Still up to my neck in work… will update in a few days when my foggy brain clears.

Just trying to keep my eyes on the prize – June holiday in Vancouver for a week of hiking and biking!

*exhale*…. SO CLOSE!!

As one of my fellow freelancer friends says: this industry is all about feasts and famines.

And fortunately, it’s been thanksgiving for close to three months straight.

Earlier this month, I was commissioned to file two stories for AP Horizons. One was super dense in research and took ages to hammer out details. The other required a lot of different location shooting and running around. Both mentally and physically exhausting, but rewarding at the end.

Sorry loyal blog readers, can’t upload any videos until they air… 

Basically, you can’t fool me, Reuters!

The interactive documentary is getting lots of tread. My partner and I are a force to be reckoned with – continuing to be insanely pro-active on getting things moving. Now just waiting on one big yes/no to decide our fate… eeekkkk

And somehow in the middle of all the mayhem, I hosted one of my favourite people in the world – the lovely @hannahrosegold from the UK. So great to see her, someone I’ve know since I was a wee 18 year old – felt immediately at home with her around

sorry – sappy but true!

Phew… Bring on April!

Everything went as planned and we were even rewarded suite upgrades at the hotel for free.

Don’t know how much I’m allowed to say about the shoot before it airs… but I think the soft, sweet nature of the main character will make the piece.

The guy I traveled with also offered great perspective on life as a freelancer.

He’s in his early 30s, ridiculously talented, worked on a laundry list of cool stories, and pretty much started off exactly like me – freelance, producing/shooting off the seat of his pants, landing gigs with a bit of luck.

Now, he’s staff in a great department of a great journalistic institution.

Sometimes it’s hard to see a bigger picture when you don’t know many other people who have been in your shoes…  but being able to talk out my career anxieties with someone who has been there before was probably the most rewarding part of the trip.

I woke up Monday morning feeling overly motivated to get projects moving… the Canadian woman I’m collaborating with on the interactive documentary was flooded with emails by about 11am haha

How ironic that working on a series on ‘Dreaming Big’ resulted in the journalist herself dreaming big?

During my weekly tutoring session, my student had trouble with the word ‘applaud’.

She sat there, squinting at the wall for a bit, as she racked her brain.

Suddenly, a burst of revelation.

“WAIT. Is it the same thing as ‘aplaudir’?

Stumped, I said ‘what’s that’? and she replied ‘It’s Spanish for clapping your hands’.

Then she looks at me genuinely confused and says

Wait. You don’t know Spanish?

Blushing, I say

Nope. I only know English. And bits of Mandarin and French.

Her eyes get wider.

HUH? You only know ONE language? ONE?

The genuine concern in her eyes was probably the most inspiring moment I’ve had in a long time. I know it’s fairly common overseas to be bilingual, but she’s lived in the US most of her life.

What an awesome age we live in where knowing only your home language is flabbergasting.

I love having those moments. Where the future is not as bleak as everyone assumes it will be.

And now I know how my mom feels when I tease her and say:

‘HUH? You don’t know how to copy, paste?’

Funnily enough, the narrative requires travel up to the Big Apple next Fri-Sun…. even though I’ll already be there visiting family tomorrow – Tuesday.

So basically, I’ll be living on a train for the next seven days.

But ALAS. Whinging aside, this piece’s angle is really fun – and I can’t wait to get started!

Ohhhh yeaaaaahhhh

The AP Horizons story was exploring his cool new house, custom designed to his new needs. Generously, two major charities joined forces to fundraise and build it for him last November.

With his boyish banter and cheeky charm (“Hey Miss Janet, you done yet?”), he was just a normal guy. Regardless of his new body, he still  had this air about him that was just so calm and light.

I couldn’t help but wonder if my brothers – who are frequent vocal victims of ‘man-flu’ – could ever emit as much normalcy in the wake of a total disaster.

I know it’s pretty cliche to say, but I was completely moved. Not only by his ‘against all odds’ narrative, but his ‘no BS’ attitude. He wasn’t a sad sap, he wasn’t a crazy marathon runner trying to prove anything, he was just a 27-year-old guy that liked to play video games and hang out at the bar on Friday nights. And whatever, he doesn’t have his arms or legs anymore – it’s just something crazy that happened in life.

And as I continue to assimilate into in this Type-A city of Washington, I can’t help but kick myself for not having the same mentality.

