Spring Break: Vegas Baby!

Since I'll be graduating in May, I wanted to take the week over spring break to do some traveling before I have to grow up and get a job. I decided to go to my favorite destination, Vegas! Here are a few photos from my week!

Overall Vegas was a great experience, as usual. Now I'm recharged and ready to get these last 8 weeks done!

Blog Entry #3... I think I'm getting the hang of this!

1. Mostly I visit blogs associated with my favorite shows, or travel blogs about locations I'm visiting. I find blogs to be a place of honestly when it comes to reviews, especially about things to do while on vacation. I visit blogs for the televisions shows I watch because sometimes they have spoilers that I wouldn't see online or opinions on characters and plot lines.

2. I think when it comes to hard hitting news, I would trust mainstream news distributors before I trusted the blogs I read. If I wanted to find out product reviews on a new phone or something I'm interested in though, I would read a blog before reading anything the company had to say. You have to take blogs with a grain of salt, because after all they are written by anyone.

3. If my blog became an opinion leader blog, I would have to be honest with my readers and tell them I'm getting paid for my posts. I wouldn't write a good review for an awful product, because that would reflect bad on me and you can't buy reputation. I would be sure the product lived up to everything I had to say about it before accepting a payment for promoting it. You owe it to your readers to be honest, after all they are why you're successful.

4. When I go out for my interviews I want to tackle the picture right away to get it over with. I know that the entire interview taking the pictures would loom over my head and I really want to be able to focus on the interviewee. When it comes to taking the still photos, I want to be able to show the interviewee's personality. I want them to be comfortable with the pictures so for the first couple I would follow their direction and what they envision. I think it's really important if there's something the reader would be interested in seeing, or something unique about the speaker, I'd like to be able to capture that in the photo.

1. Overall, I'm pretty anxious about writing my first feature story. While my nerves have gone down since our lecture 2 weeks ago, I have very little experience with writing for newspapers so this is really something new. With how short these articles need to be, I'm really concerned with making the story in so few words.

2. As far as things I may do exceptionally, I am really confident about my interviews. I know the questions I need to ask and I know when to let the interviewee tell their story. I'm confident I can tell the stories of my interviewees well. I'm also confident I can compile all the information I need for the article and be able to distinguish what is important for the feature.

3. I'm not as confident about my interviewee's. As I have never met these people before, I can't be sure that they will be forthcoming with information, or that I will be able to get enough from them to get a good story. I hope that I can make them feel comfortable enough to give a good interview.

4. From the video shoot, I noticed mostly how Nazari framed his shooting. After taking Film and Video Aesthetics, I learned the complexities of shots with the camera. I could see some of the things he was doing. Mostly though, Nazari did what someone in his profession is supposed to, let the shot come to him and the story tell itself in the frame. I enjoyed watching him, and how quickly he got what he needed.

Practice makes perfect, right?

A. As a PR practitioner, I know that my job will be to communicate between my organization and its key stakeholders. I will be the go-to person when my organization has something newsworthy. Whether it's good or bad, I will need to handle the information released and be sure to act swiftly whenever something does happen. PR practitioners must be good writers and have the ability to work quickly on their feet.

B. Before coming to class Monday, the thought of writing an article intimidated me quite a bit. I'm comfortable interviewing, but to actually sit down and create a story seemed out of my grasp, especially 5 of them! After professor Housers talked about his interview with Peter Wu, I really feel like this is do-able. Professor Houser broke down his process and helped me to see that I have the tools necessary to write these articles. The thing that made me most uneasy was "creating" a story from the interview. What professor Houser did in his story, was let the interviewee give you the guidance. He found that Peter Wu was famous for his massive amounts of homework, and played off that to make the a very short article come full circle. With very few words, Houser was able to tell a great story, and give me something to really think about going into my interviews, in addition to a boost of confidence.

C. So far I am very content with my team. We seem to have different strengths which will be helpful to work off of when we're having difficulties individually. I'm confident in my personal strengths but when it comes to my weaknesses, especially with design and things like that, I have no experience or confidence, so I'm happy we have such a well-rounded group. As far as a weakness of our group I would have to say time. We only meet once a week in class and all have jobs. Also, with the addition of a new member we have yet to meet, we're really going to need to communicate well.

D. In terms of growth as a practitioner, I am very excited for this project. I really feel that it will give me a chance to show off my strengths, as well as work on the things I lack experience in. As a practitioner, writing is key and I hope to show off my abilities and use this project in my portfolio when I enter the job force. As I will graduate in May, time is crucial, and I like knowing I'm not wasting my time with a project of this magnitude. I really hope the end product is something to brag about!