Welcome Back.

It’s no longer cherry or fire engine red, but the fake red hair is back.

And, hopefully, so is my urge to write, photograph and share way too many details about my personal life.

Getting into trouble for having a blog as an intern made me really wary. I now realize I pushed too far, but those who know me, know I don’t get into trouble.

Blogging as a journalist isn’t easy. Where’s the balance between not discussing work, not showing a bias and not being boring?

I’ve decided my life needs a kick start and a kick in the ass.

After all, you can’t be a fiery fake redhead without causing a little trouble.

The Inner Geek

You know those people who were popular in high school?

I wasn’t one of them.  I’m aware I wasn’t one of them; just as aware as I was at the time, and it didn’t particularly bother me.

That’s a blatant lie. It bothered me a lot.

You know those really popular kids who pretty much failed at social interaction in college because they were just used to being accepted as cool and, all of a sudden, their cliques weren’t there?

I wasn’t one of them either.  I came to college knowing exactly who I wanted to be, how I would portray myself, and nothing was going to make me stay the same geek that, deep down, I truly was.

That lasted for about a week.  See, the problem with having an inner geek is that it’s pretty much impossible to ignore.  At some point, the nerdom will rear its ugly head, and you’re back to being the same girl who snickers awkwardly, loudly, all the time.

Luckily for me, my social ineptitude and inability to notice subtle ques at when to stop talking actually helped me meet some of the best friends I will ever have.  And now I’m hoping I haven’t become one of those kids who has trouble letting college go.

I saw the signs.  I knew this part was coming.  This year, there was a lot of wallowing in the ‘lasts.’   But what I’m not used to is life without orientation.  Almost 22 years of first days, meet-and-greets, and training means I’m waiting for my introductory course into adulthood.

Fortunately for my post-grad self, I’m terrible at waiting for anything. It’s time to make things happen.

*Insert awkward stance and geeky laugh here.*

Bring on the Whirlwind

Before I even fully got the chance to embrace my internship with Missouri DNR‘s Communications team, it’s already time to start my next adventure.  I’m so excited to get started at FOX21′s KXRM in Colorado Springs!  In the next two weeks, it’s finishing my last few days, packing up the house, and uHauling my belongings, Tiggy, and Trix (my VW Bug) about 12 hours to the apartment that sounds best online.  Stressful?  Yes.  Exciting?  Definitely.

But before all that happens, I want to share the highlights of my internship.  When first premised with the idea of helping to update the state parks websites, I couldn’t be more excited.  I’d be hiking, photographing, and exploring the trails, traveling to parks that I’ve been semi-surrounded by for the last four years, and getting a taste of the dream job: environmental journalism.

It’s been everything I’ve expected and more.  Between getting way too close to snapping turtles:

Finding awesome sunsets:

And even a sitting hummingbird:

I’ve earned a new title.  But my new nickname has nothing to do with any of those photos.  Apparently, I’m the bug woman…

I’m embracing it.

I’ve loved getting to experience some of the parks; capturing the last footage of one before the recent floods put it underwater.  The one downside has been the overnights in remote towns.  While I appreciate getting a bed to sleep in and a place to edit each night, I’ve seen far too many horror movies in my years to enjoy so much quiet time.  The perils of a traveling journo, I suppose. But given my favorite photos, I say the self-induced scares are worth it:

Until the next adventure ensues…

A Farewell to (Al)Arms

I set at least 5 alarms.  Everyday that I have to be up early, I set at least 5 alarms.

Whether it’s my 4:30 am shift at the station or 9:30 on Tuesdays for class, I find that unless I can hit the snooze at least 5 times, I really don’t wake up for the day.  Especially with early shifts, until the third of five snoozes, I haven’t even noticed I’m touching anything outside of my dreams.

My sister and I both do this.  I blame our parents, whose voices, in high school, progressively got louder with each attempt to wake us from the dead.

I also don’t exactly know how to break the habit.  I put the phone on the other side of the room.  I’ve tried different tones.  I even hide it in different places.

But, for now, my five will change to four, and hopefully soon to three.

For this, is my farewell to (al)arms.

Eyjafjallajokull: During the Eruption

Source: http://marieaunet.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyjafjallajokull.html

Wet Ladybug

I LOVE photos like these, because it shows just how beautiful the smallest parts of life can be, and how easily someone can find a photo opportunity in their own backyard.

Although, the macro camera might help…

Work In Progress

My latest screenprint:

The color looks awful from my cell phone…

It’s only half done, but this is with 12 colors of a 25-color hand reduction.

I’ll have a better update when it’s done!

Winging it in Wisconsin

My Spring Break wasn’t at home.

