Monday

My second day started off with waking up at 5am to get ready for the day. I took a shower, got dressed, did my skin care and also makeup. I let my hair air dry, which makes it curly, no idea why because I got straight hair. My roommate woke up a little later and also got ready. Me and my suitemates talked for a little before we headed down at different times to meet up with our color group before breakfast. The breakfast was in the southside dinning hall like it will be each morning. Do I say, the food is taste less but man its pretty nice in the dinning hall. I sat and ate with my roommate and one of her friends before we all split up to go to our color group meeting. I also had the opportunity to run the Bluecrews Instagram today.

Color Group meeting #3

In our third color group meeting, we talked about the first amendment and did a simulation on the amendment. If you don’t know the first amendment it’s our freedom for press, speech, assembly, religion, and to petition. In the simulation, we were given a prompt on a teacher who was cheating the system for Ap exams so they get paid more, the schools journalism class wrote about it, but once the paper was publish the principle saw and ripped that page out. Even though the principle had a chance to review the work before the paper got publish. In the simulation there were two meetings, the meeting with the principal and then the meeting with the school board. Each one of us had a role in this, I was the journal teacher. Which my team ended up winning the simulation.

We also went over the Tinker and Hazelwood laws, as well as the New Voice act. The Tinker law is about protecting students’ speech, which applies to personal expression, it also gives students stronger rights. While the Hazelwood law, allows schools control, they can censor work they don’t like or just don’t want up, it gives them more power over the students. While the New Voice act is an act to try and counteract the Hazelwood law, so students get more freedom and have their freedom of speech, press and more back. Since its a newer act it is still slowly making an impact. I personally think every state should be a New Voice state and if they’re not, people should start fighting to get their state to be one. I sadly don’t live in a New Voice state. So, my school has more control over things I write for them or about them.

Lunch

After our color group meeting, we boarded busses and headed over to Nighthawk Pizza. When we got to Nighthawk we got seated with our color group, on the table, there was cheese pizza, and a little food bar with other food. The pizza was super thin and not that good, though at the food bar, they had fire mac & cheese. We had some time after we ate food, so i split off with my friend Lilly, we got ice cream at a little ice cream shop, then headed over to Target to grab a few things. we headed back to this outside area and sat down before we had to head over again and meet up with our color group.

Fuse At Mason Square

We boarded the busses to head over to a newer building apart of Mason Square. Which was really fancy if I say so myself. They had a whole area ready for us to seat at; we were going to listen to two speakers. Me and my color group got seated near the front to the left side. Its always the left side for some reason.

Allie Weiskopf

Our first speaker was Colonel Allie Weiskopf, she is the Directo of Pentagon Press Operations, U.S. Department of War. A few of the things she talked about was how she didn’t plan on being in the Army or a Journalist of the Army, she talked about the challenges on being a female in a male working field, how building trust and having relationships matter. I honestly loved Allie speech and how she answered questions even if they were hard questions.

A few of my take aways from her speech would be how she kept it real with us even though we were teenagers. She pointed how you need to have control over your emotional, that you need to know your person or scours before you ask questions. In any type of job you need to make sure you separate your home life and work life. Which I think is a really good skill to have, especially for journalists. Allie also makes it really clear that you should try and be a good person, no matter what.

Anna Layden

Our second speaker was Anna Layden, she is a Freelance photojournalist. If you get a chance I really recommend looking at her work. She is a big inspiration for me. Anna had a prestation ready for us to look at when she gave her speech. In that prestation she showed off her work and talked about it. Which I loved because not only we got to see her work, but we got to listen to her on how captures things and what she looks for. In her speech she also talked about the 4 good.

A few take away I got from her speech was to find your style in photography but also explore. Try to tell a story out of the pictures you take and post. You should also know how to use your camera. Also to capture what’s in front of you to tell a story. The 4 goods, which were information, eye candy, emotion, and intimacy. I also got to ask her a question which was really cool.

Quotes:

“Surround yourself with good people”- Allie Weiskopf “Just because you give a journalist information doesn’t mean they will use it in their story” – Allie Weiskopf “There are interesting people, interesting moments, and interesting stories everywhere. there. are. stories. EVERYWHERE.” – Anna Layden “We are all artist with different visions and different eyes, but we known our art” – Anna Layden

Dinner

Once all the speakers were done, we headed back to the busses to go eat at the Silver Social. The food there was pretty decent, though do I tell you. we all had a very interesting dinner. There was this man doing a bunch of tricks outside. It was so funny to watch. He also just kept pulling things out of somewhere. That was the best entertainment I’ve gotten in a long time. After dinner we got on the buses again and headed to our last stop of the day.

U.S. Capital and Monuments

We headed near the U.S. Capital to take a big group picture. Trying to get 300 kids together, and take a picture was crazy, though it was fun. Then again, we were also facing the sun so almost half of us were getting blinded trying to take that picture. I will say, it turned out a lot better then I thought it would. After the picture we meet up with our color groups. My color group to our group pictures which was really fun. We then got on the buses and headed over to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.

At the Memorial I was with my little group while we walked around, talked, and took a lot of pictures. I will say it was one of favorite memorials not my top favorite but up there. Me and my group did a whole hunt to find places to do pictures and also mess around. I will say we were a lot more comfortable with each other and I thinks its because we had time to get to know each other more. We also took a lot of group pictures. After a few we had to meet up again and get on the buses to hit our last site visit for the night.

We headed over to the Lincoln Memorial and by the Reflective pool, which we sadly couldn’t see. Still really cool though even if it was gated up and under construction again. Me and my group did more pictures, and the headed up to see the Lincoln Memorial. we did a group pictures Infront of Lincoln. my favorite photo of us. Once we were done, we headed to where we were going to meet up with the bluecrew. After a while we boarded the bus and headed back to Goerge Mason.

Bus and Dorm

Back on the bus, I made a little reel for the Instagram and posted, also downloaded a few photos off my camera and edited them to post on my own Instagram. Back at the dorms, I got ready for the next day and then got in my bed. Me and my roommate talked for a little also with our suitemate too. then we all headed to sleep.