It was beautiful today! The weather was "flying- weather" (for friends who know). Perfect cool temperatures combined with clear skies and sunshine. To celebrate I cleaned the screen on my window, washed the glass inside and out and then masking-taped the screen so bugs couldn't come in around the edges. This is a celebration because now I can leave my bedroom window open as often as I like!I spent my noon-time at the Washington College of Law, which is AU's law school. They were having a panel session about the upcoming Supreme Court oral argument season. The schedule this year has about 77 slots available and 29 cases on it already. The four professors outlined some of the cases they thought were interesting. Ever since Prof. Bockman's legal persuasion class I have LOVED studying Supreme Court cases and rulings. Because watching oral arguments is free and only one-two hours worth of your morning, I think I am going to try to stop in to some of the cases that are especially interesting to me.
The professors who spoke were all very interesting and explained the cases in fairly straight forward language, almost no legal jargon. Because the panel was for the law students, I was afraid I wouldn't understand too much - but I didn't find that to be the case at all. I was a littel too nervous to ask my question in front of the whole audience and on the podcast microphone, but Cynthia Jones, a panelist who specializes in criminal law answered it afterwards. Main point I learned today: The Fourth Amendment is slowly being chipped away by judicial precedent.
Then, during my reading for my annotated bibliography (fancy word for bibliography with summaries of the articles) I discovered why I did NOT get that fellowship last year. The articles I am reading now have tons of evidence and peer-reviewed theories on film and media on science. My subject was specifically space science, but if I knew then what I have learned in four weeks of classes, I would have stood a much better chance at writing an appropriate proposal.
Journeys with George ended on Inaguration Day. I was glad I watched the end, because it really had some inter-journalist information I didn't get in class. This is surprising since three of my four classes in the past week have been, at least in part, on how to work with and understand journalists and their world. I think I am going to try and job-shadow a political correspondent for a day and get a more personal perspective on how they operate.
I made chicken fingers, brocolli, french fries, and fruit salad for dinner. I also made cupcakes. Dana and I ate and then I headed off to class. I rode with Amanda and Traci. They are very nice girls who care about their school work. This seems like it would be a characteristic of all graduate students paying upwards of $30,000 a year to go to school, but it is surprisingly rare. We bonded over Project Runway a week or so ago. I think it is possible that for the first time ever, more of my friends are female than male. (With the exception of perhaps senior year at USC.)
Class was in the CBS Washington studio. Although we learned that the New York bureau has editorial control over the content of the Early Show and other projects coming out of the DC office, it was still pretty cool. We toured two control rooms and saw the editting rooms. We also got to spend five minutes on the set for the Sunday morning show Face the Nation. I really don't think I want to go into broadcast journalism, but after our lecture tonight, I am reconsidering doing something in the polling field. Being a pollster seems like it could be a pretty interesting job - and still let me use a broader base of knowledge. 11 more months until decision time ... this is just another idea.
This is the control room and my professor is on the Face the Nation set. 
This research class, though generic, is probably one of my favorite classes right now. Professor Lynch has been working for CBS for years and you can see her on the news desk on election night. Hopefully my Tuesday night teacher will be interested enough in the campaigns to let us watch!Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Work and studying in the morning followed by class and then a photo shoot (I'm doing headshots for someone. My first paid photography job!). Then tomorrow night I have to buckle down with my writing and prepare interview questions! This week feels a heck of alot more like what I was expecting ... playing tourist, going to panels on interesting subjects, networking, getting behind-the-scenes looks at places I'll be working for/with. Washington, DC is a pretty great place to be right now!
Talk to you all soon. Love always, ~Heather
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