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.

I will wait

I was sitting at my desk today, quietly working away on a story, when the boss guy announced he was off for lunch, and would I be okay?

“No,” I said with a whimper. “No I won’t!”

“How about you?” he said, turning to another intern, who has been here much longer than me.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him.

“Well, I’ll get two chocolate bars for Melissa then, because she’s not fine and you are,” he said.

I thrust a fist into the air victoriously, just as he went on to add with a laugh, “I won’t actually be getting any chocolate bars.”

I looked at him in horror. He looked guilty. Chocolate bars may still be an option.

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?

It’s been awhile

I haven’t posted anything on my blog since Monday, for which I’m most apologetic, dear followers. Somehow I’ve still been getting views on my blog, which is a surprise considering there’s nothing much to look at.

The problem is that since I’ve been working roughly nine till five (though let’s be honest, I came home early every single day but Friday), it seems I never have enough hours in the day to get anything done anymore!

When I get home, all I want to do is collapse on my bed until dinnertime. My cat, of course, demands love and attention when I have neither the time nor energy to give it. Dinner involves a lot of sitting around chatting with my grandparents, and maybe a cup of tea if I feel like it. By the time I’ve left the table and had a shower, it’s usually getting close to nine o’clock. Considering I’ve given myself an 11pm bedtime, that gives me two hours to get some extra work out of the way, scour Stuff for my articles and see if people have commented on them, and just generally get things done. The time is gone before I’ve even blinked, and then i’m resting my weary head down on my pillow, knowing that I’ll be up again at seven and out into the cold. 

It’s been an interesting week, and I’d like to think I haven’t been doing too bad. As my supervisor has pointed out (is that what I call him?), I have a habit of using too many words in my news stories. There are a lot of places where I can cut out the word “that” apparently.

Tonka has been allowed outside a few times and has always come back, but he did manage to get himself stuck up a tree in the back yard. Poppa had to drag him down, and suffered a scratch in the process.

I also got to write a quirky little piece on these amazing things, which 1 Day has called “Head Nap Pillows”. Thanks to my lovely boyfriend and his debit card details, I now have one heading my way in the mail.

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.

Distances and fonder hearts

Goodbyes with my boyfriend have always been hard for me, especially because they don’t often seem hard for him.

The first time I had to say goodbye to him was the night before I moved to a different city to start my degree. Coincidentally, it was Valentine’s day, so we killed two birds with one stone and went out for dinner and a movie to celebrate the day and also make the most of the last day we had together. I wasn’t going far away, it’s only about an hour and a half drive between Tauranga and Hamilton, but leaving him behind was a big step for me.

The first time I ever told him I loved him was that night. You could say that it was just the teenager in me speaking – we’d only been together about five months at that point – but considering that it’s coming on three years now and I have never stopped feeling in love with him, I think it’s safe to say that it wasn’t just the declaration of an infatuated 18 year old.

Sam dropped me home and I burst into tears as I hugged him goodbye. I was going to an unfamiliar city, not knowing a single soul, and I didn’t know when I’d see him next. All my insecurities came out and walloped me over the head.

Today I had to say goodbye to him again. It’s not a big deal, it’s only for a little while, but I’m going down to Wellington for several weeks for an internship. It’ll be the farthest Sam and I have been away from each other since we got together. I thought I’d have to go for a month without seeing him, but he mentioned the other day that he’d come visit me one weekend while I was there.

Considering that he works full time all week and until midday on Saturdays, that would mean he’d reach Wellington at about dinnertime on Saturday, and then have to leave around lunchtime the next day to get back to Tauranga at a reasonable hour. I told him this, and that he’d only be seeing me for a day, effectively.

“Why are you complaining?” he replied. “You’re not the one who’s going to be doing the driving.”

I felt pretty warm and fuzzy after that.

 

The best first day ever

Oh wow. Oh golly. First day of a week’s work experience at TV3 today. I think I may have hit the jackpot.

Here’s my day:

Woke up super duper early, thinking I’d beat the traffic into town. I was wrong. I was the wrongest that anybody has ever been in all of history. Wrong wrong wrong.

When I got to the TV3 studio, I had to wait around for about an hour because they had a special meeting. Found out as I waited at a coffee shop down the road that it was because they were going into receivership and being bought by another company. Not to worry, the chief of staff told me, it was a good thing. So that was a big deal.

When I was finally let in, the other chief of staff showed me around, I got a high five from David Farrier, who I’d met at the Wintec Press Club earlier in the year. At the time, he promised to high five me when he saw me. I was not disappointed.

I was thrown in the deep end a little bit, when the chief of staff (Karen) told me to call up the police and ask about an accident that had happened out near Helensville. I’d never actually called the police before to get information like that, so I was a bit nervous, but decided to put my confident face on and employ that age-old mantra: ‘fake it till you make it’. Moments later, she’d dialed for me and I was holding the phone talking to a cop who didn’t seem pleased to be hearing from me. I was informed later that they don’t like us very much. The funniest part about that was that they put me on hold for a moment, and the hold music playing in the background was “My Heart Will Go On”. For the police, it seems a bit odd, but who am I to judge?

Then I was off with a tall man in a suit and a less tall man in jeans. They were following the story about the Tongan police officer who’d been arrested and beaten to death in his cell by other cops. We zoomed around half of Auckland, and I sat by as they filmed their interviews, thinking about how I desperately needed to go to the bathroom, but thought it would be unprofessional to ask where it was.

We were out for a few hours, and eventually we came back to the office, and I was handed over to another journalist, to watch as he filmed his piece to camera and then see what it was like editing the news story. His name was Tony Field, and the best word that I can use to describe him is “jovial”. I don’t think there’s any better way to say it. He was a cheerful, friendly man, who seemed fairly easy-going and made me feel instantly at ease. It was good.

On the way into the garage with Tony, I passed John Campbell coming out, and shot him an excited glance and a wave. He smiled and waved back, looking at me with something that I’d like to think was akin to recognition, from the time when I’d met him a couple of years ago. That was probably just wishful thinking though.

When Tony and I eventually emerged from the editing room, I wandered over to Karen’s desk to ask her if there was anything she wanted me to do. Her response seemed a little stressed and snappy, and with good reason. The six o’clock news was just going to air, and we’d just found out there was a hostage situation at a bank in Auckland. BREAKING NEWS.

I sat down and tried to stay out of the way. They told me to try call businesses along that street and get anybody to describe what they could see. I got hold of one business that said the hostages were out of the building. I passed the information on, feeling like I contributed a little bit, even though they probably already had that information. I watched as the newsroom became loud and frenzied, with people on phones all over the place, yelling across the room to others, and swearing here and there. It was madness. And it felt amazing.

After all the drama had died down a bit, Karen turned to me. “Sorry about all that,” she said.

“I hope I wasn’t a nuisance, and didn’t get in the way,” I replied sheepishly.

“No! You were great!” She said. Probably just consoling me, but I felt warm and fuzzy anyway.

On Friday, I’m getting up before 3am to come in for Firstline at four. Adventures.