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Web Story (Japan)

Before the disaster in Japan, Zack Branham was just another person. An American living in Japan to teach English in schools. Many people would be in a state of shock and disbelief at the devastation left behind by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan recently. You could even say that an experience like that could be enough to cause a person to just give up. In this case, the same experience showed the world how strong a person could be, and how far they could go for a person they care about.

Zack was living in in Kuji, a small coastal town in Japan, when the earthquake hit. Fortunately, the area was not hit very hard and the damages were minimal. Once it became known that it was safe outside, Branham's attention steered to his girlfriend. She was living 4 miles away in a town off the ocean and he was concerned that she wasn't as lucky. It was then that he decided to start his search for her.

He walked for 24 hours until he finally made it to the city, past the guards, and through the debis. Branham ended up running into members of the Board of Education who knew his girlfriend. They happened to know where she was and pointed him in the right direction to finding her. After his journey, Zack was finally reunited with his girlfriend. She was found in a building cutting up rags to cover the bodies of those around her who did not survive.

Procrastination

Last week, there was an in-class assignment given out. As a follow up, we were assigned to write an editorial on procrastination for homework.

We were given an article about a teenager winning an award (and $35,000) from her study on procrastination. She presented her findings at the National Young Epidemiology Scholars in Washington D.C. She found that psychological stress was an additional reason behind procrastination rather than just laziness. She also found that if the habit of not procrastinating is instilled at an early age, than a child will be less likely to put things off later in life. The article also mentions comments from Caroline's mother, Cathy. She believes that the amount of responsibilities young people take on could be a factor in things not getting accomplished on time. She feels that procrastination may be a nonfactor. It could just be that there is not enough time to get everything done.

I tend to agree with both Caroline's findings as well as her mother's idea. I do find sometimes that there is just not enough time to get everything done when it is supposed to be completed. It is also very easy to get into the habit of putting tasks off when you have been able to in the past. I think that Caroline's idea of starting the practice of not procrastinating early on could be a help in preventing it from occuring as much as it does.

News Story

Anchor: Another chapter of the Gilgo Beach murders was added to the story tonight. Suffolk County police found yet another body in the same area 4 were found last year.

Anchor: Tests will be done on the remains in order to determine if they are in fact Shannon Gilbert. It was announced that the police will continue to search into Nassau County next week. There are still no suspects at this time. We can only hope that answers will eventually be found.

Islander's lately

The past two weeks have been absolutely insane, so I apologize for not posting. I've been trying to get done everything I need to,(like figuring out why I've been having such a hard time posting pictures to this blog, then last week my car got hit by someone not paying attention in the school parking lot which has been an absolute disaster, and then my boyfriend has something wrong with him. I've spent half of this week in the doctor's offices and trying to find out what it is. But all that aside, I'm back. And it's time to catch you up. 3/26 and 3/31 were crazy games. The Islanders played against the Flyers and Rangers respectively. Anyone who knows hockey knows that those are two very difficult teams with very...interesting fans. This is entirely my own opinion, but I think that Philadelphia fans are the most obnoxious ones in the league in addition to being rude. The rivalry between the Islanders and both of these teams is a pretty big one. The stands were filled (admittingly more with fans from the other team) and security was out and very noticeable. The night of the Flyer game, although there was a large number of people there, I had a hard time getting enough pictures because there we SO many Flyer fans. Drunk Flyer fans. Intimidating, drunk Flyer fans.

No. Seriously. They're crazy.

I've been to Islander/Flyer games as a fan before getting this internship. The guys I hang around with have the same competitive rivalry with the other teams as most men, but they're generally very nice and not looking to start trouble. When the Flyers come to town...it's a totally different story. And it gets scary sometimes. Knowing the kinds of people that tend to make the trip from Philly, I was extremely hesitant to ask many Flyer fans for pictures (which definitely limited the number of people that I was able to ask). You could say that by doing that I was being biased and hurting myself in the long run, but it only became more and more reaffirmed when one of my coworkers said that the Flyer fans he had been asking were being rude to him for even suggesting to be on the Islander website. I rest my case.

Needless to say- that game I didn't finish the number of packs I was supposed to. But the upside was that nobody else did either. I think I was able to finish 3, which was an accomplishment in my eyes.

The story from the Ranger game last week is definitely one for another day.

TV Commercial

Another posting of an assignment from my Mass Communications class. It's a commercial for a fictional product, D-Matter.

