Worky lurky

I haven't really updated much from my work experience lately, so I thought I'd comment a little on that.

Things are going well at work, although it was a little tough getting back into the groove of things after taking a long weekend off. I'm working on a historical feature on a nearby horse track, which is nice because I'll have a whole page of my writings to myself. The only bad thing is no one who works for the actual racecourse has any sense of history whatsoever. The only thing they could give me were certain historical articles written in 1978, which were helpful, but still it would be nice to actually talk to someone who knows a lot of the history of the course. I did talk to someone from the local history society, who also gave me a few good things about the course itself, but he didn't really know much about racing. So now I'm on the hunt for someone who was at the course 40 years ago and knows a lot about racing, and the only person I can find is one of the sports guys in our office. I don't know how fair it is to interview him since I work with him, but he's pretty much my only shot.

I also have come to find that I've put a lot of pressure on myself to perform, even though I know I can't possibly write the same amount of articles as the regular reporters because A) They've been here much longer (not just Hounslow but the UK in general), and B) They are the first points of contact for stories. I think I've been craving more meaningful stories, and it's hard to get meaningful stories when you don't know much about the area. Thankfully they are starting to give me more feature pieces, which should allow me to show my talents better. I think in terms of day-to-day newspaper reporting this probably isn't for me, but I sort of knew that already. It sort of makes me wonder why I'm still here, but I know that this is helping me become more comfortable with reporting and building my portfolio if I wanted to go into print. I also really enjoy my coworkers: they're really helpful, and if it weren't for them I probably wouldn't be having any fun in the office.

One of the things I've noticed while working here is that I like to work with technology and I like being able to teach others. I think I've always come from a position of knowledge, which always gave me a certain confidence, and I think my confidence was cut down coming over here because I'm no longer at an advantage point of knowledge. Now that I've been here for awhile that knowledge has built up, but it's hard sometimes for me to admit that I don't know about something, and I'd rather "Google it" than ask someone for help. That has certain implications for journalism too, because sometimes you have to admit to the person that you're interviewing that you don't understand them or don't know much about the subject. That's been hard for me to do, and it affects the questions that I ask, but I've been able to use the excuse that I'm American. At the same time, if you do know a lot about the subject you can get a better understanding of what questions to ask.

I'm excited that I get to tour the BBC this Friday. Maybe I can slip my resume to the receptionist while I'm there.