Something Sweet

The other day I got an e-mail from an old teacher of mine. I had her for fundamentals of reporting at Webster, one of my first college journalism classes. She works at a large paper in St. Louis. I'm not oging to be too specific because I don't like using people's names without asking them. Anyways, here is a small part of what she wrote, congratulating me on my job.

"I'm thrilled to hear about your new job, and I'm so glad they recognized that you're a good hire. I'll be eager to hear how it's going for you, and I hope you'll send me links to stories you're proud of. I mentioned you to an editor today, in fact. I told him that I planned to keep track of my best students in the event of possible openings down the road. Papers have taken a bad hit, but things seem to have stabilized here for the moment. I'm awfully glad I didn't scare you away from the field with my too-honest, doom-and-gloom reports! I know you're going to be great at this stuff."

Her little letter made me feel great. She was one of my favorite teachers at Webster and I'm glad she remembers me too.

Box of Books!

The other day, G's mom insisted I walk down to the middle school with her-- because-- in the teacher's lounge, was a large box of books that was headed for the dumpster...

I wasn't quite sure if a bunch of teachers would throw away books, but I went down there anyway.

Sure enough, in the lounge was not one, but several boxes of books marked FREE and a sign about how they were going to be thrown away the next day.

I couldn't just let perfectly good (some look brand new) books be thrown away. Even though most of them weren't really titles I would normally pick out, I chose several (read: a ton) to take home and read. G's mom said the books had been there forever and that they had already been picked through. Since they were garbage-destined within hours I didn't feel bad taking them.

Now, it will take me longer to tackle my Goodreads list, but I will eventually get there. And I have a bunch of new books!

Some of the new titles include:

Love me, by Garrison Keillor





http://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-Garrison-Keillor/dp/0670032468

December Heat, by Luiz Alfredo Garca-Ruiz



http://www.amazon.com/December-Heat-Inspector-Espinosa-Mysteries/dp/0312423438



Drop Dead Gorgeous, by Linda Howard



http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30067.Drop_Dead_Gorgeous



And, All Night Long, by Jayne Ann Krentz




http://www.amazon.com/All-Night-Long-Krentz-Jayne/dp/B002YNS49U

Again, not exactly my style, but they were in great shape and maybe I'll like them.

Wedding Days...

I wouldn't normally post about something as mundane as how my hair was styled a certain day, but for this particular purpose I feel like it deserves a mention.

As you know from my previous post, one of my closest friends got married over the weekend, Saturday, August 28. We went to Hair Engineers West for our hair and makeup and everyone looked beautiful.

Let me mention that my hair is decently long, with almost too much to do anything with. It touches my bra strap and although it's not incredibly thick, it's heavy, which made it difficult to work with. But the girls at the salon did a wonderful job! I looked exactly like Taylor Swift! Just joking, but my hair was very similar to the picture of her I brought in and it was absolutely beautiful! I loved it. And I loved my makeup. It stayed on all day and didn't smudge or smear off from the August heat.

I felt bad because my hair took forever to fix. Eventually, they had to switch girls because the first one had a bride coming in. The second girl had a wonderful personality and didn't mind adding the finishing touches.

I was actually happier with this hairstyle than I have ever been with a paid-for updo. Not that I didn't like the others, I just really felt amazing with this style. Props to the girls at Hair Engineers West. Man, I love that place. I used to go there all the time, but had to stop to save money. Now, I'm definitely thinking about a nice haircut with girl #2. I'm going to call today to be reminded of her name. It'll be worth it I'm sure.

Front

Maybe not the best picture...I wish I had one of the other side. But what do you do?

And Back

A Night to Remember...

...was my best friend's wedding, Aug. 28, 2010. It doesn't seem like 1 year ago when Abby called me (while still at dinner!) to tell me her boyfriend had proposed.

The first few months went by with very little planning, but the past several months has been crazy, with her planning flowers, food, venues, entertainment, dresses and everything else a bride worries about on that special day -- Not to mention that at the same time she was planning all of this she was studying for board exams she has to take to become a doctor.

I was busy as well. I was finishing up school, working a new job and had more responsibilities than ever. But despite that, I think I managed to plan (with the help of the other maids) a wonderful shower and a bachelorette party we're sure not to forget. That last part was more to the credit of Kristen, Abby's chiropractic study buddy and close friend. She was a reader at the wedding, but more than happy to chip in and help with the bachelorette party.

