in my dreams.

a while ago, i started to take a new approach to sleeping. instead of trying to get by with as little sleep as i possibly could, i decided that i would sleep when i was tired. if it was three a.m. and i wasn't tired, i wouldn't sleep. if it was eight at night and i was...i would. it's simple. and for me, it works.

one of the benefits (?) of sleeping when i'm tired is that i dream a lot more than i used to. and my imagination always seems to run wild while i'm sleeping, so when i get to wake up and remember what i was thinking about the night before, it's sort of like christmas. things i never would have imagined if the lights were on...things like...bunk beds.

i'll be honest. i always wanted bunk beds. it seemed so glamorous on tv, and since i had two sisters who were pretty close in age to me, it didn't seem like something that should be so far out of my reach. and yet, to my dismay, i never had a bunk bed, let alone the set that i hoped for...the bottom bunk for hanging out on during the day, perhaps folding into a futon to read on, and the top bunk for sleeping and dreaming and writing secret stories in my secret diary (i wrote a lot as a kid, something i wish i did more of now that i'm older). boo.

my sophomore year of college, i moved into a fabulous condo where i had a bunk bed (sort of). it was more of a lofted bed, since my roommates lower-bunk was not actually attached and we had dressers under my bed. but it was still pretty okay.

and then last night !! i had a dream about bunk beds.

why? i'm not sure. it was a bizarre dream...i was at my friend's house and it was full of bunk beds! at least a couple sets, but not like a prison. more like...just different bunk beds for different reasons. one bunk bed for laying on and telling stories, one for watching tv, one set for watching the fish (there were a lot of those too), one bunk bed for sleeping, and so on for quite a while. needless to say, i was terribly jealous.

life goes on.

if there's nothing else i learn in life...it keeps going.

i buy the incorrect artificial milk product. countries go into recession. people die. cookies burn (not mine...but i'm sure others do). people get laid off. cars flip over. the scale tips a bit too far. chemo doesn't work. susan boyle doesn't win. neither does adam lambert. wars rage. traffic lingers. cavs lose. whatever.

but you still got to wake up and go to work the next day. still got bills to pay, people to see, things to do, deadlines to meet, miles to run, planes to catch and everything else.

life goes on.
and you just gotta keep from getting too jaded about it.

the lakers suck.

today i made some raspberry chocolate chip cookie bars.

that's what i did. i got the ingredients and i made them.

did i make them quite like i was supposed to? did i use all the correct ingredients in the right proportions? did i bake it for the right amount of time? did they turn out just like they were supposed to in the picture?

maybe not. but they are awesome. yum. and baking them kept me slightly distracted and not-so-angry as the nuggets were getting pummeled in the second half, and that's always good.

on a slightly different subject, i've been logging a ton of miles this week (on my shoes...just running a lot) and apparently that makes me hungry all the time. my body is burning fuel and demands to be re-filled-up. and so...i bake and run around like a crazy person because i can't even sit still long enough to watch a basketball game.

the end.

bad news.

today i went out with one of our meteorologists, who is also a reporter. we did a story about yard waste and figuring out what to do with it, now that the city doesn't have a sponsored program (as of just recently). apparently there's a place that will take your yard waste and convert it into biofuel. or the "lawn doctor" said that leaving your grass clippings on your lawn isn't bad because it can act as fertilizer.

so, carlos (my reporter / meteorologist) is fabulous and funny and awesome. just saying. he had such an easy time talking to people and everyone who talks to him thinks he is so cool because, well, he is. he works for the air force sometimes and does meteorology, and he showed me a video of him jumping out of a plane for basic training. yes, he gets to go sky-diving as part of his job. well, he's going to do more training in july, and then he'll be going back to the middle east later in the year for another little bit. my point: carlos = cool.

so we got back from the station and wrote the story. mostly, i just watched, but he was really interesting to watch. he has zero journalism background, since he went to school for weather, and yet he is in a 30-something market and doing stories and he does a great job. after writing, he voiced the track. while we were in the booth, the assistant news director stuck her head in and told carlos he should go upstairs for a sec when we were done. so he did, and one of the photogs asked me to go to the courthouse with him to go through some records, so i did.

and then i got back. and everyone had just gotten the memo:
carlos is no longer with the station.

