Remember when I said, Pictures Now, Stories Later? My friend complained to me the other day for not putting stories on yet from Los Angeles...
** We didn't just go to L.A. to go to L.A. LOL. We went for the STN (Student Television Network) convention. Kiddos that attended- Mr. Riley, Anthony, Kat, Tawni, Kayla, Sara and I.
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Wednesday, March 6- We all decided that we would go to school for first hour and watch our school show air (CHS Wired) and then go get some breakfast together before the flight. I decided I would skip first hour and only go to school to watch the show at 9:30 am... I was excused for the whole day after all... why not take advantage of it? Well, as we're leaving the driveway we notice that we have no gas- To the point where we were afraid we wouldn't even make it to the gas station... I was praying to God that I would make it in time to watch the show.. Let's just say I made it to school right at 9:30. God is good. We had a minor flip out when we realized that part of a story had no audio. The lady's lips were moving and no sound... we were all scared for our lives. We now know what went wrong and it will never happen again. Sorry to everyone who watched the show and was slightly confused. All the girls ate breakfast together at the airport.. and... waited. In the end, Emma's mom, who is a flight attendent, told us that some of us had a chance of being kicked off the flight since the plane was down sized and there weren't enough seats. Greeaaaat. We quickly grabbed our bags... and we were off!
Aren't my companions cute? Tawni on the right and Kat on the left.
The plane was definitely down sized. It was terrifyingly small. I think less than 30 seats total. We arrived in the Salt Lake airport and missed our flight by only a few minutes. I wasn't too upset. It's the Salt Lake airport!
(We played a prank on friends back home and said we saw ^^ Sean from The Bachelor
Some still believe to this day! hahaha)
There were better stores than the ones from the mall back home! Mr. Riley, our broadcast teacher and chaperone, took care of our bags while we went shopping and got yogurt. Kat's yogurt below.
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Thursday, March 7- The hotel was absolutely amazing. Anthony and Mr. Riley got their own room. The five girls got two separate rooms... on the 11th floor :) :) amazing view. We were going to use one room as our closet and the other for sleeping... but then we decided to be normal haha. When we first arrived we saw a sign that said "Swedish House Mafia." It was in front of one of the convention centers and people were setting it up for a press conference. I FLIPPED OUT.
I told Mr. Riley to go to the front desk immediately and find out when they're going to arrive. Haha he did go... I think he was scared for my sanity... I went on the internet and saw that they were going to have a concert that Saturday in a hotel a few blocks down. Gahhhh. You guys know how addicted I am to going to concerts.. but this one was too much money. So when Mr. Riley came back and told me that it was only a company doing a press conference, I was broken hearted. At the time "Don't You Worry Child" was my favorite song. I was like, "Who the heck names a company Swedish House Mafia?! Like, really?! Maybe they're just saying that so we don't go..." After my mental breakdown, we walked to a restaurant for breakfast. Mr. Riley wouldn't tell us where he was leading us haha. Kinda sketchy. Kinda cool. He ended up taking us to Ihop. I thought, "We're in Los Angeles. Why don't we go somewhere we don't have back home?" I didn't complain though because he ended up paying for our meal! So sweet :) We took sooo many pictures. Tawni and Sara are photographers. They took pictures of everything. But now we have great memories.. So we each chose and paid for certain sessions in which professionals would be the instructors. We could also enter a music video competition in which they would give us a song. We would have three hours to film and three hours to edit.
Editing room.
However, we each chose sessions. Tawni arrived late for hers because our food took so long. Haha
But we got to wander the hotel where the convention was. It was only down the street from our hotel. Oh my deary. I have never seen such a nice hotel. The elevators were on the outside of the building and made of glass. We had many adventures in there :)
There were so many kids. Everywhere. I realized how many people shared the same passion as me. It also made me realize how much more I need to learn. There were kids that had the nicest equipment.. Others walked with such confidence.. It was intimidating, but also a nice eye opener. Everyone I talked to finally spoke the same "language." So, we were waiting for Tawni. Everyone went to get coffee, and since I don't like coffee, I offered to take care of our stuff. They were about to leave their stuff on the couch! Even in the airport the group wasn't careful with their things.
