Week Two, in which the grad student goes to the library and reads up on the subject of radio documentary

     So like the title says I went to the UCF library to check out the books which I included in my annotated bibliography that I sent to Dr. Beiler. Among the titles I am now looking at are Writing for Television, Radio, and New Media by Robert L. Hilliard, The Radio Documentary Handbook by Jurgen Hesse, Radio Utopia by Matthew C. Ehrlich, and Radio Production by Robert McLeish. Now am I going to sit down and read all of these straight through? I do read exceedingly fast (my retention rate  does not seem to keep up though) and I believe I can get through this first set quickly. However there is this thing called a life outside academia which I have heard about in hushed tones around Colburn Hall. This may or may not get in the way of quickly going through the first round of literature. I also have a class this summer which seems to want some of my attention as well. So between the internship, class, and life vying for my attention all I can say is that I am glad I can juggle three things at the same time. I did not say that I could juggle well.

This is exactly how it feels this summer

     The other process that I am currently engaged with for the internship is plotting down the several ideas I have for broadcast pieces. What I mean by plotting down is physically putting down the ideas on paper, then giving it a working title, then going through what research I need to be doing for the piece. I also add a list of people I want to interview, who I know I can get an interview with, and a back up person for an interview. This process I learned from the podcast preparation with Dr. Cassanello and it seems to work very well in the pre-planning stages for this sort of thing. For example I want to do a segment on the Citrus Tower. So I write "Citrus Tower" on a piece of paper. Then underneath that I write "Citrus Tower as Artifact" for my working title. Then underneath that I write "Greg Holman" (the current owner) for my desired interview. Then I start putting together a bibliography of works that would pertain to the subject like Tim Hollis' book Dixie before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun. Then I repeat the process for the other three pieces. Now what this does is help organize my thoughts and focuses my mind on the task at hand. It also gives me a framework of what I need to do and allows me to see what exactly needs to be done and then I can place it in a time-frame to work in. In other words I can come up with a loose schedule to work in and with. So what this all means is that for these first few weeks I will be engaged with preparations for the actual pieces.

     As of this writing I have finished one of the aforementioned books whilst finishing the first part of a transcription project for my summer class, vacuumed the house, fed the cats, and began reading next week's assignment for the summer class. Now earlier I did mention that I said I could juggle, but not juggle well. I am juggling pretty good now but I know juggling foam balls is much different than juggling concrete bricks, which I have a feeling will be coming soon. So while today I am pretty confident that I am able to handle the workload this summer it might change in a few weeks (or days). I have been told that organization should be one of the tools in a historians toolbox and I would like to add that I could not agree more.