Post V: The End of Days - Cameron Williams

Hello! Happy Beverly Homecoming, everyone! It's the only celebration in the North Shore which features over 80 events including lip sync contests, lobster costume contests, and truck loads of fried dough.

So, yeah, this week is Beverly Homecoming and I've been assigned to attend different events around the city. Here's the layout of what I've covered so far . . .

Airport Day: Last Saturday, I covered Airport Day which was held at the Beverly Municipal Airport. It provided North Shore residents with the opportunity to go fly in one the airport's many aircrafts. There was a parachute event also planned, but it was canceled due to the weather (lame!). I, of course, did not take a ride on an airplane, but I did snap some nice photos and I got to chill out at the airport cafe. The best part? My editor granted me permission to write an opinion/commentary piece on my little adventure.

Lip Sync Extravaganza: This was . . . uh . . . interesting. I actually got lost on my way to this event. I stopped at a Rite-Aid to ask for directions and this elderly woman came up to me and offered to show me the way. And she actually did. My faith in humanity is restored. Anyway, the Lip Sync Extravaganza is the most popular event at the Beverly Homecoming. The contest features children from the city's camp and park programs competing against each other by performing their lip sync and dancing routine. I wasn't sure what to think about this contest. On one hand, I understand they are children and they're just having fun. But then again, it made me relive those painful memories of elementary school talent shows. I winced on more than one occasion.

Lobster Festival: Probably the lowest moment of this internship came at Lobster Festival, the Beverly Homecoming's signature event. Instead of writing a story on the event, I had to walk around the festival holding a gigantic front page of a newspaper and ask people to take their photo with their face sticking out of the front page. Basically, I looked like an ass clown. I got so desperate for volunteers that I decided to walk around the festival shouting, "Step right up! Take your photo with the Beverly Citizen!" Everyone either laughed or rolled their eyes at me as I wept on the inside. At least I got a nice lobster lunch out of the deal.

Welp, with the Beverly Homecoming now nearing its end, so is this internship. It's been a wild ride filled with parades, lobster, and general Beverly hokum. I remember way back while I was still in Dublin and thinking I'd struggle to get an internship but here I am, nearing the end of one and ready to start the next chapter of my life. Overall, this was a tremendous opportunity and I'm so thankful for the experience it has provided. I'm sad it's over, but at least I don't have to drive through downtown Beverly anymore.

Kristen--Post 5

Art From The Heart is still going well and I’m still constantly immersed in projects and ideas and activities. There is certainly no slowing-down-feeling or anything. It all feels so natural to me now that I forget I’m sort of “working” while I’m at the hospital. I fit into the routine (chaos) and bounce from room to room so well that I don’t stop to think of how fast everything goes anymore.

An interesting thing that happens now is the fact that I’ve actually gotten to know some of the kids and their families. There are some regular kiddos that I’ve seen many times over the summer and it’s both sad because it means they’re in the hospital as often as I am some weeks, and great because I have very special connections with them. Of course I don’t feel any less connected or inspired by the children I only see once, but it would be false to say there aren't obvious advantages to knowing the kids a little more personally over a period of time.

It's a little harder for me to tell you about what exactly I'm getting out for writing material. I love reading about what you all are writing and getting out there. To speak of writing specifically, I'm meeting with someone from design and layout from Burlington City Arts to create hard copy booklets for the fill-in stories this week. The most exciting part about that for me is to have the chance to give the kids something to write and hold on to afterward as a sense of accomplishment and, whether they know it or not, brilliant writing opportunity. The Inspired By Emily project is still moving forward and I will be meeting with the mother more as the year goes on to make sure she's supported and has all the writing help she needs but it is a very complex, very emotionally heavy process and I am there more as encouragement and delegation of tasks rather than a driving force. 

As for "What now?" I’m actually continuing my time at the hospital with AFTH when school starts and for the entire year. I’ll be cutting back on the outside writing and projects of course, but I’m still very serious about keeping one morning shift a week going. Some of the things I’ll be getting into are: month of September events for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, helping with the Inspired By Emily project and hopefully creating some content for it, creating displays on the children’s floor of art and hopefully writing, writing and developing more fill-in stories, and as always, finding more ways to be involved with the creative aspects of children’s hospital stays.

I will never wish I had done something else as my internship and I will never stop doing whatever I possibly can for the betterment and creative opportunities for these kids here or anywhere else I ever live or spend time. This has been one of the most important things I have ever, ever done with myself and now that I have a way in, I'd have to be dragged out by force to ever, ever stop. 

Jillian- Fifth (and last) Post

Hard to believe this is the last post!

