A day with some dogs

Here's another video I put together for my multimedia journalism class. Again, this isn't meant to be hard-hitting reporting, it's just supposed to show that I know how to use Final Cut to splice together these clips naturally and add some voice-over narration and titles.

It's a video with dogs, which I think most people enjoy.

My first D.C. clip (sort of)

OK, so I got my first article published in a D.C. area newspaper, an African-American weekly called the Afro. That's cool and all, except that they didn't give me a byline:

http://www.afro.com/sections/NEWS/Prince-Georges-County-News/story.htm?storyid=1970

Note how it says "Special to the Afro" instead of "by Andy Marso." This is kind of a big deal, because when you're a student journalist shopping stories around for free, the only real benefit is getting a "clip" to put in your portfolio. Unfortunately, without a byline, there's no way to prove to potential employers that it's mine.

But maybe it's just as well. The lead isn't too strong (I changed it in the version I submitted for class). I still got course credit, anyway, and if nothing else it illustrates that there's a lot more media opportunities out here. I'm pretty sure there was no African-American newspaper in St. Cloud.

Still, would have been nice to get that little byline. *Sigh*

My "Man on the Street" masterpiece

This is one of the first projects I did for my "slice" technology class (video/audio/photo). It's what's known as a "Man on the Street" interview. I just asked a few people on campus what they do to "beat the heat."

The project wasn't about the actual journalism or reporting (which is good, because weather news is not really too exciting). It was more about making sure I could frame the subjects correctly and edit their comments in a way that makes sense. My professor's main criticism was that the lighting wasn't great. He pointed out that with darker-skinned subjects you have to make sure you get good light on their faces.

Any other thoughts?

Grad school Week 2: The earth moves

OK, so first week of classes is done. So far, so good. It's a lot of work, and the tech stuff seems to take me twice as long as it should, but I'm hanging in and starting to get comfortable with my schedule and workload (looks like if I give up the whole idea of a "weekend," it should be manageable. I'll start posting some of my work soon, I promise.

Meanwhile, the big news is that I survived my first earthquake! OK, so it was only like a 3.6 — not exactly The Big One. But I actually did feel it. In fact, it woke me up.

About 5 a.m. Friday I woke up to this low rumbling noise that seemed to coincide with a slight shaking of the bed. "Is that thunder?" I thought, groggily. Then it got a bit stronger. "Is that a train?" I thought, still groggy enough to not realize that all train tracks are at least a few miles from my apartment. For a moment I thought I heard some of the pictures on the wall rattle, but I couldn't be sure. Then I fell back asleep.

I woke up two hours later with my radio alarm going off and a guy telling me I'd survived an earthquake. So, there you go. Two weeks away from Minnesota and I'm already experiencing all-new natural disasters. Well, "disasters" is probably too strong. All-new natural phenomena, I guess.

Crazy.

Grad school week 1: the prelude

Classes start Monday. I'm ready.

I've done pretty much everything I want to do to the apartment. I've bought and arranged furniture (not enough to fill the place, but enough for my needs), hung pictures and even carted in enough cinder blocks to jack the futon up to a reasonable level for sitting. It made me feel way too old when I had to struggle to get up from the thing.

I met most of my future classmates on Friday. Our master's group is called a "cohort," which sounds vaguely sinister to me, but I guess I'll get used to it. It seems like a friendly, intelligent bunch of people so it should be fun working with them. More ladies than guys too, which is OK with me.

My only uncertainty right now is transportation. When I was searching apartment complexes online, I Mapquested the routes to campus from each one to make sure I picked one within biking distance. Thus, my apartment is quite close to school. Unfortunately, Mapquest didn't not reveal to me that most of the short trek is uphill, at about a 35 degree angle. It's steep. I tried it today as a dry run and had to get off and walk the bike about halfway up (it's a cruiser bike, not a mountain bike, so it's only got one gear. Who knew I'd have a mountain between me and my school?). The return trip to the apartment is much easier (as long as my brakes don't go out).

It still only took 20 minutes to get to the journalism building, so I guess the bike option remains in play. Maybe if I keep at it, I'll be able to make it up the whole hill someday. And I'll have freakishly huge thighs too. It seems like we're in for several weeks of 90-degree weather, though, so biking to school may mean arriving very damp and not so sweet-smelling. That would have been OK as an undergrad, but I think grad students are supposed to strive for a bit more professionalism. Right?

There's also a shuttle bus that I could take for free ("free" as long as you've paid the astronomical tuition and fees to obtain a student ID). But it seems to appear only sporadically on my side of town. And it would be kind of frustrating to stand there waiting for a half-hour for a bus when the campus is literally within sight.

The third option appears to be driving, which is something I wanted to avoid. It wouldn't take much gas, but there's wear and tear on the car and the big thing is parking. I'd have to pay a few hundred dollars for a permit and I'm not sure I'm prepared to do that. Even if I do, it's not like open spots are always easy to find. It helps to be handicapped, but even then I might end up parking halfway between my apartment and my classroom, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to pay for that.

For now I think I'm going to ride/walk my bike. Of course, when winter comes it will probably be the bus. Which will give my thighs time to get back to normal.

A new adventure

Well, I made it. I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Greenbelt, Maryland, enjoying the air conditioning (did I move to the East Coast or the tropics?) and the free internet (mine won't be hooked up until next Friday). My new apartment was a pleasant surprise. You can tell it's an old building that's just gotten a face-lift, but it's clean and much more spacious than I was expecting. I've spent the past few days buying things to fill it up (thoughts after first IKEA experience: prices were right, stuff was easy to assemble, but finding what I wanted in that crowded maze of merchandise wasn't my idea of fun).

Moving in proved easy (for me anyway) thanks to my friend Tim and his brother Mike. Mike lives in the D.C. area and Tim drove with me from Minnesota, which was no small favor (we both agreed that we'd never hack it as long-haul truckers). The two of them had most of my stuff out of the vehicles and into the apartment before I'd finished filling out the paperwork.

So really I have had very little to worry about — except for the whole "complete life change" thing. There's certainly been moments of doubt on that front. The night before I left St. Cloud I sat awake wondering "What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?" I was leaving my family and most of my friends to move across the country and start school again just one short year away from my 30th birthday. The safer play seemed like staying home with mom and dad and sticking it out at the St. Cloud Times until a full-time position opened up.

But something happened on the drive out here that reminded me of why I'm doing this in the first place: I listened to "The Alchemist" on audiobook. Odd how that happened, really. As I was packing up my stuff I came across the 4-CD set, which I had never listened to. It was a gift from a long-lost friend (Elizabeth, who's off working for the parks system somewhere, probably dodging bears) years earlier. I had no idea what the book was about, but I figured a 20-hour drive to D.C. was the perfect time to give it a listen.

God's hand was in there somewhere. The story is about a young Spanish shepherd who has a dream about a treasure buried near the Egyptian pyramids. He chucks aside his safe, familiar life to trek across the Sahara after this treasure for years, learning new trades and falling in love along the way, but never losing sight of the ultimate goal. The book was all about fulfilling your "personal legend," even when life tries to beat it out of you. It was just what I needed to hear.

I believe in my talent. I believe in my drive. I believe in my personal legend. I believe that this next year will help me make it a reality.