Category Archives: Jenny

Looking the part: Girl Fail

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I have had to learn the hard way that no matter how perfect, every job has a downside.  When I first started my internship at KTLA, I loved every second of it.  My “work” consists of watching games (that I would watch anyway), deciding what goes into highlights, and writing scripts.  Additionally, I get to actually go to games, then go into the locker room to interview players after.  Tough life, I know.

It’s not all fun and games, though.  For those of you who know me (or have even seen me walking around campus), you know I am not girly at all.  I almost exclusively wear running shorts and cutoff T’s.  I consider wearing jeans and a T-shirt dressing up.  I never wear makeup or do my hair.  In fact, my hair is almost always in the messy bun that I slept in or a tight ponytail for a run.  My nails are never nicely manicured (come on, who has the time to deal with nails if you’re going to lift a few times a week?), and literally the only hair products I own are shampoo and conditioner.  Who would have guessed that working in sports would change all of that?

I was warned by an ESPN sideline reporter that many people have a misconception about the job- they think it’s glamorous and want just want to be on TV.  For me, “glamorous” is the last thing that comes to mind when I think of sideline reporting.  I think of being in the middle of all the action, standing right on the field as big plays are made inches from me, and being the first to ask coaches and players questions right after emotional games.  The idea of being on TV doesn’t excite me; I always thought of it as just part of the job.  But, the reality of it is, if I want to sideline report, I have to be on TV.  If I have to be on TV, I have to look the part.  Having never put much effort into how I look before, I’ve had to learn a lot of unexpected things in the last few months.

I get to go to a lot of professional sporting events for my internship.  Going to these events with a cameraman is a great opportunity for me to do standups, not only for practice, but also to gather footage for a reel.  Our sports anchor explained to me that in order for people to take me seriously in my reel, I have to look serious.  Apparently “looking serious” means getting very done up: hair, makeup, clothes, the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately for me, I’m a little behind most girls in the getting-done-up department considering I have never worried about how I look.  I can talk sports with the best of them, but you want me to straighten my hair and put on lipstick…?  Uh oh.

Fortunately for everyone else, that means I have many embarrassing stories about trying to look like a normal girl.  Here are a few of the “girl fails” I’ve had; feel free to make fun of me, my friends already have.

Learning how to get dressed all over again:
Getting dressed for games involves a difficult balance- I have to look nice, but not like I would to an interview.  I also need to have many different outfits so my reel looks like it’s been shot over a period of time.  Apparently it’s not that easy to concoct these outfits, despite having spent a lot of time on Google images.  For a while I had to make my friends come over and approve my outfits; I felt like a kindergartener trying to dress herself.  (You’re not allowed to wear brown and black together?  You have to do your hair a certain way depending on your neckline?  My pants have to be a certain length depending on the shoes I wear?  Who cares?)  Fortunately, after some guidance and a lot of frustrating shopping trips, I have graduated to being able to get dressed all by myself!

Scribbling all over my face:
I’ve made several trips to Sephora, frantically asking the staff what I’m supposed to do with my face and then failing to conceal my utter confusion as they magically smear a bunch of products on my face with complete ease.  One woman decided she would have me watch her do one of my eyes and let me do the other myself… I probably shouldn’t have gone right before work because one side of my face looked like a second grader had scribbled all over it.  I was almost late to the Lakers game that day because I had to run to my friend’s room and have her fix the mess I had made.

I need to own a blow dryer?
After getting a haircut I explained to my hairdresser that I needed to learn how to do hair.  She tried to walk me through different techniques, tools, products, and maneuvers I could use to style my hair various ways.  I was doing a good job of nodding along as if I knew what a “diffuser” and “hot rollers” were until I accidentally revealed I didn’t even own a blow dryer.  I will never forget the horrified look she gave me.  “You will probably need one of those,” she explained, as nicely a possible.

