Janel Parrish. Gosh it feels awesome to finally share it. My big interview that I had to keep a secret the last few posts was with “Pretty Little Lairs” star Janel Parrish. She was an absolute treat to talk with and it was completely surreal. I actually took a moment during the interview to just go ‘wow, this is awesome…’ Not out loud of course, just in my head. You can read the full Q&A here.

Her interview did have some restrictions, one of them being how long I had to talk with her. Once I set up the interview, I was told I had absolutely no more than 30 minutes to speak with her. This meant taking the time to narrow down questions, and hope that I can ask as much as possible in the time I had. When you deal with time constraints, I found that typing out every question I could think of asking her and then ranking them from most important to least important was a huge help.

When I finally got on the phone with her, the interview only lasted 12 minutes and I was concerned I hadn’t gotten enough information, but after reviewing the transcript she gave me a lot. I asked about 12 questions and thank goodness she spoke fast and was to the point. Someone else could have made this interview double the length, if not longer, and it would have meant sacrificing questions that really made the Q&A unique.

You can see in the picture of my desktop set up prior to the interview that I have marked something in green. This was one of my back up questions to help move the interview along in case she didn’t mention a certain thing. And if you actually read the interview on the website, you’ll see that I got to use the question the green was referring too, and she allowed me to elaborate on her new movie “The Concerto” that’s coming out hopefully this year. Interviewing is an art, and it does take a lot of adaptation for bigger clients. Knowing when to pipe in about something they said and then just moving on is a skill that I’m still working on, but I think I’ve gotten much better at it. The part about “Concerto” was just too good to pass up, and I’m glad she spoke more on it because it sounds like a cool concept for a movie.

In other news, I’ve been writing an awful lot for The Daily Quirk and while only one article other than my Janel interview has been posted, I have two more that are still waiting to come up.

I wrote an article about Diamond Candles, which is one of the coolest things ever. It’s a candle that comes with a ring inside. These rings range from $10 to $5,000 and I ended up getting one for an anniversary gift. That was awesome, so you can read that article here and of course, check out Diamond Candles.

I also would like to mention that my full-time position just got real, because I got an actual Daily Quirk email. That was an awesome day for me and since it really becoming official; I have gotten to deal with a lot of new things, such as talking with publicists and retrieving photos for articles. It’s been great, and I couldn’t be more thankful!

So as school starts to come back into session, my submissions for The Daily Quirk will slow, but I hope to share my next few articles before we say goodbye to the blog.

Three hips for progress! I just got the proof of the upcoming issue, and I must say it looks fabulous! The new designer, Sarah, is doing a great job. I can’t wait to see it in print.

Also this week – The HPU Marketing Team paid me a visit! Nora, Chad and Darrell came to Enventys Thursday morning for an interview and some shots of my Inventors Digest experience. (The tour was free.) Although a bit awkward being behind camera and under lights for the first time, I have to say it was a really cool experience! I am excited to see the results… except for the footage of me walking down a hall and up a flight of stairs. Not so much.

This office is always so exciting! This week, the hit SHOWTIME series “Homeland” is filming in downtown Charlotte. Our front desk girl/ tour guide/ walking advertisement Kara took it upon herself to go downtown and invite the show’s producers to come look at the building as a possible filming site (she wears many hats.) Believe it or not, they actually took her up on it! Two producers from the show are currently touring the building with Kara, and possibly scoping out locations to film. Every company needs that go-getter that’s not afraid to put their self out there. After all, she is the sole reason that we are partnered with Hitachi and have all the latest gadgets all over the office. We’ll see if they decide to film here – you will know if you see 18,974,658 photos on the blog of me trying desperately to get a “selfie” with Clare Danes in the background.

I am sad to report that the frozen yogurt machine is back to tart, also known as sour cream. Blugh. Good thing the Coke Freestyle machine never runs out of vanilla root beer!

Ladies, ladies, ladies.

Take a minute and ask yourself how much money you’ve spent in the past six months on beauty products. How many lipsticks and mascaras are in a bag, how many pretty sparkly eye-shadows you don’t wear nearly as much as you’d like, the nail polishes and perfume bottles cluttering your dresser. A little here, a little there, but it all adds up. You’re addicted.

