another sam chan: the student blogger

Last Friday the 13th, I had the benefit of going on the first field trip created by the SFU Communication Student Union ever. It’s the first field I’ve been on since grade 8 when I went to the nearby pool for a year end party (hardly a trip at all) so naturally, I was pretty excited. The destination was CBC Vancouver and I have to say, even though I was pretty sure I was going to have a good time, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I am pleased to say that everybody we met there was extremely down to earth and highly encouraged us to ask questions of any caliber and were extremely informative, sharing career advice and behind the scenes tricks. They even answered me when I asked them if news anchors wear pants while on air (The answer was no, but Claire Martin said that’s a lie).

If there was one minor setback, its that no video cameras were allowed inside due to security reasons. As a result, I have compiled a bunch of pictures, along with the pre-trip and some of the student’s thoughts into a short vlog. Special thanks goes out to Brianna and the SFU CMNSU for making it happen, and Tiffany from CBC for showing us around.

Also, introducing Queenie as the co-’host’! Enjoy!

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In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of joining in on Dot Com Pho – an event that takes place every Saturday where Vancouver’s internet gurus’ get together to talk smack on the latest iPhone apps and enjoy some wonderful Vietnamese dining. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts because of the poor economy, my two episode stint got mashed into one. To make matters even worse, Head substitute honcho Stephen Fung decided to take a break from regular Pho dining and have regular gwai lo breakfast instead.

So here we are:

On a serious note, it was great to put some faces onto people I interact with Twitter every day and I learned a whole bunch of stuff (like how to magnetize cutlery). When I tell people that I want to be a ‘professional’ blogger, I often get a lot of “are you serious?” looks. To many, blogging is associated with hobbies like Xanga and Facebook. At meetups like Dot Com Pho, people there treat blogging as both a lifestyle and a career. If that intrigues you, I definitely encourage you to try and make it to one. They welcome anybody and everybody! In fact, you don’t even need a blog.

PS – in case you’re wondering if @stephenfung and @iphoneincanada are faking their constant argument to create publicity- they are 10x worse in real life. Trust me.

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