Curling my hair… sort of:
I was told that I needed several different “looks” for my reel, so I decided to curl my hair for a game.  My friend lent me her curling iron and explained that it was very easy to do.  I figured, if I can get through o-chem, I’m sure I can figure this out.  Turns out, curling hair is a lot harder than performing multi-step organic syntheses.  After spending about two hours trying to curl my hair, it looked no different than what I’d started with.  To make matters worse, I managed to burn my neck, leaving a mark that looked suspiciously (and embarrassingly) like a hickey.  Needless to say, I was incredibly frustrated.

I never thought this would happen, but all of a sudden it takes me a few hours to get ready for a basketball game.  (Two months ago I would just throw on a jersey and be out the door!)  All of a sudden I’m spending more money on makeup and hair products than game tickets and my closet contains more skirts than football jerseys.  What has my life come to??  I just have to keep reminding myself that there are worse sacrifices I could be making for my career.

What I’ve been up to

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Looking back at my blog entries thus far, I realized that I’ve been all talk, but haven’t shared any of my work!  So I decided to give a little taste of what I’ve been up to:

I put together a halftime package (with a lot of help!) for the big CMS-PP basketball game.  I wrote and shot a standup in the beginning, interviewed two players, then used Final Cut Pro (honestly, I spent more time watching/learning than actually editing) to put the piece together.  Here it is!

CMS Basketball Interview

Here I am before a Lakers game pretending to do a standup.  Yep, that’s Andrew Bynum warming up behind me!

Through networking I got to visit ESPN’s studio at LA Live and watch them shoot their nightly segment of Sportscenter.  It was a ton of fun and I learned a lot.  Here I am with Sportscenter host Neil Everett (who is and Oregon alumni and a huge duck fan, too!).

I’ve also been writing for the sports section of TSL.  I’m doing mostly player profiles for which I get to interview athletes and write articles about them.  Here are a few of the articles I’ve written this semester:

PP Pitcher

PP Basketball Player

PP Swimmer

All of that has made me so busy I’ve barely had time for myself (and other school work) this semester.  I love what I do, though, and I hope you all enjoy!

My dream wedding… and what it says about me

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Girls often plan out their wedding days wayyyy before it’s even relevant.  I have to admit, I’ve done the same.  I think my dream wedding is a little less stereotypical than what most girls imagine, though…

Picture this:

I want to get married at Autzen Stadium, home of Oregon Duck football.  Obviously the whole wedding will be green and yellow themed.  The alter will be set up in the middle of the field, on the 50 yard line, right on top of the Oregon “O”.  Instead of walking down the aisle, I will walk out of the same tunnel that the team runs out of before games.  Everyone will be sitting on chairs set out on the field, between the tunnel and the 50 yard line.
All my bridesmaids will be wearing green dresses.  The groomsmen will be wearing tuxes with yellow bow ties and jersey vests.  (Yes, I will probably have to custom design tux vests that look like football jerseys, but I’ll make it happen.  I know they make NBA jersey tux vests, so I don’t see why my idea would be impossible.)  My dress will have green accents, and my groom’s tux will have yellow accents.  The bridesmaids’ bouquets and the groomsmen’s boutonnieres will be yellow roses will green leaves. Puddles, the Duck mascot will be up at the alter marrying us.
The fans (I mean, guests) will be handed duck quackers when they walk in.  Instead of clapping when we kiss, they will all be expected to quack.  All the wedding favors will be duck footballs and other duck gear.  The cake will be a giant, multi-layered duck helmet.  And then of course the reception will be completely duck themed.

You might think I’m crazy, but I will make it happen.

So how does this relate to my career?  In a pretty important way, actually: it reflects who I am and what I love.

I admit, the whole duck wedding concept is pretty ridiculous, but I’ve had this planned out for years.  Perhaps all that passion (/obsession) should have been a sign that a college football-related career would be ideal for me.  Had I really sat down and considered my true passions years ago, I might not even have applied to Scripps.  I might have only looked at schools with big broadcasting programs like USC.

