missouri

I’m singing the hump day blues

Posted on by Mollie Barnes

Today is going to be a struggle I can already tell it. It doesn’t help much that Nick is going to the Lake of the Ozarks and I’m stuck here in class! Although it’s probably best he’s gone because Isabel is moving in with me for the remainder of the Missourian class because she’s homeless.

I have two stories in the works, and although this is the final countdown for the class, I’m feeling slower and less productive/creative than ever. Either people are being trickier about giving me interviews, or I’m running out of energy to chase them. Probably a mix of the both.

Although it was pretty neat to see analytics of the Missourian yesterday and see that my story about the two little libraries was the second most read last story in the past couple of weeks with about 1,200 original views!

I also have a job interview tomorrow that I should prepare for! Eek. I must start thinking of goals I have accomplished and my weaknesses so I can answer those questions I can never seem to answer at interviews. Wish me luck!

Becoming a little hypercautious

Posted on by Mollie Barnes

The second time I tried to use the microfilm at the Journalism school library was definitely not a success. The librarian girl couldn’t even get it to work so she asked me to go to Ellis (the main library). Once I got there though it was infinitely better because the equipment there is so much nicer and works a billion thousand times better.

So I actually got the flood stuff finished in about 40 minutes, and it was actually okay because I learned some stuff about the time when I was only a mere five months old! There were people! And news! And not everyone was a baby. It was nice to feel young and even better to finish working at 5 so I could go on a bike ride on the glorious day. 🙂

Later on at night it was strange because I was riding my bike and I saw a house on Ash Street with a lot of people and caution tape all around it and I thought about getting on my reporter face and going in, but I was wearing my workout clothes and with my boyfriend, Nick. I guess sometimes you just have to be a regular citizen. But it turned out that it was a search related to an ongoing homicide investigation.

It was strange because I feel like working at the Missourian has made me so much more hyperaware of all the crime that happens locally that later that night when I was putting my bike up in my apartment complex in a hallway under the staircase, and Nick was around the corner taking the bike rack off the car I heard a series of shots.

My heart seriously stopped and I slowly walked around the corner and then I saw Nick moving around still fussing with the bike rack and realized my mistake that it was just a bunch of firecrackers going off. Phew. I suppose my dad would be happy though that I’m a little more aware of my surroundings and cautious than I used to be.

Or at least that’s what he told me last time I got scared of an event in the news. After all that stuff in Miami about the guy eating someone’s face because of bath salts, I really flipped out and asked my dad to start leaving the light on for me when I was coming home late at night, because he usually just turned it off when he went to bed. He was glad and said, “good I’m glad you’re finally afraid of something, maybe it will teach you to be a little more cautious.”

Parents have the most twisted logic sometimes.

Getting swooped

Posted on by Mollie Barnes

P.S. Sorry for the blog barf today readers… I’m a bit behind on reflective blogs for class so I’m trying to catch up!

Today I had my 3rd GA shift today… and since I haven’t had anything to do for the last two shifts I thought I would look up something to do for it this time. Of course the meeting I found to go to John had already handed out to someone. But that led me to the wonderful adventure of using the microfilm in the library so it wasn’t so bad.

Except at this meeting they talked about the new CVS which was a story that I had been working on, so now it seems another reporter is going to be working on the topic that I had originally been covering. I guess that’s what happens when mystery meetings don’t post their agendas…

I was also really excited to go to the fair, but then I remembered I had a GA shift here until 7:30 so I couldn’t go to that tonight either. So here I am writing a billion blogs.

I suppose if they had corny feelings on WordPress like they do on Facebook now I would be feeling journalistically deflated.

Think of it as Nicki Minaj representing life popping all my journalistic ideas.

Reflections on a bowling alley

Posted on by Mollie Barnes

This weekend I covered the Show-Me State Games. It was rather enjoyable, actually. You can read my article here.

I woke up (at 10:30, no budgets on Saturdays) and got ready slowly. Then I picked up the schedule of events and just picked one I could go to right then and there at noon. I chose bowling mostly because it would be inside and not hot and I didn’t want to have to take another shower before my friend Dawn from St. Louis came to visit.

When I got there, I tried talking to some of the organizers to no avail. They just weren’t having it and I wasn’t about to force conversation with an official. Okay, so find real people.

At first I tried to talk to a couple both wearing pink shirts matching their teammates down below who were warming up. It was a cool idea so I thought it would be something to talk about… but they weren’t having it either. She answered my question with a yes and walked away.

Moving on… I tried to talk to another group of people and then someone asked me if I was a cop here to keep the peace. I kindly corrected him, man people really are afraid of anyone wearing a badge!

Then I finally started talking to one man and another man turned around to join in the conversation and mentioned that their local bowling alley in Moberly shut down in May so his son hasn’t had anywhere to practice. BINGO. There’s my story… so I sat down and talked with this big man about his son being in the MU Summer Transition program for minorities and his bowling habits. He was hilarious and so was his son, Isaiah, who told us that he was “Smexy” (smoking and sexy for those of you who aren’t 11 year old boys and don’t know these things).

All in all it was a good experience and then when I called to do accuracy checks the boy actually ended up winning, which was odd because he had thought he did really bad. But as my editors keep telling me the story isn’t always just about who wins.