Learning on the Fly

This has definitely been a week for a lot of learning, about quite a range of things. First off, softball. I don’t know what it is about Mondays, but they just aren’t kind to Team Weather. Last week we lost 15-2 on Monday, and this week we lost 11-1. What killed us again (apart from basically nobody being able on our team to hit the ball out of the infield) was giving the other team plenty of extra outs with fielding miscues, of which I was definitely responsible for a couple. I was playing short fielder and I completely misjudged a couple of fly balls that were coming straight at me; I jogged in for them, but they wound up going over my head. So when the third & fourth fly balls came my way later on, I learned from my mistakes and adjusted my approaches to the ball, and managed to catch it both times. At least it was a small measure of redemption, and I was able to prove that I’m only a partial (and not a complete) liability on defense out in the field. 🙂 A bit more practice would certainly help out my depth perception on those liners coming right toward me.
But while we’re 0-2 on Mondays so far this season, we must like Wednesdays, because we pushed our Hump Day record to 2-0 in impressive fashion. Last week we won 16-6, but this week we definitely had our best and most complete game as a team, winning 19-1 in 5 innings. Again, fielding was the primary difference in this one, as we didn’t make a single error that I can remember. We even conceded the run to turn a 6-4-3 double play in the final inning. Our bats were much more lively too, which always helps. Of note, Nat had two 2-run homers, and I forget who it was, but one of our guys had a 2-RBI sacrifice fly — you don’t see that too often! None of our games this year have even been close, with all four being decided by the mercy rule (twice for us and twice against us), and I wonder if we’ll have our fifth straight mercy-rule game on Monday. However it happens, I’d just like to see us break our Monday curse.
On the research front, I’ve been busy trying to learn from Adam about his codes, since he’s leaving for good after this week and I’m kind of taking over his projects. It’s kind of tough to keep everything straight, especially since it’s all rather interconnected and I’m not terribly familiar with Matlab or especially Fortran just yet. And maybe someday I’ll start to become familiar with all the acronyms for variables and other items of apparent interest to us that Joel & Dave were throwing around fast & furious today. Man, I felt so lost, and it was a horrible feeling. But once I get a little more help from Adam on learning his code in the morning, I should be mostly good to go on taking quite a bit more ownership on what’s to become really my project. And that’d be good, since I need to get the code working in order to get some results I kinda need to put on my poster that’s needing to be finished on Monday. Gotta love scrambling before a deadline.
This week I’ve also been learning how to put together the graphics for a show and then how to give an on-camera weathercast. Matt had Kerrie & I come in Tuesday night and tonight (Thursday) for our first on-air practice sessions. I’ve been nervous but looking forward to getting in front of the camera finally for quite some time, and Matt’s been a good teacher. So now I’ve given two “forecasts,” both of which I have on a tape that I’m most definitely saving for a good long time. (If you ask really nicely, I might even let you see it!) Tuesday night’s wasn’t too bad, at least for a first time ever doing that on camera. It really is a bit strange getting used to seeing yourself in multiple monitors and using those to try to figure out where to point and gesture and whatnot, but I’m enjoying the challenge. Tonight I definitely improved on my transitions from slide to slide, but I still need to work quite a bit on making bigger gestures and having a bit more confident body language. With a few more practice sessions I might be ready to go on air for CNET (the local community access channel, for which Campus Weather Service produces a videotaped three and a half minute forecast every weekday that gets aired at 5:55pm) in September! If things go really well I might even be able to get on in late August, but it’ll probably be September.
Even though I’d been gradually getting less keen on the idea of a career in broadcast meteorology over the last year or so (for various reasons), I must admit that after this week I’m really starting to think about it seriously again. I mean, ever since I was 5 years old I wanted to be a TV meteorologist when I grew up, and I’ve kept that as a goal in the back of my mind, even as I was deciding to be a physics major in undergrad at Gustavus (to give myself flexibility in case TV didn’t work out). So while that career option has become less appealing to me since I came to PSU, I’d be really disappointed in myself if I didn’t at least give it a shot here at Penn State, particularly with all the opportunities that are available here (that’s part of why I chose PSU for grad school, after all). I’d like to improve as much as I can in the coming months so that I can have a fair chance to evaluate what my options might be after graduation, but it’ll definitely take a pretty solid time commitment to do so; as with most things in life, lots of practice is required if you’re serious about improving. But in any case, I definitely think that my previous experience — working at the radio station, acting in several plays, being in Forensics for four years in high school, paying lots of attention to the weathercasts on the Twin Cities TV news for years while growing up, working behind the scenes for “Weather World” one day a week the past two semesters, having a pretty good grasp on my geography, and even performing in all those piano recitals over the years — all that experience is a tremendous help to me as I try to learn the ropes and become comfortable with this on-camera stuff. I guess I’ve always liked being on stage and performing, so this fits right in!