Almost final week at National Journal:

Monday: Today, I was working on a slide show that I had known I wanted to do for quite some time. It was a slideshow about the BCS picks based upon which Congress member is from that school. It was interesting because although Auburn is the favorite to win the national championship this year, they are not too strong in Congress. An Alabama graduate actually beat their candidate for the election this year. How is that for ironic, although Auburn will likely get the last laugh this year.
Tuesday: Today’s slideshow was about the 8 suggestions newcomers should take from their peers. It was a piece in the magazine but we took it a few days later and reconfigured it so that it would be able to be shorter and more concise. We also put some great photos with the piece. These slideshows generally take up the entire day, which is why my boss asked me about asking future interns to come in earlier in the morning to start them because then they would not be produced so late in the day. Oh, and it was a Terry Michael day…. He just lectured.
Wednesday: Today was the day that Elizabeth Edwards passed away so my time in the afternoon was taken up by working with others to package stories for the news. I was in charge of putting together a slide show of photos through the years, while others like Major Garrett did a video segment about his memories of Elizabeth Edwards. Things like this are nice because then we were able to use this packaging even later in the week when her funeral came around.
Thursday: Terry Michael Day! Today we spoke with Gene Healy from the CATO Institute. It was a pretty typical session and he signed our books afterwards. I think everyone is realizing that we are in the home stretch and people are just ready to be done. Today, Wikileaks was my job and I put together a slideshow about the hackers who are fighting certain websites. It was a chore because this required a bit of creativity when it came to photos but I learned how to do a drop shadow in photoshop.
Friday: Today is the National Journal Christmas party and I don’t think anyone was real excited to be at work knowing that we would be getting off early for the party. I worked on some photo galleries for the Nobel Laureate Ceremony, but that was pretty much it as well as working on some expert blogs for education and transportation.