour of that too and now we're going to sleep. She jet-lagged and I'm just tired. Tomorrow I'll work on my last few assignments and my mom will be hanging out in Seattle.

countdown

I spent the first part of the day continuing to research my last assignments and interviewing people over the phone. I got to leave early and got my tires checked and went to my last yoga class in Washington. I went straight back to the paper after yoga to work on election night results. I left around 10 p.m. and came home to start packing. I think I'm maybe halfway done, which is really nice! I definitely don't want to be in a rush to pack and leave on Friday, and I know I won't be able to pack much tomorrow night, so I thought I'd get a head start. Tomorrow morning I'm interviewing a woman for one of my articles and then I'm meeting with my supervisor to talk about the last half of my internship. And the most exciting part about tomorrow is that my mom will finally be here! This time next week will be the night before the fall semester starts, how crazy.

monday funday

My last Monday was pretty quiet. I researched my next two assignments and sent emails and made phone calls to the people I need to talk to. My editor said she would pass along more stories to cram into my last week, so that'll be exciting! I also cleaned out my Sun email and got to go to the "morgue," which is what they jokingly call the hallway filled with newspaper archives. I went home with a giant pile of papers with my stories. Today was also my mom's birthday and my sister sent me a cute picture of her from dinner. I was sad to not be with her today, but she'll be here soon and we can celebrate her birthday in Washington! And, here's Molly's story.

last weekend

It definitely boggles my mind that this was my last weekend in Washington. This time next week I will hopefully be blogging from Texas! A recap of my weekend would include, sleeping really late on Saturday, looking for birthday gifts for my mom, dad and brother, who all happen to have birthdays within a few days of each other, spending a lot of time with my summer family and getting the car "road ready." That included dad walking me through how to check all the engine fluids and texting him a picture of the oil, washing it and cleaning the inside, because it's gotten a little messy. Tomorrow starts the last week of the internship and on Wednesday my mom lands in Washington! I could not be more excited to see her!

tea

I settled up my debts with Bremerton courts today and paid the parking ticket I got a few weeks ago. I figured it might be a good idea to leave on a good note, in case I decide to come back. This afternoon Meegan, my favorite photographer who will soon be reading this, and I went to the Kitsap Patriots Tea Party picnic. It was my first Tea Party event and it was very interesting. I especially enjoyed laughing at the person wearing the Nobama countdown costume. I was nervous that people wouldn't want to talk to me, but everyone was eager to answer my questions and ask me their own. One man asked if I was married, when I said no, he asked if I had a boyfriend. He was also wearing a VIetnam Veteran hat, which is just my type. I listened to the speakers, talked to people in the audience and got some footage for my video and was able to produce this masterpiece. When I checked my email tonight there was a really nice note from the editor of the paper commending the job I did on Molly's story. I've mentioned her in my last three posts and the article that will run next week is in my opinion, more proof of the impact Molly continues to make. While she has inspired hundreds of people to donate and take action in Haiti, she has also provided a learning experience for me. My 9th week is officially over, which means only one more at the Kitsap Sun. Have I mentioned how much I'm going to miss it?

golden

So just as I expected, it wasn't easy to talk to Molly's family members today. Her aunt cried on the phone while we were talking and I felt so bad. Her brother decided that he didn't want to be interviewed, which I was a little bummed about but also slightly relieved. I could never imagine the pain he's gone through losing his sister and I probably would have cried while talking to him. The article is finished now and will be running this weekend. While my editor was going through a box today, she found a couple of silly plastic gold coins. She said, "this is for being a great intern," and tossed it on my desk. Another memento from my internship, ha ha! Tomorrow is the end of my 9th week at the Sun and after that I'll only have five days left. It makes me sad to think that the next few article I work on will be my last, for now at least, I've been joking about coming back next summer. Also, here's the Farm Camp article, please ignore the typo in the 5th paragraph. It wasn't me, I swear.

