Another Monday and another attempt to get started on a paper due for Thursday. This has been the story for pretty much the last month. Needless to say I'm pretty sick of doing papers. After this Tuesday I've still got two more to go a sexy 8 pager and sexier 15, I think both are due around the same time. I'm really ready for this semester to be over and though in about 10 days I'll be home for Thanksgiving, I just can't wait to be home and not thinking about homework or work or internships for a bit. This semester has just been a steady onslaught of activity, sometimes fun, sometimes just pointless, but really not enough downtime. There have been times like the last few days where I've just been sleeping or not doing anything, but I've still just had my mind on everything I've got coming up to do. I'm hoping winter break isn't gonna take its time getting here.

-Mikhail

Today I had a very interesting revelation in my Sociology of Education class. This week we were talking about school choice and its role in the academic path of a child.* It amazed me how much school choice was a part of my life, in fact it stunned me that I was one of the very few that attended public school and had choices. This is of course because in New York City, parents and their children are allowed to choose whatever school they would like to go to, whether because of how close from home it is, the programs they have, their reputation, etc. In fact the very area in which I went to high school was a catalyst in the way school choice has progressed in the city. Amazing isn't it? Needless to say, the teacher remembers my name now.

-Mikhail

*We watched a video in class about it today and when they talked about the way New York City handled it, one of my brothers friends from elementary school was in a scene.

I think I may have fucked up a little bit. I'm definitely an overthinker and when an overthinker lets other people know what he overthunk, things get messy or at least feel that way. I think I thought a more of the comfortability of our relationship. As you may or may not know I don't express my thoughts a whole lot and for whatever reason this time I did. Its likely that this will pass soon enough, but the immediate aftermath is slightly unsettling. This weekend should definitely prove to loosen that of course or maybe as soon as I get my oversized hat.

-Mikhail

With the exception of my sophomore year I usually don't ever get homesick, but lately I have been a little. Oddly enough it isn't missing my family or friends (I do of course), but I miss food. I miss the home cooking naturally, but also all the great food I've had over the summer. One thing in particular are the quesadillas from Burrito Box. Sure I've grown a fondness for a few places that I wish I had explored last year, but it is nowhere near the level of satisfying as the food from home. Does this mean I'm pregnant?

-Mikhail

Scene: Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 10ish - Finestra Editing Lab

I was delivering a flash drive containing the week's episode of What's That Fact? to our editor Johanna. The flash drive which I hand her is pretty bent out of shape. She inquired about the condition of the flash drive.

Johanna: If this thing doesn't work you can't blame me if there's no show for next week.
Mikhail: Well, if I got it in there we can get it out right?
Johanna: *awkward stare*

/Scene

-Mikhail

I've done this what? SEVEN TIMES? And the one that matters the most is the one that provides the hardest time. I'm talking about registering for classes. Hard to believe for my last semester of my undergraduate career is now somewhat written in stone. The weirdest thing is that, in prior semesters I'd already have my potential schedule on a post-it looking at it for weeks until the clock struck 12:00:00AM on the first eligible day. Things were different this time I literally put together my tentative schedule earlier this afternoon, still debating whether or not to take that Big Ten Network class or just deal with another semester of Baukus (who's driving me nuts already!). On top of that the only other important course I need to take was filled and if no one drops I'm looking at a dreaded Friday class. You know, another day.

On a lighter note, I went to a party on Friday night that was by far one of the nicer parties I've ever been to. It seemed to have been everyone's birthday except mine and I was probably the only person that didn't go to Altoona. I learned that I shouldn't dance with Indian chicks and that its possible that I may still have a thing for redheads.

-Mikhail

I've been trying to write this paper for a few days and just can't seem to concentrate and oddly enough I should be much more engaged than I am. It's about Konami, the people that make the only thing I genuinely obsess over, Metal Gear Solid. My first attempt led to me listening through the entire MGS4 soundtrack. The second try led to me playing MGS1. It's due Thursday, so hopefully I can make it.

