Hey folks! You’re probably here because I badgered you into looking at my blog and you’re sick of looking at Harlem Shake videos. I know I am.

This will be my little slice of Internet where I opine about… well, whatever I feel like opining about. It’ll also hopefully give you an idea of what kind of skills and talents I have, if you’re looking to hire me for gainful employment.

I have an About link off to the side here (or up top, or wherever the free theme I pick for my blog dictates where links show up) if you want to read up about me, but if you’d rather stay on this page, here we go.

I’m Patty. Yes, like Patty Mayonnaise from the seminal ’90s cartoon Doug. I’m in the home stretch of my time here at the University of Georgia; my magazine journalism and visual journalism degree is practically in my hands. It’s been a great run, but I’m ready to get to the next chapter of my life. Hopefully that chapter involves getting paid for being a journalist. I will more than likely be holding down a day job until my freelancing can keep the folks who want my money off my back for more than a month.

Five years from now, I hope to be an arts/culture editor at a national magazine or website, preferably one that my parents have heard of. (Isn’t that how you know you’ve made it?) Ten years from now, I hope to be giving an acceptance speech for my first Pulitzer. And so on and so forth.

When I was a kid, I had these grandiose visions of landing a sweet full-time job with a fat salary and mind-blowing benefits straight out of college. Maybe at that period in history, it was a reasonable expectation (I will not tell you what that period was, lest I date myself). I have since had a rude awakening, watching friends of mine with prestigious degrees from equally prestigious universities not land a salaried full-time gig until three years after graduation, working as servers and baristas and bartenders in the meantime. Many of them who had no previous aspirations of grad school were gathering their materials and taking the GRE. I don’t want that to be me. That dream we were fed as kids just doesn’t hold up anymore. An honest job is an honest job. I just hope for my honest job to be related to my degree as soon after graduation as possible.

I’m mostly interested in the word side of journalism. I love writing, and coming up with interview questions is my favorite part of the process (along with conducting the actual interview). My second favorite is that moment when the perfect lede for my story just pops into my head, like a cute little Dobby-esque figure whispered it into my ear along with a supportive pat on the back.

As far as my favorite things to write about, my interests mostly lie in music, films, TV shows, etc., but I can certainly be persuaded to write about just about anything. (In a different life, one where I’m not abysmally bad at math and science, I’d have gone to medical or law school. I am not afraid of writing about either of those topics.) For a while there, music and movie reviews were my bread and butter. I learned how to articulate why I felt a certain way about a work that went beyond whether or not I liked it, which I think bodes well for articulating one’s opinion on just about anything. Whenever I’m experiencing a new album or movie for the first time, I have sentences bouncing around in my head and behind my eyelids that I have to write down before I forget them.

I recognize the value of community journalism, and would like to do it at some point in my life. I don’t know that I could do it forever, but I definitely have it in me to do it for a few years. The time I spent with my Documentary Photojournalism cohorts tooling around Franklin County, Ga., on a frosty weekend in February was, aside from a ton of fun, eye-opening for me. People matter. Their stories matter. Making them feel special by telling their stories in a meaningful way? That matters a lot.

On that note, I also love taking photos and have spent a good chunk of my time and energy doing just that in college. A couple of my photos were published on AutoWeek.com when our class covered the 2012 Petit Le Mans road race, so that was pretty cool. I love it, but not as much as I love words. I particularly love concert photography and feature-y, slice-of-life photos. Detail shots are my favorite; they’re what I notice first in a given situation.

Well, this got pretty lengthy, pretty quickly.