Mr. Lane Goes To Washington

That's what my friends have been saying. Personally, I like the title "The Emperor Goes To Washington," but maybe that's a bit esoteric.

So here I am staying at the Meridian at Braddock Station in Alexandria, Virginia. While I can't see the National Mall from my ninth floor enclosed veranda, I can see it when I go over to the other building's sixteenth floor penthouse to talk on the phone.

I try to be seen and not heard when I'm with my three roommates. You know, if I dial someone on the phone for a conversation, I walk around the building and go to that penthouse in the other building where no one usually hangs out and chat away. Although last night, there was a woman in there on her laptop. Since I'm the courteous type, I asked her if I would bother her with my phone call. I almost had to shake her to get her attention, so that right there should have been a sign that I wouldn't.

The phone call and the writing of this blog are a sign that I'm bored. It's the weekend; my internship starts Monday at 9 AM sharp. I think I'll arrive at 8:30 AM, because I have a habitual fear of being late. I think it comes from my childhood where my mother would always arrive late places. But, see, she had a theory that if you left five minutes late, you could make up that time by speeding down the highway and then arrive at your destination five minutes early.

Speaking of time warp, when I left my sister and her husband's house in Toledo to fly out of Detroit to Washington DC, the flight went west to Chicago. Because of the time zone change, it only took three minutes. Ha! Yeah, but I didn't get that. Why did the plane have to fly to Chicago to go to DC? That's cartographically inconsistent. Why couldn't it fly out to DC from Detroit? They don't call it an "international" airport for no reason.

Yeah, speaking of international, my immediate roommate is from South Korea. He's a nice guy; he's obviously in the international affairs program. He's an ambitious fellow because he's here in Washington, not to get credits to graduate, not to "see the world" or whatever. He's here to improve his English so that he can get ahead and get a better job when he goes back to South Korea. Talk about enterprising and gutsy.

The other roommate I have is a postgraduate studying to be a lawyer. He's from Philadelphia and spent time in Boston. The other roommate is from Boston and grew up in New York. So, you hear the accents pretty thick, and they talk about microbreweries and how parochial the people in Maine are. It's like a different America when I'm around these guys. There really are different cultures when you divide the nation by mountains, rivers, and the Mason-Dickson Line.

I mean, I like the guys. Don't get me wrong. I like the other roommate a lot because he uses the word "schmuck" inordinately. That one is in the law enforcement program interning with the US Marshals.

Yes, I did bring a camera with me. I'll take pictures later because I'm a little unsure of carrying out a bunch of stuff with me when I'm in the city. I don't want to look like a tourist; I don't want to look like an easy target. I'm still feeling out the city. The multitudinous, heterogenous population still consternates an ol' country boy like myself. When I feel like I know what I can expect from the masses out here, I'll start to tote around more of my hundreds-of-dollars belongings. You know, this isn't Will Rogers Boulevard with a single mom with a stroller waving at you as you walk by anymore.

So there it is. I'm a little nervous about getting mugged. But the thing is you're not going to get robbed of your time if you spend it reading here. Stay in touch for more in the serial called "Mr. Lane Goes To Washington."

Prelude to the Journey

The stream of humanity flowed past me as I enjoyed my succulent slice of sausage pizza from Geno's, one of the Central Mall's restaurants in its modest food court. Since this is Fort Smith, Arkansas, the stream of humanity trickles rather than flows. Now, a real flowing stream of humanity will be seen when I go to board my first Metro here in a mere two weeks. Thanks to the Washington Center, I will be working on video editing as an intern for Voice of America.

Right now, I'm still a face in the crowd, like the stream of humanity that walks by. Admittedly, my face has become a little more conspicuous because the hometown newspaper printed a story straight from my college's public relations department about my internship through the Washington Center.

Landing this Washington Center internship accelerated my life. Within the past two months, I've taken my last finals ever at Rogers State University. I moved out of my one bedroom house that was my "Fortress of Solitude" for three years. I worked my last shift for my college TV station's master control. I hosted my final radio show in studio (I'll still be broadcasting from Washington DC). I bid adieu to my friends at Rogers State University. These were experiences I was to have in six months since I graduate in May 2011. Instead, all of the finality of May swooped in early on Santa Claus' sleigh.