My internship ends on Friday, and the last two weeks have been sort of bittersweet. On the one hand, I am kind of glad it’s over, because it wasn’t what I expected and I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would. But on the other hand, I learned a lot about my writing and my goals, so that is really important, a worthwhile endeavor.

Plus, my Ireland article made the front page this week. That in itself was pretty awesome.

I spent most of my time the last two weeks organizing briefs and writing them up. One thing I actually hate here is the system of organization—they use folders for the briefs labeled “Future” and then a few with specific issue numbers. Then there is a third folder that is basically just another “Future” folder, and it is a serious pain in the ass when writing to see three press releases on the same thing in all three folders.

On the one hand, putting the same thing in three places ensures that it won’t be overlooked, so from a PR perspective, it works. But from the point of view of the person entrusted to not only organize but write-up the briefs, it is rather annoying. On Tuesday I was writing some for this week’s issue and in all three folders, certain briefs had different information, so that required extra fact checking, and when I would call to ask, these people would say that they had sent an e-mail with the most recent information and told the papers to disregard previous messages.

Not the most productive way for the other organizations to conduct themselves, but it would be so easy to avoid that kind of delay on my end if there was a better system. Like maybe flag an e-mail as soon as it come in and throw it immediately into the correct folder. Or mark something as already received, so that if you get another message from the same source, you can go through the folder and trash the other information that is no longer relevant.

A big thing I noticed this week is the level of computer literacy. After myself and the other intern, who is the editor’s son, there is one writer who is in his late twenties, then after that there is at least a ten-year age gap between him and the other workers. Maybe this is just my age talking, but it seems so much simpler to organize things on computers as opposed to by hand. On Tuesday nights—the night we go to print—much of the staff is here until after midnight working on the paper, and a part of me wonders if it wouldn’t be simpler to put all the articles and ads in place on a digital document and make changes that way as opposed to using highlighters and stickynotes on a physical copy.

So maybe my feelings are a little more bitter than sweet, actually. I am looking forward to having this done, and it has given me a lot to think about regarding my own plans for the future, but that’s what an internship is supposed to do, so I guess in that respect, mine was definitely a success.  

Almost last post, I think? --Christina

Getting stuff done this week is really hard. I'm in Ocean City, MD with my boyfriend's family, in an internetless condo. I can send emails from my phone but I can't access Google Docs or any of the stuff I need for research unless I'm on my laptop. I've been escaping to random places with free WiFi--coffee shops, a library, Denny's, and the lobby of the Comfort Inn (I think they're starting to notice that I'm not actually staying there)--every once in a while to try to get some work done.

Other than my internet struggles, things have been going pretty well. Because my internship is almost over, Brian had to set some deadlines to make sure that all three e-books get done before I go. Amanda and I have to write one each week for the next three weeks. We decided to start with the introductory level e-book, since it is our first attempt. We have split it up into two sections so we can each do our own work, while still working toward a cohesive piece of writing.

So far I've been doing mostly research, and very little writing. I'm hoping to jump into some actual writing by Thursday, and have a rough draft by Monday. After the draft is done, Amanda and I will start writing the next e-book, while revising the first one at the same time.

Post 1 million (or something) - Sarah Frazier

This is early. Here ya go.

Last week unfortunately I had a family emergency and was not in work from the 29^th-31^st of July. Everyone was very nice and accommodating about it, which really helped.  Lucky for me I’m doing WAY over my amount of hours required by the internship so it won’t affect anything for credit. This week I worked on two major features. The first was focused on three events: Iona Fest, the 14^th annual street painting festival, and the lighting ceremony at Waterfire. I did that pretty much in a day, due to people getting back to me so fast, so that was great. The second article I was involved in was another On the Menu feature. September is focusing on the closing of the farmer’s markets as the summer comes to an end and charity work for an organization called Food for Good. I love that they let me keep with this feature through the summer. I definitely felt they trusted my judgment.

Other writing I've been doing has been mostly web related. They like to produce a few short articles throughout the month and I helped with that. One of the other interns got to do an article called "10 Things We Care More About Than The Birth of the Royal Baby". I was jealous, ha.   

Next week is OFFICIALLY my last week, with my last day being Wednesday. Reflecting back to all I’ve done and the people I’ve been able to interact with, I can only say that I feel extremely lucky to have had this internship. I can’t imagine it going any better than it did. I learned a lot and every time I told people what I got to do at work they proclaimed their jealousy.

Today we got two taste tests done – one was apple pie, the other Almond Joy pancakes. Leaving this place is going to be a damn shame.

Sarah Frazier