Journalism and Turtles???

While I was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, Heather had a school trip to ILPC in Austin. She will be the photo editor of her school newspaper so her and a few other journalism students attended a 5 day press conference to learn more about putting together their school paper.




Unfortunately since I was in the hospital I was unable to make sure she had everything she needed, unable to make sure she had a checklist of what was needed, unable to help her prepare in any way. She was on her own preparing for this trip. I'm sure those preparations were a learning experience for her. She had no checklist, so she was unaware that although she stayed in a college dorm she'd need a pillow and bedding. She froze the 5 days she was there, but she enjoyed the experience despite the setbacks. She lived on Starbucks, as she informed me the cafeteria food was awful and "how do you make pizza taste bad anyway??!!!"



She called me in the hospital several times throughout her trip, and on Sunday called to let me know she and some of the others were going to attend "church under the bridge." She hung up from that conversation very fast but I didn't think anything of it since that's just typical Heather. When she returned she gave us more details of the trip that she held back while she was away. She had her first experience with public transportation on her own that Sunday because to get to the church under the bridge, she and a couple other students took a city bus. And, church under the bridge is literally a church service held under a bridge somewhere downtown Austin. Many people attend, including some of the homeless. She was very excited about that trip to church.




Tonight she is at a youth event, which I'm sure you can catch pictures and details of on Erica's blog later. I don't have anything new to post on this blog and remembered Heather had uploaded a bunch of pictures from the school camera onto my computer. I decided to check them out and see what she had. I don't have the benefit of her being here to caption any of these photos for me, so I'm going to take my best shot at guessing what was going on at the conference. Humor me as I tell what I think is happening. :0)

Here is one of her classes. Don't these kids look thrilled to be there?

Or maybe they're just thrilled to have Heather taking their picture?

Maybe they just haven't had their Starbucks yet!

Ditto with this class.

And I'm guessing this student learned the most of all the students who attended!

I just really liked this photo Heather took in her photography class.

I found lots and lot of photos of turtles. I'm still not sure how a pond full of turtles fits into a press conference....

Church under the bridge:

I was a little concerned over the sheer number of photographs taken of these boys playing basketball. Surely Heather didn't skip class to go watch college boys play basketball??!!!

I am reassuring myself that the boys played basketball to give the photography class some experience photographing a sporting event. The other photographer in the background of this and one other photo helps convince me this is the case. (If this isn't the case, please leave me to my dillusions. Parenting teens is very hard and I sometimes need my dillusions.)

Along with the turtles were several photos of this flower. Break time?

I'm sure glad you had a good time, Heather. I am so sorry I couldn't be more helpful in getting you ready for this trip.