Overheard in the Classroom, Episode 2

"Come on, electrons, come on!" -A reporter encourages his computer charger

"I'm teaching young character assassins." -Dr. Roy Atwood reflects on training journalists

"Oh I'm assuming I'm gonna get a very breezy draft." -Dr. Atwood announces his expectations for our first draft which is deadlining in an hour

"I mean, this is like trying to kill a mouse and taking a sledgehammer to everything!" -Dr. Atwood weighs in on the education debate

"The short version is I don't know what I want to do and the long version is that my parents have a vineyard, and I know that in ten years I will have to take care of the vineyard with my husband who will be toiling in the vineyard." -Rosella, my roommate

I am REPORTER.

I made a conglomeration of bloopers for you! (I feel like that should be followed with "Happy Birthday!")  Take it, cherish it.



(The actual finished product is here. It's not nearly as good as this one, though. I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Work of genius, this.)

My Apartment

We moved into the apartments of The King's College on Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday but all the days are running together into years).  Now, I know "the Wolcott Hotel" probably sounded ritzy and great and, judging from the lobby, I thought it would be, too.  And it was pretty great except that I think it was built for humans when they were the size of the Borrowers. Or Stuart Little. All I'm saying is I probably could've brushed my teeth over the sink while sitting on the toilet. Not that I would but I could, you understand.

Needless to say, spacious apartments are nice.  This is my favorite part about it, though:

My spot in the window.

My view from the window.

Making a Video

Today we're putting together the video component of our stories.  I forgot everything I knew about wide shot, mid shot, close up, pan.

WHAT AM I GONNA DO.

Overheard in the [class]room

(It's like "Overheard in the Newsroom" only it's not exactly a newsroom.)

"Does this recording sound like rain or a machine gun?"

"This dude's name is Chase Lawless."

Reporter: "Do you mind if I clip the mic to your lapel?" Source: "You can do anything to me, baby."

"I am an expert sound splicer, thank you very much."

"God is a provider of donuts!"

"Instead of getting the interview, I just spazzed out!"

Using the Subway

Yesterday I got lost in the Subway. Actually, to my credit, I didn't get lost. I just I had no idea where I was going.  However, due to my excellent direction-following skills and ability to theorize about maps without the help of one, I made it safely to my destination and back without taking one extraneous subway trip.

Now that I've gotten all my self-congratulation out of the way, let me explain the real problem: Figuring out which stop you want and where the nearest subway station is to any given point. However people do it - and I assume they do - remains a heavily veiled mystery to me. WHO KNOWS? Nobody.

I got on the A-C-E blue line and realized I had no idea which of the zillion available stops and connections would land me closest to my target: Great Jones Street.  Instead of consulting a map (because - surprise! - there ARE no maps once you cross the entrance meters and descend into the bowels of the city), I tried to remember what Manhattan had looked like on google maps when I looked it up three hours before. I remembered 4th Street and it being somewhere around Broadway Ave.  Lucky for me (/sarcasm), the stop was only called "4th Street," giving zero clues as to how far east or west from Broadway it settled.

So I got off the subway on W 4th St. and ended up having to walk ten blocks in the direction of what I thought might be my target (after pleading with an amused shop-owner, "Can you PLEASE tell me where Broadway Avenue is?").  With only the vaguest suspicion that I might be in the right neighborhood, I literally stumbled upon my destination twenty minutes later. Luck? An instance of brilliant personal resource? Obviously both.

The place is Great Jones Cafe and my story will be posted on my OTHER blog soon. It's your basic run-of-the-mill restaurant feature, but it's been really fun to shoot and the people are priceless.

I'm planning on having dinner there tonight.  Lesson taken to heart: I will plan EXACTLY how to get there BEFORE departure this time.

Second Night in Manhattan

I’m sitting on a hotel bed in the Wolcott Hotel smack in the center of midtown Manhattan.  I’m wearing leggings and a giant sweater and eating veggie chips and vanilla oreos. (I am healthy college student.) Got out of the basement classroom of the Empire State Building about fifteen minutes ago. It’s 10:10 pm.  These things all add up to only one conclusion: I just had a 14-hour day: I am exhausted.  (So exhausted, in fact, that I’m acting like a five-year-old, according to Lindsay Burkholder. But really I was just sucking orange juice off my fingers when she said that.)

Here are some things I learned today:

-Journalism requires endless energy and incredibly thick skin. But will reward you with travel perks, interesting people, fairly unremitting adventure, and only slight commitment issues. If you make it. Mantra: No guts, no glory. 

-How to do video reporting. WATCH OUT, HOLLYWOOD. (Just kidding. I’m super rubbish at it right now.)  This morning at 9:00, after an 8:30 brief, we heard from Russ Pulliam of the Indianapolis Star.  He's a big-hitter in news-writing but he also spends time teaching homeschool kids how to write.  He's one of the gentlest souls I've ever met.  Then Paul Glader, recently with the Washington Post, whizbanged through here like a bolt of unbelievably-successful-young-journalist enthusiasm and told us how to do the whole "being good at this and getting jobs" thing.  Clayton Sizemore, from CNN, spent the afternoon teaching us how to make a video story. He sent us out to the surrounding neighborhood (midtown Manhattan) to "find and shoot a story," with some guiding principles such as: wide shot, mid shot, close-up, pan. We got back at 5:30, started writing the narration, recorded the narration, and then put the whole thing together to create a video story of no more than two minutes length by 8:00. Then we watched them all until 10:00. WHEW!!

-The NY Public Library is serving ice-cream at 1:00 pm tomorrow.

-The NY Public Library is full of friendly staff.

-The NY Public Library is also full of obnoxious tourists. Of which I am one. Here’s my theory about tourism. You have to embrace the fact that you’re a tourist for the first week – take pictures, ask millions of questions, look a little lost when you meet a nice person so that they want to help you “get to know the city” – and then, after a week of this binge-touristing, see if you can’t act like a native.

Well, it's about time for me to start thinking about crashing into my puffy white bed.

The city is full of sounds.