#Redbox52: The problem with feelings

Ahhh! Happy Monday! I hope that everyone's week is going well. Normally, Monday is my day off, but now that we have a couple people that have moved on to new television stations (one to Fort Myers, the other to Orlando - gonna miss 'em so much!) things have gotten a bit shaken up. Not to worry though, I'm working better than ever and happier in the past few weeks than I've been in a long time.

So, onto this week's #Redbox52, Killing The Softly:

First thoughts: good movie - a taaaad bit violent, but since I don't mind violence, it's alright by me. I can definitely say the best thing about this movie is the intentional use of news footage from the financial crisis of 2008 - it was literally brilliant. 

Or maybe I'm so used to movies just doing their own thing that when I see something done well, it just blows me away.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to watch. The clips that were used were always placed against a scene that directly related to what was being said, I love that.

There was a lot of interesting dialogue in the movie and for some people that was a setback, but there were a few interactions that really got me going, one in particular was between Driver (Richard Jenkins) who works with the mafia as a middle man of sorts and Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) who is a hitman.

They're discussing a hit that needs to be made and Cogan goes into why he doesn't want to hit a particular target and gives a better understanding of the title of the movie.

"I like to kill them softly, from a distance, not close enough for feelings. Don't like feelings. Don't want to think about them."

It caught me off guard a bit once I understood what killing someone "softly" actually meant. After thinking it over, it brought to mind various interactions I had in the past with people on social networks, from Tumblr to Twitter, one of the great things was that you're able to make a connection with people, getting a glimpse into whatever parts of their life they're willing to expose.

The downside, of course, is that depending on what you put out there, you also are opening yourself up to a lot of criticism. In fact, I would go off on a limb and say that most interactions online whether it's commentary on a show or on an event happening in someone's life, what a celebrity is wearing or something happening in the news, since we don't directly know the people we can say whatever we want to, often without feeling any sort of remorse.

As someone who works in the news industry, one of my biggest fears is that one day, I will stop being able to relate to people, that I will eventually get desensitized to it all. Just yesterday I did a story about a 7-year-old who was mauled by 2 pitbull mix breeds that died and another story on a 90-year-old man who was murdered. A former coworker of mine once told me that one of the things that haunts him is the fact that when he would drive around town, the first thing he would remember is the stories he had done.

I drove around town a few weeks ago and realized, I was the same way. On one corner, a homeless person was found dead, on another, a manhunt for a robber that had guns and was taken down by dogs. It breaks my heart a little bit to think about how in just a matter of 1 year, I covered 3 or 4 stories about teenagers dying behind the wheel, far too many memorial services for young people who hadn't even gotten a chance to get to college, to live their lives to what we considered a full extent.

It hurts. On one hand, as a reporter, I don't want to relate, I don't want to have feelings about my stories because God knows they would haunt me...but on the other, to not have some sort of feeling about it all would make me less than a human. I don't know how reporters in the field, covering wars, genocide, sex slavery - it's one thing to do a long form documentary on it, but in news, it's often that you cover something for a day or two and then it's on to the next thing, no follow up, no seeing how things go later in life. It's a hard balance because if we stayed on one thing too long, the sad truth, is that most people wouldn't care...and I think that's probably what hurts the most.

The beauty of a new view

I have been fortunate to work with a bunch of crazy talented people in my day, but one of the most awesome individuals that I've run across is Shannon Boodram.

A couple years ago, I interned under Shannon and her friend Andrea on their shared website. The experience was great and to this day, I'm grateful that I got the chance to work with both of them, but because I was on my way to becoming a reporter, I wanted to focus on writing, so I worked hard to establish a bond with her.

I was reading her blog and she posted something I really tacked on to that also matched with my last blog on the journey into adulthood.

"I am a firm believer that in today’s day and age too many people believe that pursuing their dreams and patience are opposites. On the contraire it’s called common sense. If you want to be an actor but you have no money, no connections, no support and no stability maybe now isn’t the best time for your dreams. What you need is to do your due preparation to give yourself a fighting chance at eventually pursuing your dreams." (Reinvent Your Wheels) 

Reading that was automatically easy to identify with because I felt like it was the path that I had taken since beginning my career in television as a production assistant in Philadelphia. I used my 9 months between graduating and getting my first reporting job to build connections, work on my reel, and try to soak up as much as I possibly could so that when the time came to make this big transition, I could.