OMG.

first of all, i was just working with him like an hour ago and he was with the station then. so what the heck?! everyone was totally dumbfounded and no one knew what to say. it was terrible. because really...there's nothing you can do. i wonder if he knew that the story we worked on together was going to be his last one. i wonder if anyone knows when their last time will be.

regardless...here's what i've decided. i never want to be in any sort of position where i have to fire people. eff that. i don't care if i don't get paid anything to be a reporter or a producer or something. you couldn't pay me to lay off the people that i work with and care about.

anyways. i miss you, carlos. and i'm glad we got to work together today.

living in the future.

i'll be honest. living in the future is pretty awesome.

let me start by saying that it is summer and i miss everyone from school terribly in a big way. this holds true even if i'm a bad friend and never call to say hi or anything. but on the random days when i get surprised by a phone call from someone out west...it's basically my favorite thing ever.

it's not really something i think about often...calling someone and seeing what they're up to for no good reason. i always assume people are busy, plus it gets slightly crazy with the time difference (up to three hours!) and so it doesn't happen as often as it maybe should. but i guess that's what happens when you live in the future.

that's right. the sun rises in my life a good 2-3 hours before it does for most of you, and i'm going to brag about it for a second. i'm fairly certain there have been times that i have woken up earlier than you may have gone to bed on a given day, just because of the time difference. i knew who won american idol first and most other tv programming also caters to me and my comrades out east. i'll never have to watch a day game at 11AM over the summer (like i do out west sometimes) and i won't have to watch "live tv" on a one hour delay. not that i ever have time to watch tv...but if i did...yeah. my news comes before yours, my work day ends earlier, and my clock is synchronized with everyone in nyc and washington d.c. that's right...the president sets his watch to the same time as me.

top that.

i know you're waiting around and wondering, so let me tell you. the future is looking pretty awesome. you just wait.

FIRST DAY EVER.

i've been home for about a month now, and today i finally have a day off!!

i didn't even think about it until my boss called me this morning and told me we were overstaffed and i could have the day off, since he knows i work all the time. and sure enough, as i looked at my calendar, i've worked every single day this month, either at the station or at the play or waitressing, or some combination of the three.

but today...the world is my oyster.

the only problem is...well, i never get days off. what do you do when there's nothing you absolutely need to do? i have no idea.

starting with a nice long a.m. run and then we'll see what today holds.

not dead (yet).

i know you're dying for an update on my early-rising excitement.
so here it is.

monday: woke up at 6:00 A.M. enjoyed the morning sun from the safety and comfort of my bed for a few minutes. decided to go back to sleep til about seven. productivity level: eh. but i get points for effort.

tuesday: woke up at 8:00 A.M. did laundry, took daniel to the bus stop (where we hula hooped with his friend, bailey, til the bus got there -- also: daniel is sweet at hula hooping!! just like me!! are we related or what?) and cleaned my room before i had to be at work at 11:30. productivity level: through the roof!! what a great morning.

wednesday: woke up at 7:30 A.M. after a rather long night of watching the (stupid) lakers win vs. the nuggets from down on campus til pretty late. managed to get ready in time for work at the station at nine. productivity level: well...i got to work on time. but i had a fun night, so i exempt myself and am not even upset for sleeping in a little.

overall: i am not very hard on myself. but i'm working on it. and we've still got a few days left in the week to decide if the experiment is worth keeping around for a while longer.

oh...and did i mention that a story that i worked on (read: went out, did interviews with my photog, logged tape, and edited together for the show) went on the air today and you could hear my voice on tv and even see parts of me (hah...like my hands holding the mic). i know it's not a big deal to you. but it was a big deal to my mom. she thought it was awesome, since usually i just write vo-b's and the anchors read them, or i write scripts for the anchors to read. whatevs. excited. yay internship.

well...it can't kill me.

i've been in columbus about three weeks now. and...i've been thinking.

by that, i mean i was thinking yesterday and now i am putting this down on paper / internet. yesterday, oh day of thoughtful days, i decided that i'm not living up to my columbus potential. sure, i am having fun going to work and the station and working on that play and seeing friends and things. but there's so much more i can be doing too.

so...why am i not fulfilling my potential here?

decidedly...because i am waiting too much. i wake up as late as i possibly can to still get in and out of the shower and to the station in time (which...granted, is 9AM and that's a decent time to be starting to do things) or to where ever else i happen to be going. maybe this is okay for summer. it's a little more laid back, more relaxing...i can just lie in bed until i absolutely have to get out. but maybe i can do something else.

then yesterday i decided. i should just get out of bed a little bit earlier. because, you know what? it won't kill me. it CAN'T. there is no way (well, maybe there are some ways...but probably not) that i will die just from getting up a little bit earlier and getting a little more accomplished before heading off to start my day. plus, then i won't feel so rushed.

