It's been an extremely busy few weeks here in Melissa-land.
Three weeks ago, I made the hard decision to stay at school for an extra semester to get my minor. Graduating in May was an awesome idea but after talking to someone that does what I want the option of doing, I was advised to get the SES minor. I want the option to do everything in the sports industry, not just the journalism part so the SES minor let's me have the education to do that.
After making that decision, I loaded myself, my camera, and my computer onto a plane to Louisville where a press pass was waiting for me. If you want to talk about a once in a lifetime, amazing experience, just talk to a journalist about their first "real" gig. We did a ton of stuff off the track (I finally got to meet my favorite racehorse, Point Given) but it was the on track stuff that really made the difference.
I did get a ton of exercise by running back and forth from the press box to the track to take pictures but going to most of the winning interviews with people from Bob Baffert to Irish training legend Aidan O'Brien made it worth it. It also gave me an idea of what I want to do when I "grow up" because I loved every minute of it. It also firmed up my commitment to either go to school in Kentucky or England because both have strong racing programs. Having the press pass also made me a little stir crazy at the thought of going back to school and looking at my schedule for the next four weeks really makes me want to run away back to happy press land.
In good news, I get to cover yet another sport starting this weekend as basketball season rolls around. I'm in the camp of "I'd rather play it than watch it" but I'm sure that will change as I get farther into the season. I'm loving the opportunity to cover all these different sports and think it will be extremely valuable in the future when I'm thrown into different situations where I may not be writing about a sport I normally cover.
This year has been extremely hard schoolwise but I've had a ton of experiences I wouldn't trade for the world and I'm definitely not ready to "grow up" yet without taking advantage of a few more of them.
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