Winding Down

The semester's quickly coming to a close and I'm really excited about it actually. I'm nervous about what I'm going to do after I graduate, but I will look back on this experience and be happy. I am glad that I ended up interning at WV Living, even though it wasn't a place I was comfortable with. The people are nice and the magazines that they publish are simply amazing and so much work goes into making one of them look like that.

I did find out recently that my Choosy Kids article isn't going to be published in their magazine. It's only going to be online and I'm upset about it. I mean, I'm happy that they put it up online and I'm happy that they're using it, but I was really excited about seeing my name in print and actually having something to show for my work there. When you think of a magazine, you think of the paper and the hand held feel of it, not the website. Most of all, I'm upset about Linda and the others at Choosy Kids not getting their story published in print. I'm sure that more people will see it seeing as it's on their website and easier to search for, but still. I'm just a little put out about it.

After my second sound blog, I've really just been mailing and copying and doing invoices. I'm actually quite comfortable with that kind of work and I loved helping Brittany out. She's hilarious and I really spent the majority of my time working with her. Today I did more mailing and I honestly had no time to sit and work on anything even if they had given me something other than mailing. We also had a bit of an ordeal with the low numbers of Spring 2012 of WV Living and I almost had to reopen all of the things I had packaged just to get out more magazines to keep in the office because they can't be below a certain number.

Another Sound Blog!

I was getting a little antsy and aggravated that I hadn't been given anything else to write. The whole purpose of this internship was to get experience on writing and editing, right? I kept asking Jill to give me something, even if it was just something small because I wanted more experience with writing and she finally gave me something. It's another sound blog and I'm just hoping that this one goes better than the last one did. I'm honestly crossing my fingers that when I call someone they'll actually pick up the phone and talk to me and give me something of substance to use in my post.

I actually did a lot of research for this sound blog because it was about the Marshall Artists Series (MAS) that is based at Marshall University. I did call someone and she answered the phone! I was so excited that she, Angela Jones, picked up and was talking with me. I was a bit nervous for this one because it was hard trying to find a lot of information on the series and also trying to figure out what questions to ask her. Laura had given me a few and I asked those, but I also threw in a few of my own just so I wasn't only asking her three questions that didn't need more than a sentence to answer them. Angela was very nice and we had a nice conversation and I ended up getting a lot of great quotes from her.

I also had to contact one of the founder's of Mountain Stage, where the MAS was performing, and he also gave me some great quotes and stories about each artist that was set to perform that night in honor of the MAS's 75th Anniversary.

Overall, I think this sound blog is much, much better than my first one and I am quite proud of it because I had a great time writing it and it was so much easier to write it once I got quotes to put in.

Spring Break!

While most people were probably gallivanting around a beach or even just lounging at home, I was basically camping out at the WV Living offices trying to rack up more and more hours so I can reach that 140 at the end of the semester. My entire week was incredibly hectic just with being at the office basically from open to close and then also having to go to work at Barnes & Noble on top of that and my school workload. This semester has been incredibly hectic for me and I just honestly hope that I pass because I really, really want to graduate and not have to take any more classes.

But, this week was actually a bit of an eye opener for me. At the beginning of this semester, I didn't really want to intern at WV Living because I want to publish and edit books, not magazines. I also wasn't comfortable with being thrown into that type of atmosphere where I have no background in it. I've never written from a journalism perspective and I think that it really showed when I handed in my first draft of my article. But, I got better with Laura's edits on it. I just wasn't comfortable... and I'm still not really. I'm just now getting used to it all because after having to write that article, it really showed me how much work goes into writing an article and how much work it is to make sure you have the write style of writing for the magazine.

That's what I was most scared of. Just being able to feel like I belonged there. I still don't feel like that though. I just feel like I'm here for a semester and then I'm gone. I'm really glad for this opportunity and I am glad that I'm working there, but I still feel uncomfortable about the entire thing.

The entire week, I did a whole lot of mailing and sorting and copying and dealt with invoices and various magazines. It was a nice break from writing and editing stories and it also gave me a chance to see what else goes into making a successful magazine run smoothly. Not many people know about the invoices and just how many magazines go out to the subscribers. It's insane.