Morning Routine

1. 8:00AM – Wake up.
2. 8:00AM – Grope around till I find my cell phone and shut the alarm off.
3. 8:01AM – Get out of bed (try not to stumble over piles of stuff on floor) and turn off iPod dock alarm or sometimes I put on a song I want to hear.
4. 8:03AM – Stumble into bathroom and appraise face in mirror.
5. 8:04AM – Feed Aslan, my fish.
6. 8:06AM – Use bathroom.
7. 8:08AM – Take/inhale Asthmanex then hold my breath for ten seconds.
8. 8:09AM – Take Flonase.
9. 8:10AM – Brush teeth.
10. 8:12AM – Go downstairs and talk to mother.
11. 8:20AM – Go down other stairs and take shower.
12. 8:40AM – Fetch laundry from drier and take it up two flights of stairs to my room.
13. 8:45AM – Go through daily regimen of lotioning, potioning, drying, and straightening or curling.
14. 8:50AM – Figure out what to wear.
15. 9:05AM – Get dressed.
16. 9:06AM – Figure out if that’s actually what I want to wear and possibly change.
17. 9:10AM – Put on make-up.
18. 9:20AM – Find shoes.
19. 9:22AM – Find bag and all the things that go in it.
20. 9:35AM – Figure out who is giving me a ride.
21. 9:40AM – Run through the house and make sure I have everything, and if I have time grab something to eat.
22. 9:45AM – Grab lunch or lunch money.
23. 9:47AM – Leave house and lock door.
24. 9:47AM – Get in car and drive.
25. 9:57AM – Walk through front door of school.

Tick tock tick tock...

I seem to struggle with time management on an hourly basis some days. There just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. Waking up early is always a major help in the quest to get out the door though, and getting things done the night before is a good idea as well. I'm a slow waker, so the less I have to do in the morning and the more time I have to do it, the better. I still depend on my parents for transportation, and things always go smoother if I remind them the night before of where I need them to drive me the next day. Currently I am very busy and have a lot of obligations, and I'm at a point where I need to start making decisions about whether or not I can keep up with everything I'm attempting to do. I might have to cut a few things from my schedule in order to not start falling behind. I have to figure out what's important and what can be dropped.

Radio Days #4

So this past week I was able to start reading station IDs on the air. I can say with some odd sense of satisfaction that I TOTALLY botched it my first try. The thing with radio is that once it's done, it's really done. You can't suck your words back off the air, it's physically impossible. You just have to shrug it off and learn from your mistake; I'll never invert the station numbers again! I got to try again before the day was over, and I'm proud to say it was much better the second time around. I've yet to encounter anyone who has heard me on the air, so I have no idea what I sounded like. Michael says he never heard his voice on the radio until he'd been working for years and got to start recording his voice for promos.
Every week I'm astounded by all the new things there are still to learn and at how much I am actually learning and retaining. I've got most of the schedule memorized and I've stopped making as many mistakes when I check programs. I think a lot of the knowledge comes from just being at the station and being completely immersed in everything radio. The more I learn the more I get to do and the more I get to do the more interesting the whole thing gets. There are boring patches, but they are easily overshadowed by the crazy, exciting, and sometimes stressful events that take place every so often.

Radio Days #3

Well, things were very eventful this past week at the station. There was a student from the montessori middle school interning for the week and one of the board operators has an intern from Clarke Central who started coming in last week as well. It's a small station so with three added people running around the building things were slightly hectic. Also with three teen aged minions around ready to do whatever needs to be done there wasn't a lot for me to do. The girl from the montessori school won't be there this week though so I'll be back to running to a fro and back again. I didn't get a chance to run the board for African Perspectives last week because the host, Akinloye Ojo, has been sick recently, but if he's better this week I think I'll finally be able to run the board. My sponsor, Michael Cardin, told me he might let me read a station ID on the air sometime soon or maybe even read the weather report. Being on the air will probably have me shaking in my boots, but in an excited way. Last week I mainly ran around the offices and searched the internet for Georgia Labor Law posters that needed to be updated. I really wanted to find one that was out of date so that I could replace one, but they were all current. It was work that needed to be done though, Michael was really glad that it got done, and it was sort of gratifying to finish something; as soon as you finish something at the radio station you have to start on next week's work. Things are constantly moving at the station, you barely get two minutes to sit down before something happens and you have to rundown the hall. Even though sometimes there isn't a whole lot for me to do, the place in general is busy and I like that about it.