A TRUE journalist's experience

Yesterday was such a long day for those who came from Fort Lauderdale to St. Petersburg that I can't even start to write about it. Thankfully, one Teenlink member (David) already wrote about yesterday's rather unsuccesful, but hilarious, ride back home. Let me just say anything that could go wrong most definately went wrong.

(found here)

Where else would fifteen insane kids from Teenlink gather for a day of exciting seminar workshops than at St. Petersburg's Poytner Institute of Media?

During our four hour drive up to St. Pete, I was the only boy in either of our two vans (figures!). To pass the time, we rocked away to the Across the Universe soundtrack. Go Beatles!

At Poytner we traveled over the Skylight Bridge in Tampa Bay with stunning views. In the city, we found the Poytner Institute after circling around one way streets for a while. Surprising to me, USF has a campus with a nice Marina right across from the institute. So as we entered St. Pete's cultural setting, we listened to an unmemorable keynote speaker session. Fortunate, the day had more exciting events to follow.

One seminar on how to interview a naked woman was a great workshop with good interviewing tips! I even learned how to blog (see, it's my first blog!). As you can tell, our trip was a success (Me + 13 girls) Mhm! Until... 6:30 p.m.

We grabbed dinner at a Subway and Pizza Hut near Ft. Myers. As we hit the road, I thought of my stereotypical biases: would our tires be slashed in this ghetto part of town? Bingo! As our instructor sped onto I-75 the rear left tire to our Mazda Z-3 van disintegrated, forcing us to steer safely onto the median. As two hours unfolded, Triple A towed the van, and the other Van of students who were only fifteen miles ahead, caught in traffic from an accident, turned around to rescue us. Alas! Our instructor has to spend the night at a Marriott hotel (oh, so comfortable away from South Florida!) since Costco won’t open for a new tire until the next morning.

As we waited for the tow truck to arrive, our evening got exciting. Here, we went shopping at Gulf Coast Town Center, which is humongous and 3x as large as UCF's town center! With a concert going on, clubs around in the middle of nowhere (well, after all Gulf Coast is a college town), a nice Borders for journalist to relax at, and of course Kilwins, this was an evening to remember.

Gaining my official codename “Tom from Myspace”, some employees from Journey thought that we were a band with our teenlink shirts on as we happily greeted them with jitters. So in between the madness of our lives in jeopardy from a flat tire, the thirteen of us managed to cram with our other instructor, Jen, into a Van to head back to Sawgrass Mills Mall. We definitely managed to bond in the Van, listening to ipod music and trying to avoid traffic with slow internet on cell phones…

As we arrived at the Oasis, we thought about St. Pete being just a few hours ago. It was the start… but it all heated up when we left the Skylight town.