The Hunt

I’m from a southern town where most of the boys favorite thing to do is hunt.

Now, I’ve never found the idea of sitting in a cold wooded area early in the morning waiting for a creature that I can take the life away from all that appealing, but I think I may know how it feels.

I’m looking for a job, but not just a job. I’m looking for one that I will actually enjoy. I know, I’m a recent college graduate who wants to be picky about her next job when the unemployment rate is the highest it’s ever been.

Call me optimistic.

So I’m on the hunt. Seeking the perfect job for me, wherever it may be.

But the hunt is not as exciting as the word implies.

First, there’s the waiting. Like an old man sitting in a chair deep in the woods I am sitting at my computer just waiting for Careerbuilder, Monster or JournalismJobs to get back and tell me that they’ve found the perfect job for me.

But that’s just the beginning.

The hunt is about finding that perfect 10 pointer and similar to the boys wearing green, brown and orange peering through the thick to see the deer I am peering into the thick to see who’s hiring and who will take me.

I’ve applied at American Cancer Society, Zimmerman Agency, countless newspapers and written several companies about freelance opportunities. Now, I just need the deer to show.

When the time comes for the kill, or the interview I’m waiting for, I need to be ready.

Hunters wait for hours for an instant chance to get the deer. Those of us unfortunate enough to be unemployed are waiting for that one interview, the one chance to show that you are the one thing their company has been missing and if we blow that one chance another might not come.

Then comes the best part. That part where everyone walks by my fridge and sees the deer in my hand.

Let me explain.

I have a friend Meagan who loves hunting, possibly more than all the boys. While checking around the kitchen for food on one of my visits to her house, I saw the most disgusting picture ever taken.

Meagan is grinning from ear to ear holding her massive deer, blood dripping. When I asked about the picture she proudly told me all about her hunting experience.

When it’s my turn to get my deer, I’ll tell everyone all about my hunting experience.

In the meantime, though, I’m enjoying what hunters would deem as the waiting portion, what takes the longest.

I’ve decided to enjoy this time where I am unemployed, out of school and out of responsibilities. I’ll be volunteering with the cancer society, teaching a Vacation Bible School class, preparing for a mission trip, heading to New York, Utah and Louisiana.

For those thinking, “You’re unemployed!?! Why are you traveling the world with no source of income?”

Well, the beauty of degrading myself to moving back in with the folks means I have money saved, no rent and groceries in the fridge. The best part, my parents are being incredibly supportive with the idea of taking my time to find the job I will love.

In the meantime, I’ll hunt for the small deer that will give me just a little dough.

Last First Day

How bittersweet are the times that go by so quickly.

Well not really, today was my last first day of school and I am so glad, but it is sad in some ways.

I will never have a class full of new possibilities, no more looking at the classroom door to see the new people you will be sitting by and trying to make small talk with to develop an actual relationship and no more little butterflies that I may not find my class and be late.

Fifteen years of schooling have come and gone, and now I can’t believe it’s almost over. The fact is it hasn’t hit me yet.

Within three months I will become a certifiable adult, no more classes or studying in the law library. The days of hanging out with all of the friends I have made are quickly passing because these times I have right now can never be replayed.

It seems so strange how quickly the years have gone by, mom was right, as usual, it does go by too quickly.

I am very excited about the last two classes I will be taking though, I have an 8 a.m. class of macroeconomics, which may not seem exciting but the teacher is excited about the subject and that is motivation to think that the class will be fun and interesting.

My other class is children’s literature, which is the class I am most excited about. We have Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham,” “Winnie-the-Pooh,” and “Velveteen Rabbit” on the list of required readings.

Our final project is what I am really looking forward to, we will be making a scrapbook of our families folklore. I am supposed to research the tales of the McCurdy and McMullen families, gather photos and find out about traditions.

I think that these last two classes will really help me end my undergraduate education with a bang.

First Day on the Job

I started at the High Springs Herald today.

My first assignments are to write an advance for a biotechnology fair and do some research on an accident that happened about a week ago that killed to girls.

I finished my calls for the advance on the biotech fair, and I am sitting waiting for the Florida Highway Patrol PIO to give me a call back.

I have to go back home this weekend for Mother’s Day, a promise to my mother that will haunt me the rest of my life.

I am trying my hardest to finish my assignments before the weekend, so I guess I will just continue to wait for that phone call.

Crunch Time is here

It’s that time of the year again, everything is piling up, especially the stress.

I have to finish building my Web site, study for three exams and write a court paper.

Well the court paper shouldn’t be too hard, I went to the Clerk of Court today and found a case that had been pleaded out today.

I looked through the file and decided to write about this DUI case that was pleaded out for the maximum amount of fines and a list of other contingencies that go along with it.

My Web site is coming along. I finished looking up the quotes from “Fight Club” and I found my little niche to make it pastiche. I have decided to integrate my love for journalism with the project.

A lot of the issues in the book are issues everyone faces, so I archived several articles written about similar subjects and am putting up quotes and pieces of articles onto my site to make it pastiche, but in my own special way.

Ethics is almost done.

I wrote my last decision memo yesterday, ahead of time.

We had to decide what to do if you are the editor and one of your reporters comes in with a politically offensive article they had written, what would you do?

