Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Washington Comes to Denver: Part 5, Intern!

Being an intern means doing grunt work. It means being star-struck at the sight of real journalists. It means jumping when you hear “jump.” It means blogging until you can blog no more (no more blogs.. please!). It means wondering what to say when a senior staff member joins you in the elevator. It means no pay and less sleep.

Mostly it just means you’re at the bottom of the food chain.

But let me let you in on a little secret: it’s cool. I’m not joking. It’s an incredible experience. Heck, I’m just happy to be ON the food chain for once. That’s more than most people can say. And way more than I could say three weeks ago. You can’t start climbing a ladder without the first rung anyway.

You know what else is cool about being an intern? You can screw up. You can ask questions. You get do-overs. At this point nobody really expects you to know what to do or what to say or where to go, so it’s awesome to take advantage of that. After you’re in the industry a while, you don’t exactly get that luxury. The people I’m with know I’m an intern and know I need help so it’s the perfect opportunity to ask.

Plus, I’m getting the chance to do some low-key assignments and I’m THRILLED. An experienced staffer would probably roll their eyes at the idea of writing what I’ve been given to write – which is probably how I got the assignment in the first place. You don’t get to be choosy as an intern. Well, you can be, but your employer will probably not be terribly happy with you. And you never know where any of these bizarre assignments could lead you. You could find you absolutely love a particular subject or beat you never thought of before or you could stumble upon something major completely by accident.

It sounds crazy, but professional journalists have said over and over again that it’s days like these – where you’re flying by the seat of your pants and messing up left and right and fumbling your way through – that become their fondest memories of the job.

Washington Comes to Denver: Part 4, old blog number two

Oh, this just in: my blogs are actually posted on the other site. But they've posted so many blogs at once that they've already been booted to the second page. Here's another blog I wrote regarding political anniversaries:

It was recently brought to my attention that Senator Obama will be making his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Let’s jog some memories here, folks – that is if we can even call them memories since I’m pretty sure we 18-22 year olds weren’t around 45 years ago (although I could be wrong, I’m a writer not a mathematician.)

Straight from the ever-so-accurate Wikipedia – the March on Washington took place on August 28th, 1963. The march itself, organized by civil rights leaders, went from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial and included over 300,000 people. Then, naturally, came Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Purely coincidental? You mean that on the very anniversary of a major event in the civil rights movement a black man will accept the presidential nomination? I doubt it.

While I think it’s powerful to use the date to mark just how far the country has come as far as civil rights, I think some people might be put off by the date selection. Will this be seen as Obama comparing himself to Dr. King? I doubt that’s his intent. But intentions mean nothing – it’s perceptions that matter. On the other side of the coin, maybe many citizens don’t consider the civil rights movement to be over, and see this as just another step in the right direction.

Since we’re on the subject of anniversaries already, let’s also mention that it’s been exactly 100 years since Denver has hosted the Democratic National Convention. Last time it was 1908 and William Jennings Bryan from Nebraska was the nominee. Thinking about 1908 is astounding to me. Think about it – that was the time when rich white guys really did run this country. And all of it. Forget about women, and don’t even consider African-Americans.

According to the Denver Post, Denver was selected in 1908 “in hopes of securing the western vote.” As far as far as we’ve come in 100 years, I think that may still be the theory here. Today Colorado governor Bill Ritter came to speak to us and he spoke of a “Democratic West” which includes Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, (and some others – cut me some slack, he was speaking fast). All those states have typically been red in the past, but with Colorado leading as example by electing a Democratic governor, I can’t help but feel like that may be part of the motive.

Who the heck knows? I certainly don’t, and am certainly not pretending like I do.

Overall I think it’s rather interesting to see both the progress and the cyclic pattern of things throughout history. Heck – maybe it’ll even be the Cubs’ year.

Washington Comes to Denver: Part 3, old blog

For those who don't know, Drake students attending the DNC have their own blog here. For whatever reason, my blogs aren't really showing up so I thought i'd post them here instead. This one seems a little old and was admittedly written last week, but I thought it would be worth sharing:

I suffer from an extreme lack of political prowess. Politics and I aren’t exactly BFFs who like to have slumber parties and gossip about the latest congressional sex scandals and eat Ben and Jerry’s until we get stomachaches.

Politics and I are more like … well, something. You can insert your own flashy metaphor here. The point is, I don’t get politics. In all fairness, I suppose I haven’t tried all that hard to understand politics, either. I’m not sure who is to blame for that. If I’ve picked up anything from Washington, it’s how to pass the buck. Hmm… maybe I do get it after all.

