Might as well tell you now

I didn't make it to the top five in the Hearst Journalism competition. At least they threw in some cash to make it worth my effort. That certainly helps. And top ten isn't too shabby... But I really wish I could've gone to San Francisco.

Lame.


UPDATE (later today): I'm pretty bummed about this. It sucks to have worked so hard only to not make it another round. But I really don't want to be negative about it. I forced myself to be positive, in fact, by responding to the email. That's something Bitter Lydia would never have done (I mean they just rejected me, what am I supposed to say?) but I wanted to be a good sport.

Dear ----, 


Thank you for notifying me so soon. Of course, I am disappointed to not advance to the final round, but pushing myself to create new pieces for the semifinal has helped enrich my portfolio. I am also extremely grateful for the monetary prize - as a freshly graduated student setting out towards an unknown future, it's nice to have some added security. Finally, it was an honor to be invited to participate in such a prestigious competition. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. 


Sincerely, 


Lydia

And I really did mean it. I truly am grateful. That a group of important people would decide to give me money just for doing what I do best is incredibly generous. It kind of blows my mind.

The lady from the Hearst Foundation responded and she was really nice, she commended me for being positive about it.  I am so happy for how far I've come. I just need to remember that.

And go splurge with that award cash. (kidding!)

UPDATE: Here are the final results. It was really an interesting mashup -- two of the fourth-place winners made it, but the top two finalists in the features category didn't. Oh well. Grumble grumble.

You'd give this girl a job, right?

Right?

I did a photo shoot with the multi-talented Lizzy Early last week. I needed to send in a good head shot for the journalism competition, and then we sort of got carried away... I didn't mind, cause I've never had senior photos. There, that's a first for me!

Hmmm, I've got a good feeling about the next round of this competition.

Back in the saddle

More literally than you may think actually: I've got an interview Thursday with a rancher-man who helps former inmates return to active life once they're released, by training them on his ranch. I'm pretty excited :)

Oh hey

So... I won a national journalism award. Check it out.

Crazy!

Also, that's probably why I've been MIA this whole semester. Internship's going well, radio's going well, and I have zero free time, ever. I'm exhausted and honestly a little bit burnt out right now. But I really want to go to San Francisco to compete in the final round of this journalism competition, so I'm going to rest a little and then kick myself into action. 

Opinions

I fear my big mouth will get me in serious trouble some day. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really cut out to be a journalist, because it's so hard to report both sides when one of them is obviously dumb as rocks...

You know?

But it has to be done anyway.

First Day of Fake School

Well yeah: no classes, no homework. Just a sweet internship, anchoring, and a job I love!

Probably the only perk of getting up this early: watching the sun rise. Or sleeping on the bus. Or both.

Hey look!

I'm a real person!You should hire me :)

Story. of. my. life.

From Overheard in the Newsroom:

Editor: “We need a new way to mark stories. 
Instead of ‘Ready’ it should be, ‘I’m just tired of looking at it.’”

Uh oh

I'm working on an investigative report right now. Woohoo! We're talking bad guys ripping people off and it may end up involving a GRAMA request. Real stuff in the making. I have Jourdan to thank for the tip, by the way.

In the meantime though, since that's a little bit more involved than just an afternoon of interviews, I have another story for tomorrow that's shaping up quite nicely. And I'm finally anchoring live tomorrow! Tune in on KBYU (channel 11) at noon to see Jenné and I work our magic :)

More stream of consciousness

I know I've complained too much in the past months, but life is really good these days. Plans seem to be materializing, things seem clearer.

I love my classes--without exception, and it's crazy that it would take until my final semester at BYU. I love reporting, I love anchoring (we're finally going on air this week! Watch at noon on KBYU channel 11 or catch it later on the ElevenNEWS website) and I love my international media systems class and my world religions class (I highly recommend taking them concurrently by the way. Random how that worked out) and I even like my advanced writing class, which I was kind of dragging my feet about. Crazy! And somehow, even though I'm ridiculously busy, I don't feel overwhelmed. (Yet.)

Also, I went for a nice sunset drive tonight and picked flowers and did plenty of homework this weekend and... lots of good stuff.