But there’s a job title for that! And I am going to share a secret with you: become friends with someone in the beauty department at a magazine.

Why? Because most magazines are sent an influx of brand new products twice each day that are opened, glanced at, and put onto a shelf in a closet until there is no more room. It’s actually a highly selective process for what makes the cut. And the rest? Twice a year, interns like me purge the closet to prepare for fall and winter products that you’ll read about and be dying to try. But until then, there are brand new, unopened goodies up for grabs.

This past week at O, we managed to sell the entire beauty closet in a 3-hour sale open to all Hearst employees. Imagine Black Friday in a conference room….it was that intense. But it was bittersweet too. All of the money that we made from the sale is being donated to Oprah’s Leadership Academy girls. The products that help you feel more beautiful go to a beautiful cause.

It was a lot of hard work, boxing everything up, sorting, separating, cleaning, and replenishing the bins. But I also got first dibs on everything that I wanted. Now I just need to convince my parents that shipping all my new goodies back won’t cost nearly as much as what I would spend buying all of that at retail cost….wish me luck.

As my final week of interning started, I got a taste of what it’s like to be an actual employee of a magazine… My boss is on vacation for two days, so I was completely in charge of myself today. My editor sent me a list of things that she wanted me to get done in the two days that she’s gone, but other than that, I was left to my own devices, like any other employee is every day. It was a great way to start wrapping up my internship, because Liz (my editor) wasn’t there to answer any of my questions so I really had to put everything I’ve learned this summer to the test. It was cool, because I felt like a real, full-time employee, and I was proud that I was able to finish everything, and have time to spare! I worked more on organizing and reviewing tester forms for our Gold Star Toy Awards, selected products and contacted PR people for an upcoming spread and wrote invoices for writers. It doesn’t sound like too much, but there was a lot that went into each project and I was kept busy all day!

I have to say though, I really missed my editor. Our desks are right next to each other, and I missed being able to talk to her about what I did this weekend, and share the funny comments that some of our toy testers put on their Gold Star Toy evaluations. Sure, she’s my boss, but we’ve also become friends this summer, and having her not there made me really realize it. I’m definitely going to miss the entire P&C staff, and it makes me so sad to realize I now only have two days left with Scholastic. However, I absolutely cannot wait to get back to HPU, so it all balances out in the end. Wednesday will be hard though, when I pack up my bag and board the subway (and then the bus to NJ) for the last time this summer.

Sadly, my summer internship at WTOP has come to a close today as I prepare to enter my fourth and final year at High Point University. It has been an amazing nine weeks and I’ve gained so much through my experiences inside and outside the newsroom through interviews, shadowing and writing practice.

Highlights of my internship include hearing interviews I recorded on the radio, various trips to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park to get sneak peeks of exotic animals and cover their debuts, attending the “Living Artfully” press preview at one of my favorite museums, the Hillwood Estate, sitting in on the Operation iGuardian news conference at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Headquarters, and witnessing the sentencing of Thomas Gore, a former campaign aide to D.C.’s mayor, Vincent Gray, at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Federal Courthouse.

I’ve learned a lot from this internship, including how passionate I truly am about journalism. No two work days are the same, as breaking news occurs each day, all over the world. There is always news I can read about and cover, never leaving me bored at my desk. I have also learned how crucial it is to be on time and not procrastinate. Journalists revolve their days around deadlines, so distraction is not an option. Not only are deadlines important, but keeping time limits in mind are also crucial when working in a newsroom because even if a piece is two seconds over, it’s too long. Timing is key in radio, and I have found myself rewriting an entire reader or write-around because I struggled with editing the piece in order to maintain the time limit.

I am very pleased with this internship as it is very hands-on and requires its interns to apply what they’ve previously learned to assignments that may be heard or seen by thousands of readers and listeners. I’ve had interviews I recorded used for on-air stories, written readers for anchors to read on air, and contributed to the website when needed.

I am proud to say I had one of the best internships an aspiring journalist could have (and not once was I ever asked to get coffee!). I am approaching my senior year ready to take on my last few journalism courses in order to complete my major and look forward to applying what I learned as an intern to the classroom.