I also feel this internship with Voice of America is going to accelerate my development by more than just six months. I feel like I've shaved five to ten years off of my ultimate goal of becoming a radio talk show host. I know what you're thinking: how does a video editing internship parlay into experience in radio. And I'll tell you exactly what I told one of my college's deans in the interview process that swung their votes to me as their representative to Washington: today's media is all about convergence. With the advent of the internet, newspaper websites have video content; TV websites have written text. Radio websites have pictures. Magazine websites have podcasts. In this age of convergence, being versatile in any media will help land you a job in any medium that you choose because A) you're harder to downsize and B) you're harder to refuse. That's how toggling over hue settings on dubbed over video packages for Voice of America is going to ultimately help me sit behind a microphone five days a week.

The opportunity before me is exciting, but I must confess it has knocked my goal off of its axis. Before this internship, I thought the region of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas was open to me and I would have to work my way up. Now, because of this internship, I feel like the whole world is open to me. In American football, on a kickoff return, all it takes is one key block to spring the returner for a touchdown run. The Washington Center has thrown me a key block and it's up to me to spring this opportunity for a big return -- running to my ultimate goal for all to conspicuously see.

I Looooove New York!

April has been an excited month! The weather warming up made my weeks more enjoyable. The first weekend, I enjoyed the Cherry Blossom festivities. Cherry Blossom is the name for the flower of cherry trees. I never know about cherry blossoms till I came here. The cherry blossoms are so pretty. The arrival of spring begins with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, a tradition that showcases over 3,000 cherry trees that derived from the city of Tokyo. The Festival is an annual two-week city-wide event featuring many cultural performances, special events, and bringing in an abundance amount of tourist.

The second weekend, I took my first trip to NEW YORK! A couple friends and I took a 4 hour bus ride up. $36 round trip ticket. I was so amazed, the city is big, the buildings are huge and there are so many people! We did a lot of walking around through Times Square. We also visited the Rockefeller Center area and went by the NBC studios. I had my first New York strawberry cheesecake, which was so delicious and also a big slice of New York pizza. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t to kind. It rained for the most part of the day on Saturday, so we went to the Museum of Modern Arts. We went to New York just for a couple of days, because we wanted to be back in DC for Easter Sunday. We went to church that Sunday and went out to eat for dinner. I must say New York is a place that I most definitely have to visit again.



















The third weekend started off great. My advisor bought tickets for our program to attend the Washington DC Nationals baseball game. My first professional baseball game and I had such a great time and the weather was even better. I had so much fun watching the game, eating sunflower seeds and cracker jacks and being apart of the crowd participation, trying to get on the big screenJ. Too bad the Nationals lost, but after the game there was a nice display of fireworks.

Erica

Overwhelming Experience

The past couple of weeks have flown by. With little less than a month left, it feels like there are so many important things to get done and accomplish for my internship, class, TWC and for school. Including trying to make my last month in DC an enjoyable and memorable experience with all the friends I’ve made.


Class is still going well. I made an A on my mid-term, so that was great! We have a final project that is due May 7th; those that are graduating are due on an earlier date. For the project we have to research an incident that created ethical issues for the media. Our teacher gave us a list to choose from. I’m doing my project on the Richard Jewell and the Olympic Bombing incident. I plan on getting started on that ASAP.

Things have been going okay at my internship. My supervisor gave me a project to do during down time at work. The project I'm working on helps the Show book and put in interview request. My supervisor said my project is a big help to the show, so I’m glad I can contribute.

What’s pretty cool is that I’m around and working with the news correspondents that are seen on NBC and MSNBC everyday, such as Tom Costello, Savannah Guthrie, Norah O’Donnell and Chuck Todd just to name a few. I recently, helped Costello with a story he covered about bed bugs for the Today Show. The bedbugs have been a growing problem in hotels, college dorms apartments and houses. So be careful.... Take a look!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I recently had my mid-term assessment with my supervisor. She explained the areas that I have been doing good in, and areas where improvements can be made. I think with this new internship, it’s more of a personal challenge to see how much or how far I am willing to go or give to accomplish my goals. I’m glad I had that assessment with my supervisor. It made me really understand the things I need to improve on and only made me want to work harder to reach my goals.