It wasn’t in Panama City.

It wasn’t even anywhere where it was supposed to be warm.

My Spring Break was spent volunteering and sleeping on the floor of the visitor’s center at Horicon Wildife Refuge.

And it was easily the most worthwhile, best mid-semeseter break I’ve had.

Back in November, I’d signed up on a whim to be a site leader for Alternative Spring Break, an organization at Mizzou that sends students all over the country to help with different problems: AIDS, homelessness, disaster, etc.  After getting back from a 9 hour car ride and weekend in Wisconsin for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, where we’d wrapped up in Under Armor, thermals, tights, and headbands, I came home to a relatively warmer Missouri and an email telling me:

“I just wanted to say Congratulations for being selected as a site leader for the Environment 2 spring break trip and to inform you that you will be traveling to the Horicon Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin!”

My reaction: Are you kidding me? WISCONSIN?

My co-site leader and I met, wrangled 10 volunteers together through a series of intense drafts and alternates, and got the meetings started.  Thankfully, we’ve all got amazing friends and relatives who were able to donate what they could towards the cause and 3 months later, I’m driving a minivan (aka The Moneyvan) to Mayville, Wisconsin.

Population: ~5000
Internet: None
Stoplights: “Just keep going past the stoplight.  You can’t miss it.  Only one we got.”
Muskrat population: Probably more than people in Wisconsin.

We ended up saving a couple muskrats, cleaning out birdhouses, doing waterfowl surveys, and an epic trust exercise.  I volunteered to dangle horizontally over an algae-fied marsh, being held by two of the volunteers, while holding an 8 foot net to pick up a soda bottle out of the cattails.

If only we’d gotten pictures…

The thing that did seem a little odd, however, was the Buckthorn clearing.  By the end of the second day, my volunteers, two people from the Refuge, and myself had all cleared close to 1000 individual Buckthorn trees, spraying the stumps with herbicide afterwards.  While I realize the species is invasive, it seemed sad to cut down so much youth:

Despite the manual labor…

The sleeping bags for five days, and the early morning wake-up calls, adventures like these made it all worth it:

Such is Life.

“If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live.”
-Anonymous

No one is there to show us Fred after he kisses Holly.
I remember asking if that was it.
I wonder what happened to both of them.
Or to either of them, depending.

Under the Stars

I’ve Stumbled across a few quotes that makes one think lately, each for their own different reasons. Perhaps it’s my current obsession with questioning everything, but I think the following are worth sharing, mainly because it prompts fascinating topics:

Accept Originality:

My absolute favorite part of this is, “[go] so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back.” While Ensler broaches quite a few topics that I’ve considered lately, this sentence hits the nail on the head. So many people have asked me recently what I’m doing after graduation- where I’m going, where I’d most like to go- and I don’t have answers… yet.

I think the problem is that I’m so excited that the world’s my oyster. Nothing’s stopping me from living in a different state, moving to a coast, even changing continents. Whereas with choosing a college, I had self-imposed constraints to staying in the United States, and knew which schools were considered the best for Journalism, there’s nothing forcing me in any direction for choosing which locations to apply for jobs.

I have, however, created a want list:
- Nature within walking distance
- Water: Lake, ocean, sea, watering hole, really cool river
- Eclectic people

That’s about it… I’m not particularly picky.

Keys to Happiness:

In 10th grade, my history teacher went around the classroom and asked each student what they’d do if nothing were to restrict us from our ideal job: we’d be able to do whatever we pleased while not worrying about money.

I said a journalist; surprisingly, so did quite a few other people who had never expressed interest in journalism before.

There’s been quite a few times in the J-School when we’ve been told that we won’t have money, a social life, or, by quite a few professors, a job after graduation. I can say this: I’m incredibly proud of all the names I’ve seen on the graduation list for this May. So much of my journalistic career has been filled with pessimism from others, and, as worrying as it can be, I know that journalism does and will make me really happy. The true journalists, the ones who care enough to fight through both the negativity and the odds, are the ones who don’t need the money, or will find a way to make it by their own method of telling their stories. Even if money is slim for the next however many years, my taste of journalism has already shown me what an awesome industry it’ll be to go into: experiencing fascinating, inspiring, and educational moments that most people will never see.

The Less Words, The Better:

Mizzou’s RTDNA chapter set up an event with Minnesota’s KARE 11′s Boyd Huppert; it was so inspirational.

One of the most fascinating parts of the seminar was showing us how few words it takes to build a better package. Letting people figure secrets out on their own makes the viewer connect that much more with a character.

Sounds like Jeffrey McDaniel has it just about right.