First of Many LONG Days

Well today was my first day with classes, News 7 and basketball all in a row. Consecutively I spent eleven hours at Lyndon State College today. As you can probably guess. I woke up at about 7:30 wishing I hadn't and could have enjoyed that extra fifteen minutes of sleep, however I was up. I organized my basketball things and packed them in my nap sack, took a shower, made sure I had all my things for school and headed out to my first class. At my first class we had to come up with a play and perform it with sounds, not words. It was fun and I enjoyed it. I had about an hour break an hour and went to the snackbar for a morning beverage. It was nice to have that hour or down time because that's when the day goes crazy. I had performance class at eleven and we read allowed working on projection, pronounciation, and being friends with our audiences. With that class came News 7, my interview got moved to Monday so I did some readers and dubbed an old news break to file to send to the personalities coach. Right from my shift at News 7 I went down to see Pete to have my ankle tapped. I keep rolling it and I figured better safe than sorry! After practicing and such I came home and here I am watching A Few Good Men. Wish us luck in our game tomorrow!
Until further results and tomorrow, goodnight!

Busy Little Hornet

Well, today was busy busy busy. Even though I don't have as long of a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays than I do on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays it was still rather insane! I woke up around 7 am took a shower and got ready for my 8 am class. Basically the class is to talk about our stories for the week, what's happening down in News 7 and how we can improve on common mistakes occurring throughout the week. Since we didn't have News 7 last week it was more double checking schedules making sure shifts were correct, and introducing the newbies to websites frequently used in the station. This semester we have oodles and oodles of reporters, this poses difficulty when trying to find stories and work out interviews because there aren't as many photographers & cameras to account for all of us! After class I hit the snack bar for a much needed coffee then made my way back upstairs for Contemporary Dram and Lit. Today was presentation day! We read our stories that we wrote for class, analyzed them, categorized them and basically related them directly to what we're going to be working on. Once class was over I had a two and a half hour break. Unfortunately for me this was not "down" time. I shot over the Small Mall (aka the Green Mountain Mall) and tried to find shoes that wouldn't hurt my knee and ankle as much (sometimes being an athlete makes you feel so old), I also needed to pick up a card to mail back home. After this I ran home grabbed somethings for my 1:30 class, shot the post office to get a four cent stamp (funny story, I mailed my Gram a birthday card with some left over $.37 stamps completely unaware the stamp had gone up to $.41... Whoops! Mom got a kick out of it when she called.) I got up to school early enough to get an article for Performance class tomorrow. I felt like a chicken with my head cut off, running from place to place panic stricken with time restraints. Last class of the day, Painting. Class was uneventful today, my excitement to dive in and learn to paint is itching so bad I can't pay attention to techniques we're learning to make us better painters. Maybe my passion to learn will just leap out of me and on to the canvas when I begin. Once 3 o'clock hit I was in the clear... Except for the pounds of homework and phone calls I needed to make to set up interviews for my up and coming stories. BLAH. Reading, writing, finding art supplies online I would have rather vegged out for a while. Good news is practice got changed to 8:15... Only 30 minutes earlier than before but it gets me out just that much earlier so I can come home, read some more and hit the hay for an EXTREMELY long day tomorrow!
But, I need to get some more things done before basketball! So until tomorrow...

And so it begins

I definitely had a case of the Mondays today. It all begin when I attempted to do a homework assignment before I left for my 9am class. I flipped through the channels to find a broadcaster that I could evaluate for their mannerisms,tonality and overall performance. Unfortunately I couldn't catch wind of a full desk report instead I caught a bit of the Today Show and watched an interview with Jessica Alba. It was an interesting interview that got me to lose the track of time! I ran late for my 9am and remembered that the homework I decided to get done before I left for the basketball games in Conneticuit this weekend was never emailed to myself or printed out at school, therefore I didn't have proof that I accomplished the assignment. Once I made it through that class I ventured to the snackbar, I was feigning for a caffine boost. After enjoying some coffee I headed to the small lab and got some homework done for online Sports Psychology before performance class. Performance class was pretty eventful, sharing our findings on a particular news persona, working on tongue twisters and delieverence. From there I went to my first news 7 shift of the semester! Things were crazy down there today with everyone trying to get their foot in the door. Unfortunately there weren't enough photographers for everyone to go on a story so I used the day to set up stories for later in the week and make some contacts for those stories. I think I have a story for Wednesday but I still need to make a couple calls. I don't want to jinx it though! It's late, and it's been a long day, so until tomorrow.

