Start of Summer Vibes!

Since my last post, way back in January, I have thankfully been able to utilize some vacation days to travel around the States a bit, as well as a two-week adventure to China! During the travels, I did amass over 900 photos of the incredible scenery, the mouth-watering food, my wonderful travel companions, and so much more.

The main reason for my lack of posts is due to the lack of unique experiences or special events. Similar to previous years of summer work, major projects and events are quite limited - both at United Nations TV and Barclays Center. There is some systems maintenance and equipment upgrades, but there are dedicated staff engineers to perform these... so we, technicians, are all scheduled to work the normal day-to-day operations of meetings, briefings, interviews, and more!

On the flip side, the owner and operator of Barclays Center (Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment) also now owns/operates the newly-renovated Nassau Coliseum (branded as NYCB Live). Because the facility just opened and they are still hiring the AV Department crew, the creative teams at Barclays have been tasked to develop the look and feel of the front-of-house visuals (LEDs in-bowl, concourse TVs, menu layouts, box office graphics, etc). In addition to creating graphics for Nassau, we are also working on revamping the graphic designs for Barclays Center TVs. This recent task, and the whole job at Barclays, really has given me such amazing opprtunities to grow, learn, and practice many skills related to the Adobe Create Suite, live event production, and systems management.

Falling into the UNGA Chaos

As summer ends, vacations are in full-swing and the UN is quiet with few meetings, events, and/or special events. Therefore, between my numerous summer travels, I stepped up my freelance game and have been working as a game logger at MLB Network - ultimately monitoring every broadcast for game action, player/team analysis, on-field/fan bloopers, and more!

Back here at the United Nations HQ in September, the world starts to prepare for the all-encompasing start of the 70th General Assembly session and the weeks-long Debate. All 193 member-states send their highest-level government figure (usually a foreign minister, president, prime minister, etc) to make an official statement regarding their country's hope for the world and UN-specific goals for the upcoming year.

This year marks an even bigger event, the Pope is set to attend the first day of the Sustainable Development Summit; from personal research, I learned the Pope has the second largest motorcade in the US, behind the US President. Rumour has it, our UN media/broadcast department will be almost doubling the amount of cameras covering the Pope's visit in the UNGA (6 standard robotic cameras and 5 more manned-cameras)!

In the end, I am super excited for my third General Assembly session and Debate weeks. With the Pope visiting and two years of solid experience, this year will definitely be my biggest and hopefully most inspiring UNGA session!

Back Into the Swing of Things

Whoa... It's been a few months since my last post (back in Feb) and I wish there was more to write about since then, but nothing really is new! Spring has sprung and summer is heating up; here at the United Nations, meetings and events are becoming less frequent because summer is near.

As any aspiring media professional, I am constantly searching to advance my career and develop my skills and expand my network thru freelance gigs on nights/weekends. Throughout the winter, I worked as general production assistant for a new Showtime docu-series, 3AM. The show premiered 28-May to great reviews as it follows "the bizarro world of late-night New York City."

Otherwise, I have been trying to take advantage of my Paid Time Off days and throughout late winter/spring, I traveled all over the East Coast, as well as Italy for a long weekend.

Working full-time and some freelance can be extremely tiring, yet genuinely  rewarding.

So Much Snow... and Nonstop UN Briefings

We're well into February and dug deep into many feet of snow (over the past month), the United Nations rarely closes and meetings continue all day, even with nonstop snow and freezing rain! Thankfully, with our well-deserved time off and I took a day off for an extra long weekend 

At the UN, there have been lots of week-long summits/forums/conferences and many of them have actually been quite interesting. Most recently there were sessions on social development, global anti-Semitism, the 2015 Youth Assembly, and many others — all of which, we in the broadcast facilities are monitoring and/or operating the robotic cameras, audio, graphics, etc. Many of these high-level meetings, Security Council or sessions I mentioned earlier, with various important political figures in attendance, we often experience first-hand knowledge of breaking news and historical votes on global geopolitical situations.

Many of the conferences and "emergency" SC meetings are called because of the numerous parts of the worlds' violence flaring up at once. The "Rise of Global Anti-Semitism Violence" sessions were following the Kosher supermarket attacks in Paris in January; since March 2014, Missions of Ukraine or Russian Federation have both constantly requested Security Council meetings to discuss the escalating situation on the borders.

The highlight of my winter so far has been the vacation (obviously!). Over the long Presidents' Day weekend, I flew to Italy and enjoy nonstop pizza, pasta, and vino—flights were only $400 roundtrip, so how can that be passed up!! Everything about the trip was so incredible - seeing all the cultural and historical landmarks of Milan and Venice while eating the delectable Italian foods!!

Parents Came to Visit!!!

With CONAN on hiatus last week (10/8-10/12), us interns weren't needed all day everyday and I was able to switch internship shifts for Thur/Fri. Since I was not working Friday, I was able to pick up a rental car and start driving around Los Angeles and get to LAX to get my parents from their flights.

The Washington Nationals were riding high in October baseball; after Thursday night with a HUGE walk-off home-run by Jayson Werth, my dad and I were hoping to watch them win the NLDS Friday night at a local sports bar... I guess the Cardinals wanted otherwise :(

Saturday was a fun day being a tourist, we went to Griffith Observatory and explored the crazy world of space and awesome views of Los Angeles / Hollywood sign. My mother decided she wanted to walk over the sign, but then realized the only way was to drive down the hill then walk up, which would take about hour -- so instead, we drove through the neighborhoods and got relatively close to the sign (not zoomed at all)! We then explored downtown to Hollywood for lunch at the Hollywood + Highland shopping center; a distant cousin met us after lunch and walked around the area with us, we then went our separate ways. After a short nap (me, in my apartment; parents in their hotel), I picked them up and headed down to a steakhouse for a delicious dinner!

Sunday turned out to be another touristy day -- we went on the WB VIP Studio Tour (yes, I did got the employee discount) and had a great time! I unfortunately had a meeting for an upcoming work gig on Sunday evening, so I brought my dad back to the Glendale area and my mother to the Museum of Tolerance in the Century City neighborhood of LA. After the meeting, we met up with our cousin again for a delicious Italian dinner.

Overall, it was an incredible weekend to get away from reality and see family ... now, back to work and classes :(

Labor Day Weekend

Long weekends are the best... time to sit back, relax, and not worry about internships or classes!! As Friday ended (2 hours early actually- my internship let me leave early!), I made my way back to the apartment and prepared for the long weekend-- which didn't really mean much!

Saturday, I went with some of IC kids to one of the Golf 'N Stuff locations (the same place where the Karate Kid was filmed at) and we had a blast -- unlimited bumper cars, go kart-ing, bumper boats, and mini golfing!! Saturday night was quite an adventure, we went out to Hollywood and it turns out the LA police didn't want us to... 'cause our car got towed and we had to walk 3 miles to go pick it up!

Sunday came quick and we went to Dockweiler State Beach, for the beach (obviously) and an awesome bonfire/grill. The only problem was, we needed a small charcoal grill and it took us OVER AN HOUR to find one; every hardware/house-ware/outdoors store that we checked did not have any... until we saw a Home Depot and they had one. After that, we got to the beach and enjoyed the beautiful beach weather.

Todayyyyy is homework day :( so yea, I should go back and do homework!

It was a beautiful day at Dockweiler

Snap Judgement 3/4

March 4th's Snap Judgement asked students what their Spring Break plans were.

Watch the video below, or click here.