Day 60 (Thrs., Nov. 10)

Two weeks ago today I worked my first shift since coming back from the West Coast and I still haven't stopped working. I've been doing all kinds of assignments lately. I don't mind the work, but the current situation has drained me. It's the crazy traffic that's making things so complicated.

This morning I woke up on time and headed out of the house pretty early. I headed to Pompano Beach to do a story on a classroom at the high school. However, the 20-mile drive took me almost two hours. I could not believe how many cars are trying to get around in the morning.

So, since I was 30 minutes late to my assignment, the classroom scene was no longer workable. So, I rescheduled to come back two hours later. It was good I did that because the rough traffic trip drained me from the little creative brain cells that I woke up w/. So, since I had two hours to kill, I bought the newspaper from the guy at the street corner. Bought a fast-food breakfast and a cup of coffee and read the newspaper from cover to cover for the first time in two months. That felt good.

Once I was through w/ the paper, I still had an hour to kill. So, I did what I normally do whenever I am away from home and looking for something to do: I hung out at Starbucks. It gave me time to update the web site and to relax a little. Then I went back to the school and dished out the assignment.

I am so glad I had the little break. It composed me after that horrible drive. So, I think I was creative. I shot the photo above because the professor recently got an award for her new way of teaching. She uses laptops and the internet to teach. Cool. She got a weird looking trophy and I wanted to shoot it. So, I thought the photo above was perfect. It showed the professor (kind of) and the award (kind of). I definitely tried to step outside of the box w/ that photo. I liked it, I hope you do, too.

Of course, I shot other photos to make sure I had something to fall back on, just in case my little "artistic" photo didn't hold up when edited back at the office. Thank God for coffee, the newspaper and Starbucks.

On my drive home I got a cool phone call from Kevin Olivas, he is the Parity Project director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. "NAHJ," he told me, "is making me their "official intern candidate for next year." That call re-instates what was told to me last week by Rosa Santana, the person in charge of the Parity Project in the West Coast. She was contacted by a major organization to find out if NAHJ had contacts w/ some summer internship prospects and she mentioned my name.

Wow! I guess I must have impressed them during the week-long internship in Fort Worth because they are doing this for me. I hope that their endorsement helps me in next summer's internship quest. We'll see. Either way, I am honored to be "the one" the organization chose. Wow!

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