Live from camp: Two days down, 10 more to go

Cheese and rice, it’s been a long two days. Not that anyone says it hasn’t been a fun long two days.

The first night we played lots of those wonderful get-to-know-you games, where we ‘filled in the blanks,’ like “Just because I’m _____ doesn’t mean I’m ______.” A very anti-stereotyping thing. We learned a whole lot about everyone in the group, and I know I sure felt I could relate to the people who were then strangers. There are only 2 people at the camp who knew each other before hand, Allison and Rebecca, but none of us have separated into cliques, and I don’t feel like anyone is left out of anything. That might be partly because of the counselors, they make sure everyone is involved if they want to be, but really, we do most of the including ourselves.

Yesterday was our first full day of journalism classes. At 9:00am, there was brief talk about the news [so I’m told, I wasn’t there, a brief sickness came over me, but please don’t worry, I was fine within an hour. Must have been the somewhat strange pizza the night before…]. Then Dave Nimmer talked to us about what was newsworthy and important. He’s a pretty interesting guy. Very talkative. We got our story ideas from our editors. My editor and Kiara’s is named Annie, and she talks fast but she’s really helpful. We worked on our stories until class was over at 5pm.

That night we had dinner at Davanni’s. Me and two of the other five vegetarians here at camp got a vegetarian pizza, [no olives, because Abby doesn’t like them very much] and bonded over dinner conversation. The evening activity was watching a movie, eventually we decided on “Children of Men.” Excellent movie, [my personal opinion]. I cried 7 times.

This morning it was very difficult to get up. Breakfast is at 8am though, and no one wants to pay the cost of a wake-up call to Lynda ($5) so we dragged ourselves out of bed. It was worth it though, because we had a very interesting debate on the morals of what kind of graphic content should be in newspaper, especially the kind of pictures shown. Then we went out and took some of our own (around St. Thomas, nothing graphic) after Mike O’Donnell gave us tons of tips. Super helpful ones if you ask me. For instance, don’t be afraid to stand on chairs or even lay flat on the ground to get the angle you want.

After that was learning the basics on how to use a camcorder with one of the St. Thomas student counselors Miles Trump. Then we went out and took videos of our own! Me and my partner Iman made an awesome horror/action/romance/adventure movie. All still pictures. After that we went back to the classroom and watched some videos made by ex-still-life photographer Ben Garvin. I was impressed, for sure.

The last thing we did was have a sort of sit-down dinner/interview with Ruben Rosario, whose article I had read just that morning and which I thought was really interesting. He told us why he became a journalist, how he thinks about stories, and helpful tips for us to get a “network” that could help us in the future.

So far field training — I mean, camp — has been super fun, action-packed, and interesting, and I’m sure everyone else here would agree. I think we’re all a little homesick despite all of us not being all that far away from home, but with the internet access and cell phones we’re getting by just fine. It’s only the 2nd full day, but it feels like so much longer! It really is a blast, and I’ve learned so much else already. Looking at the schedule I know I’m never going to be bored in the week and a half ahead.

Toodles for now.

— Erika Roedl, ThreeSixty 2010