End of The Guinea Pigs

Week 3

Julio — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:18:23 GMT

My internship is awesome. My mentor brings Starbucks and Rockstar energy drinks, and snacks. So I'm never sleepy or tired at my internship. It's the best.Â

Food not an issue. If I have cash I could go down the street and go to the coffee shop there. I haven't tried they're sandwiches, but they're coffee is awesome. If I dont ahve any cash I can just head to my house which is a mile and half away.

I think the biggest issue I have is talking to people. I feel out of place going up to people and asking them is it okay if I interview you about blah blah? I guess I'll just have to get over that. I've done it before but I still dont feel comfortable doing it.Â

Today is the last day I get in at 8:30. Jennifer said that we should change it to 9:00 because Eric and David have to take the bus from Novato. I'm not complaining I mean why wouldn't I want to wake up later?Â

The Interns

Julio — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:59:46 GMT

There are three interns from Marin School of Arts and Technology at PNN. We all bring different skills to the table, but we all enjoy the free drinks Jennifer brings. Were all from Mr. Wells's advisory, and were all seniors, but I'm still the senior intern.

The three interns-

Julio Velasquez - Senior Intern
David Albert - Intern
Eric Nazarian - Intern

A Sense of Direction: By William Ball

Julio — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:32:28 GMT

General concept of the book

William Ball, the author, goes through what makes a play beautiful to how no two plays should be directed the same way. He constantly plays with the word beauty even when he doesn't use the word he is implying it. Intentional or not the author seems to be hooked on this word.

His general goal or the foundation of what he is trying to get across is: what makes a play beautiful, and how to amplify it. His whole book is how to perserve the beauty, or how to make it even more appealing, awe inspiring, and beautiful. He even goes as far as to suggest, but to me more of defining, what is and is not beautiful.

In conclusion the book is ultimatly a self help book, but beneath the surface lies a deep love for directing that the author communicates wel. It's obvious to the reader that the author is a professional with loads of experience. His love and admiration for the art that is the play is something to be appreciated. All in all this would be a good book to read thourghly.

How I would apply what I've read to my Internship

Reading what little I've read about this book has given me a better idea on how to structure things. The idea that preperation is key to making a play beautiful can be easily applied to a, for instance, interview. The whole preparing, and creating the questions that your going to be asking are key to a good interview. Also rehearsing the interview by just asking the mirror some of the questions you'll be asking will make you relaxed. So when the time comes to the interview you'll know your questions a lot better and that will make it easier to come up with follow up questions, because you know all of your main questions.
Another thing that I can take from this book is the element of unity. This notion that in order for something to be appealing, or beautiful has to do with the unity. With unity comes harmony which strikes a cord, in a good way, with people. It triggers memories of childhood, or other positive and heart warming experiences. Some of the time though unty can bring a "aha!" moment. Which signals that you've just had an epiphany. What I can take is making everything mesh together to create a flowing interview with no rough transitions between questions. Also questions that would build uppon each other to create a story worth reading, or watching.

The Second Week

Julio — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:05:09 GMT

Well PNN got another intern. David Albert is our new intern. He's in my Academic Seminar. He's kind of quite, and somewhat stoic. I can't tell if he likes the internship or not. Theres a lot of talking that is done here, and hopefully he will come out of his shell. Honestly I think this might not be a good fit seeing (at least as a journalist) as how were constantly being made to talk, and to be self motivated. Maybe he is motivated, but I can't tell.
    Today we got an assignment to go and do a documentry on anything we wanted. After some quick thinking I came up with the idea of asking people if they prefer dogs or cats? Which seemed simple enough. I asked David if he wanted to be the one asking the questions, but he gave me a look of indifference. Like one of those I dont know deals, but I figured that he didn't want to be asking the questions so I let him film. I also asked him to point out people to talk to. He was pretty reluctant, but he did choose someone.
I was pretty nervous myself, but I forced myself to talk to people and ask them questions. I was the one asking people if it was okay to film them, or asking employee's if it's okay to film in they're shop. I'm pretty proud of myself for going up to people and asking them questions, even though I was really nervous.
    There having David work with Richard. He's basically going to be working on the coding side of things. That would suite David pretty well seeing as he'll only have to talk to Richard. I'm still doing my own thing. I guess my ultimate project would be the interview of Jennifer's boyfriend, Adam. He was ranked 4th in the world, not 5th as she told me. I wish I knew what version of Quake he played though. I dont like to go into things with out knowning a little bit of what I'm going to be asking about. The more I know about what I'm going to be asking about the more I'll be able to formulate follow up questions. Thats when the real interview starts. Follow up questions get you all of the good juicy stuff.
    I think I'll work on my interview skills by practicing on the teachers from MSAT. I really want to interview them about how it was like to see us be the guinea pigs. Not only that but also how they've seen us grow and change. I think I will get a lot of good material.

As for the hierarchy and structure of my WLE. I dont think there is any. They work together as team, and there doesnt seem to be any real sign of like a king. Although you could say that Luaren is that. Everyone seems to report to him even though I dont see that he is giving out orders. Maybe what makes PNN work is that everyone does what they need to do to keep the company going. They look like they support each other. Maybe not directly but they also dont seem to ridicule each other. There isnt that tension in the air, that rat race feel.

My internship

Julio — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:46:05 GMT

    Today I started my first day at PNN. It was awesome. I talked with Lauren for a little bit about what I would be doing there. He gave me a tour, and explanation of the site. It's super easy to use. I met my menotr, and she is cool. Her name is Jennifer and she's really into puppets. Thats not the only thing that makes her cool she brought drinks and snacks. I also met they're graphic designer, and web designer. Props to the web guy. The site is nice and clean. Some bugs, but they're working hard to find and fix them all.
    I really like PNN. Its calm, and 1.61 miles away from my house. Another reason why I like it there is because I'm they're "senior" intern. On top of that next time I'm there I'll be official. By that I mean I get my own press card. Which is super rad. How many kids from MSAT are getting press cards. Thats right just Julio. Oh yeah I rule. : )
    Anyways I think I'm going to have a great time at PNN. I've got a couple projects in the works. My first project is to get an interview of an ex-pro gamer. At the same time I'm going to interview several students at MSAT, and teachers. On top of that I'm going to be reporting on my internship and how things are going. So far so good. This is going to be sweet.