Once upon a time, there was a strange little girl named Kirsten Petersen (more commonly known on Facebook as Kirsten F) who lived in Olney, Maryland (even though her Press Pass says Annapolis). She aspired to become a journalist who was as respected for her writing ability as Michael Jackson was respected for his musical genius (or Shakespeare for his poetry, or Dr.Seuss for his whimsy).
One day, she was sitting in her chorus classroom when a beautiful young messenger (disguised as a pubescent teenager) skipped into the room and delievered to her a letter laden in golden-and-emerald-colored ink. Yes, it was indeed the invitation to the Washington Journalism and Media Conference!
At first, she felt confused; what could she have possibly done to receive such a nomination? She attended James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. She wrote for her school’s award winning student newspaper, The Blake Beat, and would become the paper’s Co-Editor in Chief in Fall of 2009. She won the Bowie-Crofton Soroptomist International Violet Richardson Award in 2009 for her lovely volunteer work with the non-profit, Project Change. And she had a cat named Emma Claire (more fondly known as Pooh). What did she do to earn this nomination?Obviously, a whole bunch of stuff.
Because of this nomination, strange little girl Kirsten was transformed into a beautiful and intelligent journalist-in-training. She is now enjoying a fantastically fantastical week at George Mason University, and hopes to learn so much about journalism and the changing world of media and what she can do about it that her head will start spinning and eventually explode.
After this week is over, Kirsten hopes to take over her high school (as Beat EIC, as the SGA Environmental Coordinator, and as a generally awesome person) and then go off the college somewhere special. Like University of Maryland, College Park; American University; or Sarah Lawrence College.