While in hindsight, going to USC seems like it would have been a better option, I have no regrets.  It’s easy to get a little frustrated when I see so many people who majored in broadcasting and learned so much about the industry while getting their degrees.  It’s easy to feel discouraged when it appears that everyone else had a huge head start on their careers, having TV internships as early as freshman year.  I have to remind myself that I ended up at Scripps for a reason.  If I hadn’t come to a small liberal arts college, I might not have realized how much I missed college football and the hole it suddenly left in my heart.  I might not have realized that I was passionate enough about it that I wanted to make a career out of it.  Even though most of my coworkers actually learned about broadcasting at school, it doesn’t mean my college career was pointless.  I learned about other subjects, what I like and don’t like, and most importantly, a lot about myself.

The moral of my story?  Every experience you have teaches you something about yourself; never regret any of them.  Also, it’s never too late to pursue what you love.  I know I have a difficult road ahead of me and that many people I’m competing with have a head start on me, but it hasn’t deterred me from pursuing my true passions.

Perhaps what will be the most difficult is finding someone who will agree to that ridiculous wedding….

A lot harder than it looks

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For work last week I went to the Lakers-Hawks game.  The day before the game, the cameraman told me we would do some “stand-ups” while there and I should come ready.  This meant he would film me talking as if I was going to be on air, for me to practice and be able to watch myself later.  Excited for my first time ever being on camera, I didn’t make the mistake of coming unprepared again.

I spent hours before the game researching both teams, their players, their history, everything I could think of.  I brainstormed all angles I could approach the story from and tried to tease out what was the most interesting.  I then sat down and wrote, rewrote, and re-rewrote an introduction for the game.  After I (thought) I was done writing, I tried to memorize the long paragraph I had written, full of pertinent facts and interesting statistics.  I pretended like I was standing on the court and practiced my script in front of the mirror over and over again, constantly changing up the details.

On the drive over to Staples Center, I was still going; rehearsing my lines over and over, trying not to stumble over my long sentences.  I got to LA half an hour early, so I grabbed some coffee at a nearby Starbucks.  There I continued to practice what I’d written out loud, pacing back and forth, sporadically stopping to cross out a stat or scribble in a new line.  People must have been looking at me like I was crazy, but I was concentrating too hard to care.

When five o’clock rolled around, I headed over to Staples Center to get my press credentials.  I’d become more comfortable with the arena’s layout and was able to navigate the press-only areas somewhat better.  I no longer felt like an idiot asking for directions every twenty feet, press badge limply dangling at my side.  As usual, I met the cameraman and anchor on the floor as a few of the players were warming up on the court in front of us.  I helped set things up for the live shot and relay messages from the producers back at the studio.

After we did the shot, the anchor headed back to the studio and the cameraman and I packed up the equipment.  There was still plenty of the before the game so we sat down on the floor seats and he asked if I had prepared anything for a standup.  I shyly handed over my notepad, turned to a long page covered in illegible scribbles and crossed out lines.  I looked on nervously as he patiently read through the mess I had made of my paper.

After getting through it, he gave me a little feedback.  He explained that I had too many statistics and numbers; people don’t want to hear about those.  He showed me how my paragraph was too long and how I needed to choose certain words to emphasize.  Clearly what I had written was not about to be filmed.

The cameraman then told me we would get a chance to do my standup between the third and fourth quarters and instructed me to prepare something for it.  I figured if I were to prepare something, I better watch the game live, instead of socializing in the press room with it on TV in the background.

Last time I was at Staples Center, I watched the game from way up in the press box.  I had been told that I could sit in any of the unoccupied designated press seats on the floor, but I had been hesitant to walk out in the middle of the game, especially since everyone sitting in those seats were frantically typing, obviously being productive.  I didn’t want to take up a seat to just sit and watch.

This time around I was feeling a little more confident.  Plus, I figured I would take notes to prepare for my standup, so I wouldn’t look so unproductive.  I spotted a vacant seat in the back of the press section, decidedly marched over, and sat down.  I got out my notebook and watched intently as I tried to think of a good story line.  Turns out, sitting in the press section had its perks (besides getting to watch the game right on the floor): after each quarter, stat sheets were handed out.  It was helpful to look over those and see what numbers jumped out at me.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to recite stats, but having them in front of me gave me a better idea of what stories were important.  For example, I saw that the Hawks only led twice in the first half- the most by two points with 30 seconds left.  I also saw that the big three pointer Metta World Peace just hit were his first points of the night.

