Day 12: Victory!

That's right, I have officially completed all forty hours of my shadowing. Notice how I didn't say my Graduation Project? Yeah, that's because it's not over.

Today was a day as the first: boring, in the office, watching Jeff write articles and asking him questions about them. But all of that is okay, because it's done.

I thought it was funny because Jeff and I had a discussion about what I've learned. He said right off the bat "I don't think you learned much." And he didn't mean that as in I wasn't paying attention, more that there wasn't too much I really could learn. I went out "in the field" and watched Jeff know everyone on the spot. People could tell he was writing for a paper, I learned that you have to be social in order to go to events and talk to people. I learned that small newspapers like The Advance have to have editors take and edit their own videos and pictures. I also learned that procrastinating leads to hours of work after everyone has left at the office.

In the end, I learned that this isn't what I want to do. I want to write, but not in this way. I find newspaper articles to be cheesy and boring and they can lack creativity, which is what I love the most about writing.

I'm glad to have had this opportunity with Jeff but I'm still nervous about presenting in November.

Wish me luck!

XDara

Hour Tracker: 40 HOURS

Day 11: MOOOO is more like Moauoaahaha!

That's right, everything you thought you knew about cows is wrong. Those cute little children's books that told you that "A cow says "Moo,"" it's lying to you! How can you trust me about this?

I just spent four hours in front of cows. Cows that were staring me down. Daring me to challenge their very distinct form of communication.

Remember that post I wrote about the Grange Fair that I had never heard of? Well this is that fair. It was really interesting. I'm lying, you may think one day "I'd really love to learn more about farm animals." Don't. Or, if you do, don't do it at a fair.

It's pretty scary. I don't mean "AH! Serial killer cow!" I mean it's really strange to see young people handling animals almost five times their size. It's also a little sad to see these animals that are used to being in large fields in a small pavilion. It mean, it wasn't inhuman, but the cows did not want to be there.

Jeff was covering the judging of all of the farm animals. He had told me that the day before the goat judging took over four hours. A lot of the time was spent watching cows and smelling their various bodily functions. [It was like being at a zoo but only staying around the Rhinos].

It was one of the less exciting days for my GP but I learned a lot about Al Pacas and Cows. I don't think I will ever see these animals the same way again.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 36:00

Day 10: 80's hair bands?

As I usually do, this post is late. This event happened on August 15th. YES! It was Musicfest, and it was a huge success. I was there from 1:30 to around 3:30, I only saw two bands preform and both were amazing.

Being a young person, I was more interested in the younger group, JC Satellite. Okay, I'll admit it, it's really because I'm a young teenage girl that loves to see guys my age being successful in something they love.

Before JC Satellite went on I wandered around and talked to a few vendors. One was Payton Woodcraft, she was a very nice woman who makes jewelry out of recycled leather and wood. I also spoke to some people working at the Cambridge Sound Studio's table, they are the people that organized all of the bands.

Then JC Satellite went on! So I sat down and took some pictures. Want to see?

Some things you may want to know about JCS: There are four members, Jake, John, Jeff and Sebastian. All but Sebastian are brothers. Jake is 13 and the lead singer, he also plays guitar. For his age he has an amazing voice. Jeff is 15 and the drummer, who I could rarely get a picture of from where I was sitting. Jeff is the 17 year old bassist, and Sebastian is also 17 and a guitarist. Sebastian's father was just recently on tour with his band opening for ACDC and he is their producer.

From what I could tell, they were a huge hit. Looking around at the crowd I saw people singing along of all ages. There was a middle aged man in front of me nodding his head.

I'm just going to say, they rocked! They performed covers of familiar songs like "Johnny Be Good" to which the whole crowd was singing along. I even started to sing to some of their own songs, they are easy to catch on to and just really great.

I bought their CD and I listened to it on the way home. Before I left I got the chance to talk to Jake, the lead singer. I asked him about how the band started and if the three brothers had always worked together. He said "Well me and Jeff [drummer] started it and then John [guitarist] joined later on."

Overall the whole event was really amazing and I look forward to it next year.

XDara

P.S. I also spent about an hour writing an article about the Penn's Landing concert for Jeff to critique.

Hour Tracker: 32:00

Day 9: Rockin Music and Glares Across the Room

So I suppose I should catch up on this, considering Day 9 was really on Thursday, July 29. The reason I have not posted about it is simply because I was busy, college visits and all that jazz.

Back on topic. Early on the morn of last Thursday I joined Jeff at Stony Brook Farm to interview three men. I do no recall their names but they organized Newtown's first annual Musicfest. Now Newtown can be a little notorious with its "fests" but this one seemed genuinely a great idea.

