She works hard for the money.... so hard for it honey...... Or no money at all actually, but hey, that's perfectly ok with me! Work at MSN has been nothing short of great so far and the people are wonderful too. It's all good all the way around. I'll try to take pictures of the office sometime, maybe go in super early or something. I've already had the opportunity to do a feature with a gallery of pictures and a small story, a couple of blogs on the fuel workers strike, the crisis in Zimbabwe, and the protests held here against Bush, and have set up message boards for each one of those, which has been a cool experience, (click on the link-looking parts of that sentence if you'd like to see my work.... they are actually links :)... if not... read on!).
This week takes it up a notch, as I'll be going to a gallery tomorrow that is showing the world premiere of some of Bob Dylan's artwork and interviewing/taking photos for that, and then on Friday I'm going to cover the Pagan party of the year, aka the Summer Solstice at STONEHENGE. My friend Emily is covering it for her internship at the AP, and I was just going to tag along for the fun of it, but then realized I could cover it in multimedia form for MSN... sooooo... I pitched the idea to my editor on Friday and she gave me the green light! It's my baby! My flatmate Maneeza, who, as I've mentioned here, also interns at MSN, asked to join me, so we'll be getting tons of coverage with four hands instead of two! I'm totally excited and can't wait to experience such a huge event with Druids and rituals and large amounts of gratuitous partying (not for me... I'll be on the job....).... at Stonehenge.... and watching the sun set and rise there.... it's going to be amazing, I know it. So that's work. Now for the rest of my life....
Over the past weekend I didn't feel so hot on Saturday, so I stayed in all day and got better, but Sunday I was ready for action and went with Maneeza, Emily and Jenni to observe two protests going on while George Dubya, our fearless leader, was in town on his Europe trip.... that was pretty interesting. The first protest was at Trafalgar Square and was protesting the imprisonment of a British student at Guantanimo... and the use of torture music.
I learned that one of the most often used songs for torturing terrorism suspects is the Barney song. Yes. The Barney "I love you, you love me" song. Apparently, the interrogators blast this music at high volumes over and over again in order to force people to talk. Anyways, in recognition of this fact, apart from the usual large orange underpants that read "Fair Trial My Arse," someone was dressed up in a Barney costume. Kids loved it; parents loved it too until they realized that Barney was wearing a protest sash....
The next one was a short walk down to Parliament Square, right in front of Parliament and Big Ben. This was a more general "Bush is a terrorist" and "What do we want? BUSH OUT! When do we want it? NOW!" sort of affair.... needless to say it was interesting.... and highly awkward. People were blasting John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," carrying huge signs urging us getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and just about every other issue you can think of that people think Bush has handled poorly or hasn't handled at all but should. Some were camping out in front of Parliament, while others wore "Arrest Bush" t-shirts while countless others handed out pamphlets and underground papers explaining their causes. I want to make it clear that I didn't participate in either protest, just wanted to watch it all go down and see for myself how bad the feelings were against the US. Let me tell you, they were bad. I took just my phone to take pictures, but I'm having a hard time getting them posted, so those will probably not go up for awhile... but look at any news source and you'll see what I saw.
Later on Sunday I called the family and felt really the first true pangs of homesickness I've felt since I've been here. It was tough not being there on Father's Day, but I get to see Dad in July, which is just fine with me :) I'm still having a great time even though I do miss everyone! Keep in touch!
Anyways, sorry for the delay again on the post, but that's what I've been up to! I'm sure I'll have fun stuff to talk about later in the week. Some more Bob Dylan research and then I'm off to bed.... gotta go interview and shoot tomorrow! Miss and love you all!
God Save the Queen! Or at least the Barney song.... actually, scratch that. I hear it's pretty irritating... torture even.... Cheers :)
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