Radio/TV

Radio
Zach Brandham set out on a journey to find his girlfriend after the disasters in Japan. He walked 4 miles to the village and had to sneak in by pretending to be with emergency responders. After 20 hours of walking and with some help from luck, Brandham and his girlfriend were both safe and reunited.

TV
As always after tragedies, there are stories of luck and survival. Zach Brandham not only survived the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, but set out on a 20 hour walk to make sure his girlfriend was safe. Once he walked the 4 miles to her village, he had to pull his hat over his face to try and blend in with a group of emergency responders in order to be allowed in. Once he was able to get in the village, he still needed to find exactly where she would be. After walking for 20 hours, he ran into people who knew where she was. He found her cutting up cloth to cover the bodies around her. Both stayed behind to help the people they taught English to.

CNN had a great interview with Zach Brandham in which he got to tell his story for himself

Print Story

This post will be another dedicated to an assignment given out for this week. I was required to find a story about the recent events in Japan and write a print, radio broadcast, TV broadcast, and an online story to be posted to my blog. I thought it may be easier to follow if they were posted in separate enteries.

Print Story
According to theindychannel.com, parents John and Terri Whitcomb will most likely look back on March 11, 2011 as one of the worst days of their lives. As Japan was being hit with a devastating earthquake followed by a tsunami, all they could do was watch the news and pray from their home in Nashville that their son Zach, would contact them soon to let them know he was okay. The tsunami destroyed all communication to and from the areas, so although the Whitcomb's sent message upon message to their son through text as well as Facebook, they were unable to reach him.

While his parents were home in Kentucky worrying, Zach had survived both the earthquake and the tsunami and was about to go on a journey that can only be described as incredible. He later told his story to CNN. After seeing that the earthquake and tsunami were over, Branham's attention focused to one thing-finding his girlfriend, Georgia. She was living in a small village about 4 miles away from Kuji teaching English in the schools. Zach was worried because the village is located right on a beach front. With all other forms of transportation not possible, he began to walk.

After finally reaching the village, he found the first of many roadblocks. The one road through the village had become impassable due to homes that had been washed away and blocked the street. After being turned away multiple times by the police working, Branham could have stopped his search but he decided that he would just have to find another way in. The next morning, he got into the village by pulling down his hat to blend in with a group of emergency responders going in to help.

After actually entering the village, Zach still had the task of finding his girlfriend in the mess that the disaster left behind. He searched multiple places including her apartment, kindergarten school, elementary schools and so on. By another stroke of luck, after 4 hours of walking that morning, Zach ran into members of the Board of Education. Although they did not speak English and Zach's Japanese was limited, they were able to somehow communicate. They also knew where is girlfriend was and took him to her. When he finally reached the building she was in, he arrived to find her cutting up pieces of cloth to cover the bodies around her with.

Finally, John and Terri were able to exhale when they received contact from their son, who decided to stay in Japan to help with the relief effort. Although they must have expected that he had been through a lot, they had no idea the story of dedication they were about to hear.

Suites

Unfortunately there hasn't been another home game since last week so I don't have any new stories to tell. The next game will be Thursday night against Atlanta so thing should be back to normal for at least a little while after that. It's weird to think that in 3 weeks the season will be over.

Last week I started talking about what working in the different areas of the Coliseum was like. I covered the High Five area. Tonight I'll be talking about the suites. Just like at any other arena, the suites at Nassau Coliseum are a place for companies or other groups, like families, to come to all watch the game together. The people in the suites are given their own private area with both a lounge kind of area as well as seats to watch the game. Food and drinks are brought up and constantly being refilled. Personally I've never actually watched a game in the suites at the Coliseum, but I have gone to one game in a suite at CitiField and it was a really fun experience.

There are also different style suites for different amounts of people (and budgets). There are a couple pretty good sized ones, some double suites, and then others that are on the smaller size. Each suite belongs to a different organization or company, like Newsday or Rexcorp for example. During the game, the Ice Girls come up to the suites and offer raffle tickets, and the Fan Photo crew (aka me) go around asking if the people would want pictures for the website. As far as my job is concerned, I have to make sure I look at which suite I'm at before I go in.

