For the Girls

When I first got to AU, these signs used to annoy me. They're on the back of almost every door in every restroom on campus. 

I took them as constant reminder to never let my guard down.

Somehow though, I've come to see them more as a sign of solidarity. 

Happy International Women's Day!

Networking is Easy

Kristen Edgell, a marketing assistant at National Geographic, spoke to an audience of American University students & semi-employed freelancers last week about how to get started in D.C. area media.  

She moved up from North Carolina last summer after college, with a few bucks and the desire to work in TV. 

TIVA's Getting Started in Your Media Career featured panelists Laura
Mateus, campus recruiter at Discovery Communications, Jason Villemez,
production assistant at PBS Newshour, and Kristen Edgell of NatGeo. 

She temped for a couple of months and landed an assignment at NatGeo. 

Once in the door, she took on additional tasks and made herself invaluable to the team by learning everything she possibly could. It wasn't long before she was asked to stay on full-time. 




My favorite part of Kristen's story, though, was how she went on 40-50 informational interviews by the time she finished school. (And I thought I was a genius for doing three or four.)

There are two big things I've learned so far about networking: you have to show up (duh), and if you like people and are genuinely curious about why they do what they do and how they got there, then all you really have to do is listen. This makes networking not only easy but kinda fun. Then again, I've always liked talking to strangers. 

But there are plenty of people who don't, so I asked Kristen for insight on their behalf. She started with a quote from Networking for People Who Hate Networking: 

“Introverts, the overwhelmed, and the under-connected fail at traditional networking by following advice that was never intended for them in the first place.”

 
A few other pointers: 

• Focus on a few. Are there people you can find out about beforehand? Spend your time doing your homework. You will not only feel more prepared, you will get more out of it.

• Pace yourself. Extroverts collect, not connect. If you speak with one or two people and feel yourself getting stressed, it's okay to step away and play on your phone for a few minutes as you recharge. It will help your attitude and also allow you time to perhaps jot down the important points of what you just discussed so you can do a thorough follow up later.

• Follow-up. When you give them your business card, write something memorable about you that you discussed, or would like to discuss. Then be sure to keep those contacts alive and intact. Send them a thank you note, referencing what you wrote on your business card. This will help people remember the quality of your initial conversation—and open the door to continuing the conversation. Gathering info with your keen observation skills and superior listening ability is what adds the quality to your connections.

Film School is Hard

Film school isn't all rainbows and Tarantino movies. 

I tried to do it his way. Didn't work for me. 

There's a ton of reading, a ton of crappy videos to produce before you get any good, and lots to sacrifice - namely, everything that does not support the goal of getting the most out of school & into the working world in a timely manner. 

Grad school, especially film school, is just like life: it is what you make it. You can do only what's required of you, or you can choose to excel. 

Charts & pictures make learning fun.  

I'd like to do the latter, but this semester my film theory class is 

getting in my way. I've never been much of an academic, and this class totally makes me feel like an idiot. 

Teaching each other: Professor & filmmaker Brigid Maher looks on as (l-r) Michael Nickerson, Michael Jee, Pat Flynn & Lonnie Martin school our film theory class on old Hollywood. 

I don't get it (Soviet montage, this means you) and I don't want to. That is, until we watched Citizen Kane and then I really knew how little I know about anything, and that it was time to pay more attention.

Extra reading and helping other students, especially non-native English speakers, decipher the stuff helps me figure it out more too. It doesn't hurt to have an awesome professor & the best cohort ever.

Another great prof., Maggie Burnette Stogner, did the video for Roads of Arabia, which closes today at the Sackler Gallery. 

Of course I'd prefer education be free. But the price of film school, for me, includes getting to know and work (and suffer) with classmates who are equally obsessed with creating & telling visual stories.  

I love grad school but can't wait to see what's on the other side. 

Before grad school, I had no idea who this dude was. Now I recognize him on the street, yo.  