I know it is a kind of strange thing to update with but really I don't know what to articulate to you my sexy viewers. I'm really, really busy with the readings for class, working football and soccer games, the internship with WPSU-TV, the socializing, What's That Fact? and possibly more things to come. The fall is typically much more action packed, but in a way sometimes it feels like more than I bargained for. Though I feel a bit overwhelmed, I don't feel like I'm going to break. At least pretty soon I'll have my Fridays back for the most part, so I'll have a good portion of 20 something hours to recover from the week's madness. As much as I'd like to slow down and enjoy senior year, I really just can't wait for the fall to be done, then enjoy my birthday and the rest of winter break. Smooth ride to May afterwards, hopefully.

-Mikhail

In about 30 hours I'll be heading over to the happiest of valleys. The strangest thing about it is that this time next year there's not gonna be that build up anticipating going back to school. This is the last year of my formal education cycle. Those 5 elementary years, the 3 middle school, 4 high school and 4 undergraduate. Its been like that for 15 years of my life mid-August comes and school is just a couple weeks away. Amazing. Well needless to say the upcoming year has a lot of truly great things ahead. Full-time directing for What's That Fact?, adding football to my sports videography reel, another year of crazy times with the friends I've made in the past three years and who knows making more hopefully.

-Mikhail

Tragic moment ladies and gentlemen, I think my BlackBerry's keyboard is fried. It hasn't been unusual for it act up during the heat and therefore humidity in the pocket of my pants, but at the moment the motherfucker is dead. Not single button functioning, which is tragic to say the least. Hopefully overnight in an air conditioned room it'll be working again in the morning, but right now it may be time to think repair, replacement or an early upgrade to the Tour. Oh well guess we'll find out soon. Class starts in a week, yay?

-Mikhail

Hey world, I've been busy figuring things out. Then I got some wonderful advice and stopped to enjoy myself. Obviously since last post, my internship at CBS2 ended. It was mostly awesome, I got to work with some incredibly talented people and learned so much more about working in television and as I've stated before about life in general. On the last day, Scags almost sent me out to Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox, which would have been EPIC, but he needed me to hang around and watch golf, plus he would've been all by himself. I didn't mind much because I got to bid farewell to everyone, which was a little more important to me. Scags left me with the thought to just enjoy senior year, especially since for him he had an amazing time and that I shouldn't worry about getting a job next year as long as long as I keep open to what is out there. Plus after this year work's gonna be a part of the rest of my life. As a result I've had an amazing concert filled week. Monday: The Roots at the Highline Ballroom, Tuesday: TV on the Radio at Prospect Park (both openers Chin Chin and Gang Gang Dance were awesome), Thursday: Yeasayer at Pier 54 (their opener was blah), Friday: Animal Collective at Prospect Park (DJ Dam Funk was cool and he does his own echoes! Black Dice was crap) then Sunday: Dinosaur Jr. and The Walkmen at Central Park. This time next week back at dear Old State, very excite!

-Mikhail

Much happier news to report this time around. Today we did all of our in studio shooting for the newscast. For about the first 30 minutes everything was just getting all the talent mic'd up and getting out of the way to let Maurice DuBois do news flash. It went by incredibly smooth, many times the anchors got their reads on the first try and when they didn't, it wasn't much longer until it was perfect. We ended up finishing a half hour early even. What really sucks is that it was really only the third time that all the interns spent as much an hour around each other, which is unfortunate since we all were pretty comfortable as a group. Later in the day I had a phone interview with Jimmie Johnson, which is ridiculous since I know absolutely nothing about NASCAR, but went well. Pretty hard to believe these are the last two weeks, just when it started to get fun.