Another Long Ride

Today was a pretty hectic day. I got to sleep in until, 9:30 am which was amazing, continental breakfast was served, even better... Although getting through the lines at breakfast was a tid bit overwhelming. Waking up a half hour before breakfast ended may have had something to do with it. After breakfast Punky and I just hung out and watched Will & Grace (one of my all time favorite shows) until we had to leave for the Men's game. We drove over to Eastern Connecticut college, dropped the boys off and the girls enjoyed a nice lunch at Friendly's. Unfortunately the Friendly's we went to was small and not all of us got to dine together, but back to back booths wasn't too bad. Once we wrapped up lunch (I split a chicken tender platter with Jen and it was delicious, in case you were wondering) we headed back to the college to cheer on the boys! They played hard but wound up losing. When we all boarded onto the bus we started our four hour journey home. Although it wasn't a strenuous day it was tiring with all the traveling and wrestling to score a bagel at breakfast. Even though the weekend ended with overall losses I think everyone had a good time, and it was nice getting to know some of the newer girls and freshman a little better :*)
Tonight I'm going to watch a movie and go to bed, long day tomorrow, no basketball, but the start of station duty! We begin mock news casts tomorrow to get us back into the swing of things and the new sophomore pracs. into the mix. Time to crack down and start finding some stories! Wish me luck!

A Four Hour Tour

Saturday morning, most people sleep in, enjoy a nice breakfast, maybe read the weekend paper or watch cartoons. Not us. This morning at 6:30 both Lyndon State's men's and women's basketball teams shuffled onto a premiere coach bus and headed out for a 4 and a half hour bus trip. Off to Connecticut we went with the bus more or less fully loaded. Thankfully I got a couple hours of sleep on the coach and wasn't as cranky as I was when I first climbed on. Unfortunately CT wasn't as successful as we hoped and both teams were defeated. Close games and both teams played their hearts out. Sometimes it just doesn't cut it. Our loss set in deep because in order to get to Nationals we need to win 70% of our games for the school to send us. But on a happy note my Mom and Dad came down from Mass. to watch the game so it was nice to see them. It's weird not having them at every game so I really enjoy when they can make it.
Right now we're staying over night in a Best Western because the Men's team will be taking on Eastern Connecticut tomorrow. So far so good, tonight about half of us walked to Friendly's, which turned out to be a bust too crowded! We decided to walk back and join the rest of the teams at the Ground Round. This I found very exciting because I didn't even know The Ground Round still existed! I used to go there with my family when I was younger and we would get a little baseball cap filled with ice cream for dessert. Unfortunately they did away with the baseball caps but the food is still good. After we ate some of the girls went to the pool. But no hot tub, no swimming for this girl... TOO COLD! Now Punk and I are just enjoying some down time, a little TV and knowing us a bit of girl talk to follow. Until tomorrow, have a good night!

TGIF

So I woke up this morning and went to Intro to Theatre arts and it was show and tell day! It was fun seeing what people brought in and what why. Through the art of story telling we learned fun facts about each other and the art of play writing in a sense. After class I had an hour break and wandered around for a but until I found Krystle, K-Sauce if you will, a teammate and also one of my good friends here at LSC. We made our way to little lab and facebooked, checked our emails and other fun things to fill our hour before class. Afterward I went to performance and we discussed somethings that are common flaws for an entertainer. We also decided we would make checklists for ourselves to help us improve.
Class ended and I made my way home for the afternoon, did some homework and took a quick cat nap before basketball.
At basketball we prepared for our game against Mitchell and did a few drills. We had a somewhat lighter practice. When practice ended Krystle, myself, Punky, and Megan went out to Hoagies, Lyndonville's finest. We had a nice dinner and Krystle and Punky came over to watch some TV. Right now we're going to watch the Rock of Love with Bret Michael so, back to that!
We'll see how the game goes tomorrow :*)
Wish us Luck!

Cranky Pants

I hate waking up before the sun embraces the world. Today I woke up around 5:20 a.m. got dressed in the dark because there's something about waking up and having to turn on all the lights to get ready that depresses me and makes me want to crawl back into bed. I made my way to practice where I was less than sociable. Something about being up at that hour trying to dedicate myself to exercising, running, jumping and everyday fundamentals doesn't work out well for me. My entire equillibrium was thrown off for the entire day. I went to class at 9:30 after a half hour nap or so and felt like I was in a thick fog. I managed to get through the class. Afterward I went to Olympia Sports, my place of employment and had to turn in my keys for the new "key holder" which is another way of saying assistant management. Since basketball started I haven't had many hours to dedicate so they had to promote a new key holder because beside me, there's only one other. The awesome part is I had a check for not even working! We made quota last month and all the managers get a bonus... I love getting money for doing nothing! I also got to pick up a few things. After that I came back and napped again... A long day of napping with classes and errands in between. Not too many exciting things happened today. All I know is i'm hitting the hay early and hoping tomorrow is less tiring!