Maybe the politically apathetic society is to blame with their “Political things are hard; let the rich guys with tons of money and no plan deal with it” mentality. That’s probably a good bet. And then, of course, you could track that back to politics itself.

Rich dudes with money.

I can see our Founders rolling over in their graves. Although, on the other side of the coin, they themselves represented the elite, so maybe we haven’t strayed too far. I like to think their intent, though, was to create a system where the average citizen could run for president, influence policy, and affect change.

Then again, the average citizen is way too smart to run for president. Let’s face it – it takes someone who’s fairly off his or her rocker to want that job.

But, as I said I don’t get politics – I don’t get the system, I don’t get the process, and I don’t get the appeal. I did decently in my political science class (which sucked), but there’s only so much you can learn out of a book that reads slower than a herd of turtles running uphill through chunky peanut butter. No, you really have to see it in action.

And that’s why I’m here, I suppose; to see it in action. So far I’m still pretty lost, not to mention intimidated by the other students who seem to be in the know and toss around big, hairy political words that probably make them sound more knowledgeable than they are. Not that I doubt their intellect, but impressive words sound far more, well, impressive.

So maybe I’ve arrived at a metaphor after all. Being here surrounded by politics, a subject I clearly know little about is like going to Spain knowing only a handful of Spanish phrases (including the ever-so-important “where’s the bathroom?” and “how much?”). It’s an overwhelming situation, and I’d better learn the language fast if I want to make the most of it.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Washington Comes to Denver: Picture Dump II

Blogger is being dumb with pictures. Here are some more.


Invesco

Governor Ritter

Pepsi Center

A blurry picture of me

I would like an Obama burger with no pickles, please.

Drake group downtown

Protest messages were chalked up and down the sidewalks.

The Pepsi Center

Howard Dean

Protesters - check out his sign

me!

on top of the city!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Washington Comes To Denver: Picture Dump

Well hello there! Blogger was being dumb the other day and wouldn't let me upload pictures. So I thought I'd do a big dump of them here. You'll see some pretty sweet stuff.

I've also decided to make a list of the coolest thing I saw each day.
Here's what I have so far:
Monday - A street performer playing classical music on the water glasses
Tuesday - The CNN Express Bus (check out the pics!)
Wednesday - T.R. Reed, former reporter for the Washington Post who had all sorts of cool stories
Thursday - DENVER POST HEAD QUARTERS!
Friday (today) - a three-way tie between Governor Ritter (from Colorado, woooot!), Howard Dean (Chairman of the Democratic National Committee), and the Pepsi center all glammed up for the convention - make sure to check out pictures of all three.


Downtown

Downtown

Downtown

CNN express!!!!

Pepsi Center sign

I thought this was cool because the sign on the left says "steel" - actually it says "steelbridge" but, still...

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Washington Comes to Denver: Part 2, Fieldwork

Today was a very exciting day because I got to go downtown to Denver Post headquarters and find out what all I'll be doing for them during the convention.

Let's start from the beginning.

I got to the building with the other people I'll be working with and I was in total awe. The building itself is just gorgeous. And we were all dressed up and everything and we just waltz into the lobby with all the confidence in the world. Yeah, right. We were really shakin' in our flats the whole time - on the inside, of course.

Someone started to make us sign in with security but then another woman came over and told us we didn't have to because "we're employees." That could have possibly been the coolest part. If I could even PICK the coolest part. So she takes us up to the sixth floor where we're in another lobby area with all of these awesome newspaper pictures on the wall and I'm sure we've established by now that I love pictures. I had to remind myself to breathe sometimes because I was gawking so much.

Then the guy we're working for came to get us and walked us through the news room a little bit (OMG! AMAZING). It looked just like newsrooms look in the movies - TVs and papers everywhere and phones ringing and reporters chewing on pencils and looking frazzled. It was SO cool. He took us to a small conference room with an INCREDIBLE view of the capitol building (which is only 100 yards away). We were in the conference room for the entertainment team for DNC coverage and there were papers and papers full of story ideas and what kind of famous people are expected to be at which parties and everything. Cough*Oprah*cough.

