I received my very first parking ticket ever the second semester of my freshman year of college, just a few weeks after I brought my car to school. I parked in a yellow zone too close to a fire hydrant, but I didn't even realize I was in a yellow zone or that I wasn't even supposed to park in it. So I learned not to do that pretty fast, but the parking situation only went downhill from there.
I only found out last year that if you park at a metered spot on the street on campus, it's actually considered part of the city and follows city rules. So parking is not free on Saturdays and it's not free until after 6 p.m. (unlike almost everywhere else, where it's free after 5). It took me several tickets to learn that one.
My friend and I decided we wanted to make duct tape dresses to wear to the first football game of the season. It ended up raining and I had to work, so we just pushed it back to the second game of the season (but our first conference game!) against Georgia.
They looked great, but all I have to say about it is never again.
We made the dresses a few days before the game and neither of us had ever done it before. Turns out we did it wrong.
If I wasn't going into journalism, I would be an astronaut, so imagine my excitement when I found out TWO former astronauts teach at Mizzou!!!!!
Naturally, I did what any good journalist would do and went to work setting up an interview. I can now say I've spoken to and shaken hands with someone who has been to outer space.
Steven Nagel is currently an instructor and retention specialist with MU's engineering department and was formerly a NASA astronaut. He retired from NASA in July of last year and headed to Mizzou with his wife (also a former astronaut), who got a job with MU's physics department.
Nagel's story isn't one where he was dreaming of being an astronaut since he was just a little kid because when he was "real small there weren't astronauts." NASA's astronaut program didn't begin until he was in junior high (the late 1950s).
"I started thinking about it since at least high school days," Nagel said, adding that his passion for being an astronaut waxed and waned as his career went on.
But the path to becoming an astronaut is not an easy one. You have to be selected by NASA and go through a bunch of training, but even then you're still only just a candidate.
After years of training the big moment came for Nagel to blast off into space.
"The launch is very impressive," Nagel said. "It's about eight and a half minutes, if you want to count that as take off, where the engines are running if you want to get up to almost orbital speed."
All that is pretty AWESOME, but I have already passed the point in my life where I decided to go into journalism rather than astronomy/engineering/physics. I now have to settle for living my dreams vicariously through others, so the big question was, 'What's it like in space?'
"It's a big adventure," Nagel said. "Your whole living surroundings become totally different."
Nagel has been up in space four times for a grand total of about 30 days. His shortest mission was six days and his longest was 10. He said his trips were pretty short, but astronauts that go up to the space station are there for months at a time.
"I was on two science flights where we carried laboratory on each of
those flights," Nagel said. "One flight we deployed satellites, communication
satellites, and another flight we deployed a scientific observatory,
the gamma ray observatory, which is the second in line after the
Hubble."
Nagel said although he has been to space several times, he's never been out of the shuttle. All astronauts receive training to go outside of the shuttle, though, in case of problems.
"I didn't really want to hope for a problem to go outside," Nagel said. "You kind of do, but you don't. You don't want problems."
Once the mission is complete, it's time to come back home.
My dreams of going into space will be a reality one day though! Nagel said commercial space flights will be a reality some day soon.
You would think after spending all summer in rainy London I would have a raincoat, but I don't. It's really unfortunate, though, because sometimes an umbrella just isn't enough.
For one of my newsroom shifts for class, I went out with a reporter doing a story about high school football games starting early due to rain, and my job was to take still photos to go with the story. It was a lot of fun but the only bad thing was it was raining. We really lucked out though because the first time we went to shoot it wasn't actually raining (just really, really, really, really, really humid) and when we went out for the live shot there was a ledge we could stand under and stay dry.
I thought the overall rain experience was pretty bad, but it was NOTHING compared to the next week.
My photos from high schools moving their football game start times up.
I went out to this SEC JC Pep Rally in Jefferson City with a reporter. I was all excited because it was a pep rally! There would be excited fans, music and cheering and it would so much fun and there would be so many opportunities for great pictures.
And then the storm started rolling in. First step in the field with the potential for rain is to protect the equipment. In case of no rain bags, use trash bags.
Protected camera
Protected backpack (for live shots)
The weather was beautiful earlier in the day, so none of us were prepared for the rain. I had an umbrella, but I can't take pictures and hold it at the same time and I didn't want it to break in the wind, so that was pretty much useless. It started pouring and we all got drenched. There was the live reporter, trying to report live in the middle of a storm, another reporter doing a story for later in the evening, a girl shadowing the live reporter for her class, and me.
The girl who was shadowing was trying to communicate with the producers back at the station, so she was on the phone most of the time. The live reporter's scripts got drenched so he had to read off his phone. Both of the phones ended up broken because of the rain.
I'm struggling with my camera, trying to keep it dry with a trash bag wrapped around it but also have access to all the right buttons. I didn't have any sort of jacket with me so I got super cold and completely soaked.
Despite the miserable situation, I got some great photos, the first live shot went well (the second one ended up freezing on air) and the other reporter's story ended up great as well. And now I know I need a raincoat because the situation would have improved about 10 times with one.