We Shoot, We Score

Today was an overall good day... It started off stressful and ended with victory! I went to school for my nine o'clock theatre class, Intro. to Theatre Arts. It was so much fun, we did some role playing in groups devising a mini-play about the first week of school. The teacher is awesome, she has us manipulate theatre terms without even knowing we're doing it. It's a great technique that I can definitely relate to and analyzing each other's work and applying terminology to it makes the material an "everyday life" scenario! But enough about that on class! Afterward I had a meeting with my advisor to rearrange my schedule so I could be tied to a performance class and also make my shifts for news 7. Hopefully my shifts won't interfere too much with basketball and my other studies! Once I got into performance I had to drop a class so I wouldn't be over eighteen credits. I figured I could drop photography and take it another semester... Hopefully that plan is followed through in the next couple semesters.
After performance class I came home for some lunch and some down time before stretching and shooting around before the game.
Then the big moment came... JOHNSON STATE. Grrr... Always a battle. The games can get pretty intense but that's what makes the victory even sweeter. I was so proud of how we played today. For the first time in a long time we played insync with each other and our "magic" was just there and undenyable. It was a team win and we pushed and proaded our way to victory. With a bit of mental lapse at the end believing we had to push, push, push we cut our lead and made the end of the game a nail bitter. Soon people will realize that's just how we role... In a nutshell it turned into a good day and beating Johnson just put the hot fudge, whip cream, and cherry on top! Now it's time for some dinner and rest... Practice is very early in the morning. 6am early ugh, we'll see how productive that will be! Hmmm... maybe i'll catch the sunrise?
Until tomorrow,
Jackie

Back to Basics

Hello to Everyone out there browsing the Lyndon State Website! This is my first blog, and a glimpse into who I am and what I do here at Lyndon!
For starters, my name is Jackie Wetzel and I'm a junior here at the college. I'm originally from Braintree Massachusetts, which is about ten minutes south of Boston. So as you can probably guess I grew up in a rather large area. Like most seniors in high school I had a variety of schools that I applied to and looked into. I had no idea what I wanted to in terms of schooling, I was interested in so many different careers it was hard for me to narrow it down. I came to Lyndon after receiving a letter from the previous basketball coach. When I got up here I saw the television studio and saw it as something I could get into and enjoy. So along with basketball I started a degree in television studies. My sophomore year I declared my major as Broadcast Journalism in Television News (in front of the camera) quite the mouthful huh?
Today marked the second semester of my return to News 7. Unlike many of the schools out there with television studies, Lyndon broadcasts to a live audience within what we TV gurus refer to as the "squiggle," a term to identify our coverage area and towns we travel to frequently. It's a very interesting study. If you like meeting new people and are unafraid to call, chat and set up interviews to talk about what's going on in the Northeast Kingdom. It's fascinating the people you meet and the hands on experience you receive. It's slightly overwhelming the time and dedication you have to put in a first, but then it becomes easier to make the calls and conquer any fears you may have in regards to interviewing.
Putting in fifteen hours a week in the studio and twelve hours a week for basketball becomes a challenge especially with all your other classes! But, having the basketball team helps getting through a lot. We're very close and successful in what we do. We're not just a team, we're a "family" as we would say last year. Despite all the injuries and sickness last year we managed to make it to Nationals in Oklahoma with only eight girls. As for this year, we have more girls and a growing family.
So, today marked the first day of classes. After a long break, today made for a LONG day. Mixed with excitement, fatigue and lots of money to the bookstore. Today also marked my official day as a theatre minor! A day filled with up and downs. I was very excited about the classes I was taking, however, news came to me that I am supposed to be enrolled in a performance class being a TV major and all. So I think I'm going to have to drop photography and sign up for a performance class, bummer dude. Oh well, I still have painting!
Now I'm home, at my off campus apartment. Most of my friends and I live off campus which makes for some fun dinners... As for the rest of the night I will probably just relax and do some homework before practice!
We'll see what tomorrow brings... Other than our game against Johnson State (the rivalry continues!).