New Month, New Stories, New Adventures!

It's been a while since I've been able to write a blog post, but I'm glad I've found some time to write another post. All I can say to describe these past two weeks is that I love my job!

It's amazing how I meet complete strangers and families every week, but after an hour or two of interviews I know a big part of their lives. I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to meet people every week and tell their stories, so people in the community can understand other members better.

I'm still in contact with people I spoke with this past summer in my internship at the Sun Post as well as a couple weeks ago at the Boston Globe. Once you learn a big part of a persons' life, it's hard to forget that moment and, for me, I always want to catch up. Throughout my time as a journalist, I've learned that any person you talk to could be an interesting story, so you never ignore a conversation. Even if it's not a story, it's always an honor to meet another person in the community.

As for the past couple of weeks, all I can say is that I was one busy journalist. But I had a great time!

The week of January 30th consisted of a release of a great story on Dick Arieta and his mark at Silver Lake High School as well as working on another great story with the Abington unified program. I couldn't talk much about the Arieta story last post, but it was such an emotional week because of the story. Here's the link if you want to take a read.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2017/02/03/remembering-dick-arieta-coach-mentor-and-family-man/7kGUmnh9rW0bXjTOlDnaIP/story.html

I was able to speak with friends, previous players and the family to remember the life of Dick Arieta and it was incredible. Just being able to hear the stories from basketball to being a husband to being a father both funny and more serious. Unfortunately I only had 850 words to work with because I'm sure I could've added more stories. I'm glad an email was sent to me about this story because it was truly an honor to write a piece about an individual that touched some many lives in the state.

As for the for Abington story, this was also a fun story because I had the ability to go to a practice and watch the reactions of the students for the hour. The unified program is a team of varsity athletes and students with physical, intellectual, mental or cognitive disabilities that practice and play games together to build a stronger school and city community. After taking pictures at the practice I was able to see how much this team meant for everyone and it definitely showed how strong this community is at Abington. Here's a link to that story if you have some time.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2017/02/10/abington-takes-lead-special-way/hJLHbn0rBDhGh2A1scithN/story.html

Besides working on those two stories, I've been exploring the city as well as having the opportunity to cover more games and tournaments at night and on the weekend. The weekend of February 4 and 5, I was able to take a train out to MIT and look at the campus. It was a tad chilly, but the campus is beautiful. It's located right next to the harbor, so you get a great view of the downtown area.

February 5th was one of the most incredible nights since coming to Boston because the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. It was awesome to celebrate the win in downtown Boston along with the other millions of fans because it was a massive celebration party. I've never been apart of such a big celebration. Even though I'm not a big Patriots fan coming from Minnesota, it was great to see how passionate these fans are especially at the parade on Tuesday.

There were probably more than a million fans crowding the downtown Boston area to see a glimpse of Tom Brady and the Patriots players. The parade also had great weather. Nothing like thick snow and cold temperatures, but that didn't stop the dedicated fans. Cool moment in Boston and I still think everyone is on cloud nine from the win. Now it's time to see the Celtics or Bruins do something before the Red Sox go to the postseason next fall.

Speaking of snow, the Boston area has had plenty of it throughout the past few days. It seemed like things were great on Wednesday when the high was 55 degrees and there was no cloud in the sky. Then, Thursday came along with close to a foot of snow. Luckily, I didn't have to go into work, but it was insane. I've lived in Minnesota all my life and I haven't ever experienced that much snow in a day for my entire life.

After Thursday and the clean up, it seemed like things were going in the right direction, but once again I was wrong. As I'm writing this post, it's snowing pretty hard right now. We're supposed to get another eight inches this evening. I enjoy watching the snow, but this is ridiculous. If we could stop the snow or just move it back to the Midwest area that would be great. I've been hearing the Iowa and Minnesota area is experiencing 50 degree weather. Let's just switch. I'd be fine with that.

The snow was so bad this weekend that an event I was supposed to cover this evening was cancelled. Tis' the season of sectional and state tournaments for every winter sport in the state. This weekend started the seven-week coverage with swimming and diving sectionals. Yesterday was the girls and today was supposed to be the boys, but that will no longer happen.

Yesterday was a great experience, but I think the chlorine got to me. I mean after eight hours in the swimming pool, I wouldn't be surprised. The morning consisted of the North sectionals and the evening was the Central/South sectionals. The fun part of the day was interviewing the coach of Duxbury after their team won the Central/South title. I did a story a few weeks ago on a couple swimmers from Duxbury and it was great to see her again this weekend. I'll probably see her again this upcoming weekend when the state championships happen.

Overall, things are going great in Boston. I'm getting to know the city better and better each week and I'm excited to see some friends come to the city in about a month! It'll be great to see some familiar faces again!

I hope everyone had a great couple of weeks and to my friends and family back at home and college, enjoy the warm weather because I want it back soon. I hope this upcoming week can be another great week of studying, working or just relaxing.

As for the quote I'm going to leave you with this weekend, it represents looking at the present day because the past is already gone and the future in unknown. You need to live in the moment and look at the events right in front of you instead of looking forward to a weekend or a particular day because you're wasting days that could be memorable.

"The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.