Olympic introspection: Am I more senistive than I thought?

Just like during the Superbowl, the Olympics are an opportunity for advertisers to really take advantage of the increase in viewers and pull out all the stops when it comes to the commercials they air during key viewing times. In their Go Wolrd campaign, the folks over at Visa have capitalized on this by celebrating the human accomplishments of athletes from not just the present, but the past as well. These commercials–narrated by Morgan Freeman–have been my favorites since the games began last week.

China Gold at its best: Chinese win gold in Men’s All-Around Team Final in Gymnastics

The victory of China Gold has never been sweeter that won by the Chinese Men’s Gymnastics Team. Favored to win the gold, the Chinese entered the Beijing National Indoor Stadium with, maybe not the weight of the world, but at least the weight of a nation on their shoulders to bring home the gold. If you think that eases the pressure I urge you to think again, my friend. With a population of 1.3 billion, the Olympics’ host country not only hopes for gold from its athletes but expects it. I can only imagine how much of a disappointment I’d be if I were one; I’d most likely snap under the pressure like a twig.

I commend and congratulate the Chinese male gymnasts tonight. I’ve got to admit that although I’m all for the Americans going for the gold in general, I was seriously rooting for the Chinese in this case. I just really wanted them to win because they deserved it. Not only have they worked so hard–just as everybody else has–and their own country is hosting the games, but their head coach Huang Yubin was quoted before the games started, ”If we win only one gold again, I will jump off the highest building.” I wouldn’t want that kind of responsibility to be thrown at anybody.

Perfect 10 No More: A new era of scoring in gymnastics is here

The Men’s Gymnastics Team Final is starting in about an hour and for those of you just tuning in, I’m sure you will be confused to find that the perfect 10 is no longer there. For me–somebody who grew up and trained under that system–it’s been difficult trying to figure out the new scoring guide.

So, to educate myself as well as my fellow gymnastics fans who are probably wondering what the hell a score of 14.5 means and whether or not it’s a good score, I visited the USA Gymnastics website to see what’s up. Here’s the gist what I found:

A little bit of work, a bit of play and a whole lot of travel: Days 3 and 3.5 of my trip to UNITY in Chicago

The big, reflective smooshed donut in Chicago's Millennium Park.

I am absolutely determined to finish my Chicago recaps today. That way, I’ll be able to start blogging about other stuff like the Olympics, because according to my stats, that seems to be what most people read here anyway. So here goes the last day and a half of my Chicagoan adventure.

Day 3, Saturday July 26, 2008

Today, my day at the convention started early at 8:30 a.m. I went to a session about designing. Coinciding with the recurring theme of the convention, the session was focused on how to feature and represent more minorities in the media–in this case, the visual aspect. I was hoping that it would be a more practical session since I want to gain more practical experience in design. I’m not saying that I want to give up reporting or writing; I’m just saying that design is something that I’d really want to do as well.

Afterwards, I headed back to the career fair and media expo. Again, I’m not going to name all of the booths I visited, but I’m happy to say that I distributed many of the resumes I had left. I was glad to do so when I did because I was actually going to take a break and then go back but the expo actually closed at 12:45. If I had gone, I would have been completely screwed out of meeting with more people.

Big names, small world: Day 2 of my trip to UNITY in Chicago

I’ve decided that I’ve got issues and those of you who read me on a somewhat regular basis (hi Wynn!), probably agree. It is taking way too long to finish with my recaps of Chicago. So, I’m going to go over the last two and a half days of my trip in not-too-much detail. At this point, the way I see it, most people probably won’t even care anyway and those who would, I’ve probably already talked to in person. But, here we go:

Day 2, Friday July 25, 2008

Today was another convention day for me. It was my workshop/session day. I attended three sessions. One was about being a freelance writer–not an assassin, an occupation I often associate the word with for some unknown reason–and how you can actually make a living by being a freelancer as opposed to just freelancing on the side of your staff reporter position (always good to know). Another was about being a columnist, which is something I’ve never done before, but find intriguing since I’ve started my blog. The last one was about entering the magazine industry, which–for those of you who don’t know me–is my dream job. All sessions were extremely helpful and the panelists had a lot of interesting things to say and unlike in class, I took notes and actually plan on looking over them again later.