The ad is over to the left but I'll explain what I learned. The event is on August 15th, which is good because I come back the day before, and it's a free night of music. There are several artists performing, the only ones that I knew of were the Mango Men. The three men wanted the event to be free because this is the first year they are doing something like this and thought it would be best to draw a crowd of young people. Other than a free concert, local restaurants will be present to allow people to sample food and advertise the business.

I thought it was quite clever how the three men were divided up, and I thought it was really cool that a small group of very manly men was organizing this event. The first, whose name I believe is Jim, covered the music. He owns his own recording company and was responsible for getting all of the bands. The second, whose name was Paul, runs the actual event, organizing the restaurant and prep work. The third, whose name I do not recall, was the owner or manager of Stony Brook Farms, he was obviously providing the land.

I had little to say during the interview but then Jeff handed it off to me. I didn't have any questions, [I was not previously informed on what we would be doing] but I did tell them how great an idea it was. From the ad, which is young and different [and a lot brighter on paper], to the fact that the event is free. I told them that as teenagers applying to colleges and working on grad projects we do not have money to just throw at people.

Musicfest runs for ten hours and I would suggest going later in the afternoon for bands more age appropriate. It sounds like a fun night out, and I'm definitely going!

The second half of my day may have appeared to be very boring and uneventful but it was actually quite intense. I attended the Northampton board meeting. Some of the topics that were covered involved reactivating the train lines, possible inspections on alternative energy and others.

Before any actual business was preformed a captain in the army was received back from Iraq and another was given a flag on the structure behind the board's table. It was a very nice ceremony.

What I enjoyed most was the people watching. There were so many little hints at who hated who. However, Jeff was taking notes because he could not record it. Then I realized that while I was having a great time watching people...I was alone in the first row. And became extremely self conscious.

Check out this picture of all of the boring names they had! Haha.

Well I'm off to vacation. Adios!

XDara

Hour Tracker: 28:00

Day 8: Elk Sausage

So on Saturday, July 24th I went with Jeff to a Native American Powow at a local park. It was extremely hot and I was sweating within minutes but it turned out to be a good experience.

I was given the opportunity to see traditional dances. Dances of the women were not very exciting, it was like watching someone walk around. The men were far more interesting and involved porcupine hair, eagle feathers and hoops!


As for the title, I am always up for new things and I ate elk sausage, it was good and spicy, how I like it.

We interviewed the lead dancer, to tell the truth, he was not very good in front of the camera.

Something I have learned with Jeff is that you can tell when someone is really trying in front of the camera and when they can do a lot better. There are people who you can get retakes from, and while it may be annoying to hear them say the same thing over and over, the end result is a lot better. However, people like the man above say "um" a lot and don't really know what to say and tend to end sentences like this and...yeah that's it. When people do this the whole message seems less important and editing becomes crucial.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 20:00

Day 6: Ye Old Grange Fair

Ooh, aren't I artistic? That's my hand, holding a video camera, recording an interview.

I went out to a large part of land on Tuesday, July 20th. It was an interview for an upcoming, age old fair.

Honestly, it was not very interesting. I listened to this man talk about cows and horses and chicken dinners so much that my hand got tired. It was really a one-on-one thing and nothing exciting happened, that is if you don't count the exciting mower.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 16:00

Day 7: There's no buisness like show buisness, like no buisness I know!

So a few days ago, Friday July 23rd, I went to a local high school to interview the cast and director for the musical Annie Get Your Gun. I have never seen this musical and I will be seeing that very same one this weekend, my cousin is in it.

It was really awesome, actually. I have never been able to see a dress rehearsal, or any rehearsal and I loved being able to watch them sing and act. What I found was most interesting was the fact that the director, left, would loudly say things to the whole cast while they were running through the play and they would just continue like nothing had been said.

First we interviewed the director and Jeff and I asked questions about the organization, it's a summer club/organization that teaches students about acting. Then we went inside the auditorium to watch them rehearse. After they finished that we interviewed some of the leads from both nights.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 18:00

Day 5: Vroom vroom

Except the cars were not making those noises at all...because it was a car show. My God, it was hot. I was only there for about two hours and I got crazy sunburn.

I went to a local town's car show with Jeff on Sunday July 18th. We walked around and took pictures and video of some cars. A man approached Jeff and told him about his family and how repairing cars had been in the family for three generations. Jeff took their picture in front of the American de France firetruck that everyone was excited about. [It was funny looking, there was a windshield that just looked like a monocle for a giant].

We went around and looked for people to interview and we asked some of the car owners what they thought about the car show. Most of them said that this one was the best they had been at and that others couldn't compare.

Eventually Jeff started to complain about the heat as well and we said goodbye. Hopefully I will be meeting with him again this week to get more hours in.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 14:00

Day 4: Screaming at the computer

This is a very belated post. I actually went to the office for this a week ago on Monday the 12th.