Oh, and did I mention I found a navy blue blazer that looks great and cost only $21? Yup, you read right. For all of you fellow broadcasters, check out Forever21 for a crazy selection of blazers all the colors of the rainbow for under $30. It's broadcast heaven. And new mascara is nice too. Isn't it sad that you only get to appreciate a new mascara wand once though?

Ha ha

Seriously. Life is good. And since it's Sunday, here is my latest favorite thing from the Round Table. It's a great podcast in general, you should definitely check it out. And here's my new favorite mormon message--this guy is too sweet!

Newsfeed

Why hello there.

So I've been thinking about doing some sort of daily "news selection" posts or at least recommending articles somehow, but I didn't want to overload the blog with news everyday either. I think I've found the way to do it.

I just added a "Newsfeed" widget over to the left here that shows articles I've shared in Google reader. You can click directly on the last few links or go follow my shared items in Google reader. I seriously recommend Google Reader to begin with because it's such a simplified way to get all your news--although it's kind of hard to wade through the information overload. I'm still trying to find a way to narrow down the articles I get. For example, the Deseret News only has one RSS feed for the entire site so I get EVERYTHING they ever post... kind of obnoxious. But we'll get there.

Anyway, if you want more news but don't know where to start I've begun sharing stories I find interesting/relevant/important. It's kind of an exercise for myself, really, so that I'll get better at sifting our what is newsworthy and what's not. But if you want a daily dose of local, national and international news with a little bit of culture, religion and fashion thrown in... go on over and follow my newsfeed if you dare :)

And if you're interested in creating the widget for yourself, go here.

And it's definitely past my bedtime now. Good night.

On the importance of keeping up on the news

I got burned by a current events pop quiz today... Never again.

So I've finally seriously committed to Google reader and added a few RSS feeds. I might have to move it around in the next few days, but this should do the trick... I hope. I am very grateful for modern technology: RSS feeds are a fantastic way to keep up with what's going on.

And I've mentioned this before, but World Crunch is a seriously awesome website. They are dedicated to translating a selection of news stories from around the world into English. Also, I kind of want to work for them.

Stroke of inspiration: that is a job a stay-at-home mom can do "fingers in ze nose" as my english teacher in France used to say. Ha ha. She had difficulty grasping the concept of transliteration versus translation... it's a french expression akin to "piece of cake."

Anyway. This article is interesting, from Le Monde -- a portrait of a Libyan rebel leader. And perhaps a  glimpse of what the future may hold.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the audition went.... ok. I left at a perfectly reasonable hour, but the bus decided to not show up for another solid fifteen minutes so I ended up sprinting across campus and arriving late, red, frazzled and with my hair in a mess. Did I mention frazzled? I did fine, apart from my hair falling into my eyes every three seconds... Oh, and aforementioned pop quiz was part of the auditioning process... Yeah, should have expected that one. I'll have results before Monday HOLY CRAP I JUST CHECKED MY EMAIL.

I got it!!! 

(I think I can allow myself a few extra exclamation points right now.)

I got it!!

I got it!!!!

This is one of those days where this blog is rather appropriately named. My last semester of school is going to rock.

"Silence radio"

has it already been a week? yikes! actually, I have nothing to say, I've just been soaking it all in lately. It's good to be back. I'm slightly anxious about the upcoming year and having to be a serious person again. I'm excited for advanced reporting, but I also know it brings stressed-out-of-my-mind feelings with it... and I also very much want to be an anchor this year. Also, I came back from France with quite a few extra pounds of... we'll call it body mass. Hence the trying not to eat too much lately.

Oh, and we celebrated our second wedding anniversary Monday by watching the last Harry Potter and having dinner at Zupa's. Harry Potter was awesome. (Andrew is too, of course)

And I finally get to go back to the hairdresser's this weekend! Getting any sort of service in France is... not cheap. Thank goodness for hair school.

There, you survived a series of completely mundane sentences. Well, the anniversary wasn't mundane. It was awesome actually. Isn't my life so exciting?

(Insert plenty of things about failure that I almost wrote publicly on this blog. Awkward.)

Subject change!

Check out the new apartment (not entirely settled, but getting there. And I'm aware the photos aren't great quality, but hey the place isn't even finished yet. I plan to have a proper housewarming first):

Couches -- plural! 

You mean I get my OWN closet? Gasp!

A pantry just for us? Aw shucks

We're getting there

 Come visit why don't ya!