That was when I realized I was going to be the mom on the trip. Mr. Riley wasn't much of a responsible chaperone. Sure, he was an amazing chaperone, but he didn't really care what we did. He would literally just leave us. At the airport, we had to find our own terminal because he left us haha! Good thing Anthony is the avid flyer.. he found his way around and we followed. So I sat and took care of our bags and made some new friends. The convention didn't officially start until the next day so we planned to go do stuff after everyone's sessions. Tawni wanted to go to Santa Monica so bad. That's all she ever talked about haha. Santa Monica! Santa Monica! Anthony had some connections and got the privilege of going to a soccer practice with Division 1 kids. So we decided we'd drop him off at soccer practice and we'd go to the beach! So Mr. Riley got a suburban and we were off. First, we went shopping :) duhhh. The driver's name was Diego.. his family was from Mexico and he spoke Spanish. Nothing out of the ordinary. We were in California after all. Well everyone turned and stared at me when was telling us about himself. Just because I'm mexican doesn't make me related to every other mexican. They were like, "Maybe he's your cousin!" "You guys have like, a connection!" Ha. Ha. We finally found the high school in which they were practicing.. and dropped off Anthony. I made sure he was safe, don't worry. The beach was amazing. The last time I'd been to a beach was when I was a baby. I didn't really remember.. so that was basically the first time. It was just like in the movies! So pretty. The food was good too!
We got back at around nine, but I was still full of adrenaline. We get our bikinis on and get swimming in the pool! Heated pool! Oooh it was nice. Back home we saw that our hotel had a way nice weight room and Sara promised she'd work out with me. So we go back to our room and change again haha. We put in a good work out and... on our way back from the weight room Sara, Kayla and I meet these guys.. they were yelling to us from the lobby! We found out that their school was hosting the STN convention and they were from L.A. So they knew L.A. "like the back of their hand." Julian seemed like the leader of the group.. and the most attractive ;) They wanted to go "party" and assured us that they would be safe. Being the mom of the group, I was a little worried. Does "party" have the same meaning in L.A. than it does back home? (We found out it didn't haha) I still couldn't get over the fact that out of all the gorgeous girls at the convention they chose us.. and remember, we were just swimming and working out.. we didn't look so attractive. We discovered we were staying on the same floor.. Haha oh the irony and that we'd meet in the lobby in 15 minutes. The first thing I did was call Anthony. He didn't have any guy friends on this trip! And good thing I invited him.. he made a lady friend later that night :) Only about 5 guys came back down. We walked to the convention center and just hung out, played some card games.. We went to sleep late that night... but it was def the highlight of our trip. The girls and I still think back to that adventure.
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Friday, March 8- You would think we would be absolutely exhausted after getting only a few hours of sleep, but we were still so full of energy! We went to the convention all day and learned so many things. I really enjoyed the courses taught by Les Rose. He's like, my broadcast idol now haha. I tried to take as many sessions from his as possible. One really stood out to me. The session was called "Why Journalism Matters." He was sure to point out to us the dangers in having the career of a journalist. Many die every year. However, he also asked us who wanted a career that could change the world and save lives. I raised my hand and began to pay more attention. He told us countless stories where he, through the stories he created and filmed, improved the lives of others. I still don't know what I want to do, but journalism sounds better and better everyday.During the convention this nice lady came up and asked us if we would like to be on the opener to Channel 1 news in Los Angeles. Yes please!! You can watch it here.
STN held a dance that night for us. Let me tell ya. The music was awful. Remember the kids we met the day before? Julian? Well, he's a DJ. I wish he had DJ'd that party. We left early haha.
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Saturday, March 9-Staying up late finally caught up with us. Saturday was the last day we were going to be in Los Angeles. We tried to make the best of it and learn a ton-ton, while having a blast.
After the convention we ate at the ESPN Zone! That's like the only thing Anthony wanted to do. We were going to watch the Lakers game, but the tickets were way expensive. The restaurant was also crazy expensive.. but crazy good. I ordered the classic-a pizza. I didn't realize how big it would be though... This was not my pizza (I settled with cheese), but my camera won't upload the pictures I took.. all these pictures are courtesy of google and the girls that went with me. The ESPN zone was crazy cool. There was an electric bull ride... and Tawni and I walked over to the Staples Center!
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Sunday, March 10- (Daylight Savings)
I remember that morning being mighty confusing. Mr. Riley told us to be down at a certain time so we could catch our plane, right? Well my no one's alarm went off. Long story short- Kayla called Anthony and asked how much time we had left to load up the shuttle, and he replied with one of the worst answers in the history of the universe. "We have to be in the lobby in 5 minutes." Let us rewind. We got back way late the night before and stayed up every other night. I wanted to sleep not pack my bags in a new record time. I made it though! Since this post is getting long.. we arrived safely and the girls and I are no super close friends. Now I can't wait for next year's trip! :)
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