A couple weeks ago...

I arrived early to the event. It was the African International Social put on by African Loyalist student. I went to the cafeteria and sat down, patienly waiting for the night to begin. I started taking my notepad and pen out of my bag to begin writing about the night. I took out my camera to get some photographs of the people setting up. I realized I shoud probably help them set up as opposed to being the creepy guy watching them with a camera. Always create trust with the people in your story.

Students slowly started piling in. I was concentrated on meeting with one man, William Reech, a broadcast journalism student. He is a refugee from Kenya and he came to Canada five years ago. I met with him and introduced myself as a journalist and how I would like to ask him a few questions. We chatted for about seven minutes, talking about his experience in the Sudan (that's where he was originally from) and how the country is complety ravaged by the war. He spoke about the process it takes to come here and how difficult it is. They sit you down and attack you with hard questions about why you want to go and what you'll do here. After we stopped talking, I was glad that he came here because he is a very friendly man. He seemed genuine.

The night continued on. Another man played the congos and sang. Photographers stood around and shot their pictures and so did I. But it was more enjoyable to listen to him play his music. There were little children happily dancing away to the beat of the drums. I think I tapped my foot. I'm not a dancer.

They served us various types of beans and rice which I chose not to eat. I had already eaten beforehand. But the food looked delicious.

Shortly after, four girls began to dance to African music. They were quite talented and danced better than any person I know! Then disaster struck. The man who had been playing the congos earlier started to play again so I went to take some better pictures. I turned on my camera and it said, "ERR 99". I lost all my pictures and my CF card was fried. I left the event early and drove back home, extremely depressed and sad.

And now to make a long story short, the card was replaced for free with a better one, and thanks to photo recovery software, I was able to salvage most of my photos.

I am now in the process of writing my second major assignment for my "Reporting and Newswriting" class. I'll need a lot of coffee to get me through this next couple days. I probably won't blog until then.