From the Eyes of a Dukie: 10 days.

Til I'm home, my dad told me. I love how my parents are keeping mental countdowns of the days until they can see me. I can't wait! But now.. this week. Be warned. A lot of pictures from yesterday!!

Monday - Pretty mellow day, worked on stories, got back into the routine of things after the weekend. Nothing too exciting, I don't think. Oh, random side story, though. Stephen and his friends (all Dukies) live off-campus for the summer, and they all decided to have a reunion (so, that's.. 7-8 boys in total who all lived together in Wilson dorm their freshman year). And what exactly does that entail? A wing draft. Trust me, I was confused when I first heard of it, too. Basically.. they all meet up at Wing Stop, order a different flavor of wings.. and draft. To sum it up, my friend's Facebook status was, "8 people. 150 wings. Two tubs of baked beans, two orders of fries, plus vegetables. All gone. The Wing Draft lives." Epic.

Tuesday - Worked on a couple stories, one was about Ashley Thomas, who I referenced in the post earlier. Check it out here! It was my first story on the display of the Sports section, which means it was the story with the biggest picture and was seen above the fold of the page. Woohoo! Later that night, I went to a Carolina RailHawks (soccer) game, which was fun. It was raining, so that kind of sucked, but otherwise, it was great, and I got to interview a couple of the players after for this story!

Wednesday - Went into work in the morning and was told I had another "breaking news" assignment! I headed over to NC State to write about a couple of drills that were going on between Wake County EMS (emergency services) and NC State's football team's athletic trainers. It was pretty cool watching them clip off the helmet of a fake (he was an athletic trainer) "unconscious" football player and carry him off on the stretcher then wheeled off the field on a gator. I got back to the office, cranked out the story, and it was posted online about 10 minutes after that as a breaking news story. And.. it was also the display for the next day!! I was supposed to have dinner with kids from the tennis team but ended up not doing that since I had to stay late at the office to work on my story. I did, however, go to Starbucks with Steph again, and we talked a bunch about random things, so that was fun!

Thursday - Worked on a couple of upcoming stories then had our last intern luncheon. We had a photographer and a reporter come in and speak to us about their trip to Haiti and the stories they wrote. The pictures from the trip were amazing. They got to visit an orphanage, stay with a baptist group, and the Haynes textile factory! Their stories and pictures were really inspiring, and they talked about going on a trip like that definitely changes your life. A little bit after the lunch, I went over to Triangle Rock Club in Morrisville to interview a 10-year-old boy who had been chosen for the USA team in rock climbing! Check it out here. He was so adorable!! And.. to top it all off. Another display! That's three in four days! After work, I headed to the Nasher Museum of Art, where I volunteered again. I met a girl who was the daughter of the Faculty-in-Residence in Bassett, and we talked a lot. The two hours passed by really quickly. Also, if I haven't mentioned it before, the Nasher is having a new exhibit coming out August 26 about vinyl records! Be sure to check it out.. it'll be awesome, I promise!

My stories! The Novice Kayaker one, then the Preparing Now, then the Climbing the walls. Yay!

Friday - Worked on the stories for Saturday's paper (I have two on that page.. the bottom right and the top one on the page on the most right). Other than that, nothing much. I had dinner with Stephen at Sushi Love, which is a Japanese restaurant right outside of Duke. It was delicious and super filling (but light).

Saturday - Slept in and got up at around noon. I finished my leftover food from the night before, and it was still delicious! Then, I met up with Stephen and we headed to the Raleigh Wide Open festival, which was just a huge fair sort of thing with a bunch of vendors, exhibitions, and bands! This site shows just a few of the things at the show. We ended up seeing one of our friends from Duke who was at the event, too! It was raining a little so that wasn't fun, but overall it was still a great experience. We also stopped by the triangle.com booth, which was part of The N&O booth, and I won a free t-shirt from the prize wheel!! We stayed there for most of the day then headed back to my apartment for a quick break since I had to interview 2010 Duke graduate Mike Posner. He was super nice and friendly, and we had a really easygoing and fun conversation. After, Stephen and I grabbed dinner at the No. 1 rated place on Yelp! in Raleigh, J. Betski's, a German place. The food was absolutely amazing!! I'll post a picture below. After, we headed back to the Wide Open and saw fireworks. Great way to end the day! Prepare for an onslaught of pictures..