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.