One Charitable Woman

Some might say cliché. Others might say brilliant. Still others might shrug and say of course. On the whole, none of the other opinions matter… it is my decision and after much thought I decided on Oprah. I spent a good hour and half of my life deciding whom I admire in the professional world and I finally came up with Oprah. Not only does she encompass the epitome of a strong independent woman, but she is compassionate and charitable in her life as I wish to be.
Growing up in Mississippi, she suffered abuse from various male figures during her adolescence. After moving to Tennessee to live with her father, she attended Tennessee State University. She studied broadcasting and ever since then her life has been in the history books.
Her Career sped her toward fame and money. Oprah, at 54 years of age, still shows women young and old to be strong and strive for their goals. Oprah has a talk show, book club, magazine, production group, and myriad other business functions. However, the business woman in her does not stop there. Her accomplishments in business are surpassed only by her charitable heart. She is almost as famous for her weight loss as she is for her charities. Over $51,000,000 raised by her Angel Network is just one of the many charities that she encourages and oversees. (Thanks to http://www.biography.com for Oprah Winfrey’s biography information)
The future may be unsure, but when I look at what I want to be in life, I look at Oprah. I am and want to be that strong independent woman, ready to step up to the plate and play hard. The biggest reason for my admiration of Oprah is her charitable heart and compassion. Almost all of her philanthropies focus on the welfare and well being of children. And I believe I am in her line of thinking when I say that one of the most important things to protect on this Earth is our children. If I am meant for one thing I hope it is for charities, especially focusing on children. No matter what I do with my professional life, i know that I will work charities throughout my life. I have already started down that path through my sorority work and my documentary on a person who has made a difference in the community. Famous professionals have admirers all the time. I find most admirations of them silly. However, I believe that Oprah is a genuinely kind and charitable person who I would love to meet in person.

A Moment of Truth

There is a moment, an epiphany if you will, when your mind is clear and all you can see id what is important. Honestly it is pretty uncommon, so if you do happen to come across this moment then you are pretty lucky. Now I am not a lucky person but I will be honest and tell you I have had one of these moments. However I did not come to this conclusion on my own. A Westminster faculty member trying to help me with a problem triggered my “moment of truth.”
My first year in college I was slightly nervous and one of my very first classes was Speech. Diesler was my professor and she was so nice. Now I have never considered myself a bad speaker or a good speaker but being as it was a new environment I was still trying to get to know everything. So keeping on track, she gave us our big speech topic. It was research speech and I for the life of me couldn’t find something. I think I went through 5 different topics. Every time I went to her and was I was unenthusiastic and not very happy with it. So usually other people kept giving me ideas and I would try them but they just would really fit me so I would end up being not so happy. So finally she sat me down and said what do you like and I told her a lot of things. Her advice to me was this …. do something that makes you happy , something that interests you that you genuinely want to learn about and something that is what you come up with that you want. I looked t her not really understanding how that was supposed to help me because I thought that I was already doing that. Well I told her ok I would try, not really knowing how else to respond. Her last statement to me was … sometimes if you stop looking so hard topics will pop out of no where for you. So I went back to my dorm thinking what I could do differently and kind of what she meant.
Finally it hit me like lightening on a rod. My moment of truth had come to me not only had I found a topic but realized that what she said could span across life in general. So since then I have lived for what I love to do what makes me happy and doing what I want to do and not what others tell me I want to do. I still keep I contact with Professor Diesler and she always has something interesting to say… food for my thoughts.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T…