The suites in the Coliseum are organized by numbers (1-14) and letters (A-Z). There are certain suites that we aren't allowed to go in because there is either someone (usually famous) inside that we aren't supposed to bother, people within the Islander organization (like the GM or owner), or the families of the players. The general rule is if the suite has the 'New York Islanders' label next to the door, then you don't go in there. Unfortuantely for me, the last time I was assigned suites I didn't check the doors ahead of time. I walked into a suite just like I would for any other and asked the two people inside for a picture. They said no, so I walked out. As I was walking out, I realized that I had just walked into the Islanders' suite and asked injured defensemen Mark Streit and his girlfriend for a picture. That was embarassing. I haven't been back since then since I was sick last Friday, so hopefully that isn't something I'll get in trouble for.

I'm still having some issues uploading my pictures to the blog for some reason. Hopefully this week I'll have that sorted out and I will be able to post the pictures I wanted for last week as well as show you some from the suites for this week.

Past 4 Games

There have been 4 home games since my last entry on my internship. The team has gone 3-1 in that stretch of time and the only loss was in a shootout. (For those of you who aren't hockey savvy, if the game is tied after regulation time runs out, the game goes to a 5 minute overtime period. If after that there is still no score, the teams go to a shootout.)

Last time, I spoke about how frustrating dealing with some of the other interns can be sometimes. As much as I feel bad about getting aggravated, it does help that I'm not the only one in the office that sees it. It also helps to know that the behavior that gets me so angry isn't directed only at me. The last few games, that particular intern was away on vacation. If I'm going to be truthful here, those games went much better than my games usually go. I guess it's mainly because I finished all 4 of my card packs 3 games in a row. (Let's have a short moment of celebration.)

My plan for this week's blog was to blog about different things that have happened over the past 3 games, but mainly focusing on Friday's game against Boston (3/11) since it would be the most recent. My plan was interrupted once I woke up sick on Friday and ended up not being able to go to the game. I've been given High Fives much more lately for some reason. So I figured that now is as good of a time as any to talk about and post pictures of what the High Five area is like.

Obviously each game is different because you get a different set of fans at each game. I'd like to think though, that after 2 months of this internship I've gained a general idea of what happens during what days. I've mentioned earlier that weekend games are much more energetic and much more crowded (well, for the Islanders) than weeknight ones. This goes for High Fives also. Another thing that I've noticed in doing High Fives is that how many people you get depends on what point in the game it is. There tend to be more people in between periods than there are for the pre-game. Generally, this area is younger kids with their parents, out of town-ers, or birthday parties. In case I haven't mentioned it, the High Five area is right outside the Islander locker room. The kids get a chance to line up against a barrier and high five the players on their way onto and off of the ice at various points in the game. The ones we're responsible for taking pictures of are as they go out for warm-ups, as they come in from warm-ups, the start of the 2nd period, and the start of the 3rd period.

These are the pictures from the High Five area from the Devil game last week. Next week, I'll be showing pictures from some of the other places we get assigned to take pictures.

More Mass Communication

We had another assignment for my class. We were assigned to take 5 different specific pictures, post them here, and explain them.

1. An action shot

The weekend of the assignment, I spent a good part of one day at the Islander game. I decided that this would be the perfect place to get my action shot. I took a break from taking pictures around the concourse to snap a shot during warmups. We won't tell anyone else that though.

2. A building from far away

This is Carnesecca Arena. It's where the basketball team plays. As a commuter student, this is one of the first things I see as I come on campus and one of the last things I see before I leave.

3. The same building close up

I decided that the best idea for this shot would be to get the actual name "Carnesecca Arena" as the shot. Especially since in the far away picture, you can't actually see the name of the building clearly.

4. A group shot(posed)

This way by far the easiest picture for me to get. Every Islander game I take about 200 posed group pictures. This is a picture of my friends at the game. Left to right it's: Steve Gordon, Jon, Mr. Gordon, Chris, and Steve Carlin. I picked this one because every single game I go to their seats and take a picture of them. They're all good sports for putting up with me.

5. A self-shot in front of the building

I'll start out by saying that I am not a very good self-shot photographer. Whenever I go somewhere new or exciting with my friends, I'm the person that really wants to take pictures because I know I'll appreciate them later. Since no one else seems to value sentiment as much as I do, I end up either not being in any of the pictures or not taking any. Because I always manage to cut out the heads of the people in it or something dumb like that.

For this picture, I again wanted to be somewhere you could tell was the arena. I decided that the best way to do that would be to stand in front of the student entrance and get that in the background. Or at least I tried. I told you, I always cut something out.