When I walked in Jeff said "This is going to be really boring." And it was. I got to watch him sit in front of a computer monitor and play around with the layout and article on Quark.

The only mildly exciting thing about this was that I taught him something about Photoshop. Yay! He pulled up a picture of people holding a check and said that he hated them because when he changes the contrast the check just gets brighter and brighter. So I taught him how to select the check and then inverse it and then change the contrast. Genius, I know.

That was pretty much all I did. I went in expecting a team of people but got one guy in front of a computer. This was not what I expected. Jeff does 20 pages out of 32. Very, very slow stuff here.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 12:30

Day 3: Bicycle! I want to ride my bike!

Happy Fourth everyone! That's the first time that I've said that all day. Truth is it doesn't feel like the Fourth of July without a parade. The holiday fell on a Sunday this year which meant that my neighborhood decided to have the annual parade on Saturday to avoid traffic problems with people going to church. It so happens that I had to go with Jeff to a bike decorating contest in a local town...at the same time.

The rest of this post has been done the day after the 4th because I got sucked into the wonderful confusion that is Bye Bye Birdie in which I realized that my generation is the one most likely to relate to that musical. And the dancing, what was that?! And then Oklahoma! came on, and I love that musical but never finished it because it was way too hot to be awake.

Okay enough of the musicals. If you can't tell, I love them.

So on that wonderful Saturday morning I got up and with the help of my lovely father found the way to this bike contest just in time to meet up with Jeff. Turns out the newspaper that Jeff works for runs the contest every year, so I saw the woman I met before again [her name is Paula!].

Little kids on wheels! So cute, the weather wasn't too bad and it was really fun to see little kids ride around on their Fourth of July bikes, streamers, dogs, lights, hats, helmets! The whole shebang! I got to meet even more people that Jeff knows, I swear he knows everyone, and he and I have determined that a shadow [a.k.a. me] is not an intern because I don't do work for him, I just follow him around.

I'm a little disappointed at the moment because I took all of these great videos of kids on their bikes and I was going to make a montage but my camera wouldn't cooperate with Windows Movie Maker. I will put up pictures later!

XDara

Hour Tracker: 10:30

Day Two: Jungle Joe in the industrial zoo

Okay, so I'm up to date, I just hope I can keep this up. Today I met Jeff at the mysteriously hidden local zoo. The zoo happens to be in the same county as my grandparents and I had never heard of it. When I drove over, thank you Mapquest, I realized why I had never heard of it: it was in the middle of an industrial center where buildings were rising.

Sure enough when I got there, early, there were families making their way to the zoo. I spent a good fifteen minutes just looking around at all of the signs in the small lobby. I talked to one of the workers, Dina, who told me about the zoo's goal for a 200 acre plot of land to expand the zoo in a more permanent home. She and I also shared common ground because both of our names started with D. I got a good chance to look at two large world maps, one of prehistoric animals [dinos, extinct animals] and another of modern day animals. I loved seeing all of the herbivores' friendly faces and the toothy grins of the carnivores.

I met up with Jeff and was introduced to Jungle Joe, former police officer, wildlife conservationist extraordinaire and Batman fanboy. [I hope that's alright to say, because he really was]. The interview was about Joe's recent trip down to the Gulf of Mexico. He took it upon himself to go down with a group of people and learn what exactly people were doing to help ease the situation.

BOOM

Boom is what is used to keep oil off of plants and shores, there are three layers of plastic and it was a little confusing to learn about what with the word BOOM always coming into play. Joe talked about the pelicans and how they are being affected when the oil gets on them. Actually so much was discussed in this interview I cannot cover it all. He talked about how fishermen were being paid to skim, communities and the Fish and Wildlife services working to clean the beaches and animals. He even mentioned how they are trying to trick some migratory birds into going to Texas.

Just above in that picture I'm holding a SPOT tracker. Joe uses it so that the people who read his SPOT blog can see where he is and where he has been, this was useful for when he was down by the gulf. He estimates that down there alone they covered at least eight thousand miles.

After the interview we got to look inside the zoo where I got to pet a small, big eared Australian Fox named Frankie. I was surprised at how many diverse animals such a small zoo could have. There was an Eagle Owl that had imprinted [eh, eh Jacob fans] on Joe as a small baby bird and was hooing at us. There were lemurs! I love lemurs, so cute. It was a great experience and thanks to my AP Environmental class I knew all about what Joe was saying.

If this crisis should teach us anything it's this: oil may have occurred naturally on Earth but it was not meant to be used by humans, we only do selfish things with it. Alternative energy is the way to go, the way to be. Generations of species may be altered because of this event, let's make sure that we do our best to teach the next generation not to make the same mistakes so that whatever is left of these species is not lost forever.

XDara

Hour Tracker: 7:30 hours

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