Sort of under construction

It's hard to get your life together - reporting for the million stories we're all juggling right now and thinking about/actually applying for jobs - and try to stay sane at the same time.

When I get a second to sit down and do my resume I find myself looking at my website and it's like, "GAH!" I see layouts I wanted to change a year ago but haven't had the time to redesign the pages or start from scratch and find a new template that fits all my presentation desires. Or I have a stockpile of work I'd like to put up but don't feel that I have enough time to do it.

I hope I get to a place where my website is both pretty and functional (for the user and for me to update). Right now I'm not like, super happy. 

With this coding class I've been taking, I've been considering coding my own site. I also know that if I don't have time to throw up photos or a story in a template, I don't have time to code a website from scratch. That's A LOT of work. But, would be super rewarding. 

I have to code the cite of my capstone (thesis reporting project) anyway, so that'll be a good test to see if I have the mettle to code a 10-15 page interactive website. 

All this is to say, I feel like my page is under construction and I don't know what to do about it except kind of complain and slowly update it.

Women's March LA 2018

I covered the Women's March in LA today. It was interesting. I'd say the atmosphere was different than last year's too. 

I think last year felt more supportive than this year - not that this wasn't supportive - but it wasn't the main feeling, and felt more jaded and there was a little more anger behind those who were marching. 

I posted a few of them on my instagram. Here's a couple others:

J-School is no joke

It's 12:30 and I have no idea why I'm awake. 

I was at school yesterday until FIVE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING working on my final. Came home, slept for three hours, showered for the first time in like three days and came back to school. 

I made the deadline but I'm not happy with the work. 

It could have been better and I could have worked harder. 

I really care about my topic and I want to revisit it when I can do it justice, but right now I feel like never want to look at my final again. 

I just spent like every free hour of the last week thinking about, writing about, listening to interviews about, or coding a website about multiracial young adults - who are half white - and their thoughts on white privilege. 

It was an interesting idea but I don't think I executed it well. 

Journalism graduate programs are no joke. If I had to pick between and accelerated program and a two year or even one and a half, I would take the extended one. It's not even the workload but that I can't learn everything that I want to and produce work that I feel is good. 

I feel like I spent this semester sucking at everything and maybe next semester it will be alright. But I wanted to walk out of a master's program with my life together and feel like a real adult and professional. 

I mean, the workload is crazy too. In college when I thought I was 110% committed to photojournalism, I never worked this hard, except for maybe my senior project - which I also finished in a panic. 

All of the master of science students were taking at least five classes or "labs" AKA working in the media center/newsroom. I was doing eight.

I feel like an insane person, but at the same time I know I'm enjoying it because if I were a little bit unhappy to be there I would be SO unhappy and grumpy.

I know I just spent like 10 minutes complaining but I'm glad I'm here. I would have never been able to teach myself any of this and the opportunities you can take advantage of are awesome. I don't have time right now but I'm going to try when it's closer to graduation. 

Less procrastination in the spring. However, I know that's how I'm most productive, so I'm not giving myself permission to procrastinate but it's an annoying thing to realize and think of as like a weird safety net.

I'm working on a documentary next semester. I'm going to work on cutting a fake sizzle reel. I did the interviews but the visuals are not mine. So obviously this is just an exercise for the pre-production class and if I want to make a real one I'll have to do it when I start shooting, but I'm having fun.