A Little More Smarter!

Another week in the books and the experience in Boston just gets better and better. Now that the training is officially completed I'm understanding the process on my own. That process will hopefully help in the future when this co-op is over and I'm searching for a full time job.

At the beginning of this past week, I had some trouble holding onto a story for more than a couple hours. This was new for me because I'd never had a problem with scheduling interviews and getting stories done a daily or weekly basis. This week was an obstacle I had to overcome.

To start the week, I had my focus on a track star in my region of coverage. I began speaking with the coach and it turned out that this week wasn't the greatest timing for the athlete to speak with me. I completely understood the decision and I'm now happy that I'll be able to do the story in a future week, but I needed to look at the current situation.

After that story was removed from my budget, I went back to the drawing board and had to find another feature story for Globe South. Luckily, I found another story on a couple wrestlers. In my head I thought this would be a perfect story for the upcoming week.

Then, I found out the wrestlers weren't available during the week either due to wrestling tournaments outside the state. Perfect! So, again, I went back to the drawing board, but this time I didn't have any other story ideas to pitch. I needed a miracle.

That Wednesday evening I emailed every high school athletic director in my coverage area to see if there was anything worth a feature story. It was late and I wasn't expecting any replies that evening, so I went to sleep. At work the morning, I signed into my email and noticed I had 30 unread emails from different athletic directors.

The miracle had come true! I found a story that would be perfect for the upcoming week and the coaches and players were able to speak this week. Finally! During that process, I became really worried about whether I would find a story by the end of the week. This experience taught me that it's okay to worry, but you need to take action quickly because people are depending on you to have a story done on Monday.

I got the approval to work on the story and, fortunately, the coach was quick with setting up interviews and I got done with the entire story on Thursday night. That meant the weekend was open to exploring and boy did I explore.

Friday I become a little smarter by traveling to an Ivy League school near the city of Boston, Harvard University. I think stepping onto the campus raised my IQ about 25 points, which means I'll need to go back there every once in a while to restock. In all honesty though, Harvard was amazing.

The picture above shows the official front gates to Harvard University and if you continue walking on the sidewalk, you'll walk to a statue of John Harvard and his lucky shoe. People say that if you touch his shoe you'll have good luck for the day, so I decided to touch the shoe. I don't think I had a lucky day, but nothing went wrong, so I guess that's good.

I walked around the campus with my mouth wide open because the history behind the buildings and the overall university is inspiring. I was able to see the list of presidents, senators, lawyers and such that attended Harvard and it was a great feeling to see the generations of people that have come to this prominent university.

After talking to admissions, there were two small problems with being admitted to Harvard. The first was the money aspect because it's not cheap to go here, but the second reason was probably the most important one. I couldn't be accepted into Harvard with my GPA and ACT scores. Oh well! After a few pictures and some great discussions with a few Harvard students, it was time to have lunch at Harvard Square.

The Harvard Square area is a great place to go dining and shopping. I went over there for about an hour and checked out the different places, but ultimately I chose to go to Bartley's Gourmet Burgers. This place has the biggest reputation for making some of the best burgers in the state and they definitely lived up to that expectation.

The menu had close to 30 different burgers, but the burger I chose was huge, but so good. I would highly recommend going to this place if you're around the Cambridge/Harvard area. After lunch I made sure to get back home, so I could go to work that evening.

Saturday was football day. Did you guys know the Patriots were playing on Saturday because I couldn't tell in downtown Boston with the Patriots hats, shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, shoes, tattoos, earrings, mittens and sunglasses. Did I miss anything? Anyway, a few friends from work went to the downtown area with me to watch the two football games, especially the New England night game.

It was a blast! They showed me around the city and we had a great time by the ocean. We had a better time when the Patriots won the game and the entire downtown area erupted into excitement and chanting "Let's Go Pats."

Sunday was a relaxation day at the house and watching the two football games. It was nice to have a day to relax after a busy weekend to finish writing up stories and getting prepared for this week.

I'm looking forward to another great week at work and working on a story that will hopefully touch some readers around the country. Just to let you know that my newest article came out last Friday and here's a link if you want to take a glance at it.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2017/01/13/duxbury-friendship-and-out-pool/dRfUOVOf74qNlr3xqBiZGI/story.html

I hope everyone had a great weekend and I can't wait to update everyone on another week in Boston next weekend. Last blog post I ended it with a quote and I think I will continue to do that because I find interesting quotes every week and I believe this is a good place to share them.

This quote speaks to everyone and it has made me realize that I've found my true passion in life with journalism. I chose a career I love and hopefully that passion and love will continue for many years to come. Thank you Steve Jobs for motivating people to do great things.

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

- Steve Jobs