We found out that we'll be blogging (Meagan seems to attract blogging jobs...) for www.politicswest.com. It's still the Denver Post, but it's their separate DNC coverage stuff. I'll be blogging for a section called "Campus Campaign" which is essentially all about the youth vote and perspective on the campaign and election. For instance, Obama is gaining all these young supporters - but will they go through the hassle of registering and casting a vote for him? And do they align themselves with Obama simply because of his rock star status? Or because of his strong liberal stance? Is Obama producing future democrats? Or just Obama fans? We'll talk about that and a heck of a lot more right here. You'll find posts from me and my five other fellow interns.

We'll also get some real life reporting experience for actual stories, too. I don't know what kind of stories, but I'll do anything. All I really want is to have one teensy story in print in the newspaper. Online is cool. The internet killed the newspaper star, but to hold something in your hands and get the ink from the words in your story on your fingers... man. I would kill for that.

After our little orientation we got to go to a staff meeting. The entire staff was there and we were all introduced to them ... that was kind of intimidating, but cool. The editor-in-chief did a little "rah-rah, let's go get 'em" type of deal and then we all got pins that say "Denver Post Democratic National Convention 2008" on them. Traditionally you're supposed to trade pins for things at these conventions, but this one I'm keeping for sure :)

Monday, August 18, 2008

Washington comes to Denver: Part 1

So the 2008 Democratic National Convention seminar is in full swing and I'm back home in good ol' Colorado gearing up for the madness that will undoubtedly be the convention.

The seminar itself has about 400 students from pretty much every college imaginable - including some that aren't even in the country. I think it's awesome how people who aren't even citizens and can't even vote in the election are still so excited to be here and witness history being made.

Thus far we've only done orientation types of things. You know, the boring stuff. Bottom line: No alcohol and wear your credentials always. Not sure why they needed two hours to tell us all of that.

We received the schedule and it looks like they're pretty much running us ragged for the next two weeks. The boring lecture stuff is in the morning (some of it seems interesting, I just consider it boring because it's sitting around doing nothing instead of chasing down delegates) and then we have small group meetings for discussion about the lecture and then there's something always going on at night.

Tonight they have busses available for us to go to downtown Denver and explore and see where everything is. Tomorrow night we're doing an official bus tour of Denver, one night we're supposed to see a movie at Red Rocks, and sometime we're having a fancy reception just for Washington Center students somewhere.

As a part of the program, each student is given a "fieldwork" assignment based on their interests, abilities, and resume. I was assigned to the Denver Post which is AWESOME. It feels great to be able to represent both homes - Drake and Denver - at the convention. Official fieldwork things don't start until Wednesday, though, so I kinda have to sit tight for a while.

Make sure you check back for updates and, naturally, pictures :)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

U Gotta Love It!

Anybody who's ever spent any time in Iowa whatsoever, particularly over the summer, knows that the Iowa State Fair is like every major exciting holiday rolled into one. People go crazy for the Iowa State Fair. And understandably so. The Iowa State Fair has often been considered the best state fair in the whole country.

I was just as pumped up about this fair as the rest of the state. I'd never been before (obviously since this is the first time I've spent summer in Iowa) and it was ... AWESOME.

The fair itself is MASSIVE. Or maybe it just felt that way because I kept getting lost. But, SERIOUSLY - I was there for twelve hours and still missed out on some stuff. This thing is pretty much a two or three day afFAIR ;) I had to squeeze a pun in.

There are some Iowa fair traditions that keep people coming back year after year. For example, the pork chop on a stick. I didn't eat one, but I found people who were and it made me laugh. The running joke is that you can find anything on a stick at the Iowa State Fair. Drake pharmacy students were even there doing heartburn screenings and were giving out samples of Prilosec on a stick. No joke. There was also salad on a stick - that was new this year and kind of a big buzz item. I never did see one of those, but I saw the booth that made them in the Agriculture Building.

Another big thing that keeps people coming back is the butter cow. I never did see the butter cow (apparently I was right near it and just totally missed it). It's not just a butter cow - there are all sorts of butter things. This year there was a cow, a butter Shawn Johnson (Iowa's Golden Girl), and a couple of other butter statues. Last year there was a butter Harry Potter. One year there was a butter Garth Brooks. The butter people like to make their cow as always and then do something out of the news. Click the links for pictures.

Personally, i spent a lot of time in the barns. I LOVE animals - especially farm animals like sheep and pigs and cows and chickens and bunnies and pandas. Just joking about the pandas. I saw something about pandas while I was watching the Olympics the other night... I'm getting off topic. Back to the barns. I don't even know if I saw all the barns. There was a swine barn, a sheep barn, a cattle barn, and a horse barn. I think I liked the pigs the best. There was one pig (you'll see a picture of him at the bottom of my post) that was totally my favorite. I stopped and talked to his owner for a while about showing pigs and everything. She initially mistook me for a farmer (although, I'm not sure how considering how touristy I looked) and then explained what all is involved in raising pigs. Not a cake walk, that's for sure.

