Second Day at WJMC!

Note: I will upload some pictures in another entry at some point tomorrow.

Day number two here at GMU went by way faster than I initially expected.

The hardest part of any day is waking up. I’m your type of girl that can sleep for hours and hours (my record is 24 hours/ 32). I went to bed last night thinking “This is going to be great! I’ll wake up at 5:30, get all pretty and take my time and even get to breakfast early!” Sike.  Your girl woke up at 6:30 and had to be at breakfast by 6:45.

In my defense, the doors to the breakfast hall opened at 6:45 so technically,me and my roommate wouldn’t be considered late if we got there at 7:30 (which we did).

Breakfast was really crowded. It was in this little restaurant called Southside. I had eggs, tater tots and peaches. It was really good and I’m not just saying that because I’m a 15 year old girl who’ll eat just about anything you give her.

We had to meet with our color group at 8 to get onto the buses so you bet we shoveled our food down our throats as fast as possible. We got out there a little early actually, which was good so we didn’t look like the losers who’re always late to everything. No offense if you’re late to everything, I’m sure you’re a real cool dude.

Anyway, it took us over an hour to get to the Newseum. Which sucked and didn’t at the same time because I got to play Pokémon Go the whole time.

Once we FINALLY got there, we stood outside waiting for directions. We had to go through security then we were free to go. We first went to the 9/11 monument. It was absolutely beautiful. On one wall, there were old front pages from newspapers all over the word talking about the attack on the World Trade Center. After looking at those, I went in a tiny room and watched a short video about what the reporters went through. I highly recommend going to the Newseum in Washington D.C. and visiting this memorial. The video was so touching, I teared up a number of times.

We then went up to the very top floor and there was a wall of all the first pages of every state’s newspaper. Lots of them had things about the recent Baton Rouge shooting and mini articles on Pokémon Go, of course. Then, I went into the next room and it had a lot of interesting pictures and facts about the Vietnamese war. It had a lot of pictures from photojournalists and the stories behind them, which were often quite interesting.

The next room I went in, I could spend days at. It was this room filled with all the front pages of newspapers dating all the way back to the 1500’s! It had one big aisle of all the pages and there were three drawers. It’s pretty hard to explain but you’ll see when I post pictures!

The next area was my absolute favorite. It was the FBI room. I think one of the most interesting parts of journalism is the crime. Although it sounds cool, I don’t think I could ever be a crime journalist. There’s so many dangers to it! Anyways, in this room, there were things plastered all over the walls about crime. It was so awesome. It had pretty much every terrorist attack and how they found the terrorist, major crimes like the kidnapping of Charles  Lindbergh’s son, items that burglars and terrorists owned and/or used to assist them, and so much more. I could spend every minute of everyday in there without getting bored. Now, I know this is pretty touchy to be reading all of these things and this is awful to say but I love it. I don’t love the crime but I love reading about it and knowing that there’re amazing people out there that want to keep our country safe even if it seems like it’s crumbling at the seams.

Enough of the sad stuff! I was pulled out of the FBI room (don’t worry not literally) to go see a 4-D movie. It was really cool. It just touched on some of the top journalists and some of their stories but in 3-D and our chairs moved, I guess that’s what made it 4-D! After that, we ate lunch. I had a delicious salad from the salad bar and a piece of cheesecake because hey, playing healthy all the time gets REALLY boring.

After I finished eating, me and some of my friends I made went up to the shop. There was a lot of cool stuff there and I wish I could’ve bought everything to be honest. I settled on a shirt that said “Will write for food” and called it a day. How could you get any more “me” than that?

After that, we went up to the Pulitzer Prize room. There were photographs that won the prize EVERYWHERE and I spent at least two hours in that room. I could tell you everything about every picture I saw in there. For some reason, I had a real connection with this room and every photo inside of it. It’s weird how little things like that can get a person so drawn in and before you know it, it’s time to go. The only reason I checked the time was honestly because I almost peed myself but let’s not talk about that.

After leaving the museum with a smile on my face after taking a very much needed bathroom break, we hopped back on the bus and headed down the road to a placed called the National Press Club. It was a very big building and as soon as we stepped inside, I felt super important. Everything was decorated so lovely, even the elevators. Now, let me tell you that I HATE elevators and I’ve been forced to use them all week (yay). We fit almost our whole entire color group in there and I was freaking out. My claustrophobia was literally through the roof and I was about to pry the elevator doors open with my pinkie toe if I had to. Luckily, we made it to the 13th floor right before I had a major freak out.

We went down a hallway and into this big room that looked VERY familiar.  The person that was introducing the political panel to us said that every President has been in that very room. It was crazy to think about. Then, these tree people got onto the stage and sat down at the panel. They went on about politics for what seemed like years. Let me tell you, I am really not a political person at all. I payed attention though and understood most of it, which is what counts, right?

After they were done, a cute little old man came on the stage. His name was Terry Anderson. As soon as he opened his mouth, I fell in love with the words that poured out. Mr. Anderson told us a lot and I learned so much from him. He made me love journalism even more than I did before and I didn’t know that was possible. He told us about military journalism and how hard it was/is and he told us little things about journalism that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

After that, we ate dinner. Once again we had baked ziti but this time with broccoli. It was really good. Then, we had our color group meeting to figure out what we’re doing the next day.

Goodnight and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Here’s some of my favorite quotes from Terry Anderson from this afternoon:

“If you want to label something as journalism, it better be true.”

“I don’t need t tell you if these are good people or bad people. All I need to tell you is what they did.”

“Don’t fall in love with the tools. They’re ways of telling stories. What it’s about is finding and telling the truth.”

“Journalists have to fight everyday for the privilege to find and tell the truth.”