Tampa

Meanwhile, almost directly across the state in Tampa, things are hopping. 

First stop was a house concert in North Tampa with a couple of fabulous Canadians, John Wort Hannam and Scott Duncan. 

Tampa's a great mid-sized town to start off in, but I left (twice!) because there was little room for growth. 

Some ambitious people figure out how to make life work where ever they are, like Dana Pettaway. She traded D.C. for Tampa and started her own businesses, beauty+health+nature. 

I met her a couple weekends ago while she was hocking her paraben-free wares at the Tampa Downtown Market. 

At the market I also ran into my old roommate Cooper & his dad. 

As a third culture kid (yes, there's a name for that) who grew up hometown-less, Tampa offered a familiarity I never experienced growing up. I miss that feeling up here in cold, transient D.C. 

I have no idea where I might go in just over a year when I'm facing the end of graduate school. 

L.A., Montréal, C-SPAN. I'm open to anything and it's all very exciting. 

 But whether or not I move back, I've been doing my best to stay in touch with my beloved Tampa people. Like the Ekhos, who had their annual training day when I was in town. 

Contrary to what I learned as a kid, in adulthood, friendships don't have to end when you move away. 

Brevard County

I spent my senior year of high school & first couple of years of community college in Brevard County, Florida.

Back then it was easy to feel like I was headed nowhere. 

Where I had my first audition. Don't all journos start out wanting to be actors? 

I experienced the same feeling of being stuck in Brevard earlier this month when I was there for a brief family visit.  

Time moves on, though more slowly in some places. I blame the humidity.    

Nothing's Black & White

What do we know about why crimes are committed?

Today my little brother, who has been in prison for 10 years, gets his freedom. 

Personally I think he paid too much for his crimes, but that's a policy conversation for another day. 

Because of my bias, I wanted to get another perspective - from a robbery victim's point of view. 

A childhood friend, coincidentally, was the victim of a crime (similar to my brother's offenses) when we were in high school nearly 20 years ago. 

I decided to interview my friend - a father & educator - via email, since I have never asked him about the details of the robbery. Somewhat surprisingly, it turned into a conversation about healing & race.

Names have been changed & edited for time. 


Tampa Do-Gooder: What it was like to be robbed?  

Friend: The surreal thing about being robbed was how calm I was during the robbery. I took a grim pride in that later. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself - I should set the scene, first. 

My brother, myself and a friend went to Wawa for snacks. Unfortunately, we finished shopping at different times and I came out to the car before they did. 

Little did I know that we were being watched the entire time. Maybe if we had all left the store at the same time and taken off together, none of this would have happened. 

Anyway, one of the robbers knocked on my window and asked something inaudible. I rolled down the window and he jammed something inside, pointed at my crotch. In horror, they stuck around while my brother and his friend eventually made their way back to the car. 

All in all, they probably didn't get more than $20 from the three of us.

After they had taken our stuff, they hung around for a while and I remember the guy with his arm in the car hesitated for a while, maybe wondering if he should actually pull the trigger or not. 

2012 (Prison) Reading List

One week from today, after 10 long years, my brother will get another chance at being a productive member of society.  

This is the third year I've blogged the list of books I've sent him, and kinda like the third child, I've forgotten to keep track of them this time around. 

(Bad joke, although my brother is the third of three children...) The books pictured are the ones I've managed to remember. 

Ex-cons face great odds, of course, not usually having been rehabilitated in prison. There's few resources on the outside to keep them on task, and plenty of bad habits to pick up again.  

I know he now thinks about the consequences of his actions, and hope that will lead him to make better decisions.

And somehow, despite all the horrors he experienced on the inside, he's managed to grow up into a pretty decent man. 

There were a few years early on when I didn't think that possible, he was so broken and abused. 

Something weekly to help pass the time. 

And fortunately he'll come home to a family more prepared to help than we were when he first started on his spiral downward. 

Many ex-cons are not so lucky to have such support. 

Something grounding for the soul.