Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 9

Tyler and I met this morning to go over editing on my Project A.I.M. story. Tyler permitted me to write this piece as I would for a magazine, which is how I prefer to write anyhow, and touched on how to write a compelling lede. Despite how confident I feel about my writing ability, it felt humbling to have my piece eviscerated by Tyler. I learned that I was playing it safe and afraid to take chances or add my personality for fear of losing my journalistic integrity. 

Tyler recommended I read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders to help develop my writing skills, which I promptly ordered. One of the most humbling parts of this internship was that I thought I had all the skills to be successful, but it's a beautiful thing to be open to any possibilities and always be learning new skills and trying to better yourself. 

I'm lucky that I have a background in Communications and strong communications skills. Without those skills, I would have never made it to the finish line. Despite the ways I didn't show up for this practicum, I continue to acknowledge my faults and weaknesses and try to learn and do better with each step I take. 

The following is a quote by George Saunders that relates to this: 

“Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” 

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 8

During this week of November 07 to 13th, I had an opportunity to sit in on the morning meetings with the Fraser Valley Current. I liked how efficient the team was, and I loved seeing how they checked in on stories, divided the workload, offered resources or help to one another, and their dynamic. On Wednesday the 17th, after a week of playing email tag and trying to set up an in-person meet, I had quite a long phone interview with Janne (president) of the Streamkeepers. She invited me to Miami River on November 22 to watch a Chum release and meet the rest of the Streamkeepers. 

This past weekend, I spent four days in Squamish in the woods this past week doing my Wilderness First Responder course. The course came up last minute and was sponsored by Indigenous Women Outdoors and The North Face. The course was incredibly intensive, as a course that gives you skills on par with those of a paramedic should be. Even though I have no extra time to do a course like this, I couldn't say no to the opportunity. I brought my laptop in the evenings, thinking I could get a lot of my work done at the hotel, but by the time the evenings came, I was too tired. 

I feel like I let many people down this semester because so many career opportunities kept coming up, and I kept thinking I could do everything. I am especially sad that I didn't give the Fraser Valley Current my full attention because I had wanted to work with them for some time. I hope my writing skills will surprise them, but I wish I had shown up better and gained more skills to help propel my career as a writer forward. 

Currently, I have 22 out of 64 hours left, which I will have to fit into the next two weeks. I can knock off about ten writing this salmon story and about 5 or 6 with the other interviews I need to do and transcribing. I have reached out to Tyler Thibault at the Department of Fisheries to speak with him, and he's connected me with the DFO's media personnel to okay this interview. He will also connect me with the Chehalis River Hatchery to get a quote about their involvement in this project. I have also reached out to Mike Pearson at Pearson Ecological to discuss the recovery strategy plan he wrote for the Miami River that Janne from the Streamkeepers mentioned during our interview. 

Moving forward, I think it would be cool to learn how Tyler or his team prepare for interviews and prepare their stories and the process they go through when writing on as I go off my basic intuition and what I've learned in school, but I am curious what it's like for someone already working in this field. I would also love to learn tips on making interviews more efficient, as my interviews are always super long. This does work in my favour sometimes because I'm really good with people and they often love sharing details with me because I'm curious and ask a lot of questions BUT on the flip side, when I go to transcribe and write, it feels like I have a daunting amount of information. 

Here are some photos I took at the Chum release on Tuesday morning.

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 7

Considerations on work/life balance: Sometimes, a moment can knock you so far off your axis that it presents an opportunity to reimagine your life. How many of us are considering burnout right now? What worth do those far-off successes really hold in the grand scheme of things? 

Sometimes, I spread my work on my floor like jeopardy tiles, and as for my shortcomings, they are nullified, maintaining my words, kneeling over them, marking x for rework, y for language, z for title.

When this morning came, I sank beneath my blankets and did some simple math totalling the week before: +80 hours work, +5 nature walks, +4 missed deadlines, +9 cups of coffee, +1 small epiphany—I am never sure, I realized, how much space it takes to live—the new week's todo list unfolding in front of me. I don’t want this life. I have my sights on something different. Something that ignites instead of burns.

Memory leaks through, a heavy sieve—it knows the moments when I couldn’t afford a meal, knows how easily ones worth is quantified by output. I let my fingers walk the letters of my words, examine their own pressure, re-learning language, infantile as ever. 

I can see outside of it right now (thank you, Jenny Odell), and it’s often through rectangles of sunlight on water, often scraps of paper picked up by wind caught in the roof corners, often the sound of someone laughing pitched upward, or tires turning out the gravel reminding of the road ahead, all the sounds of forward if forward made a noise. I invite you to reexamine the limitless possibilities in front of you. Life’s a flicker in the side-view mirror.

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 6

After last week's interview for Project AIM, I transcribed my interview, edited the transcription and prepared notes for writing the story. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I was looking for with this internship, and the biggest thing I was hoping for was to feel a sense of community and have more of a shadowing aspect. This may be where expectations and communication on what I was looking for had a disconnect. I spend a lot of time writing stories on my own, which, of course, can be a great way to gain more experience, but I hoped to see how someone already working in journalism handles the story process.  

This coming week, Tyler has invited me to join morning meetings, I will be spending time finishing my first story, and he's sent two other potential stories my way. 

Moving forward, communicating the want to see the behind-the-scenes of already working professionals will be my priority. I've also been thinking about some questions in regard to my career choice:

• How can I become intentional about my life?
• How to best orientate my life?
• When I cultivate my focus, I am more centred. Returning to a meeting Robert and I had last week: "Direct your focus."
• When I split my focus in too many directions, I begin to lose all focus. 
  
  

What I want out of my life is a career that creates balance. I'm not sure what it is yet. All I know is the past few months, I have been working up until I sleep and through weekends. I continue to move closer to burnout. How can you balance your career? Why does it feel like if I am not constantly saying yes to things to push my career forward, then I am going to fall behind