Everyone looked beautiful, especially Abby. The ladies at Hair Engineers West did a great job. We had a rehearsal dinner Thursday evening with dinner at Joe Boccardi's in Eureka. It was delicious as always. Abby and I got our nails done on Friday afternoon. They looked really good and it was nice to have a pedicure on a Friday after working all day.

David is so lucky to have Abby (I think he knows :D). She is lucky to have him too, of course. Looking at their faces it was easy to see that these two were meant to be together.

All the stress and hard work of planning the wedding paid off 100 times the moment the two were united at the alter for their vows.

Mr. and Mrs. David Painter left this morning for a honeymoon in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, which David planned by himself and told Abby about in the surprise limousine he had waiting for her at the church after their ceremony.

I can't wait to see the professional pictures, but here are a few I had or someone else took on my camera.

Congratulations Abby and David! I wish you nothing but the best!

My best dancing photo

Bride and groom acting silly.

My sweeties.


Me and the beautiful bride!

What Would You Do?

Since I've heard about this story, I've been asking people what they would do if they were in this situation. It's hard to say. This girl did what seems to be the right thing, because no one got hurt. But it could have easily went a totally different direction.
http://www.emissourian.com/news/washington_news/article_b2e960ae-8511...
Please try to use your imagination when actually reading about what happened. It was the absolute best I, or my editors could explain it, and Channel 4 didn't do any better. It's just difficult to imagine.
What would you do?
On a side note: Usually with these kinds of stories, I hear from the person (or people) I've interviewed, and I haven't yet -- makes me a little nervous :s

School...

...is not getting any easier. But I suppose if it were easy, everyone would do it-or at least that's what people tell me.
Here's a quick rundown of the classes I have going:

• Newspaper Production Workshop: This class produces the weekly newspaper, The Journal. Some people write 2-3 articles a week, but because I have 2 8-week classes I've decided to only take on one/week until they are over. I want to be able to devote myself entirely to something and I don't feel like I can do that if I'm stressing over something else. I think this is a wise choice, because while I may not have as much for my portfolio, my articles will be good quality, hopefully.
• Copy Editing- Woah. This class is tough. It's not so much that the work is hard, but there's so much. There's an unbelievable amount, to where even one of the editors of the paper (who is in my class) stresses about it. We have weekly quizzes, which is good, but not fun. I have a lot more respect for copy-editors now.
• Layout/Design- This class uses InDesign to create newspaper/ magazine layouts. It's tough, but only because I'm still learning the program. I decided to purchase the program for my laptop so I can work on it a lot more, and not just at school. I really like doing it, and I like the finished product, but it's very time consuming. We also have quite a few quizzes in addition to the layouts.
• Media Law- This is one of my 8 week classes. It's not so bad. A lot of what we're learning (libel, trademark, privacy, etc.) has been drilled into us since day 1. Of course, we dig a little deeper into the issues and discuss how they affect speech. I really like this class and the teacher is awesome.
• Investigative Journalism- The teacher of this class is also awesome, very tough- and that's what I like about him. We are working on a project, which I won't tell you about until it's finished. Ten of us have 8 weeks to complete an assigned investigation. The investigation isn't really that cool, but I'm learning a TON! Most recently, I learned a very important lesson that I should have already known. I'm not going to tell you about it though, because it's embarrassing.
• Introduction to Dreamweaver- This class was the very basics of Dreamweaver, which is used to build websites. It was a 1 credit hour class that I took last weekend. It wasn't too bad, but a little slow. I wish we could have done more. I definitely think it could be an 8 week course, with as much as there is to know.

I'm still working on the weekends. During the week I have class from 1:30-9:30 with just a short break in the evening, enough time to eat dinner. Luckily, I only have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Friday and Sunday I work. Wednesday is my day off, but I usually spend it interviewing for my assigned newspaper article.

In 3 more weeks I will have 2 fewer classes, and have completed 7 credits in 8 weeks! Like my sister says, "It's like eating an elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time." I like that.

China Trip 19- Time to move on

I've been blogging about my China trip, trying to get out all of the amazing awesome things we did while we were there. But there's not a whole lot more, so I'll try to sum it up quickly. The rest of school was pretty much the same.