busy bee

This has been another one of those weeks that has gotten away from me. On Monday I went to a Norwegian dance workshop. It wasn't the most exciting thing, but it was still semi-interesting. Tuesday was much better though, I went to farm camp! A woman in Port Orchard hosts the camp in the summer and lets kids see what life on a farm is like. Her farm was so gorgeous and the kids were hilarious. Today was the first time I worked on a death-related article. Up until now I've never been in the situation where I had to write about someone passing away. The only thing I found that made it easier was that Molly passed away in January during the earthquake in Haiti. Of course, just because time has passed didn't make it any easier to talk to her dad and it won't make it any easier to talk to her brother tomorrow. But her dad was really positive and reading all about Molly in previous articles and reading her blog made it clear why. She was so young and had already accomplished so many incredible things. I feel lucky to be able to write the article about her family's recent trip to Haiti and to get to know a little bit about her through them.

flashback

I went to the coolest vintage store downtown today. It rained all day and downtown is usually pretty quiet, so I was the only one in the store. They had so many racks of clothing, some separated by color, others separated by decades. The store was really big and even had a a mini living room in the middle of it that I loved. I spent more than an hour looking all of the dresses, shoes and jewelry. I bought a Saks Fifth Avenue sweater for $3! Also, here's the article I mentioned on Friday.

better

Thankfully my funk didn't last more than 24 hours. Today was much better. My editor and I were both equally happy with my article, I finished my essay and I wrapped up my 8th week at the Kitsap Sun. It's been almost two months since I've seen any Texans, except for Tina, and I am missing all of them. It's less than two weeks until I finally see my mom and I can't wait! I'm excited to see my family and to go back to school.

I'm counting this as Thursday

I have had better days in Washington! Today started out great, and then wasn't so great, but in the last hour I've tried to put it all into perspective. This morning I went to a Habitat for Humanity site to interview volunteers for an article I was working on. They told me all about the house they were building and how much work they have left to do. When I was getting ready to leave the site supervisor told me that one of the homeowners of a completed house was outside working in her yard and that I could ask her questions if I wanted to. To my complete shock, she was deaf. I went from wondering how on earth I was going to interview her to wondering how on earth I had gone so long assuming that I wouldn't have to communicate with someone who wasn't able to communicate the way I expected. I felt very narrow-minded for a little while and then immediately wished I knew sign language. Thankfully, the woman was very sweet and was happy to answer the questions I wrote down on my notepad. I left with an obvious, but new realization that I can't assume everyone will be able to hear me or speak to me. I'm going to look for ASL classes when I get back to Texas. I went to the office to work on the story for a little while and then left to interview the Boys and Girls Club director about their lunch program. I went back to the office and continued working on my habitat story. My story changed quite a bit during the editing phase and that was definitely frustrating. Other frustrating things included missing yoga class, my phone not receiving text messages and finding out that I need to submit my internship evaluation essay tomorrow instead of when my internship is over. And on top of all that, I felt very homesick. But, I have a home, I have a new appreciation for my ability to communicate, there will be other articles, my paper will get done, my phone eventually got the messages and I'll be home soon. Plus, I had time to think about this while I followed an online yoga class.

la la la wednesday

It was not my day when it came to people returning my calls. I was working on 3 different assignments and only had a couple of people call me back. I did what I could with the info I got from the people who called back, set up an interview and spent the rest of the day looking up different things for the articles. I came home to change and went to yoga. Tomorrow morning I'm going to interview volunteers building a house for Habitat for Humanity and in the afternoon I'm interviewing the director of the Boys and Girls Club. Hopefully both of those articles will get done in time to run on Friday. I don't have a picture to go with today's post, unfortunately, but I'll definitely have one tomorrow!

underwater

The assignments I love the most are the spur of the moment ones that come up at the last minute. I wasn't sitting at my desk for 10 minutes before my editor asked me to go scope out a mural that had been painted in an aquatic center's lobby. While I was checking out the mural and taking some pictures on my phone, the artist, who also teaches lessons at the center came up to me and said I could come back an hour later for an interview. I got my questions ready and got one of the photographers to come with me and talked to her about the giant mural she spent a month painting. She left no piece of wall in the lobby uncovered. All the sea creatures looked extremely accurate and it was so sweet to watch all the little kids point at the different fish while they waited for their swim lessons. I wrote the article and then called different people for my next assignment. After I left for the day I went to check out a different yoga studio than the one I normally go to. I was surprised when it was inside the woman's house, but it was still very cool.