-Mikhail

Today I figured out my absolute flaw. I am unable to close. Amazingly on my way home from doing some preparations for the newscast I was thinking today how I'm really relaxed about pretty much every situation except for talking to pretty girls. Definitely not true, within 10 minutes of standing around in Webster Hall anticipating a great show by Atmosphere I started chatting with an incredibly cute girl from Minnesota (die hard fan, since that's where they're from) that just moved to the city. At this point definitely hitting it off, but then her friend arrived so there wasn't much talking after that, but the occasional glance was met. At the end of the show friend takes off for the bathroom and I tap her on the shoulder to let her know I'm leaving and that it was really nice to meet her and a nice handshake and hug, but of course I forget to ask for her number. Closing is my flaw. I had an 0-2 count with the bases loaded and wound up walking in the tying run, so now I can only hope that the team can come back to win in the bottom of the 9th or better make sure it doesn't happen again.

-Mikhail

I meant to write about this earlier, but I've kept putting it off and well its better that I did because it kinda came together today really. Two of the producers in the sports departments had kids within the last couple weeks. Really cool right? Internships are definitely not all about doing bitchwork, or "learning the industry" you also learn that people do indeed live lives outside of a room with computers on tables and videotapes on shelves. Ranging from people adding to their families, starting them or still dealing with roommates. I've heard a lot of cool stories come from my superiors. A lot of these guys have been working together for years and years and know each others tales and of course are always learning more too. Seeing my supervisor come in after his paternity leave with more words than just the "everyones doing well" that we've been getting as our updates was great to hear. It's nice to hear the stories that come straight from the people that are usually delivering it.

-Mikhail

Needless to say I've neglected you blog of mine. Last summer I had a lot of love for you. Every Monday I'd let you know the nothingness of my life. Oddly though compared to last year I'm unsure about almost everything. In a way that feels good, I'm more open to my possibilities. The summer is more than halfway done and soon it'll be back to school. I really don't know whether I want to be back in school or for this summer to just slow down. It's been going at a good pace and much to look forward to in both the immediate future and beyond. See what I mean?

-Mikhail

PS: oh yeah, I cut my hair.

CELEBRITY IS SOMETHING I'VE NEVER REALLY PAYED A LOT OF ATTENTION TO. PEOPLE THAT ARE FAMOUS THAT WE ADMIRE LIVE THE SAME WAY THAT WE DO FOR THE MOST PART. THEY EAT, SLEEP, WORK, HAVE FAMILIES, GO AND HANGOUT WITH THEIR FRIENDS, ALBEIT THE VARIABLES WITHIN THOSE ACTIVITIES MAY MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE AVERAGE PERSON. BUT TODAY I LEAVE MY BILLY MAYS KEY ON BECAUSE HE'S ONE OF THESE PEOPLE THAT 10 YEARS AGO WHEN HE WAS JUST STARTING TO CATCH ON WITH OXICLEAN, WAS LIKE MANY OF US. THE SAME WAS PROBABLY TRUE OF ED MCMAHON, FARRAH FAWCETT, AND MICHAEL JACKSON (NOT AS TRUE SINCE HE'S BEEN AROUND SINCE HE WAS A KID), BUT BILLY MAYS WAS PITCHING ON THE BOARDWALK. FROM SEEING HIM SKYROCKET TO THE SPOTLIGHT IN THE LAST YEAR, IT IS EASY TO SEE WHY HE GOT TO THE LEVEL HE ACHIEVED. HE'S A GUY THAT STANDS FOR WHAT HE BELIEVES IN, TELLS THE TRUTH AND FOR ME BROUGHT SOME JOY WHENEVER HE APPEARED ON THE SCREEN. BELIEVE ME, I CAN'T STAND PEOPLE THAT SEEK ATTENTION, BUT BILLY MAYS WAS UNIQUE IN THAT ATTENTION CAME TO HIM, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF BUT FOR THE THINGS HE WAS PUTTING HIS FAITH IN. TODAY WE LOST A GUY THAT WAS LIVING THE DREAM, A MAN THAT GOT THERE BY TAKING THE INDIVIDUAL STEPS UP THE LADDER AND THEN CONVINCED YOU TO BUY THE LADDER.

