Bandwagon

I figured I'd join the bandwagon with my many classmates who are doing their summer internships and blog about my experience. I am interning at LDS Living in downtown Salt Lake City. So far I have helped write some articles and learned about the tone and style of the magazine. It is a smaller team than I thought it would be but I think that will give me opportunities to pick up more skills than I would if I were at a larger publication.

Our print articles are written in Chicago Style and I'm only trained in AP style. On Friday, everyone was out of the office and I got writers block. My solution was to read some of the Chicago style book. Wow. On the one hand I found it kinda interesting. On the other hand, it makes me thankful for the ability to write creatively.

As far as exploring SLC, on Tuesday and Friday I went to Blue Lemon on South Temple. Caitlin met me on Friday and we had a nice lunch. I'm excited to eat at some of the new little places in the City Creek center and just exploring downtown. We talked about our classmates interning in NYC, about how our market is SLC and mormons, about how their market isnt mormon, etc.

Today I got home from Atlanta with Professor Randle, Kayla Frandson and Paige Guthrie. We met at the airport at 6am on Saturday and got to Atlanta at 2pm. Professor Randle let us go to work that afternoon. We were like embedded journalists as we sat backstage watching the Young Ambassadors prepare for their big show that night. We had been given topics for our articles but we just weren't sure what we were doing for the first little while. Saturday was our longest day. We were up very early to be at the airport at 6am and didn't get back to the hotel till around 11pm.

Sunday we went to church in Canton, GA. It was fun to hear conversion stories and advice on how you can go to the store on fri nights to get your home teaching done cause all the members are shopping. We went to a member's house for dinner. She has lived in Georgia nearly her whole life (minus going to BYU) and she made us southern chicken courdon bleu, spinach strawberry nut salad with lemon poppyseed dressing, mashed potatoes and amazing peach cobbler. Then we went to a fireside put on by the YA's. I conducted an interview with the teacher I'm doing a profile on (watch for a link to that later). Kayla dominated on interviews that night. I think she interviewed all of the YA's.

Monday morning us journalism students went to some civil war sites including Kennesaw Mountain and a cemetery in Marietta where many war soldiers are buried. It was crazy to find out that around 3000 of the soldiers buried in that cemetery were unidentified U.S. soldiers. You cant help but feel a different kind of reverence as you walk around this site. As we drove up to Kennesaw mountain, I tried to imagine a civil war battle going on amidst all the trees. There are so many trees that it just doesnt seem possible. I think they must have chopped down a section of trees just to have the battle there. And how exactly will they see the troops coming when everywhere you look all you see are trees? It would be one thing to stand at the top of Ensign Peak in SLC and see the troops coming all the way from point of the mountain but here in the dense trees it just seemed impossible. We had an amazing lunch at this place called Sonny's in Marietta. I had baby back ribs for the first time and ate more southern food. It was fun to drive around with Professor Randle and share comms department stories and have him explain to us why the program is the way it is. We spent the evening with the YA's at FHE with a bunch of YSA. Enough acronyms there?

Some memorable things from our trip were walking into the American Girl store and explaining to the sales associate that "we're with him." "Left turn on MOLLY lane," our smoker car. People who are always "on." Hunting down a battery charger.  Giving a stranger a ride to the hospital. Observing the wallflowers.