I went to UF again!

Me at the Bookstore/Welcome Center

My momma and me

My daddy and me

So as you all know my mom met Tim Tebow and got his book signed, she gave me the book and told me to take pics with it by his statue :D

This is where the College of Journalism and Communications is located.

The Reitz Union is where the cafeteria and the Bookstore are located. I visited here often :P

The stadium!

*chomp chomp* A picture with me and Bull Gator, outside of Ben Hill stadium

This stadium is huge!

Me by the sign "Home of the FLORIDA GATORS"

A little fun fact-- This is where Gatorade was created :D

Soo I was back at UF this summer for the Summer Journalism Institute again! I honestly had so much more fun this year than last year and I learned more too. I think it was because I knew what to expect and I had already had a year of editorial experience so I understood the class more. I took the yearbook editors class again and thankfully the yearbook critiques were nicer but there were still some that irked me.

June 18th

This is the day I arrived at UF. After I checked in my mom, dad and I decided to walk to the Bookstore and the stadium. This was a big mistake! It was sooooooooo hot and we didnt really anticipate how long it would take to walk to these places so by the time we got to the stadium our feet were hurting. Anyways, I got two shirts and a bracelet from the bookstore and my mom and dad got shirts too. After the dreadful walk through the campus we went back to Beaty Towers, which is where I was staying for the 6 day institute, and I said my goodbyes and met my roommates. At 4:00 we met in the common room and walked to Weimer Hall, where we had class for the first time. Then an hour later we went to Gator Dining, which is not that bad but when you eat it for 6 days it's quite annoying. (But it did fulfill my love for crushed ice and french fries!) After dinner we had an activity where we had to get a partner, then get 2 more partners, then get 4 more partners, after we found our partners we had to go around and introduce ourselves. This quickly turned into a big conversation about tv shows and what show we liked best. All in all, the first day was exciting!

June 19th

This day was good. Meredith Cochie, the camp director, always gives a lecture about different things. These lectures are hilarious! She is sooo funny and I honestly cant remember what this talk was about because I was laughing so hard. She had to have been one of my favorite speakers, even though her talk really had nothing to do with journalism. Then we had our usual schedule with another guest speaker, professor John Freeman, who talked to us about photography. Tonight was also the night for our movie, we watched Easy A, which is a hilarious movie!

June 20th

A day like any other. Breakfast, class, lecture, lunch, lecture, class, dinner, check-in. Nothing to special. Our one lecture for the day was a camp director, named Steve Johnson, who went to the camp and immediately after graduating high school he got an internship at the St.Pete Times and then after college he worked for ESPN. Oh and today was also the day that my entire family went and met Tim Tebow. I. was. jealous.

June 21st

A looooooooooooooooooooooooong day. One of the longest and it included breakfast, class, lecture, lunch, lecture, class, q&a, dinner, and check-in. We had one lecture this day that was my absolute favorite! Holly Gibbs, an RA for the camp and a graphic designer for a travel agency, made a powerpoint with all of these amazing design tips and layout ideas. This presentation completely changed my perspective on layouts. After this amazing day I went to my dorm room and sketched all of these ideas for my school's yearbook next year and I was so excited after all of this.

June 22nd

The second long day. We had 3 lectures on this day and the most interesting was Kristin Harmel, a correspondent for People magazine. I want to be a magazine journalist so I was interested in this lecture. I remembered what she was going to talk about so it was kind of boring at times but I found her lecture interesting anyways. This was also the day of our SJI party which was kind of boring because no one really stayed for it so my roommate Natalie and I went for a walk. We went farther than I expected and at one point I was nervous because it had gotten really dark and we were on the other side of campus, far from Beaty. But we had fun getting to know each other better.

June 23rd

The last day. This was a presentation day and the spread I had been working on in yearbook was complete so it went in with all the other spreads from my class and was shown to the entire camp. These presentations are my favorite part because I like seeing what everyone was working on for the entire 6 day camp. At 12:00 my dad came to pick me up and we went to the stadium and bookstore again and then we left.

I had so much fun for these 6 days and I enjoyed it so much more than last year. I am really excited for next year's yearbook class because I have so many ideas.

I am fully determined to get into UF and be a gator.

GO GATORS!