Tag Archives: Boston

Summer Wrap Up

As I sit here typing my summer recap, I can’t help but think these past few months were my “last summer”. I don’t mean to say that I won’t have  days at the beach, or weekend getaways, but going into my last semester of school, the only things I imagine in my near future are long hours, office cubicles, and an entry-level income. That being said, this past summer was one for the books and here are my top 10 favorite things about Summer 2014:

1. FOX Sports San Diego – Is it ironic that I start my list with an internship? Over the summer I worked in the marketing department doing everything from learning about OAP’s (On-Air-Promotions) to helping manage our two brand representatives ( the FOX Sports SD Girls) to writing press releases and drafting tweets. The stuff I learned was only half the fun though; the people I worked with (shout out to Megan, Gema, Jacquelyn, Katie, and Brie… the list goes on) were absolutely incredible. I can only hope that my first job will have coworkers that are half as amazing as these ladies. Did I mention that I also got to cool events and spend my summer at the ballpark? Talk about one killer internship!

2. World Cup – Do sports montages make you as emotional as they make me? When the US qualified for the World Cup and the #IBelieve commercial came out, I was ECSTATIC to say the least. The best part of the WC, besides the US making it out of the Group of Death, was Tim Howard‘s stellar performance (16 SAVES!), putting a GK in the spotlight (He was even named Secretary of Defense on Wikipedia!).

3. Fourth of July – The fourth is my favorite holiday by and far. But, what’s not to like? Hot dogs, fireworks, slip n’ slides and hanging with friends. This year I spent my 4th on Coronado, which is arguably the best place to spend a fourth. There is a sense of camaraderie because it’s such big Navy town and there’s nothing better than watching fireworks on the beach, right?

4. The Beach – What sort of San Diegan would I be if I left the beach off my top 10 things about this summer? There’s no greater feeling than the saltiness of the air, wind blowing through your hair and the sun beating down on your face. The beach and ocean are my place of solace – where I go when I want to escape and I am so blessed to have so many beaches at my fingertips.

5. San Francisco – One of my best friends and teammates, Phebe, lives in San Francisco and I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with her in Marin. It was an adventure (Megventure) filled weekend and you can see all the highlights in my blog here!

6. Boston – This past Spring, I was elected as Vice President of NYU SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee). This position led to an opportunity to represent NYU at the UAA SAAC (University Athletic Association) in Boston the first week of August. I, along with the rest of our exec board and Denise, our advisor spent 48 hours in Boston reviewing legislature, meeting our conference rivals, and conquering a ropes course. I walked away with 30 new friends, a sense of community within our conference, and a black eye (Let me tell you, tag is dangerous!).

7. FOX Sports (LA) – On my last day in San Diego, I drove up to Los Angeles to get a tour of FOX Sports 1’s studios and meet with some people in the communications department. My visit to LA reaffirmed my passion for working in sports broadcasting and desire to continue my career with FOX Sports.

8. Learning to drive stick – I’ve wanted a shiny, fire engine red, Jeep Wrangler for as long as I can remember; the only thing standing in my way (besides the cost) is the fact that I have no idea how to drive manually. One of our closest family friends, Yo and Trena, however, own a 1985 Jeep Laredo and on one of their last days in San Diego they let me “learn” to drive stick. After stalling out what seemed like 100 times and giving whiplash to my passengers, I finally was able to shift up and down through the gears while riding around the block.

9. Catching up with old friends – I was a little weary of returning to San Diego this summer because many of my high school friends were either back at their respective colleges, interning in LA/NY, or traveling the world. Luckily for me, two of my oldest friends, Lauren and Kayla were around this summer and we spent HOURS together giggling, reminiscing and just being girls. It’s sort of strange to think that I’ve known them since I was less than a year old and 21 years later we’re still friends despite all the places I’ve moved and events that have transpired.

10. Spending time with family – Family is not an important thing to me. It’s EVERYTHING. This summer I was blessed to spend so much time with my mom, dad and sister, along with my adopted family (the Staab’s). I know I can always count on them to have my back and support me in all my endeavors. As I end my last summer, I realized how much they’ve sacrificed for me to get where I’m at and I’m eternally thankful for everything they’ve done.

As the leaves turn to orange, the weather gets colder and football season hits full force, I bid adieu to my last summer. I will cherish it closely in my heart forever.

 

The Glamorization of “The Other”

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I was recently chosen for the second round of competition for the USA Today College Correspondent Program. Part of my task for the next stage was to compose a short piece on something in the news in the past week from the perspective of a college student. Enjoy!

            It’s hard to believe that we are the same age, that someone of only 19 years of age could be capable of such horrific acts, of killing somebody’s son or daughter. It’s hard to believe that less than a week ago, our country fell victim to yet another coward looking to garner his fifteen minutes of fame.

            I was only eight years old when my picture perfect world turned upside. I was at an age where the harsh realities of society were still far outside the perimeter of the playground, but on that one fateful day in September the floodgates came crashing open. The visions of terrorists flashed in front of me on the TV screen, plastered on the front pages of newspapers, and in every corner of my life and forever embedded themselves into my mind. It is the first real tragedy I can remember, and I never did quite understand why these faces were everywhere I turned. My eight-year-old self wondered where the photographs of our heroes and the victims were.

            We live in a media obsessed society captivated with the visualization of the other. We play looped videos for hours on major news channels of mug shots of potential suspects to invoke emotion from our citizens. We are infatuated with pointing fingers and finding a scapegoat, and we put ourselves at an arm’s length distance to the culprit, similar to the barrier that media creates between the home front and the not so distant battlefront. These mediums have the ability to make horrific events seem distant from their audiences and make it easy for Americans to compartmentalize their fear, by simply allowing them to think that they, as an individual, have nothing to do with these horrific atrocities, yet we do.

            As a technology-obsessed community we are fighting a shape shifting battle against terrorism, whether we like it or not. The communication and spread of ideas has allowed us to glamorize the other in a rapid, global, unprecedented way. We give them the satisfaction of being scared by voicing our thoughts and opinions on social media, by hash tagging #tsarnaev and following fake police scanner twitter accounts.  We are so entranced by the idea of “someone else” doing wrong, that we in turn glorify the criminals and forget about the victims. How come in times of conflict we can identify the perpetrators yet struggle to name even a single person who was shot and killed?

            As the largest users of social media, our generation needs to stand up, not only to terrorism, but also to the media movement that is redefining our nation. Instead of retweeting the names of the cowards who bomb our marathons and shoot up our schools, we need to take note of those who lost their lives in the moments of tragedy. Acts of terrorism have a way of bringing people together and way of reshaping our communities – let’s take this as an opportunity to do so. Let’s stop glamorizing the other.