Greetings from Utah

Hey all, I'm bringing the blog back.

So you guys may have heard about my health. I'm ailing more or less. But that's for another time. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I'm working for Utah's leading newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune.

You might have heard we had a big week last week. In same issue, we covered the state's first firing squad death penalty sentence since 1996 and also Utah joining the Pac-10. And what was my big story of the week? The rodeo kid.

On my first day, I went out an hour to interview the high school state champion in bareback riding (trying to stay on a bucking bronco without a saddle). I had a great interview, and I even got a little riding time on the bucking machine. That photo will come later.

I've been trying this week to be a good volunteer for stories. Sometimes it can be confusing when I'm coming on to a story without prior knowledge of the situation, but it seems to be par for the course, at least for the first few weeks. I'm trying not to ask questions when I can look things up myself, but the problem is that sometimes people forget I don't know to do certain things -- like file a photo request for a story. Oof.

It was also frustrating to be sick as I'm adjusting to life in Salt Lake City. I had to take a day off to see the doctor (I'll leave out details). I've been waiting to jump into this internship so long, and finally I had assignments only to have to push them off another day. I'm a person who enjoys being busy, and not knowing many people in Salt Lake means that work is one of the few outlets I have where I can be social. I'm hoping that as I heal, I'll gain some steam and eventually feel a degree of command over my assigned tasks.

So I think this week, I'll be more open to asking questions about the systems and procedures we use, and I'll try to be more diligent with my background research. Things fly a little loose around here, and I can tell at the professional level, people want to see your results, even if you're new. I think last week I didn't want to stick out and be the one asking questions every two seconds. But if I want to do my job well, I need to learn it better.

Looking forward to hearing how the rest of you are doing. Keep up the good fight.

- KG