Armed with advice and detailed information, I tried to write a new script for my standup, this time as a transition between the first and second halves.  Again, I wrote and rewrote, scribbled and crossed out, mumbled and rehearsed.  Unfortunately I had a short time limit; I needed to write my script and be able to recite it in front of the camera by the third quarter.

I simultaneously wrote, rehearsed, and watched the game until it was time to meet the cameraman in the pressroom.  When I got there, I read him what I had.  He looked at me and smiled, “Okay, now can you say it without looking?”

Uh oh.

“I’m not sure,” I scrunched up my nose.  “I hope so.”

He laughed, “Well let’s go find out.” Continue reading →

Sacrifice + Hard Work = Success

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You know that movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey?  The one where he decides to say “yes” to everything?  That’s how I feel like I am sometimes.  I have the hardest time turning down any opportunity that comes my way, regardless of how booked my schedule is.  My tendency to overload is a blessing and a curse.  One of my favorite qualities about myself is my ambition.  Because of it, I am constantly taking on new things, building my resume, making new connections, learning new things, and (hopefully) getting closer to achieving my career goals.

The problem is I tend to take on so much that I barely have free time for myself.  For example, I am currently interning 2-3 nights a week at KTLA, broadcasting 1-3 games a week for CMS and Pomona-Pitzer, writing one article a week (which includes an interview) for TSL, while simultaneously trying to network as much as possible, perform all my “barista lead” duties at the Motley, stay on top of school work, and write my thesis.  I know, that’s a lot.  So how do I do it all?  I make sacrifices.

Last semester I had an informational interview over coffee with a woman who just graduated from USC’s broadcasting program.  At only 22 years old, she has a great full time job with a recruiting website owned by Fox Sports.  She gets to interview recruits, travel with USC’s sports teams, write articles and film online video clips for the website.  She told me that people often ask her how she got her job.  Her answer?  “I missed out on a lot of college.”

Yep, I can definitely relate.  I’ve learned that when I take on so many things, I need to start prioritizing.  Sadly the first thing to go is my fun time.  It sucks to get left behind when all my friends take a spontaneous Vegas trip because I’m meeting someone for an informational interview over coffee.  It sucks when I can’t go to my friends’ dinner party because I work until 11 pm on Friday night.  It sucks when I can’t go to the concert my sister has an extra ticket to because I have to broadcast a basketball game.

Over the last year especially, I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices like those in order to do what’s best for myself career-wise.  It’s hard feeling like I’m missing out on my senior year of college, but I know that all my hard work now will pay off in the long run.  I also know that no matter how much fun I miss out on, the people in my life will always be understanding and supportive.  My best friends will still be my best friends even if I don’t go to every party and beach trip with them.  My mom will still love me even if she doesn’t get have weekly multi-hour long phone conversations with me.  I’m not giving up my friends and family, I’m just temporarily giving up some of the fun time I spend with them.  It doesn’t mean that we won’t be as close or have as good of relationships.

I am a firm believer in two things:

If you want something enough and are willing to work for it, you can accomplish it.
You can have everything.

Having those two things set in my mind is what made me realize that my career path is realistic and that I can be successful in it.  While I’ve had to sacrifice some things (time is finite, after all), I can still have everything I want.  The sacrifices I make are only temporary, and I have to remember that I’m sacrificing superficial things, like a beach day, not people.  As long as I want something enough, I know that I can work hard to get it, or preserve it.  Whether that means busting my butt to get my dream job, or making sure I preserve my close friendships, I know that I can have it all.  I think it’s important for everyone, especially young people to remember that.  The world is yours, take it!

In Eminem’s wise words (excuse his language): Success is my only mother****ing option, failure’s not.