so today my alarm went off at 6AM, a full hour and a half before it typically does. i woke up, sat up in bed and looked around my room, glowing with the morning sun that was leaking through my blinds.

and i didn't even die.

granted, i was awake for a while and then decided to sleep for a bit longer, but STILL. i woke up earlier and am no worse off because of it. so here's my experiment, at least for the week. i'll wake up around six or so, remind myself that i'm not dead, nor could i possibly die from waking up a tad earlier, and then just see what happens from there.

yay for making an effort to not totally waste away my summer.

sometimes i don't believe anything you say.

just saying.

i want to...but sometimes, i just don't.

summer rain.

sometimes i wonder if coming back to ohio was the right thing for me to do this summer. i could have stayed in utah. i could have gone somewhere in between. and yet...here i am. working, interning, designing lights, everything i could ever dream of and then some.

but still...i wonder what might have happened if i had stayed.
or gone somewhere else, right? like...well, you know...

but then it rains...the wonderful ohio rain that is not so cold and awful (like in utah), but warm and happy, and sometimes you can still see the sun shining behind the clouds and i say yeah...it's good to be in ohio for now.

things will fall into place eventually (i think).
for now...i've just got to live it up.

oh...and i still have a little tetanus in me, but only from the shot they gave me. and i still have a nice gash in my leg from where the tetanus attacked me with a screw. i get to live at least a little longer.

...but who knows, right? people die all the time, for no good reason at all. here's hoping i make it back to utah in the fall though...to produce the daily news, make some lights for "children of eden" and run a 5k with my sistersss (and graduate college eventually?!).

remember when...

remember when i thought it'd be nice to do the lighting for my old high school's production of "aida" this summer while i'm home for a minute?

okay. well i think it just gave me tetanus.

awesome.

i guess that means i have about forty-eight hours to live.

well...it was fun while it lasted. see you all later.

stories.

i love stories. after three days at my internship (saturday, monday and wednesday), guess how many i have done all by myself?

six. yeahhh.

i love love love my station. everyone is super nice to me and super awesome at everything they do. i'm sure it helps that we are a good station and no one has to worry if they might not have a job tomorrow or about trying to do a zillion things at once. there's enough people, enough cameras, enough cars and trucks, enough computers, enough everything. i think i am definitely getting spoiled.

in other news, i'm doing a lighting design for my old high school (just for fun...i thought doing an entire design from opening-the-script to curtains-up in less than two weeks would be cool) and it is fun but also a challenge since i am hardcore time-crunched from the news stuff plus being a server basically all the time. but it's going to be a good show and my little sis is going to be sweet since she is great at stuff and has one of the lead roles.

oh. and i saw "17 again" today with my mom. and it was kind of awesome.

everything is awesome.

today was totally great. if the entire rest of the summer is like today, that will be alright with me.

my boss gave me a nametag thing to open the gate for my car and the doors to the station...and it worked. somehow, i half expected it to not work and i'd be locked out. but no worries...it all worked and i was (for the first time ever) a member of a real live news team.

i got to my station at about 10 AM and went out to do a story with one of our reporters. she is one of those super-smart, asks-all-the-right-questions reporters and it was awesome to go out with her on my first day on the job. our story: swine flu at osu. our photog was awesome and found us somewhere great to eat lunch (gyros) and while our reporter was on the phone with billions of people, the photog asks me the question that i was dying to hear..."so...do you want to do a story by yourself?"

OMG. yes.

so we left our wonderful reporter in the car and i grabbed the mic and we went out to do another story...with ME as the reporter!! it was awesome. i did the interview, mr. photog got some b-roll, and we were out of there and back to the station. i got to log my tape and put together a vo-sot-vo for my story (about recruiting at the police department) and my producer says, "great. want to do another story?"

OMG. yes.

so he gave me another story (this one about the capital city half marathon and 5 k) and i picked another sot and wrote the scripts for this story too. and mr. producer says, "great. we'll use those for the show."

who says your first day as an intern has to be boring?

i only had about an hour left by the time this was all done, so i didn't get to go out on the live shot (two guys got in a fight right before the show and the one guy hit the other guy WITH HIS CAR. for real...who does that?) so i decided to try my hand at putting together a package. i logged the tape from the swine flu story we did earlier and wrote out a script for a package. my reporter read it and said it was really good and yay.

the end.

oh. and i had 3" heels on for like ten hours. and i didn't even mind.

maybe the fact that my first day was incredible will mean that the next four months will be terrible, but hopefully not. i love the news <3