Start of Summer

Well, I moved back to btown for the summer because I got an internship at LDS Living magazine. I have no idea what to expect. I know I'll be writing articles and doing some editing and probably some fact checking. But there were some methods to getting stories done in the journalism program and I don't know if they will work in the real world. For example, in school, interviews are done on your own time so you schedule them whenever (and whenever your sources can meet). But at my internship, I'll have set hours every day where I'm in the office. Do I set up interviews during that time? Do I always do interviews on the phone or do I leave the office? Do I lug my laptop with me as I am used to doing in school?

When I moved home a week ago, I was really nervous to leave my Provo crowd. There is a distinct culture there and I'm afraid to admit I became very accustomed to it. When I moved here I was reintroduced to the smell of cigarette smoke (dont find that at BYU) and everyone up here is Ute fans. So I wear my BYU sweatshirt with pride. I was afraid that because I am so shy, I wouldn't make friends very well. But my friend Chad has introduced me to a lot of neat people and I just feel more comfortable around them. I went to a party last night and it was so fun! I know, I hate parties but this was fun. Its so nice to be around people more my age. I'm hoping I can make a lot of new friends when I start attending my new ward.

This summer I'm going to Atlanta for a journalism trip. We will be reporting on the Young Ambassadors trip there. I have never been to the South so it should be fun and interesting. Later this summer I'm going to Portland for Jess and Laren's wedding. I'm excited to see Oregon and see this lovely couple finally get married. I am also looking forward to graduating in December. I've been working on getting my degree for what feels like forever. It seems like by now I should have a masters degree.

I've realized that I can dress like a homeless person at school and get away with it because a fourth of the student body also dress that way (either cause they like the look or cause they're poor like me) but now that I'm doing this internship, I have to dress nicely (business casual) which means I have to look a little more presentable than a homeless person. Also, I cant show up late to work like I can be five minutes late to class. On a positive note, it'll be nice to know I'm not getting graded on my articles. But they do impact my reputation and I'll never improve as a writer if I always treat articles like something to just get done.

If I might be so arrogant...

I was talking with Brandon about how my Utah's 4th seat story made the front page of the Daily Universe (http://universe.byu.edu/node/14203) today. I was kinda excited. My first thought as I read the headline was "wait, that's something I wrote about" and then I checked the byline and realized "hey that's my article!"

I know it is just the BYU student newspaper. NBD. But what makes me excited that it was published is how competitive it is to get your article in this newspaper. Here is a link to the editorial written by the editor-in-chief about the decision-making process of what 5 articles make the front page every day: http://universe.byu.edu/node/14135 . In a nutshell, on any given day, I am competing with 70 reporters to make it into one of four or five slots on the front page. So its competitive at times. And I rely on my editor to try and "sell" my story well. Actually, my editor attempts to sell around 20 advanced reporting students's stories, so its not just me who relies on her selling skills.

Anyway, I feel grateful for the stories of mine that have been published this semester and for everyone who has helped me put my articles together. It truly involves a lot of chefs in the kitchen and they deserve more credit for their knowledge than I do for simply spreading the word through articles.

Advanced print reporting students learn more about story structure, and how to get better sources for articles. At least thats mostly what I've learned halfway through the semester in my two advanced writing courses. Lets hope I learn more the second half of the semester.

Anyway so I was sitting in the newsroom the other day and I called one of the state senators about a story I was doing. Some of the "intermediate" reporters were a little shocked that I would be so bold as to call a senator. I might be interviewing Mark Shurtleff, the state's attorney general. NBD. I guess once you've spent a semester in the program, you realize the following: your sources can be people other than students/professors, people with big titles will talk to you and there can be a logical organization to how your story is written.

Old blog

Here's the map of how I got to this blog post. friday night, danielle and i watched the social network. then we became obsessed with mark zuckerberg. i was reading the time article about him from last year. there was a mention of myspace in it and i wanted to go check out myspace. logged in and poked around for a bit. found my old blog from before the mish. I decided to put one of my posts up on this blog. It was written Sept 22 2006. Enjoy!

    reading brandon's blog about his summer got me thinking about mine. so here goes. my summer vacation has been one of the better ones i can recall. in may, it was all about spending as much time with kristina as possible before she left on her mission. i have been friends with her since 6th grade so she has always been a good friend and anchor for me. we both moved to ogden our freshman year of college so she was even there for me when i tried to get away from everything i knew. we went and hiked adams canyon with annie, craig and meredith. that was great. wish i had hiked more. well, actually, there was that hike with nick, scott and a bunch of other people when we went to elephant rock. thats a nice hike to do. i hope i do it again in the fall before i leave. oh and then there was country swing dancing with kristina, brad, scott, and nick. and that time i went "country" dancing with dallin. and kristinas 'non drinking drinking party' when she turned 21. anyone want some water?

then there were the times i'd hang out with brandon. well, we hung out more in the spring than we did summer but we can pretend. times like the coffee break and andrews big 21. heck, me and brandon went a few years without talking much at all, and then becoming tight again was pretty cool. it was fun to reconnect with eric and hang out at his apartment. the last time i had talked to eric was seriously like four years ago when we went and saw the ring in the movie theater. hanging out with brandon and his friends was fun. we should have hung out more.

in june, my mom, sister and i all took a girls trip down to cali. that was the best trip ever. i love cali and really miss it. even though i've lived in utah longer than california, being down there felt more like home, it felt more natural. even though i didnt know my way around. but thats ok. while i was in cali i got a call from dicks saying they wanted to hire me. so as soon as i got back from cali, i was filling out my paperwork there and started back up like three days after getting home from the trip.

i didnt know what to expect with working at dicks again. the only person i knew there still was cindy and everyone was in high school. but, all the employees in the front end turned out to be incredibly nice. everyone is friends there. most everyone gets along great with everyone else. it was just a fun place to be. and i met nick, the little bro i never had. fourth of july is all i have to say. good times with nick and ryan. then there were the long chats and the drives in my car, and playing at the park late at night. getting fast food late at night. staying out really late. killing the tires on my car. looking at the stars. watching movies or just tv. driving though mcdonalds backwards! more long chats.

at the end of august, jake left for his mission. that wasnt exactly the happiest time for me this summer but i was really glad that he got to finally leave. he will make such a great missionary. and me and brittany became pretty good friends through the whole experience. cali chicks do it better! oh that reminds me of the two interesting dates i had with nate... and then how he was talking about me at the sparkmans house. that was great. the world keeps getting smaller and smaller.

other random things that were great this summer, going for my first ride on a bullet bike was great. the concerts we went to, doing the ziprider at park city, going camping up in tremonton. tpb for life! getting my mission call this week was amazing. but i have another blog about that so i wont get into great detail here.

meeting dustin in the latter part of may was great. i only knew him for about 3 weeks but he was awesome. i am sad that things didnt work out with him, but i wouldnt be going on a mission if anything had happened. him and one other guy have given me a pretty good indication of the kinda guy i want to end up married to some day. but the other guy tends to think he is a jerk most of the time so he wont usually admit hes such a great guy.

anyway i think thats about all i can think of for this summer. it was a good one. thank you everyone who was apart of it!