There are many reasons I have made it this far in my college career. Some of it is from my drive to excel, another is because it is something I need to do. Either way, I have been blessed with wonderful opportunities and come in contact with many motivational people. Most have one professional person who helps them decide what they are doing with life, shows them the ropes, and supports them in general. And like most I have that as well …but slightly different. There is one person who has taught me more then she will ever know on more then one level. She has prevented bad life decisions but, let me learn from some as well. My first year in college, I was a bio major. I am certain that 2 weeks in I would have given up if she had not studied with me every night. When I realized that I really didn’t know how to study she said she didn’t know either. But I watched her process and saw the dedication and focus that she had and tried to replicate it. It worked for awhile but I finally realized it just wasn’t for me. Now I know I could never be her and honestly I don’t want to but I do take lessons from her. She is the only person only who showed me how to organize my life, telling me how to say “NO”, and reminding me on numerous accounts that “you can only do ONE thing at a time”. I would have never have pushed so hard or been as confident with myself if it wasn’t for her encouraging me and pointing me in the right direction.
Professionalism is a point of perception one could say. Why do I say this? Because you can call a teacher “professional” but that doesn’t mean they are. I have seen and heard more “professional” people do so many unprofessional acts it is sick. So, I look to other sources for my professional cues. If you would tell me I had to choose a person who has influence me in my professional career, personal life, and educationally I would tell you it is Ashley Carnahan. Some may argue that she could not be a role model if she is my age but I beg to differ. Through her I have learned how to properly conduct myself in meetings, in classes and in life in general. I must say that watching her speak, excelling in every aspect of her life has affected me greatly. When I am unhappy in my personal life it is libel to seep to my educational world and professional world. Therefore a big part of being professional is controlling my personal issues. Ashley has taught me to do what makes me happy, be confident and classy. She may not be a “professional” but give her a year to get her MBA and she will be more then qualified.

Take One...Take Two ...Thrid Time's the Charm!

There are so many different paths which lead to me to where I am now. Through my time at Westminster I have been more then a few majors and been in a little over a few organizations. Trying to pin point on specific class or moment that lead me to discovering what my capstone would be is not easy. Maybe others can say this event cause this event which set this light bulb off and now look at me. But as far as I go … its take one or two pushes and pulls to figure out not only my capstone but also my career. Since I cannot pick just one to talk about I will talk about a few events. In college, my experiences outside of the classroom have far outweighed my experiences in the classroom. However I am thankful for both because without either I would have never realized what I want to do for capstone and a career.
I came into college intent upon being the best at most things, getting straight A’s and going on to graduate from med school someday. Now as a senior, I am getting ready to graduate and go into the Airforce with a completely different out look on life. Honestly, having been in the capstone 601 really made me think all about who I am and also what I want to do. Going into it I knew I wanted to so something creative because that is who I am. After being shot down time and time again for my capstone proposal I decided I needed something else. I was more focused on planning an event then broadcasting. I was at a crossroads because event planning is what I love and want to do with my life. But I needed to show my professors that my broadcasting lessons were not in vain. My decision stemmed from being forced to sit down and look at what I was interested in and finding something that would leave me with a feeling of accomplishment. So, I used one of my interests. Among other interests I love WWI. I am a big buff on it. Pretty much anything that deals with the military intrigues me. So I decided to take that interest and funnel into something I know I love doing in broadcasting. I love making movies. I did it in my video production class and it was wonderful and fun! So I thought why not do it again? This time it is a little harder and a bit more stressful, but because of my roles in broadcasting and other extra curricular I believe I am able to accomplish my documentary of a World War II Veteran paralleled with an Iraq Soldier.
There you have it! I was push and forced to think of something that was interesting rewarding and I have come up with a task to full fill. I am excited and nervous all at the same time. It’s a wonderful feeling.

A Documnetary .. Really?

After many grueling months of head slamming and brain crunching from more then just me my capstone theme has finally emerged. I have had 3 proposals. For me coming up with two proposals was hard enough not to mention the fact of getting discouraged. I was hung up on a few issues such as life long goals and things of that nature. while it is an important part of my college career I was honestly just thinking about it too hard and too much. There is a time to to make certain aspects o your life hard and this did not need to be one of them. So after much ado i have finally figured it out. I am blending several interests into one. I am a history fanatic when it come to wars and WWII.I just love to read about it and learn about it. I needed something to hold my enthusiasm if I was going to spend an entire semester on a project. I also need to be very passionate about it as well. So i sat back and though about it and realized that i was really passionate about supporting the Troops and honoring veterans. I also do not think enough people realize just what they do for our country. with our soldiers and our veterans there would not be the America that we know today. So I decided that supporting troops and World War two needed to somehow be apart of my capstone. What else need to be incorporated into my capstone was a event. If there is one thing that I absolutely love to do it is plan events. on campus I have been VP of special events or have planned one of the organization's biggest event of the season. I am also the Special events chair for the student government so if there is anything that needed to incorporated into my Broadcasting Capstone. My professor was nice enough to stick it out with indecisiveness until the end. finally he suggested a documentary. I though that is pretty interesting and We figured out that i should do one on troops and veterans. So my capstone for 2008 will be called "Colliding Times". It is a documentary which parallels the life of a World War Two veteran and a Iraq soldier of veteran. It will address the differences and similarities between the two lives including romance, war front experience and much more. I am so very excites about my capstone i feel that it is going to be something that I can look back and be proud of. Knowing the i can put a documentary together all by myself and sill work for the greater good always please me. That is another place where I got hung up on my search for capstone.. I wanted something with meaning. I have spent so many years going through motions learning but never really letting an of my projects have an impact on mys for the people around me. For my senior project though, this was something that would be looked at by many. While it may be something out of the ordinary it is something iw ill enjoy and truly be happy to get a message across. And with a plus note I can plan en event. On the date of my Premiere i can plan a small shindig for those that are coming. It will be a lovely thing.