Capture the Storm

This week will be a little different than the usual again. St. John's had a contest to see who could make the best 30-60 second video about what St. John's meant to them. My Mass Communication teacher thought that it would be a good project for our class.
My video talks about what St. John's allows me to do that I wouldn't be able to if I was at the school I originally chose. As much as I still love Bryant very much and wish that it worked out there, St. John's has proven to be a good fit with me. It offers Public Relations as a separate major instead of a concentration, and I'm available for internships year round.

Weeknight games

I'm going to apologize for the rant that is about to come. I just got back from tonight's Islander game against the Minnesota Wild and I had a little bit of a hard time. Espeically since this blog is about my internship, I figured it would be an acceptable place to talk about it.

It's become very clear that weeknight games are just not fun. At least not for someone trying to get pictures of the crowd. An outsider may ask why. Well, frankly anyone who knows the Islanders knows that they aren't a very popular team. Their recent success has brought some fans out of the woodwork, but the games have also mainly been on Friday or Saturday nights. People don't come out on weeknights. Unfortunately, that makes my job harder. Despite the smaller amount of fans at the game, I still need to take the same amount of pictures. Very frustrating.

I think that having to deal with difficult people at work is something that everyone can understand and relate to. The Fan Photo program has 4 interns, Amelia, Jeff, James and myself. Everyone gets along pretty well. Except for Jeff. To be honest, I don't know what grade he's in or how old he is. As far as I know, I'm the youngest of the bunch. But as James explains it to us, our problems with Jeff are from his lack of maturity. He just doesn't know what not to say or how to approach something.

During the President's Day game, I was walking the concourse going through my sections. I saw Jeff coming out of one of the sections I was assigned. I found it a little strange because I had seen Jeff earlier, and he asked where he was supposed to go and I told him. There was a good amount of people there that day because of the holiday, so I shook it off and didn't care much.

The next game against the Capitals, James and I were paired off because we didn't have enough cameras for all of us. While we were walking the concourse, Jeff stopped us multiple times asking why we were in his section. And did the same thing to James tonight. Apparently though, it's quite alright for him to go into my sections since he finished his. This caused a real problem for me tonight. I've said earlier how we are supposed to take at least 120 pictures. I had 87 at the time I found out that Jeff had already done my sections. So I decided the best thing to do would be to tell Sharon,my supervisor. She told me to just keep walking around.

Eventually after wandering around the Coliseum, I finally got an acceptable number of pictures and was done for the night. Hopefully Saturday and Sunday are better games.

Panthers (Kids Day)

This afternoon the Islanders hosted the Florida Panthers. In honor of President's Day, more importantly the day many have off work and school, it was Kids Day at Nassau Coliseumm. Besides the multitude of families, the Coliseum also welcomed other special guests. The Presidents. Many people recognize them from the Washington Nationals' organization, but for this weekend they made the trip to Long Island to take part in a special Presidents Race on ice.

I figured that with so many families in attendance, taking enough pictures would be easier than usual. Especially once I got to the staff room and was told that there would only be two interns today instead of our usual five. Last week I mentioned the different jobs that are assigned for each game. Today, I was assigned 10 gates to go through in the arena and take pictures. In addition to those, I was also given the High Five area and one of the performances during an intermission. The High Five area is where certain fans can come down in front of the locker room and high five the Islander players as they come on the ice at the start of each period. We stand and ask if the fans would want pictures taken for the website. It's actually a pretty cool experience to see people up close that you watch on TV all the time. It's also really nice to see how differently each player interacts with the fans. Some are very focused and aren't really very energetic towards the kids while others seem to love giving them all high fives.

Even though the Coliseum was filled with a record high crowd for the season, I still had a difficult time getting pictures done. On a normal night, I can usually take about 50 pictures before the game starts. Today I think my total clocked in around 20 at the most. The concourse was very difficult to walk through because of all of the kids as well as Sparky AND the Presidents. Normally, you could walk up to people in the concourse and ask if they would take a picture. Today, there was a lot of people, which is usually a great sign for Fan Photo, but so many people on one place made it difficult to stop and actually ask anyone.

It quickly became time for me to go back to the staff area and I had barely gone through 3 packs of cards. Normally, this would be a pretty big problem but there was another opportunity to take more pictures. On afternoon games, the Islanders offer something special for the younger fans. After the game 3 nets are set up on each side of the ice. Kids are allowed to come onto the ice, shoot, and hopefully score a goal. Ideally there would be 6 interns taking pictures (1 for each net), but we only have 4 cameras so we have to make due. Today there were only 2 interns so we really needed to keep moving back and forth. Personally, I liked this part of the job much more than any of the other things I've had to do. For the post game goals, we just take candid shots of the kids shooting on the net and then tell them to smile for a picture after they're finished. It's much easier to go through lots of pictures and there's no frustration of being told no. Too bad there are next to no afternoon games.