I’m always anxious – wanting to do better and harping on why I didn’t do one thing that could have lead to another. I’m always wound up in mundane issues that could have been easily tossed aside.

If I had only a half of John’s zen, I think my life would be a lot calmer.

When I came home, friends asked me if I was upset over the shoot. “Wasn’t it so sad to film? Didn’t you get emotional?” But I really couldn’t say that I did. I wasn’t within the presence of a victim.

I was just hanging out with a new friend in a sweet house.

‘US Vet Smarthomes’ is due to air February 2013.

Can’t tell you which one though… you might be a sneaky someone from Reuters!

Will post a pic or two tomorrow as a cheeky peek.

Till then, here’s a photo of my new cat. Her name is Opal and she’s 2 years old. My boyfriend and I found her at the DC Humane Society shelter. Her owners left her in their apartment back in September as they flea-bombed it.. TWICE. Then, they moved away!

I know. THOSE EYES. Cue: heart-melting ‘awwww’….

See! Told you I’d blog more than once every six months… didn’t promise it’d be award-winning literature though :0)

1.) Blog more

2.) Volunteer more

3.) Become more confident in camerawork

4.) Get back involved in producing long-format projects

Aaannnnnddd….

4.) Go to the gym regularly

(Yep. gotta put the token ‘weight-loss’ goal. Seriously, would it be a real resolution list otherwise?)

Ooohhh American food, why must you be so delicious/packed to the brim with GMOs?

January is actually turning out to be strong in the goals department.

Along with continuing to mentor my absolutely favorite 10-year-old in Columbia Heights, I’m also training up to work with the Red Cross. While shooting ‘MIT AutoMapper’, Boston’s Red Cross told me all about a new ‘disaster digital volunteer‘ program. Basically, volunteers use social networks to monitor where aid should be distributed & act as liaisons to the DC HQ. Also, if tweetos have questions about what to do during a disaster, volunteers help them as ‘virtual comforters’.

The AP has been kicking my butt in bullet point four. A good friend of mine from the London bureau has just transferred to the DC office and offered to give me intensive training when his department was not too busy. December was dead for both of us, so everyday we went around DC, filming on the most massive camera in the whole world.

I believe the quote was:

“If you can get confident on this thing, the little guy will be no problem”.

I’ve got another story commissioned by AP Horizons this month, so I’m quite excited to see how much the training has paid off!

Long format is still tba … have a meeting with a potential partner tomorrow and don’t want to jinx anything

And the gym? Well, yeah… I went last night but then had a huge plate of chilli. Does that still count?

sigh … didn’t think so.

Watch this space for more blog updates! I promise this time!

The last few months have mainly consisted of working 60+ hour weeks over June-Aug then going on a month long holiday in September to London (sooo many awesme reunions), Iceland (sooo much camping and hiking) and New Hampshire (apple cider. that’s it.)

Now it’s back to reality… more US election fixing for Swiss TV, a week in Boston filing science stories for AP, and (shhh) going through some preliminary talks with TVE about producing an interactive documentary next year.

CHYEAH. BIZ-ZEE.

But anyways, yes, more updates later. Sorry folks.

Here’s a picture of a puppy at a disco to make the disappointment go away.

Ciao ciao.

After the Nebraska shoot (ahhh which was of course filled with loads of scary tornados… more to come in a later post), my lovely boyfriend, Scott, and I moved into our new pad in downtown Washington DC. The place feels like something from a magazine – lots of light, lots of fun places to eat just around the corner, surprisingly very affordable… yeah, basically we got really lucky.

Dupont Circle, Washington DC

Once we moved in and settled, I literally blitzed the entire mass media industry with my CV. Through some sort of miracle, I got asked into the BBC Washington bureau and was signing freelance papers a few hours later! Again, really lucky.

My new press pass!!

It feels so strange being a resident of the US again. The sun is always shining. A blue sky is always visible. Everyone is always open and friendly. I can’t stop relating it to being a character in a film: it seems like a lovely life, but it doesn’t quite feel like mine yet…

Anyways, just wanted to say a big thank-you to all those who have supported Scott and I during this massive change in our lives. Though I miss Blimey terribly (I wake up confused each morning, wondering where I am haha) I’ve gotten the chance to see my family more times than I have in the past six years!

And that, I think, is really the luckiest part of all