flying time

Hmm, I've been bad about posting. I actually have my planner open right now so I can backtrack and see what the heck I've been doing since last Wednesday. Last Thursday I went to a zumba class for kids. It was really cute and the kids were so funny to watch. On Friday I interviewed a soapbox champion! He was really sweet and gave me one of his buttons that he trades with other racers. Friday also wrapped up my 7th week, which is kind of hard to believe! Saturday morning I went to yoga and then spent most of the day doing some much needed Island Waves planning for upcoming training and the first issue of the semester. On Sunday I went to a Scottish festival with my summer family, which was hilarious. I've never seen so many men in kilts. Today, I worked on an article I've been researching for a few weeks and then wrote an update on a local dog park. I also went to a zumba class taught by the instructor I met last Thursday. It was funny and I'm definitely not a dancer, but I had fun. Now that I have less than 3 weeks left at the Sun, my editors are giving me every opportunity they can find for me to write articles, take photos and shoot and edit videos so that I can cram in as much as possible before I head back to Texas.

long day

It has been a busy week so far, hence the lack of posts! Even though this blog shows up under Thursday, it's technically still Wednesday in Washington. This week I visited a preschool where the Engineers Without Borders of the local college were building a new playhouse. I put together a few sections of the arts and entertainment magazine, since the editor is out of town, and I attended a marine parade and put the video together tonight. I finished the video around 10:30 p.m. and now I'm ready for bed. Tomorrow I'm going to a zumba class for kids!

whaling days

I covered the 38th Annual Whaling Days festival today! I sat and watched the 2-hour parade and the people around me laughed while I wrote down a play-by-play of the entire thing. When the parade finished I wandered to the carnival grounds and had a hotdog and interviewed a few of the thousands of people walking around. I went back to the office and wrote my article pretty quickly and came home to take a nap and have dinner with my summer family. I've been having so much fun with them and as my days left in Washington dwindle, I'm realizing how much I'm going to miss them!

new things

I feel like I've been rambling in my posts! I think it's because I want to be able to remember my time in Washington, not bore readers with all the details. I'll work on being more concise! On Thursday I went letterboxing with a pro! He led me through the forest, following all of his clues until I uncovered the container. I brought my own "signature stamp" and stamped my notebook. I wrote the article and made edits to another. I was also asked to cover a festival on Saturday, so I didn't have to work today. On Thursday night I went to the Ottmar Liebert concert by myself in Seattle. I thought it would be really awkward going alone, but once I got there I didn't care. I had so much fun and I got to sit directly in front of the stage! When I was little I used to hate when my mom played his CDs, but I've grown to really love his music. I spent my day off getting coffee, finding a used bookstore and buying a yoga block!

overdue

It's been a while! I feel bad that I haven't been posting lately. This past weekend was another quiet one with my summer family. On Sunday I hung out at Barnes & Noble and worked on my Ulvis Alberts article. On Monday I didn't have very many assignments to work one. The only thing I had to do was work on an article about volunteering in Kitsap County and looking at the different departments in the county that had volunteers working for them. I planned to pick it up again on Tuesday, but when I got to the office my editor had a different assignment for me to work on. She sent me to scope out a music video shoot that was taking place at Skateland. A director from the area, who is now based in LA, decided to film the video where he spent his childhood skating. Even know I knew nothing about the singer, who is popular in the UK, but from Tennessee, watching the process was very cool. The photographer and I spent most of the afternoon watching the filming and talking to anyone that would answer our questions. When we got back I wrote the article and put the video together while he made the photo gallery. Today I was given 4 more assignments. The first one I worked on was about the Whaling Days festival that will be going on this weekend. The next article will be about letterboxing, which is similar to geocaching but doesn't require a GPS. Instead, you follow cryptic clues to find the container that holds a notepad and a stamp. Each person is supposed to have their own "signature stamp" and notepad and you trade stamps. I was really excited to get this assignment and tomorrow morning I'm meeting a man who is trying to make letterboxing more popular. He's taking the photographer and I on a hunt, so I got us each our own stamps. In between the assignments I also met with my editor/supervisor to evaluate the internship so far. We were both really happy with how things have gone so far and will meet one more time towards the end of the internship to do a final evaluation. I went to yoga and went stamp shopping and now I'm ready to sleep. I won't let the next post take so long.

