Lickety split

It’s my last day here at Stuff. I can’t figure out if my internship went quickly or slowly, and I can’t figure out how I feel about leaving.

On the one hand, I’m going to miss the people, the work, my grandparents, and my grandparents’ lovely, warm house. On the other hand, I want to see my friends again, and, although I sound like a nerd for saying this, I’m looking forward to class. And, of course, I’ll be closer to my Sam, and will no longer be an eight hour drive from him.

So I feel torn at the moment.

It’ll be strange not hearing the mystery office sneezer let out a high-pitched, yelpy sneeze every single day. I’ve now been informed of who she is, so I suppose there is no longer a mystery at all.

I probably won’t miss the constant uncertainty about whether or not what I just felt was an earthquake. There was another one today that was very short, but just gave the office a quick shake up, like a half-hearted salad toss. I won’t miss that.

Tomorrow my kitten and I shall begin the long drive home.

Hamilton.

Homelton.

The voice of the people

I had to do a vox pops today. If I haven’t mentioned it before, for those of you who don’t know what a vox pops is, it’s short for vox populi, and is one of those things where a reporter goes out into the street and hunts down a handful of people, asks them all the same couple of questions, and takes a photo. They post the photo up with a quote underneath, and in total you usually have around five or so people.

Today I had to talk to children. A new frontier to cross.

The questions were about their favourite good guy from all the books, movies and TV shows they’d seen, and then who they thought was the worst bad guy.

Kids are quite difficult to get answers out of, it turns out. This one gorgeous little boy named James shook his head when his Dad asked him if he wanted to be interviewed, but once his Dad started asking him about his favourite heroes he started chatting happily away. I took a photo of him (he even said ‘cheese’ for me), and when I left he waved goodbye.

The second child I spoke to was a little girl, and when I started taking her photo, her two little brothers decided they wanted to get in on the action, and jumped into the shot as well.

Now,  here’s the awkward thing. Apparently doing a vox pops doesn’t warrant me getting sent out with a photographer, or even a camera for that matter. I did bring my digital camera with me to Wellington, but being the bright little cookie that I am, I left the memory card back in Hamilton. My boss didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with me using my cellphone to take photos, so that’s what I did, as unprofessional as it felt.

The last lady whose children I spoke to evidently thought the same thing, because when I pulled my phone out and started taking headshots, she began to question whether or not I had any ID on my to prove I was from Fairfax, like I’d said. I had to explain that no, I was only on a short internship so I had no ID, but if she was uncomfortable I wouldn’t interview her children.

“Oh, well, I suppose you’re fully clothed,” she said.

So that was that.

When I went back to the office, though, my boss said I’d received a little praise from someone from the Dom post, who asked if I could do a vox pops tomorrow, because I was good at it.

Inside my mind, I did a victory dance. Outwardly, I contented myself with spinning around on my chair a few times in celebration.

The real news

Sent this email to the boss on the way home from my internship today:

National story maybe?

A Fairfax intern narrowly missed walking into a signpost in Wellington central today.

Melissa Wishart was so busy worrying whether or not other members of the public could tell she was listening to Celine Dion that she nearly did not see the pole in front of her.

“well that was close,” the 20 year old said to nobody in particular.

She is believed to have reached the train station without further incident.

He replied:

Did you get photos or video? We could run My Heart Will Go On over the top of it …

I’m inclined to wait to see if she gets home safely, as it would be a better story if she actually did walk into a pole in Khandallah.

 

Was that that in par two really necessary?

Internships, internet stalkers, and abusive biting

Day two of my internship at Stuff.

I’m sitting in the newsroom. It is gigantic. Well, it looks gigantic to me at least. There are big bowls of fruit all around the place that we can just help ourselves to. I saw a woman carrying round a bowl of lollies before. I like this place. I mentioned to my Dad yesterday about the fruit bowls, and he made some joke about how they might be bits of fake fruit to look pretty.

“Well, I ate one of the bananas so I certainly hope they weren’t fake,” I replied.

Kevin Norquay, (I’ve recently learned it’s pronounced ‘Norky’), pointed out all the newsroom cliques. You have the digital staff, the Dominion donut, and us, the national news people. He told me the digital staff are like the naughty teenagers and the Dominion Post reporters are the disapproving adults.

I’ve been punishing myself a little bit by looking at comments where people have shared my gamer piece online. I think the thing that gets me the most is that people assume I’m drawing from horrible stereotypes, even though it’s all drawn from personal experience. If I was trying to stereotype I probably would have gone on about glasses-wearing, acne-covered hermits that haven’t been outside for several months and burst into flames when they step into the sunlight.  Somebody’s been stalking my blog and posting pictures of me somewhere and “negging” them, but the pictures and comments were deleted from the thread by the time I read it. My curiosity remains unsatisfied.

For some reason my thumb is sore today, so typing is quite painful. This may be the end for me.

I have a more serious, actual news story going through today focussing on domestic abuse against men, an issue that I’m quite close to, having a family member who had just that happen to them.

I don’t know how we change people’s attitudes. We’re living in a world where it’s acceptable for a woman to hit a man and she’s just “expressing her anger”. If a man “expressed his anger” there would be Hell to pay. I’m tired of it.

I said to my boyfriend the other day, “Sam, do you ever feel like I physically abuse you?”

“No,” he replied, “except maybe when you bite me.”

I have this bad habit of getting annoyed with Sam and biting his shoulder or arm in frustration. Not hard, just enough so he knows I’m annoyed with him. Guess I oughtta stop that. Frustrated tickle attacks it is.

The happiest Melissa

Life is getting exciting for me.

Third year journalism is the hardest, but it’s also, undoubtedly, the best. The bit that he the most pumped is what is yet to come, namely my internships.

I’ve recently confirmed an internship at the Fairfax Bureau in Wellington for three weeks, where I’ve been told I’ll be getting to process hard national news stories and will occasionally be shouted a coffee. Sweeeeeet. AND, I’ve also just been informed today by my dear Papa Bear, that he’s spoken to 3 News for me (He used to work there) and they’ve agreed to take me for a two week internship right before my Fairfax internship.

Words cannot express my excitement about these two awesome places I get to go. I think I’m about to pop.

Bring on June.