Category: My Personal Life

And Then There Were Ducks

Grad School, My Personal Life
Credit: Erin Podolak

Today I took a walk on the lake front to get some pictures to go with the article on toxins in the lakes that I wrote for my J800 class. I walked for over two hours and gave myself blisters and I ended up mostly taking pictures of ducks.  Good job Erin. 

Although, there is something to be said for simply getting outside and going for a walk. I’ve found that Madison has a lot of good walking trails right near campus that offer you a way to get out and be in semi-natural surroundings without having to go far from the UW campus.

At least they ducks are cute, and I did take a few shots that I can use for my article, mostly warning signs for toxic algae blooms. I’m not sure how I feel about the idea that journalists are supposed to now be able to do all of their own multimedia to accompany their articles. I don’t mind taking pictures because I’ve always liked photography but I definitely couldn’t make some of the graphs and maps that you see accompanying articles. I guess I’ll have to learn to keep up in this business though, and something tells me my ducks certainly won’t cut it.

Phone Phobia

Grad School, My Personal Life, ,

When I was younger (say middle school age) I HATED talking on the phone. For some reason it made me really nervous, as if the person on the other end of the phone were going to be constantly judging me. Like I was going to make a mistake, or somehow divulge some dark secret or something… not that I have any. In my line of work, its a good thing I’ve gotten over that (for the most part).

The reason I bring up my phone phobia is that as a journalist I constantly make phone calls, talking to strangers trying to confirm information or score an interview. Today I did the first of three interviews that I have to do for my first article for J800. The article is due next week, but so far this was the only interview that I’ve been able to set up. I decided to write about a recent USGS study on cyanotoxins in lakes in the midwest, so I interviewed the woman who led the study.

It was a good interview, and I got a lot of useable material for my article, so its a step in the right direction. I contacted a UW professor working on toxins in the lakes, and I contacted a local conservation group but got no reply. Tomorrow I’ll have to work on setting up the remaining two interviews — hopefully just by contacting a bunch of people/groups I’ll be able to convince two more people to talk to me.

It would pretty much make my day if this article came together nicely because as soon as its done I have to start on the next one. Oh, the joys of grad school. I always prefer to set up interviews by email first and then schedule a time to talk on the phone. I think it makes me less anxious about calling to know that someone is expecting me. Although cold calling can sometimes be very affective. I suppose in this line of work I’ll have to get more used to it.

Where To Find A Good Article

Grad School, My Personal Life,

My apologies for a lack of blog posting this weekend. It seems as though Wisconsin has conspired against me and I contracted some type of food poisoning, thus I have not been out of my apartment in the last 48 hours. But, I’m doing much better now and so I have the joy of conquering my stack of homework for this week.

In addition to my typical reading, homework for this week also includes coming up with a story idea, contacting at least three sources, and writing up a 800+ word article. I really need to get a jump on it, so I’ve spent today getting the reading out of the way and hopefully will be able to focus on the article tomorrow and Tuesday.

This article is intended to be short news, which I am very comfortable with since that was the bulk of my duty at BioTechniques, but it has one component that makes it more difficult. The three sources in the article have to represent three different points of view, which can be difficult in a breaking science story. So, that makes choosing the topic that much more important, it has to be something very specific but that has a more general impact so that there will be more people to interview than just the bench scientists.

That being said, Marianne and I were just discussing how to find article ideas. I find press releases to be the best way to find science stories, because they can help show you stories that are important, but that occur at Universities or even in countries that are far away from where the reporter is physically located. Press releases also focus on new information, so that almost always leads to an element of timeliness, which is crucial to a breaking news story.

Although, just reading the science news from other media outlets can help inspire a story, or talking to researchers and seeing what they think are important trends in their community. I’ll let you know what I decide to write about, fingers crossed a good press release won’t be hard to find.

Junk DNA & A Wisconsin Update

Genetics, Grad School, My Personal Life,

I saw this article in the New York Times today, and it got me thinking about how misleading the concept of “junk DNA” is for the general public. It isn’t really a good descriptive term because junk signifies that the DNA isn’t needed, when really researchers just don’t yet know what that DNA does. It isn’t part of the exome (part of the genome that codes for proteins – which make all the substances of your body) but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a role. I think its a term that people should avoid using because I think it causes more confusion than it does good.

In other news, today was my first full day in Wisconsin. I saw my apartment and met my roommate Francis, and she seems really awesome so that was exciting. I spent all day waiting for my boxes to come from UPS (which arrived at 6:45pm and ripped open, of course) but they finally came so that made me happy. Tomorrow we’ll try to actually set up the apartment since my stuff is literally just dumped out all over the place. There is a definite lack of storage so we’ll have to try to fix that, but overall the apartment is really nice and in a great location.

Hello, Wisconsin

Grad School, My Personal Life

Today I flew with my family to Wisconsin where I’ll be starting grad school in a little over a week. The flight was less than stellar, but we made it ok, and the airlines even managed to get all my luggage here in one piece. We didn’t get a chance to do much, but we did drive around Madison a little bit to show my brother the city (he’s never been here but I visited with my parents in March).

Tomorrow we’ll actually see about setting up my apartment, which is in a really awesome location. Its only a block from the Journalism/Communications department. I’m thinking that will be really nice during the Wisconsin Winter. Tomorrow I also get to meet my new roommate, the apartment building matched us up so we’ve never met. She moved into the apartment on Sunday when the lease started, so I’m excited to get to the apartment and start settling in myself.