I'm back!! And preparing to leave again!

I got back from I-CAL (Intercollegiate Agriculture Leadership) a few weeks ago. We spent two weeks looking at the agriculture in Egypt and Morocco. The program was partly funded by the Untied States Grain Council so we were able to see how they have impacted international agriculture- I hope to post more on my experience later- it was amazing. Of all the countries I have ever been to, Egypt and Morocco had some of the friendliest people in the world, with New Zealand close behind. I have never seen such hospitality- it ran deep, regardless of whether we were speaking with Egypt's minister of agriculture or if we were at a women's cooperative in Morocco that were living off of less than $1 a day. Pictures  and stories to come later!

I also just finished up a long weekend, June 11-14th at the Boone County fairgrounds where I worked with Kyle Spradely, an Ag Journalism Senior, taking pictures for the annual Red Power Round Up. I have never seen so many International Harvester tractors in my life! We took pictures of restored tractors from all over the country and attendees from all over the world- including New Zealand and Japan! It felt like I was back home- surrounded by tractors and people wanting to talk about their farming equipment. It was a great experience and I will be working on the show book for that here shortly once we have a meeting and the pictures are ready. Hopefully this will turn out to be a nice piece for both mine and Kyle's portfolios. 

Not being one to sit still- I am preparing to leave for Beijing, China for the 2008 Summer Olympics the first of July. I have started to pack now so that when the time comes, I can spend my last few days in the states working on the Red Power Round Up book. I have also been working on catching up on some readings to prepare myself to interview gymnastics athletes once they are done competing. This should prove to be a great journalism internship. I did find out the other day that the exact translation of trampoline- which is an official olympic sport- from Chinese to english is "bed bouncing"! How's that for fact of the day? But I need to get back to typing notes from I-CAL, just wanted to share what all I was up to- I can't even imagine how next summer can compete with this one! Each summer in college gets better and better, at some point in time there has to be a plateau- unless someone sends me to Iceland...