Global Media Initiative

San Jose State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communications has their Global Media Initiative students out in the field in London and Paris for spring break ... and I'm one of them!

Three years ago the GMI was formed out of a desire to expose budding journalists to the opportunities and challenges of field reporting.

The first year, 50 SJSU students traveled to New York City for spring break and met with media outlets in the newspaper, magazine, photojournalism, advertising and PR industries. Several students made contacts at the various news organizations and from those contacts received internships and jobs.

The second year was an experiment in international multimedia production. Dubbed the "Multimedia Boot Camp," Mexico City was the destination and 15 students produced stories for the web and print. Audio, video and photography were required elements in each story. This was the beginning of our all-platform journalism obsession.

Planning London and Paris 2009 began last September. At one point, 50 students wanted to go on the trip. As departure drew closer, the total number of students was whittled down to 20 dedicated individuals. We have one week, two countries and endless opportunities.

Unlike the Mexico City trip, we have an overall lens through which all our stories will focus. The global economic crisis is effecting everything around us, so from immigration to the environment and from fashion to financial aid, we are covering it.

Megan Hamilton

Art Director

Magazine Journalism / Graphic Design
My LinkedIn. My Blog. My Portfolio.

What a difference a year makes

It's true. I have not posted in forever. One year might as well be forever in the blogosphere. Let me give you an update. Since last April I have, in chronological order ...

... Said goodbye Bath and Body Works, broke up with an incredible guy who will now forever hate me, got hired at Apple Retail, purchased an iPhone (life-changing), rendezvoused with some Brits, enjoyed beer, created a 'prototype' issue for a new magazine called Social Entrepreneur, announced and began planning the JMC's spring break trip to London and Paris, got in a car accident, designed the Spartan Daily newspaper for Fall 2008, dressed up as Stormy from Rainbow Brite for Halloween, chopped off all my hair, rocked a LOT of headbands, elected a new president, voted no on Prop 8, serenaded my co-workers at Apple Corporate on the same stage Steve Jobs does his keynotes, renamed Social Entrepreneur SHiFT, survived my first Holiday at Apple, pleaded for a new MacBook Pro (and got one!), became a gourmand for New Years Eve, decided to be happy for 2009, embarrassed myself for a boy, pledged to run a marathon for charity, redesigned the Spartan Daily for Spring, contracted pneumonia, drugged myself for three weeks, cried as apple juice was spilled on the new MacBook Pro, celebrated my 22nd birthday, suffered through eight long miles of running, iced my groin, strained my foot, hobbled about for two weeks, drafted my first Web site, beefed up my resume, published the 'beta' issue of SHiFT, dropped out of the marathon training, failed to raise funds for charity, wallowed in self-loathing and finally jet-setted for London.

Oh wait, that hasn't happened yet. Stay tuned ...

Rollin' With the Homies

Today I realized how much I need it to be summertime. I don't know if I can take three more weeks of school plus finals. There are four things that take up the majority of my time: work, school, friends and sleep. On a good week I can successfully manage three out of the four but my downfall is that I have to go to work because i don't want to get fired, I can't say no to my friends and I'll be damned if I don't get a full night's sleep or at least a cozy nap. What does that leave? Oh yeah, school.

Now, I have always loved school. I am Rory Gilmore when it comes to loving school but when the spring semester rolls around and the weather starts becoming wonderful, all I want to do is NOT be in class and NOT doing homework. I am burned out. The Mexico City trip burned me out! I have so many projects to still complete that I really do want to do but I just can't find the motivation to do them.

For example, I have really cool projects for both my photo and my design classes but again, no time and no motivation. I have an excellent opportunity to make another kick ass piece for my portfolio but I'm screwing it up as we speak because I, of course, find it more amusing to write a blog post at 1a.m. the morning it is due.

There are other things wrong with me too but I will save the all juicy details for when I'm super drunk and accidentally tell the world I'm......

haha, you'll just have to wait.