-MIKHAIL

I've been really type lazy lately. Last night I managed to get my first two entries done and realized that out of the 67 hours my 1 credit requires me to do, I did 66 in the first two weeks. Given I signed up for 10 weeks, its amazing how much I've already done in just what is now my third week. Today went to Giants mini camp which was cool, since its the first pro "event" outside of baseball I've ever attended. If there's one thing that was immediately clear, pro football players are massive. I got to see reporting during the off-season at its best, although now that the NBA just wrapped up we'll hopefully jump into that next week with the Draft.

All else is well I suppose.

-Mikhail

Man Bob Martin is gonna enjoy reading my 1st week journal thats for sure. Today I went in at 1 instead of 4 after Scags asked me to come in and log the Yankees game. So I'm sitting around watching the game and they decide to let me go out and do post-game. I rode off with 27 year veteran Vince to Yankee Stadium and first pick up my one day press pass (note the correct spelling of my name).



After that we headed down through the press elevator, that I pointed out to my brother during our visit last month, to the press room where crews from NBC4, NY1, YES Network and SNY were already hanging out. The game still wasn't over and we watched the last inning and a half on one of the many HDTVs lining the concourse of the stadium, while we waited for Girardi to come down. Yankees down 4 in the 9th and they cut the lead in half, but couldn't pull off the comeback this time.

Girardi came in maybe within five minutes of the last out and in between that time some 20 other reporters swarmed in (about six of them being Japanese media in a game where Matsui only pinch-hit, I suppose this has been regular since he's come over to the states though). Not a lot of questions for Girardi, since the obvious focus in a game like this is his trust of Mo, so we headed to the clubhouse. I got handed the CBS2 microphone and stuck it in front of the monstrous CC Sabathia (for as big a guy as he is, he's pretty soft spoken), Johnny Damon (and his extra spiky hair) and Mariano Rivera (who a security guard said would've liked to seen him pitch to Longoria because he's "Mo" and reciprocated that statement).

After the interviews we headed out to this Little League game where A-Rod and Richard Gere were coaching the two teams facing each other. A-Rod was not nearly as excited as Gere was in his managerial role, but did go to the mound congratulated the pitcher for a fine outing before taking him out and walking back to the bench with him. A very awesome day indeed!

-Mikhail

Today, I met a couple of anchors. First was Maurice DuBois early in the day while I was eating a bagel, and he nodded and I nodded back. He said "Hey how's it going?" and I couldn't say anything, since I had a mouth full of bagel. Shortly before I left I met Sam Ryan who does sports and she let me have some trail mix. Good times. Anyway, today I just logged a couple matches from the French Open, some sound bytes from the Yankees post-game and shots of the seagulls and midges from during the game.

-Mikhail

Day One at CBS, pretty good. I got a nice tour of the massive CBS Broadcasting Center, which takes up the entire city block of 56th and 57th between 10th and 11th Avenues. I'm sure a lot more shoot there, but so far I've seen the news studio (and its ballin ass control room), the 106 and Park set (which I didn't know they still aired), Guiding Light (which won't be airing much longer soon), the CBS Sports desk where they do NFL Today and March Madness coverage (those studios were locked though). Otherwise it was a lot of just familiarizing with the system and some of the equipment, but not a lot. Considering I'm gonna have to write a journal on this once a week for my credit, it wouldn't be a bad idea to just write for my memory's sake later. So far I've really only talked to three of the other five interns there today and they seem pretty chill, including one from Penn State, go figure.

-Mikhail

Week 3 of 3, time has really flown by and yet it really hasn't. After all it IS still May and I've already been home for 24 days. The fact I've spent between 14 and 18 days in my room, proves how really interesting my vacation has been thus far. Not really, last week I hung out with the jerks and went to the Yankees game. Tuesday I got really messed up playing Wizards and while a fun time, I haven't had a desire to go outside since. I'm a weekend away from starting my internship at CBS2 which will add an element of activity for the next 10 weeks to fill the hours I've spent playing my Marlins franchise on MLB 2K9. But later today I get to party with a friend from school in which I'm 98% sure will have the highest concentration of people wearing adidas track jackets in Manhattan. Heating up? Hope so.

-Mikhail