One of my favorite parts of the fair was the "discovery garden" outside the agriculture building. It's just a small, well, garden, but they had all sorts of cool flowers and butterflies I'd never seen before. And I'm kinda a sucker for flowers and butterflies... I'm a sucker for a lot of things. Don't judge me ;)

Inside the agriculture building they had all the 4-H prize-winning crops and stuff. Like eggplants. You wouldn't think that'd be cool, but it totally was. And flowers. I didn't know they entered flowers for competition. And then there were all these booths... like the Iowa Ostrich Association booth. You may be wondering why an ostrich association is even necessary in Iowa. Apparently at one point ostrich farms were fairly popular. The question still remains, though. What's the point of an ostrich farm? i should have asked.

For a few hours, I also volunteered at the Drake booth! Yes, Drake represents at the fair. Actually, I guess we were kind of all over. Admissions had a booth in the Varied Industries building (go there for freebies), pharmacy students were milling around somewhere else with Prilosec, and I was at a tent with our mascot Spike, free tattoos, the men's basketball team (signing autographs for their adoring fans... and there WERE A LOT of adoring fans), and those face cut-out dealies where you stick your head in some sort of scene and get your picture taken. It was a lot of fun and A LOT of people came out.

Gosh, there was just so much there I definitely feel like I'm leaving all sorts of stuff out. Hopefully the pictures'll speak for themselves. I might need another post just for more pictures.


She's ADORABLE. I don't care if you think she's just a cow - she's A REALLY CUTE cow.

Here it is - the pork chop on a stick. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. People were eating these IN the swine barn which I found a little tactless. And gross - who could eat ANYTHING in the barns? Kinda smells bad.

This was always my favorite ride when I was younger. Heck, don't think I wouldn't have gone on it if I had the tickets.

This is my favorite pig of them all. I went back to see him. Frankly I think it speaks volumes about my personality that I could find this exact pig again in a massive barn full of pigs that looked essentially the same but had a really hard time finding my car in the parking lot.


Baby pygmy goat nursing and wagging its tail as fast as humanly possible (well.. maybe as fast as goat-ly possible). How you can tell it's a baby is beyond me - pygmy goats are tiny anyway.

This is "Freight Train," the biggest, baddest boar at the fair ... at a mere 1,259 pounds. How does it get up?

Who wasn't looking in the view finder to take this picture. Oh, yeah... I wasn't. Chalk this shot up to luck.

There was a wooden statue of a girl taking pictures... so OF COURSE I had to take a picture of it.

In the discovery garden - these massive bees were everywhere. I don't think they're the stinging kind, though.

I stalked this guy for a LONG time. I took about 50 pictures just of this one butterfly. God bless digital photography.

MASSIVE sunflowers. They're actually kinda intimidating.

Corn has never looked so glamorous like it did at the state fair.

Here's our giant inflatable Spike. I had more pictures of the Drake booth, but they're all on a disposable camera that I have to get developed.

State's best beets. Schrute farms, perhaps? Question - which bear is best? Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. (Office reference)

One of my favorite shots of the day. Outside the ag. building there were these fountains that the kids were playing in and i stood at just the right angle to see a rainbow in the water from the sunlight. It was flippin' sweet.

Night lights at a carnival are the BEST.

Ferris wheel!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Bugged Out

I've been told that I'm a 19 year old girl on the outside, but a six-year-old boy on the inside. I think that might be true. For whatever reason, I'm totally fascinated by bugs. I mean, REALLY fascinated. And Iowa has some AWESOME ones. I think these exotic bugs, generally, like the humidity which is why I never see them in Colorado. I also seem to have an eye for them. I can find the smallest, yet coolest looking bugs everywhere.

I haven't come across anything terribly frightening ever, so that's nice. Here are the pictures:


You can't really tell from this picture, but this guy was HUGE. He was just chillin' on a wall in the building minding his own business. Gold star for camouflage ... if he were in a tree.

This little guy is super small and was hanging out on my car door. He looks like he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Half-moth, half-tarantula ... that's what it looks like, anyway.

This guy was hitchhiking all day on my car. All my errands and during work and everything. He just hung out on my car.
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