I decided to sit down with the writer and make sure that every point they make has a purpose and a reason, and the reader can decide whether or not to take offense, it isn’t my right to pull the article without letting the reader see it and take a viewpoint.

That’s all for now, but I’m sure within the next week and a half something else will come up.

Ethics!?!

I should be doing homework.

I have an assignment in my ethics class to write four journal entries that put me in an ethical dilemma and then I have to choose an ethical rationale to decide what to do with the dilemma.

I have written three out of the four: re-victimizing, how to report on suicide and how to deal with the line between advertisers and the paper.

I have learned quite a bit about the situations that can put turmoil in the heart of a journalist by doing this exercise.

But strange enough, I found out what I would do in these ethical dilemmas, not always what I would think I would do honestly.

I find myself to be more conservative than the typical 21-year-old girl. I like to go to bed at 11 p.m., read for fun and think that playing Wii at someone’s house until 1 a.m. is a crazy night.

But when it comes to news decisions I don’t always think like a conservative, which I never thought I would do.

Maybe it’s the liberal college breeding that I have been subject to for the past three years, or maybe that stereotype is wrong and college has allowed me to find my own voice.

I am no longer in sync with my parents opinions, but decide things based solely on my own opinion.

Weird.

I think that being a journalist can be challenging and the situations that they get put into can be scary and tough to handle, but the more and more I think about it the more excited I get.

I mean I have decided 10 decisions already in written format, what else could possibly stump me now, so bring it on.

Internet Literature

Ever heard of internet literature?

Me neither.

I thought it would be a fun English class where you read poetry online .

I was wrong.

It is reading crazy books about art and making websites out of those books. I never really know what I am doing, but the professor seems to like anything and everything as long as we make it sound smart and arty.

Well we are entering phase 2 of the semester and now I am beginning to work on my second Web site. I have decided I am going to “pastiche” the book Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. An amazing novel about materialism, isolation and relationships.

I am starting to gather some thoughts and ideas about what I want to put on the Web site and what special affects I want to put on the site.

So far I have character synopsis, writings on materialism from each characters perspective and the loss of identity each individual character feels.

Things are still in progress, but I am chugging along.

Photoillustration – It’s Coming

When the word photo illustration first came up I was confused and not able to put a specific picture in my mind of what one would look like.

My first thought was that they looked something like a cartoon, then my brain traveled to the pictures of a toy in the corner with a lot of shadows to represent sadness in the child’s life and then I found out what it actually is.

Photoillustration is a made picture constructed to make a point.

Sometimes story topics, such as child abuse, can be difficult to photograph so photographers set-up the scene and paint the picture for the reader without using anything real.

Another reason to use photo illustration is to make a picture of something that would be hard to capture, like people being hassled by telemarketers. Instead of frantically watching someone answer the phone and hope for an angry face you can show someone with an angry face and tons of phones around them.

Photo illustration can be subtle or blunt, it just has to get the point across.

A great tool for photo illustration is Photoshop, and I just happen to have some great tips for using it.

While taking the pictures for your layers keep light in mind, it will look pretty odd if your person has dark lighting and in the background there is no cloud to be found.

When photographing singular objects it is easier to photograph them with a white background, for cutting out the shape.

There are no ethical issues with illustration except to keep copyright in mind at all times.

Now you too know a little bit about photo illustration.

Fairness Doctrine

Law of Mass Communications seems to be more on my mind each day that our test comes closer, as a result I will be discussing the fairness doctrine.

The FCC adopted the Fairness Doctrine in two parts: station must air controversial issues and stations must allow opposing viewpoints to be heard.

In 1987, however, the Fairness Doctrine was dropped with the exception of three policies:

The Zapple Rule, Personal Attack Rule, and the Political Editorial Rule.

In 2000, the rest of the policies were dropped except for the Zapple Rule, which is where supporters of opposing candidates must be given the same paid and free time.

And that is the Fairness Doctrine in a nutshell.

Broadcast vs. Print

Two programs that reach the audience with similar news are surprisingly different in structure and format.

With broadcast, the anchor only gets one opportunity to get the information across, in the print industry the information is available to be reread as often as needed. With broadcast you only get one chance to get it right.

Page style with print is generally single spaced, with broadcast the anchor needs to be able to clearly read from one line to the next so the copies tend to be double or even triple spaced.

Numbers are similar to print in that AP style is applied – write out numbers one through nine and with 10 through 999 write out the numeral version of the number.

Symbols are not used in broadcast copy, because the anchor needs to be able to easily interpret and read what needs to be said and certain symbols, such as the $ sign, are said in a different spot then where they are typed.

What was really interesting to me was the sentence structure for broadcast copy.

Sentences need to be kept as short as possible for breathing purposes. I had never thought of that before, but it makes sense.

You don’t want the anchor to take breaths in the middle of a sentence, so keep them short.

Those are the fundamental differences between print journalism and broadcast journalism.

Tricky Trademark

In my law class we have been talking a lot about trademark and what goes along with that.

Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition laws protect the commercial value of names, words, symbols and personal identities.

Some examples of this are Dumpster, Xerox and Kleenex – all used to describe the actual product instead of the name brand.

These laws are created through adoption and use. You create your mark and you want to protect it against other marks. Registration lasts 10 years and then needs to be renewed.

That is the tricky world of the trademark all summed up.