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Posted 04/22/2011:  This past week, I went with a few friends to a roller skating rink in Columbia. Now, before you jump to conclusions about how amazingly dorky that may sound, think of the last time you were nostalgic of childhood activities and wanted to give them a shot again, well for us this was a great opportunity to do so. When we got to the rink it was a lot smaller than expected and as we predicted, filled with middle school aged patrons and younger (as well as one grown man in cut-off jeans skating circles around everyone else, kind of awkward). The first few minutes were fun, lacing up the skates (not in-line skates mind you), hobbling over to the rink and entering the flow of people. A lesson I learned pretty quickly on into the evening was ice skating is a lot easier than roller skating. As a Minnesota native, I took ice skating lessons and even worked at an ice rink in high school. I figured those skills could be interchangeable with those for roller skating...I was wrong. After awkwardly skating a few laps around the roller rink I worked my way to the edge to go sit down on the side. Here's where my trouble's truly began. Me, not thinking about the pure physics of skating tried to simply skate off the rink and then walk so I could stop. Problem with that rational is that the rink and the surface off the rink were both flat, aka no difference in resistance. So here I come off the rink heading toward two of the guys I came with and I attempt to stop, but woops, no brakes on these skates in the back. In a matter of seconds I came barreling off the rink, onto the side, leaned back, did full windmill arms and landed flat onto my back.

The spill rattled me. I scrambled in a panic to try and sit up and just sat there for a few minutes while my friends came over. Luckily, I didn't hit my head on the ground so my back took the full impact of the fall. But, I decided I would be done roller skating for the night. While everyone else continued to skate I sat on a bench with another person who previously decided they weren't going to skate...clearly they made the right decision. Once the shock of the fall faded away I made a crucial decision as a journalist. I tweeted about the ordeal. Yes, the thousands, well, more like hundreds, eh, lets say tens of people who actually read my tweets were given a brief description of my accident. Did they necessarily want to hear about it...probably not, but they had the opportunity. Without twitter, I would have been stuck commenting on my spill via a facebook status or possibly through texting or god forbid I might have actually had to call someone or talk to them in person. But, we don't live in that sort of world, we live in a world simplified by 140-characters...for better or for worse.

A common sight I've seen around the capitol this semester is the hoards of kids visiting as part of field trips. There presence rarely impacts my day besides the occasional change in direction to walk around a group stopped in the middle of the hallway. But last week, I found that avoiding there presence wasn't so easy. As I left the MDN office to interview a source, I was met by a hallway literally lined with kids eating their lunches. I didn't think much of them at the time and started to walk toward the elevator closest to our office. As I got to the elevator, one kid, probably the one who always has something funny to say in class,  greeted me as "hey newsguy." The acknowledgment sort of threw me off, so I replied with "hey." When I think back on the encounter I think the reason I was most surprised was because to the kid I was a journalist. He had no way of knowing I was a college student. It was a cool thought but also a frightening one. Whatever happened to the time where I could be carefree and go on field trips without a care in the world? Well, I guess those days are gone now. When I'm at the capitol I report on stories that affect millions of Missourians each day while "being" a journalist. And although kids from field trip groups see me as a "grownup journalist" already, I think I still have a lot to learn in college...well, at least two years worth.

When a historically massive blizzard rolled across the state, the University cancelled classes for three days in a row. Growing up in Minnesota we rarely received snow days because the winter was expected to be pretty bad every year, so coming to Missouri and getting three snow days in a row is something I never thought I would see. On the third snow day we chose to bare the elements and trek over to Jefferson City for reporting. Although digging a car out from 18 inches of snow might not sound appealing to some it was a perfect example of the real-life of a journalist. While my friends were inside enjoying the snow day I worked with a fellow journalist to maneuver my front-wheel drive car out of its parking spot and out of the lot. At one point I wanted to surrender and call AAA to tow me out; however, at that point the car was in such an awkward angle it would have done more harm to have them tow it out. One hour later, after invoking the services of 6 other people to push back and forth, the car was finally free of the lot with only a popped out right bumper as evidence of the ordeal. Each time I see that slightly pushed out right bumper I will remember the difficult obstacles that will stand in my way as a journalist...that is, until I go to the dealership tomorrow and have them shove the bumper back into place.        

On my first day working in Jefferson City I experienced what can only be described as learning by doing and watching. I sat in the Senate attempting to comprehend what was being discussed on the floor and I felt like a real journalist. The first story I covered was a bill granting subpoena power to the leader of the Senate and the power to subpoena documents. After the Senate finished discussing this topic they began a discussion on how federal money would be used for different school districts. Luckily, at that point Phil Brooks came over to the Senate Press table. While the Senators continued their discussion, Phil worked on explaining to me exactly what was happening. In the end, Phil got up from the table and started looking for specific Senators that he wanted to interview. Over the next few minutes I followed Phil around while he got those interviews. By shadowing him I was able to see the importance of following your sources to make sure you get what you need for stories. This was one of the first lessons learned while working in Jefferson City and its impact will stay with me throughout my reporting this semester and beyond.