Miami's chicken busters

I just returned from a multimedia seminar, and the managing editor for multimedia, the guy who hired me (and I suspect all, if not most, of us), showed us an example of how a print story with lots of action translated well -- and BETTER than -- into video. And let me tell you, the video is definitely worth it. Here they are: the story about Chicken Busters and the video that the page links to.

the bike theft

Among the many, many stories I get to read everyday, this one about a "fairly routine" bicycle theft takes the cake. Too bad my headline didn't make it to press.

On the homefront, still no wireless. Miami is projected to rain for the next seven days, and I am going to explore Little Havana tomorrow. I've made of list of places to go and things to see in Miami. Should be an exciting week. :)

Miami

After a harrowing trip down I-95, I arrived in Miami in one piece. Along the way, a terrible thunderstorm in Central Florida that allowed me to see no more than maybe 10 feet in front of me, just enough to see the taillights of the car in front of me. At one point, I had my emergency blinkers on in case the car behind was also in the same predicament.

Miami is an interesting city. The downtown area seems undefined by any clutter of skyline that I can decern, but I am sure it is there. The beachfront (unsurprisingly) is lined with highrise condos, half of which are still under construction, which gives my daily commute from northern Miami a view of crane, crane and more cranes. It's quite lovely.

My apartment has Internet, but my landlady is a bitch and does not think that getting my wireless up and running is important enough to her time. She has a "computer guy" who supposedly knows how to do everything and who she supposedly called several times .... I doubt she has called. At all. I don't know what else I should do.

The first night, she supposedly had a friend who knows how to do this sort of stuff, but I ended up setting up the router for her when it came to be midnight, and nothing happened. It was working fine until we disconnected her ethernet cord, and she didn't have internet at all. She called Comcast to fix HER internet, but Comcast wouldn't fix the wireless and told her to call Linksys. She never did. This morning, I asked about the wireless AGAIN, but she AGAIN said she's calling her guy ... nothing. She said (again) that I can use her computer at any time, but THAT'S NOT THE POINT. I WANT MY INTERNET ACCESS. I run my life on google, and it sucks ass to have to use someone else's computer all the time.

She doesn't seem like she wants me to hardwire my computer and run cables in her immaculate (and unused) home, but I am THIS CLOSE to doing it because I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to try one more time tomorrow morning before I do something drastic about it. This is so fucking frustrating.

Happiness level: 6

coming up this summer

It's hard to believe that that this time next week, I will be, once again, sitting at a computer, happily editing copy. As most of you know, I am in grad school to teach, and I still am. But I cannot tell you how much I miss daily interactions with adults who write in proper English. Everyday, I get e-mails from my fellow teachers with gross grammatical errors that makes me want to burn some bridges and tell them how to use commas and semicolons correctly. I do not exaggerate when I say that I can print out five examples of deplorable grammar in e-mails and documents everyday. But I guess that is most workplaces.

I relish in correcting the Daily Oral Language exercises with my students because I get to teach them the proper way to capitalize and to use punctuation. For the past two weeks, the joy of my time at school was helping 27 students proofread their paragraphs about their favorite memories of this school year.

So I am not giving up on teaching; rather, I am fed up with teachers. I need to be with my fellow grammarians for a little while. I imagine that I will always long to return to newspapers and copy desks, but I am waiting for my last year of school, when I get to observe and teaching in a high school classroom, to decide, if needed, which road I am to take.

On a final note, my frustration does not extend to my students, though. I love them! They are brilliant, funny, ridiculously creative ... and they give me hugs! They totally listen to you when you give them advice ... And they are unafraid to cry. Maybe I should teach elementary school?

Column One: a look behind the veil in Saudi Arabia

Megan Stack, a reporter at the L.A. Times, has reported from Saudi Arabia for a few years, and she wrote a first-person narrative for the paper's Column One about her experiences as a woman in Saudi Arabia. It's definitely worth a read.