Edgar Mendez: June 2008 Archives

Coming into the Bamma program I was questioning whether I was doing the right thing. My journey here in Bamma has helped me find it.

From the very first day I stepped into the orientation I was freaked out, I was scared. I had every feeling that you can possible have on the very first day of meeting different people to make friends. My social life has definitely been altered now that I came into this program. I met some of the most awesome-est, people here in Bamma that I will always remember. There was so much work to do for the paper to be issued, and I can finally say that the hard work and stress paid off because when I saw that paper in my hands, my heart started jumping joyously, I was impressed with myself.

As the first week moved along slowly, I started to feel the stress. We had two projects to accomplish one was the paper and the second was the multimedia piece. The first week was packed with smiles and fun, it was wonderful. I love when there’s a moment when everyone is happy and smiling because that makes me glad. The first week finished with a million thoughts to gather and compress into one ball of energy. With that being done the first week came to an end.

The second week came and we were closer like a family that helps each other out to finish the various jobs we had to do. I learned by now so many things about each and every one of the people here in Bamma. The second week almost reaches an end and I’m going to miss them. Through doing Bamma I’m a whole new me with valuable knowledge that I gathered here at Bamma. Today June 27, 2008 I figured out that I do not regret coming here, because at the end life is about the choices you make. Bamma 2008 will always be and will always stay in a very special place... my heart.

Yesterday was confusing, we started to really create our multimedia piece this time by using an advanced program called Final Cut pro. The program of Final cut Pro is stellar but its so much of stuff that we have to take in. Seriously I feel that the Multimedia is not going to be done in time because its so much stuff that i feel I don't contain. Of course the job will be done but probably some other day. I will exceed my expectations to a higher level and will try to have it done by the amount of time we have left.

The multimedia piece in my opinion is the most fun but also the most time consuming and difficult. I think you really need to know how to use Final Cut Pro in order to have fun with making your multimedia piece. Me and Goldie stress ourselves to not let the staff down. When we left and arrived here at S.F. STATE we had dinner and then left to one of the rooms in the journalism department because we had a guest speaker from WIRETAP magazine. She was awesome I learned so much about her like she is an alumni of the high school I attend now, International Studies Academy high school.

I was really feeling her vibe and the magazine, through her words she persuaded me to get started to blog a whole lot more than I am doing. She said that blogging is real good with writing and just expressing your feelings. Jamilah, the society editor at the magazine, is an inspirational person. She started with not knowing what to do, to someone in an online print magazine. I will be contacting her for further help and just to speak with her about my pursuance of the life of a journalist and further on. =]

Dude!! Me and Goldie are working on our Multimedia piece for this year and its unbelievable, the work that we've put in for this program and the newspaper. There's more to journalism then I thought there was. You really have to love writing or just the work of a journalist. It's been a roller coaster up 'till now, some drops, some loops, never steady, its always rocky. I'm actually very glad to be paired with Goldie because she's real fun and is hilarious, we're working our butts off for this piece.

Everyone has heard that frowning gives you wrinkles so I'm trying to stay away from that. Yesterday was the day I actually understood what crunch time meant. It was so much ideas crunched into a final one. Then it was production time, that was interesting I got to see how the paper was going to look and how the editors were putting it all together. It felt good to be finished but there's never really a final until the actual paper is put out, that's the only time when you can relax and give yourself kudos.

After that we went straight to working on the multimedia piece there are lots of components that add up to make this piece. You have to analyze your choices of pictures, audio, and video, to make the multimedia piece alluring. It has to capture the person's attention pretty darn well. In my opinion, the multimedia is the best part of bamma but it's also the hardest. Here in Bamma stuff may be easy but at the same time hard.

It's life.

You learn how to deal with it.

Alright so yesterday was another one of those stressful days. Yesterday I had to put the finishing touches on my final draft, and I did but then it was edited and I still have to change some things. Then the most lifting moment happened, my editor gave me my paper and told me some minor mistakes and he actually said "you do those changes and your done." I was uplifted and happy to know that I just had to do some changes and I was done, but I bet it's going to be difficult. The smallest things can take up the biggest time.

Also, yesterday in Bamma was a day where I typed a lot, I felt that I was typing away to get my job done. It was so much typing, my wrists were cramping up and I felt like giving up, but for some reason just finishing the paper makes me feel good and accomplished. After this it was the usual, go to lunch come back up and by-pass myspace, google people up it was fun.

After my fun, the Bamma class went to get an insight on what we will do for our multimedia piece. I'm very excited about that because I'm going to make it my own, first person. It's another stressful project to worry about but I'm pretty sure that this one, will flow by seamlessly.

Lets see where shall I begin? Lets start with the Juneteenth celebration. It was not what we expected it to be but still it was alright for the hype and the stands people who were selling shades, pins, Obama shirts. To come to think of it, it was quite an adventure, free ice cream and I took pictures with DR. Pepper yessS, and I got to drink it at the end.(It was nasty)

But then I see that Safeway was doing there thing and celebrating the Juneteenth celebration by giving away free drinks and food, it was inspirational. That all went down yesterday. The day before I went out to my neighborhood to take pictures and audio for the multimedia piece I have to do. That was exhilarating I went back to my house to take pictures, T went through the "bad" of the neighborhood, but it was all good we had LAWSON, and Christine.