Oh, did I mention my back was KILLING me for the past month or so, and going to a chiropractor just made it feel worse? Awesome!

Les tatas

Just did my first MWP interview today, with some of my favorite people ever: my aunts Adeline and Veronique. Now I won't spoil anything yet, you'll just have to read when it comes out! But I can share a few photos:

Teenpreg

That was the "slug" (short name or identifier for a news story) for my very first story at BYU Daily News. Yikes that was a tough one... Anyway.

I just stumbled across this today. A teen Latina faked her own pregnancy for her senior year as a sociology project/experiment. Only her boyfriend, parents and principal were in on it (not the boyfriend's parents mind you). The article is of course very flattering and she's portrayed as a hero. And she certainly is very brave, but my question is... well, why? She says she wanted to study people's reactions, gossip and all that sort of thing, but it seems like she didn't learn anything very new... wait, you mean teens gossip about girls that get pregnant? She could just as easily have surveyed pregnant teens around her. I mean, why not, but it seems pretty damaging to the rest of her family and her boyfriend's family. The biggest attraction about this is its shock value if you ask me: She did WHAT?! Anyway, regardless of the value of her experiment, I though the following comment brought up an interesting point:


"I would never have dared to get pregnant in high school because the social stigma was so great and I knew how completely crushed my parents would be. (Instead I went to Planned Parenthood.) Unfortunately, the social stigma has now loosened to the point where three of my nieces (children of white, middle-class, educated, still-married parents) had children too young and without being married....and they and their children are suffering the economic consequences. 

Gossip and stigma are used to enforce social rules - for good and for bad. In the case of unwed pregnancies, the pendulum has swung too far in terms of acceptance because the acceptance is a big part of what keeps teens from being careful about pregnancy in the first place."


What do you think? In being more accepting of practices we consider wrong, do we end up condoning those practices? Is there actually value to gossip?


EDIT: I think what I meant was more along the lines of "In being sensitive to the feelings of those who have made choices we condemn, do we end up condoning those practices?" 

Bye bye

I'm leaving a lot of things behind right now.

America, for one. Not permanently, and I am terribly glad to be returning to France, but I'm leaving the country for three months--that's a long time away from what I've come to consider a home. It'll be really good for me to go back to my roots for a time though.

Dance too. That one's really depressing. I know I'm the one who decided to quit, but I'm still pretty bitter to be honest. Oh well.

We finally took the plunge and threw out most of our trophies (after pulling off the labels--I plan on putting them on a plaque so we can have a little something to remember it all, but that will have to wait till after France).

Most of mine are bogus ones from mini comps, but some of them represent real achievements for both of us--like the time Andrew and I placed higher in standard than we had ever done separately. That was awesome. And the first time I placed in an open final ever--one week after my wedding by the way! Oh and there's the one shaped like a cruise boat we got on our honeymoon for performing in the talent show. Ha, we're such stage hams that we couldn't resist showing off even on vacation :)

It was pretty depressing to see them picked apart and thrown away just like that. It felt like some sort of metaphor for my dance life...

Our apartment is another thing we're leaving behind. We're starting to pack in earnest now and it's a little overwhelming. It's also a lot of fun to go through our stuff and remember things we had forgotten.

This was the first-year-of-marriage-newlyweds apartment. They say you never forget it. And as glad as I am to be leaving this ward (nice people and all, but 8 AM church combined with people with whom we have little in common made it a pretty miserable experience.) and getting a place with a bedroom that actually has space not entirely filled by the bed, I'm sure I'll miss it very fast--or maybe a better term is nostalgia. I'm sure I'll feel a great deal of nostalgia about it. Someday, we'll drive our kids to Provo and show them BYU and drive by here and say "we lived in that apartment right there!"

On the other hand I will be seeing my family again, and it has been a long time. And I really get to see everyone: my aunts, my grandmother, both of my uncles, and I plan on visiting more extended family that I haven't seen since I left home.

And of course, I'm moving towards a future with a much greater potential for success than the BDC ever gave me: if I can really pull off this documentary, I can make a valuable contribution to journalism. And of course, how awesome will it look on my resume?! "Oh, I spent a summer talking to French Muslims and government officials about Islam in France and the implications for western societies like the U.S."  BOOYAH!
And hopefully, next year after an internship in Salt Lake (I'm dead set on KSL. It's also the most competitive internship in the market... but dang it they'd better take me! I'll just have to prove to them I'm their woman) we'll be heading to D.C. for another short internship, and how awesome will that be--D.C. the summer of an election year? Gah! I'm excited out of my mind just thinking about it.

