New Job

I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

-Coldplay

Yeahh I am going to see Coldplay today jaja.

This week I started working in the Latin American division in Voice of America (VOA). It is strange that in the middle of the term I am learning how to do completely different things again. My major is marketing, but here at The Washington Center I am in the Mass Communications Program, which includes a lot of media and journalism related assignments, visits and workshops. At some level I can relate communications to marketing, and it is always good to know about different fields, since in the end you may not end up working precisely in the area in which you specialized during college.

Almost everything is different in my new division. First, everyone is from Latin America, and well, we are not exactly quiet people, so the environment is very different. It is also very cool to hear all the different accents and words from all the countries and to sometimes not have any idea of what my colleagues are talking about.

The first thing I had to do when I arrived was upload news to the website. I get the news in Word documents, change one or two things and upload it. The second day they asked me to write an article, which was kind of difficult because I’ve never written an article before. I didn’t know how to start, but in the end some coworkers helped me and I wrote it. I’ve written a few more during the week.

They are also teaching me Final Cut, a software to edit video. It is very easy, and in a few minutes you can have a very professional video. I learned how to make a TV package--those are the video clips you see in the news, for example when they mix the reporter talking with images related to the story. They also had me do some narration for a video. It was kind of hard; I have a strong Mexican accent from the center of the country (they say we talk singing) and they kept telling me to hide it, but I couldn’t. So I don’t know if they are going to use my voice or ask someone else to do it more clearly jaja.

Last Thursday, a friend invited me to a small meeting with Dr. Ashraf Ghan, who served as Afghanistan's finance minister in 2002. It was very interesting, although some parts were a little difficult to understand for me, especially when they started talking about politics and border issues. I didn’t know much of Afghanistan’s history or policies, but I learned a lot; it was very interesting to listen to the point of view of a person who was very involved in the country’s politics.

We also went to the CBS studios last Monday, which was cool. We had a small meeting with Bob Schieffer and we talked a little about polls and the influence of the media on the elections.

Here are some pictures of Grosvenor Tower, where I live.

Lobby

View from my balcony

Foliage changing colors