halfway

I am halfway done with my internship today! It's been 5 weeks and I've got 5 more to go. I can't believe that it's the middle of July, I feel like it was yesterday that I was taking finals and packing up my apartment. However, time is passing and I think the next 5 weeks will fly. This morning I got up and drove to Belfair to meet Ulvis Alberts. I was nervous about meeting him, but after a few minutes I was excited to be talking to someone so eccentric. His house was covered in photos, some he took, but most others took. He had bookshelves with tons and photography books, including the few he published, and stacks of CDs. There were baskets of records and it seemed like every window ledge had some sort of cool knickknack on it. The entire back of the house had big windows that faced a gorgeous lake. He sat in a directors chair and wore all black and a beret as we talked. He told me about coming to America from Latvia in the 50s and about photographing tons and tons of celebrities. It was amazing to see all the photos he'd taken and hear about everything he'd done and his future projects. After the interview I had to take my own photos of him, which I was really nervous about. Luckily, he gave me some pointers and thankfully liked the ones I took. He sent me back with posters and a couple of his prints that were all signed. When I was finally on my way back to the office, I couldn't believe that I'd spent three hours talking with him.

75

75 is the number of years the Kitsap Sun has been around. Today the office was filled with balloons and there were lots of things going on to celebrate the anniversary. There was even a special anniversary section which has given me some ideas for Island Waves. Despite all the fun stuff going on there was still work to do, because of course, newspapers never sleep. I called people multiple times to set up interviews and someone said I was persistent. I took it as a compliment. I did all the research for my articles and got my questions ready and left for the day. I had 2 hours until my interview, so I hung out at the house. My interview was really great and the guy was very nice. Tomorrow morning I'm interviewing Ulvis Alberts! He's a famous photographer who took pictures of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Cher,and tons more. I have to take a picture of him tomorrow and I'm a little intimidated. I'll have to ask him for some pointers.

tribes and newsstands

Today you get a double update! On Tuesday I didn't have to be at the paper until 2 p.m, so I slept late and bought a new book. I was only at the newspaper office for a few minutes before I was on my way to a S'klallam tribal event with the photographer and videographer. They gave me some background information on the way to the reservation, basically explaining that tribes from Washington, Oregon and Canada gather every year to make a canoe journey. They spend weeks in their canoes, stopping at different reservations along the way to rest and eat before they start paddling again. It ends with a 4-day celebration. When we got there I was a little overwhelmed because I still felt like I didn't have a good understanding of the whole thing. Luckily, I found some patient tribal elders who explained everything in detail. We stayed for a few hours and were on our way to write and edit. I finished the article and got to leave around 8 p.m. and then realized that I didn't take any of my own pictures! I'm including the link below. Today I started to work on an assignment about a famous photographer in the area, but was redirected to a last-minute story. Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the Kitsap Sun, so there are lots of different events going on. One event was getting local artists signed up for a contest. 10 artists were each given a standard newsstand and were told to redesign it. I went back and forth between the office and the gallery the stands are being displayed at all day. I watched people unload them, looked at all the different designs and interviewed some of the artists. Tomorrow night they'll announce the winner. I left for the day and went to yoga and now, I'm ready for bed!

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/jul/13/sklallams-play-host-as-paddlers-take-a-break/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/jul/14/newspaper-boxes-become-works-of-art/

quiet

Things have been really quiet the last couple days, which would explain why I haven't blogged anything between Friday and now. Saturday I got up and went to yoga and then spent the rest of the day hanging out at the house with my summer family. I watched the boys play their crazy video games, helped clean up and we all had dinner together. It's nice to spend time with all of them, they remind me of my own family and make me feel less homesick. Sunday was really quiet too, I went to Barnes and Noble for a while and read and then came back to the house and read and did laundry. Today I worked on an article about the Boys and Girls Club building a new teen center, so I got to go visit the kids in the program. I finished the article and left for the day. When I came home the dog followed me everywhere! Tomorrow I'm going to visit the S'klallam tribe, which will be really exciting!

a month!