I talked to some people but it was just shady stuff about the community. Suddenly we get struck with dehydration from the roaring heat, it was bad. It was super hot. But then it went away with some ice cold chilly water. YaYa got scared at one point form these men who were literally screaming to get them out of their building, it was freaky but it turned out to be cool.

Memorable experience: Taking pictures that I saw through my eyes everyday walking down the Tenderloin.

-It was a fun filled Friday and Saturday!

Yesterday 06/19/08 i accompanied Goldie to her first desperately awaited interview. She had interviews set up with Judo training Olympians : Greg, Jimmy, Corwin, and Jordan. It is a fascinating sport, its very tough and hard-hitting. It's very competitive and you have to balance it out with your school/life,.. responsibility. The place where they train is called Cahills Judo Academy, located in San Bruno. It is very well known and has got many people to the trials of the Olympics.

The great experience that I had was when I was hustling from one corner to the next to capture those Kodak moments. I felt like a professional photographer but I wasn't...I can dream. I took action shots and close up shots and hail mary shots it was quite an adventure. I also admired the hard work that those Judo people put into becoming Olympians.

Now that I pretty much gathered up my information I now feel a lot better I feel that I can reach the deadline by today 06/20/08. Oh!! to add on to my trip with Goldie yesterday was actually the day where I felt journalism and photography were for me, I loved it. Judo is a hard work do you think you got what it takes try it and find out because it'll be full with enthralling, heart pumping fighting, and work!

Yesterday I was stressing out to find sources for my article, I'm pretty sure I got a white hair and I broke out. Yes it sucks but the feeling of "I'm done" feels so good. I still have to write the article but I'm done finding my sources, one thing down various to go. So I headed down to the Tenderloin community to get started with interviews, audio, video and flicks. I went around and around and I ended up going to the weirdest places but the source hunting got done.

Then it's the job of getting all the resources down, and analyzing them if they are useful for me to use for my article. And everything else that exists into the article. For example, attribution, lede, quote, nut graf, flexibility, focus, source list, slug, By line, Budget line, statistics. It's difficult and I feel that I'm doing this for a grade and it just doesn't feel comfortable doing this,

I'm getting pressured to do a lot of things I really don't want to do, I'm stuck, where is the HELP!!ME!! button? Its different on a bigger level that I never expected. WOAH!

OK, so my next steps are to calm down and call one more source The Boys and Girls club and that's that! I feel mad for a reason because I feel like Im not going anywhere with this. It's "call this source and this one" I already have 5 sources I feel that it's good enough!! For now just having the rhythm of music and lyrics and art is what is, keeping me in the GAME!!!

Adrenaline pumping and butterflies fluttering in my stomach, what else could I expect? Today I went to City Hall to multimedia on the controversial topic of same sex marriage. It was a journey packed with everything I didn’t expect, but it was also a learning experience. I felt very shy and reserved. I didn’t want to expose who I was but I knew I had to do my job. I was freaking out when it was my time to ask the questions, but luckily the people were surprisingly approachable and kind. I met different organizations that were there to wed people but it seems that the way they wanted things to go didn't go that way.

Then our group which was composed of me: Goldie, Monica, Ramon, Ryan, Eric split up into sections and were gathering information from the workers to Mayor Gavin Newsom!!! Which was quite a memorable experience for me, WOW!! Gavin Newsom, the first time I was ever that close to him. I learned that there are various strategies in the field of journalism like one of them is that you can sneak up behind another reporter and take information from them. It was like we were thrown out there into the journalism world with little knowledge of it, well for me in particular. It was a happy moment for the couples that got married there, plus the people who were outside that cheered them on. It was a moment in time where I saw peace and many smiles.

The story that I was assigned, now that I think of it is difficult but what isn’t in life? I was assigned the story of where I have to cover the positive aspects of my community, the Tenderloin community. My community has a bad reputation of being a place to avoid when tourists stop by, because of its negative stereotyping. It was placed into a category of “AVOID, DON’T GO HERE”!! And the task that is to grab, is to grasp the attention of the people in San Francisco and alter the views of the Tenderloin community to a good one, in every community exists a heart I just have to find it.
For now I’ll leave you to think what my next step will be, Edgar!

Today, June 16, 2008 the first day of BAMMA, they put us to work. We learned audio editing, photography and everything in between like video recording. It was a ton of information squeezed together for tomorrows trip to city hall, to capture the controversial topic of same-sex marriage. But before that it was an early wake up time I woke up at 5:52 in the morning which was totally not cool, but I had to because it was part of my stay here at BAMMA and being "responsible".

We had our first taste of the food that is offered here at San Francisco State University and it wasn't the best food, but it was edible, which was fine with me. After that we went outside and got pounded by the cold weather with all the mist and such. Then we headed to the Humanities department and I got to meet Mary Ann Hogan and Jesse Garnier, which was an honor to hear them make their speeches. To hear the words of real journalists was memorable.

After this we got into exercises to get to know each other even more than we already do. And I was paired with a wonderful person called Goldie. The class was called Journalism 101 and we got the basic building blocks for journalism. In my opinion I thought that was great, I was attracted to the facts and different strategies, it was very interesting. The class with Mary Ann ended and that's when Work, Work, WORK!! came in.

Till next time fellow friends