the sky tonight is gracious

...you spread your tree branches out
and blanket over me...

ThReE wEeKs

After a whirlwind of events over the past three weeks, I finally have a chance (and the internet connection) to post. My life has drastically changed over the course of two months. Although it seemed to go by slow, the time between returning to the States and getting a job...now in retrospect, blew by.

Well, what really blew by was the last three weeks of work. I think I've gone through just about every emotion possible lately, experiencing reverse culture shock in addition to the shocks of growing up, committing to a job, paying bills, moving to a different city, and mostly...being a reporter, or rather, staff writer.

Quite possibly the coolest thing I've done so far is hang glide, for free, and yes, for my job. So really, I got paid to glide a plane a half a mile above Lumberton. Can anyone say swwwweeeet. Andy can. He got to do it too. (I'll try to get a picture up soon)

So, it's not always that sweet inside an office where, for the majority of the day, I'm the only female voice. But, so far, I've handled it. I'm still new at this,though, and I'm hoping the guys take it easy on me for as long as I work there. But like the weather, men are unpredictable.

This week was rather adventurous as the county I now live in has had almost 150 continually burning fires. I went on a fire truck with a volunteer fire department into the midst of a fire that consumed more than 800 acres of land. I've written a couple pieces about fires and firefighters, and I got the inside scoop of the N.C. Forest Service. There are some seriously amazing people out there that really care about what they do, and why they do it. I learned how fascinating fire can be, and just how hot these firemen are in Lumberton's 100-degree weather.

For the most part, I'll be covering city government, which sounds blah, but once you get into it, can get pretty sticky. I suppose it makes for a more interesting life, but then again, I really wish politics well, just weren't.

But I've met the mayor, the police chief, the fire chief, and I often hang around the city manager who takes me in "authorized personnel only" areas. And I have to say, it feels pretty cool, even at 10 bucks an hour.

If only I can get my writing to match up with the newspaper style, maybe I can give these editors a break from having to seriously rewrite and reword my work.