Journalism Immersion: Day 1 of my trip to UNITY in Chicago

 

UNITY brings together the AAJA, NAHJ, NABJ and NAJA.

Day 1, Thursday July 24, 2008

Today was my first convention day. I started out going to a plenary session about increasing diversity in both the newsroom and media. Panel members were: Felix Gutierrez, Professor of Journalism and Communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication; Dori Maynard, President of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education; Mark Trahant, Editorial Page Editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; and Helen Zia, Journalist and Fulbright Scholar, Women’s Media Center. The moderator was CBS News National Correspondent, Byron Pitts.

Good lord, that’s a lot of links.

Okay, back to the session. As I was saying it was about increasing diversity in the world of media both in front of and behind the words and images. I forgot who said it, but the at one point, a panel member said that only real time we see minorities featured in the media is in “zoo” stories. Meaning Chinese New Year is when we’ll read about Asians, Cinco de Mayo, Hispanics, a powwow, Native Americans and Kwanzaa, African Americans. I can’t help but say that, from the point of view of a minority, it does feel like that at times. How’s that for a boost to the old self-esteem? I’d hope that most people think that we’re good for more than just that.

I know that and you probably do too, but do they–the general public–know that?

From Emerald City to Windy City: Day 0.5 of my trip to UNITY in Chicago

Okay, so I know I said that I would try to blog about the UNITY convention while I was there, but there were only so many places where I could get free wireless–the lobby of my hotel being one of them. However, by the time I had the time to actually make use of the Internet, I was way too exhausted to do more than check my email and make a quick stop on Facebook. And I know that I’ve been home since Sunday, but I’ve just had too much to do, which is ironic since I haven’t been working that much and have been home for longer than I care for–I’ll save that for another day and trust me, the story behind that deserves a post in itself. So here’s how my adventure began:

Day 0.5, Wednesday July 23, 2008

I’m not really counting this as Day 1 because it was just a travel day and I didn’t do anything convention-related. Nonetheless, it is when my adventures to and in the Windy City begin. My flight was at the obscenely early hour of 6:40 a.m. And before my sanity comes into question (since I am NOT a morning person whatsoever), let me just say that I chose this flight because it was one of the very few I found on Orbitz where I could both leave and arrive at semi-reasonable hours.

The week of awesome Harry Potter stuff continues…

I know that it seems like I’m never going to get to UNITY, but I promise I will. It’s just taking me much longer to do. It’s just so much easier to post links and videos of stuff.

Today I received an email from Barnes and Noble telling me to pre-order my copy of J.K. Rowling’s newest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. This was in the subject line, so I was plenty excited before I even opened the message. According to Amazon,

“In December 2007, J.K. Rowling unveiled The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a very special book of five fairy tales illustrated by the bard herself, embellished with silver ornaments and mounted moonstones. Amazon was fortunate to come into possession of one of the original copies, and it was our privilege to share images and reviews of this incredible artifact. Now J.K. Rowling is giving millions of Harry Potter fans worldwide cause for celebration with these new editions of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, available December 4, 2008.”

Now, if you’re like me and follow Harry’s wizarding world closely, you’ll probably already know that this collection of stories by the wizard Bard (not to be confused with our own muggle Bard) is the same collection that Hermione inherited from Dumbledore at the beginning of Harry’s final adventure (personally, I’m quite excited to read about Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump). But if you’re not like me and don’t follow the wizarding world closely, I highly recommend that you do. I guarantee that a good time will be had by all :-).

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer…IT’S HERE!

I’ll blog about UNITY later, but Wynn called me to let me know about this and obviously, I had to post*:

Harry: Did you know, sir? Then?

Dumbledore: Did I know I’d just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No.

Oh god l’m so excited!!!! I can hardly wait till November 21. I’ve got to figure out my costume now.

*I couldn’t figure out how to post the Hi-Def trailers so I settled for YouTube. For the HD videos, click here.

I’m off to Chicago!

Okay, well I’m off to Chicago for the Unity ‘08 Convention! I’ll try to post updates, but I guess it’ll depend on how often I find wi-fi. If not that often, I’ll catch y’all when I get back!