Day 18 (Weds., June 16)

Caption: Viridiana Paulin, 17, a senior, stays behind while her classmates hurried to lunch on Wednesday during their summer school lunch break at Grand Prairie High School Paulin is one of many students taking a 10-day summer school government course that covers everything the students would be exposed to in a full semester. The work load is great, but once Paulin gets finishes the course on Friday, she will not have to worry about taking the course during the upcoming school year.

Ordinary assignments need unordinary photos, that's the very first thing photo editor Robert Sanchez taught me two weeks ago when I first showed up here. So far, I have been running out and doing many ordinary assignments. Searching for the unordinary angle and lighting has been a challenge, but that's exactly what I love. Today I was sent back to high school, literally. I went to school and was in a government summer school class for almost three hours. During my stay there I was refreshed on the branches of the U.S. government, the Brown vs. Board of Education court case and heard the word "filibuster" for the first time since my junior college political science class three years ago. Oh yeah, and I also made photos. I was there to capture the struggle and the hardships of taking a 10-day summer school course that covers all a high schooler would learn in one semester. I came up with the photo above and I think I was successful in making an ordinary assignment look unordinary. I was very happy turning this photo in. Today was a very lucky day, well almost completely lucky. I say that because I found out some great news that involved some talent, but I think mostly luck. I was made aware that I got the Society of Professional Journalists National Convention's internship. SPJ is a great organization that allows students and professionals to meet, network and learn about our careers. Knowing that I was among the top ten students in the nation to be chose to the internship was such good news to receive. So, in September I will spend a week in New York City working with The Working Press, the publication that caters to those who go to the SPJ National Convention. I can't wait. Now, going back to why I said this could have been the luckiest day of my life. A group of eight interns here in Dallas got in on a pool to bid for the $120 million Texas Lotto purse. Of our 12 chances, one had two numbers so we won $3 bucks. Man, what would I do if I had a piece of that $120-million? Probably stop working, take more courses, apply for many non-paid internships, pay off my school loans and oh yeah... buy all the camera equipment in the world.

Yesterday-Main-Tomorrow