Audio Interviews

We'll be going on a bit of a tangent this week. At St. John's I'm currently taking a Mass Communications class. Throughout the semester we've been given various assignments which allow us to learn to utilize different technology used in communication. Recently, I was assigned to interview one of my classmates. The blog post today will be dedicated to that audio. As for my internship, the Islanders will be playing tomorrow afternoon which is sure to provide plenty of new experiences for me to talk about.




The following is a transcription of some of the highlights from the interview with my classmate Brendon Allen.

Q: What is your major?
A: Mass Communications with a minor in Photography.

Q: Do you know where you want to go with that major?
A: Um, not exactly. I kind of want to do some sort of online magazine or open a photography company or something like that.

Q: Do you have a job?
A: Yeah. Right now I'm working part time as a photographer and part time with T-Mobile. I basically help fit the customers for a phone that would help fit their every day life.

Q: Do you like doing that?
A: It's pretty fun. You get to see how much technology really gets to run the world.

Q: What is your blog about?
A: My blog is about my progression with my photography. It's me just talking about photo shoots I do, posting pictures, people I meet doing similar things. Also what kind of cameras or studio equipment to buy.

Maple Leafs

When I arrive at the Coliseum, I walk down to the Executive Offices and meet in a conference room to receive my assignments for that particular game. Since Thursday was my second game, I walked around much more confident in knowing where I was going. I saw stairs to go down to what I thouht was the offices. Once I walked down the stairs, instead of seeing the door for the Executive Offices I saw about five of the players kicking a soccer ball around in a circle. I was never a hockey fan until I started dating my boyfriend, who is absolutely in love with the sport, but I've really grown to like it as well. Seeing the players that I've watched on TV for the past two years, some of which are my age, standing literally a foot away from me was a shock. I didn't want to look as starstruck as I was feeling so I just turned around and walked back up the stairs, trying not to get hit with the soccer ball. I figured that this would be a really good night if it started off with me bumping into John Tavares (the Islander draft pick from two seasons ago and current star) unexpectedly.

In general, there are four jobs to be given out each night. Someone needs to go around the concourse with Sparky, go up to the suites, go to the High Five area in front of the locker room, and finally go into the stands. After that, Sharon gives out the cards to give to the fans to see the pictures on the website. We are supposed to go through four stacks of about fifty cards.

On my first day, I started out with Sparky and then I got to go into the suites. Last week I said that getting assigned to go around with Sparky before the game was overwhelming and if I never had to do it again I would be a very happy intern. Thursday's game against the Maple Leafs completely changed my mind. Apparently the crowd for a weeknight game is a completely different scene than a weekend game. Even though going around with Sparky is a little bit insane, it draws people to you and you take a lot more pictures than if you're just on your own walking around. I wish I realized that before I asked to be given the suites the majority of the time.

That game was a rough game for me because I had a hard time getting the amount of pictures I was supposed to and I made a big mistake. Before we go out to the concourse for the night, we're supposed to take a picture of the first card of our first pack. After we finish that pack, we're supposed to take a picture of the first card of the next pack and so on. This is so when Sharon goes to upload the pictures to the website, she knows which ones belong in which gallery. By the time I finally reached my second pack, I was so discouraged about not getting very many pictures that I totally forgot about the picture of the card. This continued until I got to my third pack at the very end of the night. I felt awful when I went to tell Sharon what I did, but she wasn't angry. She just asked me to point out which pictures I thought were the start of each gallery. To be honest, I really wasn't sure. I tried to pick out where I thought I might have, but I really don't know if what I said was even close to accurate. Hopefully when the fans go to see their picture, they can find it.

First Day

I officially started my internship at the game last night. I really wasn't all that excited when I woke up because I wasn't sure what was coming. I'm not the biggest fan of starting new things until it actually happens.