My generation is one that has big dreams. Many of us have these ideas in our head for what we want to do with our lives, but we simply haven't sat down to plan in a realistic manner, so when things come crashing down we get frustrated. Even worse sometimes is when things magically begin to fall into place prematurely, because nothing hurts more than investing so much in something just to have it fail miserably because you weren't ready.

I have had quite a few ups and downs in my current job, but reading her blog reminded me of the ups and downs at my old job. Though they weren't as numerous, I also have to take into account that I was a part-time employee, simply eager to get my foot in the door - now I'm in the big leagues, but I'm paying my dues to get where I want to be, so it's not that I'm doing anything wrong, I'm simply preparing for my future and if things keep progressing as they have when I put my hard work into it, then I have a lot to look forward to in the next year, so here's to going hard with what I got and making the most of every situation! It reminds me of one of my favorite Latin proverbs: Amat victoria curam - which means literally, victory loves carefulness, but as one of my adored movies puts it, victory loves preparation.

What are some changes you plan to make to achieve to your next big goal?

Vacation all I ever wanted.

One of the first things I celebrated in January was one year on the job which meant getting 10 glorious days of vacation - which meant I was using them as best I could. This week, I finally got a chance to start enjoying my earned time - and Lord knows I needed it.

Indian Shores

I've spent the past 3 days between Indian Shores and Clearwater - all of 20 to 30 minutes apart - with my grandparents. I haven't seen them in 13 months and this has to be one of the most relaxing times I've had as of late, watching the sunset from the condo, finishing 2 books, eating yummy food and seeing the Phillies...lose, ahh well, you can't win 'em all.

That said, being with my grandparents has been one of the biggest pleasures I've experienced in a long time. No one has the ability to make me laugh like they do and to hear them talk about the past just blows me away.

This trip carried conversations that breached all sorts of topics, but lingered on talks pertaining to love and my career - both topics I'm incredibly passionate about. While the love talk was more in jest, the career one took a turn for the more serious as we discussed what I want for my life.

My grandfather worked in the journalism industry 39 years for money and many more just for the privilege of it. Before I got in the industry, I talked to him about it, the challenges of the world and how to best put it and this weekend he explained it in a different way.

One of the most frustrating things about working in news is the limiting nature of it all. I was looking at the skeleton of a 30 minute show and realized that when you take into account the 4 minutes of sports and various breaks for weather and obviously the commercials that pay the bills, the news is literally 8 minutes.

Eight minutes.

All of the news of the day boiled down to 8 measly minutes.

I began complaining to him about it, how things would be so much easier if there was just more time and he told me the same thing he always told his students, "if you can't explain your story in one sentence, you don't know your story." As our talk continued, we began to break down things about how things have changed in the media, how technology has moved things forward and my grandfather brought things to a different perspective.

In the beginning was the Word.

That was it, it was his way of explaining the importance of words. As we stayed on that topic we delved into how there would never quite be enough time and the importance of measuring our words and it got me thinking about, well, words...being concise, learning how to express myself fully - so I decided to use his words as a challenge. A challenge to make sure all of my words are what I meant through and through.

So I issue the same challenge to you!

Working hard, hardly working...

Preparing to leave the house on a boat - thankful I wore a dress.

Every now and then I have to admit, I have an awesome job.

It's not like you have to drag it out of me, I adore what I do, it's literally everything I've wanted for at least a decade, probably (as in definitely) longer.

Saturday, I had the pleasure of enjoying free and fantastic food, meet some awesome people, and ride a boat that was a house.

Obviously, every day isn't that busy, but if there is one thing that keeps me coming back to my job, it's the knowledge that I'm going to be doing something different, learning something new, every freaking day.

I mean...how awesome is that?

Some people are happy to stick with an office job, they like the comfort of having a job with specific hours and great pay, don't get me wrong, there are moments I'm jealous. I would love to be able to go to a class at the gym right after work at 5:30, I would love to be making considerably more than I'm making - I won't divulge, just know that one of my friends says I "work for peanuts" and another refers to my occupation, lovingly, as "slave labor" - but this is one of those jobs that I absolutely love.

I'm paid to tell stories.
I'm paid to go on adventures.
I'm paid to ask questions.
I'm paid to write.
I'm paid to read.
I'm paid to follow my dreams.

It really doesn't get much better than that.