Day 1: Washington Crossing

Yesterday, I know I should have blogged about it the day it happened but I went to go see Eclipse, I officially started shadowing Jeff, the editor of a local newspaper. After standing around for about fifteen minutes, the receptionist had no idea who I was looking for and just let me in, I met a woman named Petra [pronounced Peetra, she and I had a great conversation about people mispronouncing our names]. She sat me down and with Jeff's absence told me her schedule for that day and how she was going to go about writing the article. She even asked me to decide which order the topics would go in: Road Improvement, Video Broadcasting and Wind Power. I chose this order because road improvement is the most relevant to local people because it will affect them the most and wind power is a long term effect that may not happen for quite some time.

A bit later Jeff came in and got organized. Despite the fact that he is an editor his desk is just like everyone else, even his manager has the same form of desk. He introduced me to this woman, whose name escapes me, but her office was in a separate room, I guess she is important. She was the first of many to tell me that Jeff was the right man to shadow.

Okay I have to move faster...Then we went to Washington Crossing where there was a signing of this document. The situation was this: The park usually gives interpretative tours to members of the community and school trips, this means that reenactors teach people about the history of the park. However, with the government cutting funds back in November these tours stopped. Then a group of about fifteen people got together from the community and volunteered to run the park for free. So the event I went to was a signing of a legal document that allows the group to run and redo the visitor center. There was also a "ribbon cutting," which was more like George Washington cutting a rope with his sword.

I got the chance to see Jeff in action, I swear he knew everyone. He asked for statements, was friendly, and, to my surprise, was recording the whole thing. I asked him later how he managed not to take notes the whole time and he pulled out a clunky recorder, it amazes me how he hid it. Before the rope cutting I was given the task of using the video recorder to well, record videos of speeches. I admit, my finger did slip in front of the camera once.

Then came the stressful part, Jeff actually knows what he is doing! Which is great, but I was taken by surprise when he said things like "What did you learn? What would your lead be?" Now, I am not an "on the spot" writer, I need time to think. I can only hope that I will get better at this.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 4:30 hours