I've been to more Islander games in the past two years than I can keep count of, so being at the Coliseum for a game was something I definitely wasn't a stranger to. This being said, it was strange to be inside at 5:00 for a game that started at 7:00 and the only crowds around were the other employees. They all knew exactly what they were doing and it was business as usual for them. Meanwhile I was there having no idea what to do. I really can't even imagine how out of place I looked. Once I got squared away and picked up my temporary credential at security, I realized my supervisor (Alexa) never told me where to go after I actually got into the building. So then I really must have looked out of place. I had to call Alexa and ask where to go, which I felt kind of dumb doing because I knew she was probably busy. She picked up after a couple of tries, and finally came to get me.
Everything actually went pretty smoothly after that. I got to meet the four other interns doing Fan Photo. I still felt a little out of place because they were all at least 4 or 5 years older than I am. Alexa brought me a huge stack of papers to look through and sign,then I got my picture taken for my real credential. I also got the t-shirt to wear into the crowds. The only size they had left was an XL, so it's a little bit more like a dress.

After all of the paperwork was filled out, we were broken up into different groups. They started me out going around the concourse with 2 other girls and the Islander mascot Sparky, a huge blue dragon in an Islander jersey. (I still haven't quite figured out how a dragon fits in with the Islanders, but the fans love him so I guess it works, right?) If I never have to do pre-game with Sparky again in my time with the Islander, I will be a very happy girl. It was so incredibly overwhelming to me, and there were 3 of us there! I have NO idea how I would handle that by myself. People literally just run around trying to get in and take their own pictures. People get insulted because there's really no fool proof way to figure out an order with so much going on. Kids aren't looking the right way. Drunk adults are touching and pulling Sparky's tail. It was just chaos. With that as my first experience into the Fan Photo Internship, I seriously wondered how I was going to handle doing that until April.

There's more to tell about all the things I got to do at last night's game, and hopefully uploads of some of the pictures I took to come later, but for now it's time to get ready for the Super Bowl party going on today. :)

Interview

So I decided to actually go in for the interview, even though it wasn't the internship that I wanted. I figured that I could at least ask questions about how to get it in the future. To be honest, walking into the interview I wasn't really all that nervous because the pressure of it being for my "dream internship" had gone.

I walked to the entrance of the executive offices, got buzzed in and began walking down the stairs. It wasn't until I entered the lobby painted in Islander blue and saw all of the blown up pictures of great Islander moments throughout the years that I got a little nervous. I still hadn't decided if I was even going to do this Fan Photo thing. Compared to the Media internship where the interns work with press conferences and press releases, (Public Relations written all over it) walking around Nassau Coliseum taking pictures of the fans seemed like nothing. Once I sat in the lobby waiting to be interviewed, I instantly decided that I would do it.
'It would have to have a benefit. It's something else to put on a resume. And when I reapply for the Media one, they'd notice I've interned for them before. My mom did say that they...what was it, "take care of their own" in the NHL. If it'll get me back in the future, I'll do it.'

My plan was seriously disrupted once I actually got into the interview. The woman I met with was very nice, don't get me wrong. I liked her. Everyone I met within the organization was nice, and they all worked closely together. It was just that when we were talking about the Media internship, the way she was talking made it sound like I had next to no chance of ever getting it, and that doing this one would have no influence over the decision. I walked away absolutely crushed, feeling like I could never get the opportunity that I wanted so badly. I was not looking forward to the woman in charge of the Fan Photo interns to call me the next day.

When she finally did call, it was like a second interview. She couldn't make it the day before and wanted a chance to talk to me. We talked about the Fan Photo internship, as well as the Media one. She actually made me feel a lot better and thought that it would definitely help me in the future. I didn't want to admit it the day before because I was disappointed, but I was going to take this internship even if it wasn't going to help me get where I wanted to go. This just made me feel even better about it.

So now all that's left to do is wait until the next home game on Saturday when I start. We'll all see how this goes.

Connections and Disappointment

How many times have I heard, "it's not what you know; it's who you know" in the past couple of years? I'll tell you- more than I could possibly keep track of. In most cases, I have ignored it and continued to think that I would be able to be selected without having someone else being the reason I'm there. Well, I was wrong.

I submitted my application for one of the Islanders' Spring Internships along with a countless number of other people hoping to be selected. After my mom heard about it, she decided that it would be a good idea to get someone to put a good word in on my behalf. Apparently, my mom's coworker's mother works with the New Jersey Devils. She personally called the Islanders' owner and got a copy of my resume sent into HR.

What do I know, the next day I get a call from someone with the Islanders asking me to come into an interview. Of course, my excitement at this point was off the charts, and I agreed to come in. Shortly after the conversation, I received an e-mail with the details regarding where to go for the interview. It was then that I noticed the subject for the interview said "Fan Photo Internship" and my heart sunk- this was not the perfect internship that I signed up for.