Here it comes.

It’s that time of year again, when my life goes from being just abnormally busy and ridiculous to absolutely-mind-esplodingly busy and ridiculous. Yup, school starts back in just under one week.

I’ll admit, I’m already feeling the pressure a little–which is odd, given that I haven’t stepped foot back in a classroom yet. It’s mostly mental, and it’s not necessarily bad, but that extra responsibility for my six (6!) classes is going to be a kick in the butt for the next few months. Thankfully my work schedule will calm down soon (cutting my hours almost in half), and with a little luck the weather will get nicer, leaving me a little less exhausted at the end of the day than I have been in this heat.

In fact, I’m kind of excited for my classes this fall (and yes, I know I say this every semester, and by the end I’m about ready to bang my head against the wall). I’m done with general education requirements, and really, based on course descriptions and syllabi alone, I’m not expecting this to be that difficult of a semester. And well hey, I slogged through six semesters and a summer course already, surely I can manage two more, right?

The biggest thing hanging over my head is the amount of ongoing projects I still have on my plate. I’m designing not one, but two websites (both of which will likely extend throughout the semester) and I have a fair amount of blogging responsibilities. Bad thing? Not really–in fact, blogging and designing are kind of nice, relaxing escapes from the textbooks and assignments I’ll be facing over the coming months. But they’re still more to do, which means I’m going to have to put a little more hustle in my step to get it all done.

Probably my biggest ongoing project–and I’m really regretting not getting this all done and out of the way in June–is my spring capstone project. While the content is finished, the website is not. And I’m contemplating turning it into an e-book, at the prodding of @amandamogul and @riethja.

But it’ll all get done. A little positive thinking and perhaps a teensy bit less sleep, and I know I’ll make it through just fine. Will it be a little stressful? Sure. But then again, I seem to kind of thrive on this stuff. And if all else fails, I know I’ve got an amazing community of friends–online and off–to turn to for a little extra moral support.

Thanks for reading! If you're new here, you might want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Also, be sure to give me a shout on Twitter, I'd love to chat.

Yea, you read that right. The myth.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Dave Weigel is human, with thoughts, emotions, and feelings, like most of the rest of us.

Let me explain. Until yesterday, Dave Weigel was the Washington Post blogger covering the conservative movement. One caveat: he’s not all that conservative. Does that make him a bad blogger? A poor journalist? No. Does it mean he might not have been the best person for the job? Maybe. But that’s missing the larger point here.

The point is that our media is fundamentally flawed. Journalism in the 21st century is facing overwhelming forces, and yesterday’s fiasco at the Washington Post only underscores the futility of trying to fight them. The idea of objective journalism is a myth, for three reasons:

1. News moves faster than people.
2. “Unbiased journalism” is no longer a unique selling point, nor one that consumers are willing to pay for.
3. Journalists have opinions, and hiding them only misleads the public, preventing them from properly interpreting the news they read, hear, and watch.

Read more »

So in case you don’t remember, last month’s Social Media Breakfast DC was awesome. This month’s was just as good.

The theme this time around was “Blogging the City,” with the city obviously being DC (which I love, love, love–I honestly cannot tell you how much I love living in this city). Hosted at the awesome Busboys and Poets (they’re on Twitter too: @busboysandpoets) in the U Street neighborhood, today proved that I’m definitely not the only one who loves this city. In fact, as almost all our speakers this morning put it, they love this city so much they’re willing to put in more than their fair share of the “labor of love” in order to spread the word about the fantastic events, news and opportunities our city has to offer.

The line-up of speakers was fantastic. We had the founders of WeLoveDC, FreeinDC and Borderstan presenting and they had some thought-provoking and inspiring things to say. Check below the cut for the highlights, lots of links and even a video of the speakers if you’d like to watch the event yourself!

Read more »

Well, maybe not entirely shameless self-promotion, but I did write it so I suppose it deserves a little disclaimer. This weekend will hopefully be a great one for productivity. With the incoming D.C. #snomgasm / #snowpocalypse2 / #snom (my personal favorite) / any number of other crazy hashtags, I’m hoping maybe it’ll give me a good excuse to lock myself indoors with a blanket, food, notes, a laptop and maybe a good book, if I manage to get a lot of work, writing and studying done.

Anyway, this is a quickie. Just wanted to point out that from now on I will be writing for not only this blog, but also two other blogs! First, I’ll be contributing to the brand spanking new Shamable.com, written as a guide for public relations and communications professionals, with a more serious, realistic take to the industry than some other blogs that may or may not have been spoofed for the title. The people contributing to this blog are top-notch, triple-A professionals with fantastic ideas and brilliant track-records.

I’m honored to be a part of their site and I hope I can provide some valuable input from my student perspective! Be sure to check out my first entry on the blog (more to come this week), about teaching social media (professors, pay attention to that one).

Secondly, I will now be writing for the AU Intern Blog for the American University Career Center. There I’ll be reflecting on my internship experience this semester at MS&L Worldwide as well as some other random internship-related thoughts that might be bumping around in my head. I’ve actually written two posts for it just tonight, you can see my introduction here and my comments on the TechCrunch intern “scandal” here.

I’ll do my best to note on here when I’ve made some significant contributions to the other two blogs, but please add them to your RSS reader (and me, for that matter!) and keep your eyes peeled for new updates from me and my fellow contributors. Thanks, as always, for reading. Tomorrow evening I’ll have a recap of the fantastic panel event I attended this morning as well as some thoughts on what may be in store, in the near term, for my future (might be a bit vague!).

[Shamable]
[AU Intern Blog]