Daily Show Addresses Viacom-YouTube Suit

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Media Bistro

If there's one thing anyone should do while looking for a job in the field of journalism, it's to sign up for a membership at Media Bistro.

One of my associates at the Entertainment Industries Council was kind enough to let me use his account for the meantime while I look for a job for after I graduate. I definitely plan on getting a membership of my own because Media Bistro is also a great resource for freelance writers.

Some of the cool things you do with Media Bistro are:

• Search for journalism jobs (writing, editing, publishing, etc.) throughout major U.S. cities
• Sign up for career-building courses and seminars
• Search the freelance market
• Learn how to pitch winning ideas and become a freelance writer
• Know the Ins and Outs of interviews

Here's what Media Bistro is all about, straight from the horse's mouth (ie: on the About Us Page, ha):

"Mediabistro.com is dedicated to anyone who creates or
works with content, or who is a non-creative professional working in a
content/creative industry. That includes editors, writers, producers, graphic designers, book publishers, and others in industries including magazines, television, film, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and design.

Our mission is to provide opportunities to meet, share
resources, become informed of job opportunities and interesting projects and news, improve career skills, and showcase your work."

The Search Has Begun

Today was quite overwhelming. I ended up driving all over northern Virginia to find a new place to live and I've realized that this is a very stressful process. This is the first time I've ever searched for housing and it's a pretty nerve-wracking thing.

Me and my future roomates' goal is to have a place by May 1st because GMU housing only lasts until the middle of May. This doesn't leave us much time. Some of our requirements include:

• Four bedrooms
• Near a metro or bus stop
• No more than $2400 per month

So far we've looked at houses and townhouses. There doesn't seem to be any apartments with four bedrooms, so this somewhat limits our choices. So far we've looked around Fairfax, Vienna, Reston and Alexandria.

The main source we've been using for housing information is Craigslist. While this does seem to provide the largest amount of postings, the postings come and go very quickly.

This week I plan on looking at the Washington Post classifieds and the City Paper for more information. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Try This!

I actually ventured out of my comfort zone yesterday and decided to cook something for myself. I figured I should probably get used to that since I won't be able to depend on the Johnson Center and SUB I for food very much longer.

Allen gave me a recipe for fideo, which is basically Spanish spaghetti. All the ingredients were pretty cheap and it was really easy to make.

Here's the recipe...

• Bring a two and a half cups of water to a boil. Add bouillon or vegetable stock


• In another pan, sauté green peppers and onions on medium heat with a little olive oil. Let them get nice and translucent, even a little browned.


• Add in finely chopped garlic, let cook for a couple more minutes.


• Add in finely chopped jalapeño half. (Don’t stand over the stove while this is cooking, it will make you cough.) Stir in for about a minute.


• Put the fideo pasta in with the onions, garlic, pepper, green pepper and stir. Turn up the heat a little bit. The noodles should start getting brown. This adds to the prettiness of the dish while providing the pasta with varied texture.


• Once most of the noodles are browned add a chopped up tomato and stir.


• Pour the hot stock or bouillon mixture into the pan with the fideo noodles. Bring to a simmer within the pan. No need to cover, at this point the noodles will absorb a lot of the moisture. Don’t let it boil, just bubble.


• Let the fideo cook until most of the liquid is gone, stirring occasionally.


• Serve with cilantro and a dollop of sour cream, if you like.

That's all it takes. Pretty good stuff if you ask me.

My So-Called Spring Break

So it’s finally spring break. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like it though because I have so much work to do.

On top of looking for a job, I also have to catch up with a lot of school work.

For my online journalism class I plan on re-doing the entire look of my website. I’m very excited about this because I have a really cool idea (but you’ll have to wait and see!). All I can say is that I will be using Photoshop to execute the design.

I also have to work on my media kit for Eng 410, my professional writing class. During my time off I’ll be working on an industry backgrounder, a recommendation report, two biographies and a memorandum for my fictional organic coffee shop, Aphrodisiacs.

Even though I have time off from my internship at EIC, I still have a big project to work on. I pitched a story last week about a woman I met at Picture This! I need to get in touch with her so I can start writing the story and sending it out on spec to publications.

And finally, I have a midterm in Comm 380, media criticism, the Thursday that classes start again. It shouldn’t be too difficult, but I need to set aside some time to look over the material.

It would be an understatement to say, "I’m overwhelmed." But in a way this is good for me because I work better under pressure. I just have to keep reminding myself, "Graduation in May, graduation in May, graduation in May…"

Workshops

So I finally went to my two STAR Lab workshops for class.

The first workshop I went to was Photoshop II. Here, I learned about layers and how they work within the program. I also learned how to flatten an image. My instructor explained that flattening an image takes all of the layers and makes them into one image, thus making that single layer a background layer. Flattening an image is beneficial because it creates a smaller file to work with.

I also learned how to work with selection tools like the rectangular marquee, elliptical marquee, polygonal lasso, magnetic lasso and the magic wand. I also learned some general selection key commands to help maneuver around the program more quickly.

The second workshop I attended was Flash I. I had never worked with this program before but I learned a lot of the basics. The instructor talked about keyframes and basic animation. During the workshop we learned how to animate our names, and make a boat float across the screen.

From going to these workshops, I basically learned that the only way to get around these programs is through trial and error. Luckily I have access to Photoshop outside of the STAR lab. I've already started playing around with it a little bit but it's kind of overwhelming since there's so much you can do.

As for Flash, it seems a lot easier than Photoshop. I'm sure with a few visits to the STAR lab I can have some cool animation on my website.

Picture This!

This week with the Entertainment Industries Council was really exciting. We had our Picture This! event on Wednesday at the National Association of Broadcasters in D.C., which focused on people with intellectual disabilities.

The event was held in partnership with Special Olympics and was hosted by actress and Special Olympics Board Member Vanessa Williams. Over 40 experts in the field were in attendance.

There was also a panel of writers and producers from the entertainment industry including:

• Andi Bushnell - Supervising Producer/Writer, Criminal Minds
• Sue Castle - Executive Producer, PBS Series - In the Mix
• Maria Macina - Producer, Guiding Light
• Rosemary Rodriguez - Director, Without a Trace

The goal of the meeting was to discuss concerns, eliminate stereotypes and identify ways of changing on-screen depictions of people with intellectual disabilities through roundtable discussions. These ideas were then brought to the panel of writers as a way to communicate firsthand with people from Hollywood.

Clips from Williams' new movie, My Brother, were also shown at the meeting. Williams stars as a mother dying of tuberculosis who is desperately trying to get her two sons, Isaiah and intellectually disabled James, adopted together.

My job throughout the event was to be a recorder for one of the tables. With my notes, and the notes from the other interns, EIC will put together a Picture This! publication highlighting the top three issues about intellectual disabilities to come out of this event. The table I sat at had some very interesting people like:

• Tim Shriver - Chairman of the Board of Special Olympics (and brother of Maria Shriver)
• Blair Williamson - Actor with an intellectual disability
• Neil Romano - Member of the President's Committee for People With Intellectual Disabilities
• Anthony Lover - Director of My Brother

It's crazy how many notes I took. I'm really excited about this because I'll hopefully be able to get more publishing credit under my belt when this is all finished. I look forward to writing a story about this event for EIC.