I was happy to get some sun today when I went to a Chris-Craft boat festival. The photographer and I took the foot ferry to Port Orchard and walked around the marina for a couple of hours, talking to different boat owners and touring different boats. Some of the owners were really sweet and had fun stories to tell about their boating adventures. I went back to the office and wrote the article, wrapping up my 4th week at the paper! It's been exactly one month since I left Texas and every time my thoughts wandered they went straight to Marcy and James. I can't believe I haven't seen them in so long. Even though we call and text and send pictures back and forth, it's not the same as actually being with them, obviously. I miss them so much and even typing this makes my eyes water. Thankfully, this first month has flown and has been an amazing experience. I still have more than half of my internship left and I can't wait to see what else I'll be doing this summer. I also can't wait to get back to Texas and hug my brother and sister.

lucky lucky lucky

Today I went to cover the octopus release! I watched the aquarium director jump into the tank, coax Mr. Bob into a bucket and then watched as a volunteer lifted the bucket out of the water. While he was lowering the bucket from the top of the tank to the ground, the octopus climbed out and started crawling on the floor! It was the freakiest, but coolest thing ever! He was huge and it took 3 people to lift him back into the bucket. Amazingly, the director said there was extra room on the boat so the photographer and I put on lifejackets and climbed in. Mr. Bob poked his arms out a few times during the ride, but pretty much stayed put. When we were a few miles into the bay, the director got in the water and volunteers handed him the bucket. It took almost 15 minutes for the octopus to finally come out of the bucket and the director gave him a kiss before he let him go. It was so cool to watch him swim away. When we got back to the office I wrote the article, made all my edits and put the video together while talking to Jack and Christiana about our Alternative Spring Break plans! It was a longer day than normal but when I was walking to the car, my best friend, Emily sent me a picture of the baby her little sister had today! Her name is Avery and after seeing her tiny little face on my phone I had to stop myself from crying. I was sad I couldn't be out in the waiting room with my siblings and my best friends, but I can't wait to come home and meet her.

good feelings

Today was such a good day. When I checked the weather this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see sun and high temperatures! It'll be nice to not have to carry a sweater around for a while, and it's funny to hear people complaining about how hot it is. They obviously haven't been to Texas. At work I called people about a Boys & Girls Club article and interviewed a Fulbright Scholar and wrote the article about her. The best part of my day was when the aquarium director from the Poulsbo Marine Science Center returned my call and said I could watch their octopus being released tomorrow!! I am so excited to watch them take the octopus out of the tank, I can hardly wait for the morning! I got off work with enough time to make it to a yoga class at Samudra and it was really great. The instructor and the other people in the class were really fun, so I'll definitely be going back. When I got home, Heather was making strawberry jelly and I watched her put it into a ton of tupperware containers. I'll be having some on my toast in the morning.

oops

This is the longest I've gone without updating my blog. I won't let it happen again! Since my last post, Tina and I watched the 3rd of July Fireworks, which is a really funny tradition in Poulsbo. They were really pretty and we sat on some rocks right on the edge of the water to get a good view. On 4th of July I had to get up at 5 a.m. and drive back to Poulsbo to interview city workers who were cleaning up from the night before and take pictures. As I was leaving an old man came up and asked me if I was Spanish, if I spoke Spanish and then told me he needed a lady. I got out of there as fast as I could, completely creeped out and drove back to the newspaper office to write my article and captions for all the pictures. I came back and went to sleep for a little while and then Tina and I decided to spend her last day hanging out in Seattle. We road the monorail back and forth, went to Pike Place and the Seattle Aquarium. We were so tired on the ferry ride back, I even fell asleep. We got some dinner and watched as almost every house set off their own fireworks. She finished packing and at 2 a.m. I took her to the airport shuttle. Of course, I cried when she left and was so sad to see her go. Since I worked on Sunday, they said I could have Monday off, which was surprising. I cleaned up, did all my laundry, ran some errands and watched a movie. Today I had one assignment to work on but was having a hard time getting people to call me back. By the end of the day my editor had given me 4 more assignment, so now I have tons to work on! I can't believe that I'm in the 4th week of the internship. Soon it'll be a month since I left Texas!