The kids ended up really liking me and I felt bad when I told them goodbye and they kept telling me they would see me tomorrow. Some of them brought me really thoughtful gifts and since their parents weren't there, they just had to make do. One girl gave me fer favorite doll, another a pink (kids) necklace and bracelet set, a fan, little notes, and an ear cleaner. Like I said... they gave me "found" items. Most likely something they wouldn't miss, but very, very sweet.

I brought cookies for my last day and tried to teach them "heads up 7 up" which they didn't even get a little bit, even after we went down to 3.

The night before we left we had dinner with Junior and the 2 girls we met at the coffee shop earlier in our trip. But one of the girl's grandmother was sick so they ended up having to leave. She looked very sad, which was quite a contrast to the perky girls who insisted we go karaoke. Understandably.

We went back to Brittany's room and watched a movie and talked for awhile.
I really liked those guys.

We had an amazingly long bus ride to Shanghai (6 hours!) where a lady threw up on the bus and they laid her in the street and moved on. And i had to use the most disgusting "bathroom" I've ever seen in my life. ew. There weren't even doors. Just girls squatting, some facing each other, some facing opposite. I decided I couldn't do it and went back to the bus. But upon finding out that we still had 3 more hours and it was the only stop we were making, I had to use it. I went back in and used it alone as about 40 Chinese people stared at me like I was... well, I don't even know. But I could tell they thought I was ridiculous.

We went to the Broadway Mansions again, and had trouble with our reservations. They said they didn't get them, but we had a printed out reservation. But they didn't have our room available so they decided to upgrade us. I knew this would be a problem and that they would want the extra money, but that's not how it works. They did, but ended up letting us have it for the price our room was supposed to be.

On our last day in Shanghai it was Barb's birthday. We decided to go all over Shanghai and some places downtown. She wanted to go to the aquarium first, Shanghai Ocean Aquarium.

The aquarium was really awesome. I took pictures like crazy, because G really likes fish and I knew he would appreciate it. I used almost all of my battery taking video. There were 4 stories of fish with a Jetson's style conveyor belt to keep traffic moving along.

We were in the gift shop at the end and I was trying to pay. I had my wallet on the counter and I was getting money, when I felt something. I just reached back and brushed it off though. Probably just a kid rubbing up against me...

I didn't want to turn away from my money to see what was up. But I should have. Someone stole my camera right out of my purse. Security took my name and number (more for my sake than theirs) and said they were sorry. That's it. They didn't want to call the police and Barb thought we would be there all day trying to expalin what happened. We walked around a few hours looking for "suspicious"people and I still think I might have saw them.

Two young Chinese guys were looking at a cell phone. They had a fanny pack (full of stolen things?) and when they saw me looking at them they hurriedly put it back in their pack and walked away really fast. We tried to follow them, but China is big and it's easy to lose a Chinese person when they all have black hair...

We looked for red cameras (there are surprisingly few) incase they had already sold it, and mused that they wouldn't be able to even read anything on it.
I was very sad that I lost my camera. It was new. I had just gotten it for Valentines day this year. And I was sad that I lost all of my pictures. Luckilly, I had just uploaded all of my other pictures the night before, so I just lost the aquarim pictures; there were a lot, but at least I didn't lose them all.

I had to wait 5 hours to call G and cry about it. The hotel was very nice and let me use the internet for free to call via Skype. G was really understanding and said I was lucky I didn't lose my passport, which is true.

I was too sad to do anything else and hung out in my hotel room the rest of the night. I feel bad that I ruined Barb's birthday, but she was okay with watching HBO in English in our room. After G made me feel a lot better and after I talked to him I was able to take Barb out to dinner.

When I got back, within 2 weeks, someone broke into G's car and stole his radio. I'm not bitter at the Chinese, these things happen everywhere.

The flight home I couldn't do much except sleep. I was so worn out and exhausted. And ready to be home. I was so happy to see G. He brought me a COLD soda and Sprees (my favorite) to the airport, which was wierd because I was just saying I wanted some Sprees. I don't know why, but I was amazed that Junior had never had candy... wow.

I was super happy to see Vin and scooped him out of his bed and slept by him. I couldn't sleep much, because of jet lag. It was only 4pm in China!

So. There's the condensed version of the rest of my trip and now I can move on to something else. I hope you guys enjoyed taking a trip to China through my eyes! I will add pictures later. I have a weekend class to go to.