In the dead of the night

I woke up at three o’clock this morning to get ready for TV3. I’m pleased to say that for the first day this week I managed to successfully beat the Auckland traffic. However, there hasn’t been one day this week that I haven’t gotten lost. Today was no exception.

Dad had told me to take a different road into town, because he was worried there could be ice on the road, and it would be better for me to get on the main road sooner. As I should have expected, I got hopelessly lost and ended up somewhere out by Muriwai beach, slowly driving down a dark, winding road while the trees on either side swayed ominously in the stormy weather.

‘This is it,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’m entering the plot of a horror movie.’

If my car had broken down and hillbilly mutants had appeared out of the shadows, I wouldn’t have been overly surprised.

I somehow found my way back, saw the road sign that I’d missed earlier that pointed me towards Auckland city, and I was off on my merry way again, happy that the feeling of impending doom was diminishing.

There’s something particularly eerie about driving a country road at nighttime, when the moon is peeking at you from behind a cluster of heavy looking clouds. There’s not another soul in sight – but occasionally you’ll spot the taillights of another car and wonder what they’re doing roaming the back roads of Waimauku at half past three in the morning. Maybe it’s that feeling of being completely alone that got me.

The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful, and I had a chocolate biscuit. I’m now back in Hamilton, feeling happy to be back home, despite all the fun I had this week.

Boy, am I looking forward to a sleep in tomorrow.

In a nutshell

I didn’t do a whole lot today. Still managed to get lost on my way home though. Why does that keep happening to me?

There wasn’t much going on today, again, so I messed around on the computer, read a story about two-faced cats (literally with two faces, I wasn’t just implying that they were bitchy cats), saw some news about a burglar who broke into a house in Hamilton and freaked out because they found out the resident had hung himself, then rang the cops from the house he’d broken into, and I giggled over a news story about a Napier woman getting stuck in her laundry chute after a spot of late night “spontaneous fun”.

Sorry for the long sentence.

I transcribed something for somebody and went home early. Well, I left the office early, and spent about half an hour roaming Auckland, trying to find my way back onto the motorway.

Tonight I’m going to be a nana and go to bed at nine, because I have to wake up at 3am to make it to the office in time for Firstline.

Also, kind of hoping for snow. I can hear thunder.

Longest second day ever

Now, I want to be perfectly clear that I’m not saying a long day is a bad day. In fact, I had a pretty cool day.

Left earlier than yesterday. Still did not beat the Auckland traffic. I probably caught it at a slightly better time though, because even though I only left ten minutes earlier, I got to TV3 three quarters of an hour earlier than yesterday. Wows. At least I look eager.

I got sent off to court with a journo and a camera lady to see the first appearance of the gunman from the bank last night. As I understand it, it wasn’t actually a hostage situation, and he didn’t actually demand any money, he just threatened to harm himself. Don’t quote me on that though.

We waited around for most of the day while they brought out people for other minor charges. Half the day was gone before he was brought out. In fact, we got there at nine, and he was brought out around three or four. We had about an hour and a half break around lunchtime though. The man’s been given interim name suppression until he appears in court on July 3rd.

I introduced myself to John Campbell at lunchtime. I was right, it was wishful thinking that he was looking at me with recognition yesterday. He didn’t remember me, but he was very friendly, and very apologetic that he didn’t remember. He’s the kind of man who looks directly into your eyes when he’s talking to you. That was interesting. He told me that if they went out on an interesting story and I wasn’t busy, they’d take me with them.

Karen told me that tomorrow I can sit in the studio when the news goes to air, so I’m pretty excited about that.

I keep getting lost in the office, because I go to the lift and forget which floor is the exit. Then I get back in the lift and forget which floor three news is on. What a mess I am.

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.