The Best Show

I have seen many Thursday nights dedicated to "the County Line"(Westminster's News Program). Every Thursday at 7:30have pm many Broadcasting students gather to produce our news program. We have been doing the show for many years and we a pretty set pattern down. There is always room for improvement of course but this last show i think was absolutely perfect, or at least very close to it. It all started off with the packages. They were strong and clear and overall just well put together. The readers we used this week were interesting and relevant to the community I thought as well. Maybe it was a just a good week for the news world, I'm not sure but everything just kinda fell in our laps last week. One of the bigger parts of the show that worked outstandingly well was the producing. One of my friends was producing last week and it was his first time. He was a bit nervous but i was impressed with that work that he did. He utilized his AP's and made sure that everyone was on track with stories throughout the week. He put a nice rundown together for the crew to follow for the show. The crew was a nice conglomerate of people as well. I was one for the last ones to come in so I ended up as prompter girl but everyone seemed to do there job well. The floor director cued people on time. The cameras were smooth and did have any problem moving to there spots ans such. The audio went well. Even sports went smoothly! No stalls or graphic problems or anythign I was quite happy with it. The anchors looked and spoke wonderfully. Of all the shows to go very well i was glad that it was our last one for the year. Now only was it our last show but it was also the senior send off show which was nice. We have such great talent graduating from here. If I can do half as well as them next year then I will feel like I have accomplished something. There was one slight problem as I recall at the moment. There was a slide show of the seniors and for some reason the sound did get on air. We had it in the studio but the audience couldn't get hear it. I Would really like to know how that happened. But either way it was a wonderful show!

Understanding

There are many times in life when you think you have it all figured out. You sit and think I know how to do this, I know what they will say and I think everyone will think it’s a great idea. Unfortunately, no one knows everything. You can’t make everyone happy and in most cases nothing is done perfectly. Everyone has there own perception, and no matter what you do someone will think it is wonderful and someone else will think it is awful. But what does any of this have to do with broadcasting? Well, I can tell you… everything. FI you understand that people can find the good and the bad in everything then you can prepare yourself when you present your work. Now this applies for those who work hard and still end up getting torn apart when presenting a package or news story. Granted if you just aren’t prepared then that is your own fault. But if you have prepared and present your paper news story, package, new TV segment, or whatever then not everyone has to like it. Broadcasting is a hard industry, a cut-throat industry. Unfortunately there are so many different tastes out there that it is hard to please all of them. Understanding that you just need to please the majority or the boss is a big stepping stone. Whether they are right or not they do control what happens. I found this out a few days ago.

One of my classes had presentations for a very big project we had great ideas in our class for these different projects. For many weeks and weeks were spent deciding on topics for our projects. We wanted them to be perfect. The topic had to be something that interested us because we were going to be spending a lot of time on them. The day we presented I knew was going to be hard. I was confident and very adamant about my topic. It was everything I wanted caring, eventful and patriotic. I, like everyone else, had put way too much effort into trying to find something that worked for me. I knew going into it my presentation that my professors might not like my idea but I thought that it would still do the trick. I was wrong. They liked the patriotic factor but thought it too eventful for the project I was doing. While I disagreed and felt that they missed the whole point I succeeded and decided to go along with it. This is where the understanding that you can’t please everyone comes in handy. I knew they might not like the complete idea and I would have to alter it. I didn’t mind that they do not fully like it. By understanding that not everyone likes one concept, I had already prepared myself for it. I’ve decided in broadcasting you have to be able to adapt to anything. Whether it is as simple as the change in a news schedule or a completely new proposal… adapting and understanding is the key.

und