on a whim

Yesterday I got off work earlier than normal, so Tina and I decided to pack a backpack and drive to Forks. We stopped in Port Angeles and had dinner and found the coolest pier with a ridiculous view! We drove through the Olympic Forest, which also had ridiculous views and finally made it to Forks. We called around to see which hotels had vacancies and booked the cheapest one and had to pull over from laughing so hard when we read the review saying, "the worst place I have ever had the misfortunate of staying at." When we got there we laughed about how cheesy it was and laughed harder when we walked into our 70s time warp. We got up early and got breakfast, passed by Bella Swan's house and went to the most insane Twilight store, ever. They had everything you could possibly think of and it was filled with fans. We left Forks and went to La Push and stuck our toes in the freezing Pacific Ocean. We left La Push and just got back to Bremerton. Now I have to go to Poulsbo and interview city workers and take pictures for a fireworks cleanup article, lovely.

fairies

Today I got my funniest assignment yet. A park host at Manchester State Park dresses up in different costumes and walks around the park, making sure that everyone is alright and having a good time. She has a giant bear costume, a pink fairy costume and a mother nature costume, but today she was dresses as Fawn the Woodland Fairy and told me she woke up early to glue her ears on. It was so fun listening to her and we talked for a long time. After the interview, she took the photographer and I on the route she takes through the park to check on everyone. She carries a pouch with an MP3 player that plays different Disney songs and a few ABBA songs and passed out magic rocks to children in the park. When I was done for the day, Tina picked me up and brought me flowers from the farmers market, ha ha, it was so cute! We got dinner and then walked out on the dock at the park by the house and watched some houses that were shooting fireworks. Now Tina is falling asleep and we're watching the end of Selena.

catch up

Yesterday was the first time I missed a blog, but it was for a good reason! I got to work early and edited my reptile video. It was annoying when I forgot to save at one point and it deleted everything, but I learned my lesson really quickly and was happy with the final product. I started working on my next assignments and then left to pick up Tina at the airport! I was so happy to see her, it was like a piece of home. We talked the whole drive back to Bremerton and she got to meet my summer family. We got dinner and then went to the movie theater to watch Eclipse at midnight, don't judge us. The movie was so good, but we were dead tired when we got home. This morning I went to the newspaper office and started working on an article about tattoo and body regulations. I called every tattoo shop in Bremerton but only one would talk to me. I also talked to the state representative and the senator that worked to pass the bill. During my lunch break I picked Tina up and dropped her at the ferry to Seattle so she could site-see. I went back to work and actually went to the tattoo shop that would talk to me and watched as the owner tattooed a customers forearm. After I was done for the day I picked Tina up and now we're deciding what to do for the rest of the night.


Reptile man video
http://www.kitsapsun.com/videos/detail/reptile-man/

snakes

Since there wasn't too much going on in the newsroom today, my editor told me to grab a video camera and go shoot something so that I could practice editing. She told me I could more or less film whatever I wanted so I started looking up events and found one that sounded cool. I went to a park to see "Reptile Man" give his presentation as part of a library program. I didn't think there would be a huge turnout, so I was surprised to see about 200 people sitting in a giant circle. I filmed the whole presentation and watched as he pulled out different lizards, snakes, a tortoise and an alligator! After he talked about each one, he invited all the kids to come touch all the animals. I'm not the biggest reptile fan, especially when it comes to snakes and lizards, but I knew I had to film them. I walked through the crowd of people and filmed kids hesitantly touching the animals and asked some of them a few questions. I interviewed the reptile man and mentioned that I had never held a snake, so of course, he grabbed one and put it in my hand. I was really scared at first, but it was actually really awesome! I pet the alligator and headed back to upload all the footage. Tomorrow I'll edit everything and post it for your viewing pleasure.

tube

Nothing too great happened today. I went to the mall for the first time, but I think I was in and out in 30 minutes. I've had a headache for most of the day, so I spent a lot of time on the couch watching Man Vs. Food. It's so funny watching the guy eat the most ridiculous things, but I was especially excited when the San Antonio episode came on! Earlier I was texting one of my friends and he asked me if I had been doing all this stuff, like playing with the starfish, alone. He felt bad when the answer was yes, but I've been having fun occasionally doing things by myself. At first I was really hesitant to go do things alone in an unfamiliar area, but I figured it didn't matter and it's been exciting so far.