Almost halfway through?!

So, as of today, I'm four weeks into my internship, with six more weeks to go. Time has passed by so quickly! I can't believe tomorrow is already July (& that my rent is due...). Soon, I'll be moving back into Duke and my new room in Edens. I won't even have to cook anymore or worry about buying groceries because everything will be on food points (like monopoly money because it's easy to spend and seems unimportant.. until you realize that it IS real money). Woohoo! Anyway, back to the internship and what I've been up to.

I keep a clip file of all my stories so I'll remember what stories I wrote and go back to them if I need to refer to something later. (I clip together all my notes with the final product of the story, too.) I've written 16 stories so far, and since I've worked 20 days (well, 19, since one day was Memorial Day), I've had almost a story a day. You can check them out here if you'd like. It's interesting, though. I know I keep coming back to this, but some days I have 2-3 stories published, and some days none at all. I've definitely been keeping busy, though. Let's see.. A lot of basketball and baseball coming up!

Tuesday (June 22) - Attended a press conference about the SJG Greater NC Pro-Am Summer Basketball League, led by former NBA & UNC player Jerry Stackhouse. It was super cool hearing about the league, which features top athletes from Duke, UNC, & NC States, as well as some NBA players and high school athletes. Just to be this league in perspective.. John Wall played here for the last couple of years. (Aka this camp is super prestigious.. and open to the public to watch/shake hands/get autographs/talk with players!!) It was at the Tobacco Road Sports Cafe, which is a cool cafe that overlooks the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and has outdoor seating to watch games. I didn't take any pictures, so let me pull one up from the cafe's blog site.

 The cafe is right there above the scorebox

Wednesday - Attended the Camp24 Hodge (Julius Hodge Basketball Camp) in Raleigh to write a feature on Hodge and the camp. The kids there were super nice and friendly, and so was Hodge. There are some great pictures that accompanied my story on the n&o website.. Take a look!

Thursday - I headed out to the Carolina RailHawks practice in the morning then came into the office just in time for our Intern Luncheon. This time, we ate with the publisher, the executive editor, and a features/business/marketing all-around editor. We talked about the direction newspapers seem to be going in, the role of a newspaper, how to be a good reporter, and how to deal with difficult subjects. It was great being able to talk to people who were so experienced in the field. After, I interviewed someone for a story which hasn't been published yet, so I can't tell you, but it was really interesting!

Friday - Incredibly busy day! Debbie Yow was announced as the new NC State Athletic Director, so we had to find information about her, past ADs, try to get in contact with her, etc. And.. a really good football recruit, Kiaro Holts, committed to UNC, so we had to try and contact him, his coaches, etc. Then, I headed out to UNC to cover an event--women's basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell gave $50,000 to the NC Cancer Hospital, so that was huge. After speaking with multiple people, I headed to the Starbucks inside the cancer hospital and turned around the story in less than an hour. Then, I had to head to the Bulls park again to interview someone for a feature story (it's coming out tomorrow!), except I had to reschedule since the times were wrong. Phew! I had lunch with a couple friends then headed to a friend's apartment for a club tennis reunion--tons of fun.

Saturday - Headed back out to the Bulls park from Raleigh in the afternoon to interview some people then watched the game with Stephen. After, we met up with our friend Aditya and went to a Duke-hosted dance party/clubbing event at Mt. Fuji, a local sushi place. It was fun seeing people I didn't know were around in the summer. After staying around for an hour, we all decided to head to Shooters II, the place everyone goes to. It was great because both places had no cover, so we went in for free, and it ended up being a lot of fun. Below are some pictures from Mellow Mushroom, a pizza parlor right outside the stadium. I would definitely and vehemently recommend going there.

I just had to take pictures of two of my press passes :) I have one more for the Mudcats

Delicious.. the one on the left is BBQ Chicken & the one on the right is baked potato, sour cream, chives, bacon, & butter. Both were.. SO GOOD.

Sunday - Relaxed, off day. Didn't do much. I think I deserved a little break!

Monday - Back to the Durham Bulls park. I covered a game at 1 p.m. which was really exciting (even though the AC in the press box was broken and it was 95 degrees). We were down by 1 in the bottom of the seventh and managed to win it in the bottom of the ninth. Yay!! Here are pictures from the press box.

Tuesday - I had to go back and interview a couple more people for my story, so I headed out in the afternoon after cranking out two short stories. After the interview, I got to see Gabby and Chris (who came up from Charlotte). It was a lot of fun going out to eat with them at Bali Hai (mongolian bbq place) and just chatting it up. After, we played Mario Party, which Gabby rocks at. Then I called it a night.. time to sleep!

Wednesday - Not much has happened so far today, just writing a couple of stories. But tomorrow night a fellow intern and I are heading to the Stackhouse camp where we get to see our favorite players play!