So plenty of good things, but it's still sad to leave a lot behind.

And this is where it starts to sink in

Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. I'm so excited. This documentary is going to ROCK your socks off.

Also, I'm completely overwhelmed. I'm nervous about getting everything I need in just three short months. Gah!

And also getting everything I need before leaving. Holy cow.

Lots to say

Just finished writing a paper about Virginia Woolf. She's pretty much my hero. I love her style. I love what she has to say. I love having some money and a room of my own. I am so grateful for the independence I have, for the fact that I grew up in a time where I can chose to do what I want, even though it may not always be all that easy.

On another note (I think I use that phrase too often) I just came across this article. Go read it, it's good read and a fast one too. It was kind of nice to get a Mormon shout-out, but I can't help but think about something else. It must be lame to always be known for your more wacko elements. When some crazy polygamist gets arrested for raping little girls, nobody pickets on temple square and talks about the evils of Mormonism--not really that I can think of. But in the case of Islam, the stories of terrorists and extremists paint our every day perception of a religion many Americans know nothing about, and then our representatives go on jihad (ha ha) to expose the dangers of Islam or something. Extremism in any religion or political orientation is dangerous, but somehow Muslims got the raw end of the deal on that one. There's a lot I don't understand, and there's also a lot I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it all out here.

And this is part of the reason I've decided to embark on my next project. I am VERY excited about this.

I've gotten the permission to take a camera with me to France, and I have started preliminary work on a documentary (how much I can get done will dictate how long it is) about the integration (or lack thereof) of Arabic populations in France. Of course, with a culture so intimately tied to Islam there will be discussion of Islam and how modern-day Muslims mix religion and work, school... I'm still working on focusing down my topic.

I just feel that this would be very relevant to Americans because we're at a point where we're wondering how to live with this unique culture in our midst--people are scared, don't know, maybe don't understand... In France, there has been a large Arab population for decades--the last number I heard was that France had a 13% Muslim population, and that was several years ago, I'm sure it's grown quite a bit since then. The cohabitation has not always been smooth, and there are many issues that I hope to explore, but I think it would be enlightening for any American as well to see how Arab populations have transitioned into a very western culture. I think that this topic is extremely relevant given what we see in the news every day right now, and looking at how the transition was made in France could give us perspectives on how it will, perhaps should or shouldn't, happen here. My intent is not to pass judgment on a religion or a culture but simply to observe how it's being lived in a country not so different from our own.

Anyway, that's my big project for the summer. I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. I may just come out of it with a few two minute news stories, and maybe I'll get a half hour out of it, but either way it will be very interesting and a great experience. And maybe, just maybe, I can pull this off and it'll be amazing.

Documenting a revolution

I am just amazed at the efforts there have been in the events of the past weeks to document and preserve the stories and voices of the Egyptian revolution. We still don't know what will happen, it will take time for Egypt to reorganize itself, but it's inspiring in the meantime to read and hear the individual accounts and feel the general spirit of hope for the future coming from the Middle East. Perhaps I am hopelessly naive, especially since there are so many unanswered questions at this time, but I love witnessing the conscious process of collecting the stories and compiling a history: in many ways, it's the creation of a new identity for a whole new generation.

Here are few projects that I've heard about:

http://egypt.alive.in/
And particularly interesting was this account of a man called the "Revolution Singer" (warning: there are some relatively graphic images) http://egypt.alive.in/2011/03/10/rami-issams-revolution-singer-testimony-of-his-torture-by-egyptian-army/

A feature on the women of the revolution on Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/02/2011217134411934738.html

A play inspired by true stories from January 25th events in Egypt; it's still in the process as they are collecting testimonies to create it. http://www.tahrirmonologues.com/

Still more papers to write

Isn't that why I became a broadcast major?

I'm the type of person that loves to write... and typically hates to write if told to.

This may or may not give you some insight into my toddler self.

On another note: actually being allowed to cite sources like "The Blaze," blogs and "Patriot Action Network" is one of the really fun perks of being a comms student :)