I think last week, was the first time I probably became overwhelmed with everything. As I was preparing summer courses for school with my advisor, I found out that I needed even more time before I could graduate, which really threw me for a loop. I felt so much emotion I didn’t know what to do. On top of the assignments and things I had to do for my internship, class, TWC and personally, made it the toughest week here in DC. I had so much on my mind that I would be physically at work, but mentally not there, worried and focused on other things. I felt I got off track and as a result I turned in assignments late and had to reschedule appointments made. I think I was trying to keep a mental note of everything which is very hard to do, because there’s so much to do.

Fortunately, I’ve bounced back from that stressful week. Each day, I am literally making a “things to do” list. Sticking to that list has made it a lot less frustrating and I am able to use my time more wisely in getting things done. I figure that this last month in the program is crunch time and I need to make sure that I stay on top of everything in getting things done in a timely manner for my internship, class, TWC and school. I see it as an experience I can only learn and grow from

Signing off,

Erica

Education is a Right!

The week started off with a bang, beginning with a Call to Action event. March 24th was the National Student Lobby Day and Rally. Groups members from the US Student Association and the Student Labor Action Project along with hundreds of students (including myself) marched up to Capitol Hill demanding protections for workers and students and an affordable higher education for all. It felt great to actual advocate on issues that students should be concerned about. Visit http://www.usstudents.org/ and http://www.jwj.org.projects/slap.html for more information.

While March Madness is well underway, I’m sure many people have their picks on their favorite team of winning the championship. For Women’s Basketball, I picked UCONN to win it all (sorry Oklahoma). But one of favorite teams is Maryland. One of the locations for the first round games was in Maryland at the Comcast Center, where the Maryland Terps play their home games. I got a chance to go to, and watch, Villanova vs. Utah and Maryland vs. Dartmouth. Thanks to my RA; she was able to get tickets to the game. Both games were exciting, especially watching the Maryland game. They won by almost 30 points! The University of Maryland campus is huge, with over 34,000 students enrolled. That was the biggest campus I’ve been on.

The museum I had the best time in, was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. The museum is filled with wax sculptures of politicians and celebrities. The museum wasn’t free but with half-price discounts it was well worth the experience.

My semester in Washington DC has been amazing. There’s never really been a dull moment here. I remember a guest speaker saying to never use the B-word…. Bored, and I have still yet say it. Besides getting used to the cold weather, that still lingers in March and I’m sure into April, I am enjoying my stay in DC. The culture here is rich in diversity. Events, activities and attractions occur around the clock in DC, to serve everyone’s interest. And knowing that I’m in the Nation’s Capitol, a historical place and have a chance to see the President, First Lady, Vice President, congressman and other government political officials is such a great feeling.

TODAY This is Erica

Which is what I say when I pick up the phone at my new
internship with NBC's the TODAY Show. My final day at Tribune was Friday the 13th (yikes) and I started interning with the today show that following Monday. The new job has been a learning experience and so far so good. My responsibilities at the today show are to help with newsgathering, production, logging and dubbing tapes and assist with interviews.

In comparison with Tribune, I would say the one disadvantage at the Today Show is due to a union contract interns can’t touch or operate production equipment. I can still write news stories; it will just be more difficult to put them together to complete my demo reel. I started a demo reel with Tribune that consists of two new stories that I’ve done, with stand-ups in the studios of Tribune and at the White House. But the Today Show will provide a greater chance to go out in the field with the reporters during actual news events. Overall I’m sure interning with the Today Show will be a great experience

I recently went out to Capitol Hill with my supervisor to watch a live hit done by Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire. Matt Lauer from the today show in New York held the interview. Senator Gregg basically discussed his view points on how he thinks President Obama’s budget plan would burden the government with greater debt.

Even though the headquarters of the Today Show is located in New York, the show also has a bureau in DC. The Today Show in DC covers more political and congressional news and events; where as the show in New York covers more regional news events. Also some news events that are done in DC by the Today Show are sent to be aired by the NY bureau.