Vectors Make Me Happy

So here is the new and improved vectorized Megan Hamilton!
It took forever and I am sort of happy with it. This definitely took a toll on my patience. It is quite noticeable in my lack of finesse with the pen tool. I could have made things smoother but hey, who has the time to do that. I am just glad that I finished. Oh yeah, this is me on the airplane to Chicago. I was super lucky to get an entire row all to myself. Woohoo!

Apples and Oranges

So I hear that APPLEs are really good for you. After all, an APPLE a day keeps the doctor away. No wonder kids are always putting APPLEs on their teachers' desks. It must make them really smart, eating all those APPLEs. Those students probably become the APPLE of their eyes. The bad students in the class are no where near those who give their teachers APPLEs. It would be like comparing APPLEs to oranges. And no one wants to be an orange. Hmm, maybe I should be an APPLE. Everyone loves APPLEs so there is no reason not to be. Hopefully, the Stanford APPLE tree will decide to grow a new APPLE crop in the next month. You can't have too many APPLEs :D

It wouldn't be the holidays without a little...

Sometimes I wish I had one of those families that gets completely drunk at Christmas. And sometimes I wish I had one of those families that was so dysfunctional that I would have enough emotional trauma to write a book or be an edgy singer/songwriter. Alas, my family is pretty normal. Well, my immediate family is pretty normal. There isn't any drama. There aren't any knock down, drag out fights. We, for the most part, get along. What the hell kind of holiday season am I being subjected to?? Happiness? Joy? Peace on fucking earth??

I wish I had something good to write about. Like that my mom got so drunk and downed so many anti-depressants that she started a karaoke bar in our living room and sold tickets for her show to the people talking a holiday walk along the path that runs next the the picturesque creek by our cozy cookie cutter house in suburbia right across the way from the elementary school I attended for seven years and the park in which I played when I was young. Crap. My run-on sentence doesn't even work because it just segues into how picture-perfect my childhood was. Damn-it, I can't even make my mom a crazy drunk lounge lizard! It just doesn't work! I just don't have enough dysfunction to even pretend to have dysfunction. I hate to admit it, but I don't really have any major life-changing family crap or life crap to shape me into one of those people with "issues." And I ask you, where are my issues?? Everyone is supposed to have them, so where are mine?

Well, Ok, let's face it, my parents are still together AND they get along, my grandparents are all still together. My grandmother on my dad's side died when I was 12 but my grandfather has never remarried. With the exception of two aunts, all my aunts and uncles and cousins are still married to their first marriage partner. No one has committed suidide or attempted it. No one is "the drunk" at gatherings. We don't hate anyone in the family and we actually like hanging out with each other. Hmm I think this is abuse. How does my family expect me to doubt love and relationships, drink my insecurities away, and never have any self-esteem or ambition unless I get a little suppression in my life. For the love of God can't I get some true American normalcy?

The Shaggs Review

The Shaggs all girl band plays like it has twelve different sheets of music, everyone is playing, no one is leading, and everyone has started at a different time. They purposefully play their music a little bit off balance. It makes the listener unable to follow and unable to catch up.

They are playing as if they are running the race of the turtle and the hare. Half the band is the turtle and the other half is the hare. Their album is the entire race. The percussion stays on beat, they are the constant, ever persistent turtle and the vocalist and other instrumentalists are the hare. They start and stop without any constant rhythm.

The lyrics are so non-scensical that the band channels a 2-year old that is learning to walk and talk at the same time. You can’t do it all at once without stumbling.

Despite all the weird nuances of their music, they are doing something original. They are experimenting with sound and rhythm to produce an audience reaction. I would love to see them in concert at a Berkeley coffee shop.

The band Pastel Pasta was an experimental group that started at my high school. They also experimented with ridiculous lyrics and obscure instruments like the toy piano and a washboard. They entered the Battle of the Bands one year and got about last place. The next year they received second place because of their creativity in performance execution and lyrics that people could laugh at.

The Shaggs do the same thing. It is still entertainment, the listener just needs to go in with an open mind, laugh and have fun listening to something new.