government meetings and frosted cupcakes

It is now week 9 of 14 of this school semester and we’re really starting to get into the thick of it with projects, papers and midterms. Here’s what I’ve been learning recently. 

In my Intermediate News Reporting class, we have recently been discussing government meetings and how to report and cover them. While many of my classmates have never been to or covered a government meeting, I am among the few who have.  

Not surprisingly, we have been assigned to cover a government meeting of the Minnesota State House or Senate; our professor stated during class that, most of the time, it’s the small-town government meetings that are more interesting. I must agree. With a small town government meeting like the Waseca City Council, it is a lot easier for people on the council to express themselves. That freedom may sometimes lead to an interesting clash of personalities and ideas, which I find enticing and interesting to write about as a reporter. 

Like the little THC debacle or the occasional quips between board members - you guys make it interesting, and I appreciate that. 

In my Multimedia production and storytelling class, we got around $4,000 worth of camera equipment the other day. I don’t know how they trust us all with this stuff, expecting us to lug it around to and from class. In order to get accustomed to the equipment, we practiced setting up our tripods and taking our video camera on and off of it. And then my professor decided we would practice by making videos while she frosted cupcakes. 

She had this little table set up in the corner with a pan of unfrosted cupcakes she had made, and she said three at a time we would go up around the table and videotape her frosting, putting sprinkles on, and sticking a candle into the cupcake. And that’s what we did. We videoed her frosting and sprinkling three cupcakes, with different angles for each cupcake. 

I will say it was fairly comical looking around the room, all of us students standing there with our cameras atop the tripods waiting our turn to get video of cupcakes being decorated.  

In my social psychology class I learned that if you don’t like someone, you should do them a favor. And vice-versa, if someone doesn’t like you, you should ask a favor of them. It has to do with cognitive dissonance and the fact that no one likes when their actions and beliefs clash, so they change one of them–either the action or the belief. If you don’t like someone (your belief), that does not match doing something nice for them like a favor (your action). So your brain works to change one of them, and since you typically don’t change a favor once you do it, you change your thoughts or belief about the person - maybe they’re not so bad after all. 

For example, Benjamin Franklin tested this when he was in politics fighting against this one guy who didn’t like him. Franklin asked to borrow a book from the guy he didn’t like and when he was done reading it, he gave it back with a nice, heartfelt thank you note. After that, the guy came up to Franklin and would actually talk to him and eventually they became friends (if I remember correctly). Pretty cool, right? Learning is so fun. 

My Determination: “When you’re good to others, you’re best to yourself.”