Today marks my second to last week at The News Herald as an intern. I've been here since August now and most of my time here has been spent learning.

Learning about tax laws. Learning about city council meeting procedure. Learning what the heck a millage is.

But yesterday and today, I finally got to start educating people.

I was asked to put together a story about local community meme pages on Facebook. A good 90 percent of the people in this office didn't even know what a meme was. Most people outside the Facebook generation don't know becuase they don't put in the endless internet hours that teenagers and young-adults do.

For those who don't know: memes are usually pictures of celebrities, cartoon characters or pop culture icons that have text added to them. The text either has to do with a perceived notion of the character, or sometimes has something to do with the scene from which the picture was taken.

It was fun actually getting to explain what memes were to people who didn't know. The thought of it is hard to explain at first, and even I was surprised that I was able to translate it so well.

It turns out that when I'm the one actually telling people what I know, as opposed to learning while I write, this journalism thing can be pretty fun.

Yesterday I spoke to my first audience as an up-and-coming journalist.

Three of us went to speak to a Girl Scout Troop and explain the importance of social media to them and how it shapes many of the things we do in our daily life.

The group of 11 and 12 year olds did an admirable job of paying attention, or at least pretending to, but speaking to them was actually fun. I've never been one for public speaking and like to keep my distance myself from throngs of loud children, but this was acutally enjoyable.

I mainly spoke to them about how important and beneficial internships, like this one, can be to college students. Employers rarely only want to see a degree on your resume, they want experience.

I also felt like I owed the Scouts something since I made it through cookie season without buying my usual flatbed truck of Samoas.

Per the request of my less-than-subtle coworkers here at the News Herald, here is my serious, not clever, not pithy, actually-about-my-internship blog.

My editor forwarded me an email a couple weeks ago about the Raymond Wojtowicz, the Wayne County Treasurer, and his "Let's Work Together" campaign to help ease backtaxes owed by businesses and residents.

I am both nervous and excited to say that I have an interview with Treasurer Wojtowicz next week that I am actually doing prep work for. No, I'm not watching his complete filmography or studying his award speeches. I'm learning his campaign's fact sheet start to finish.

I'm really not sure how else to prepare for the interview, it seems like its going to be a pretty straightforward Q&A about this specific campaign, which is fine with me. Let me learn to walk before I run.

I've never done an interview on the county level, and hopefully I'll get to speak to even higher public officials.

Wish me luck.

The 54th Annual Grammy Awards were last night at the Staples Center in LA, and as usual music's biggest and brightest stars from the past year were out in force.

The red carpet was pretty tame with the exception of Nicki Minaj showing up in some Little Red Riding Hood frock. Oh, and she opted for a pope instead of a clutch, dubbed by many as this year's "egg moment." Her semi-sacreligious performance was decent, but it was a little tired after GaGa's "Alejandro" and "Judas" videos. I'll admit I am still highly anticipating Minaj's new album, Pink Friday Roman Reloaded.

The only other red carpet happening that is worth mentioning is when Taylor Swift found out she was a pre-show winner and Ryan Seacrest asked her about it. "I'm so excited," she said, squinty eyes widened as much as possible and mouth gaping open. She's always "so excited." I could make a video montage of her reactions and it would look like a still image.

P.S. - It was a pre-show award. You'd probably be "so excited" if you won a game of bingo.

Bruce Springsteen opened the show, which plenty of people seemed excited about. But my generation speaks through me when I say I wasn't terribly interested in it.

LL Cool J was a decent host. His small opening prayer for Whitney Houston was overshadowed by the awkward number of times he had reassure everyone that the prayer was his idea and his alone and that it was how he personally felt about the situation and on one should feel pressure to pray about everything. Now I remember why I unfollowed him, or whichever assistant is in charge of the account, on Twitter: endless retweets of inspriational quotes and people saying hi flooding my feed.

Once the nominations went out it was easy to see that Adele would win every award she was nominated for. Not that the other artists weren't as deserving as her, but it was blatantly her year. So once she won the first award, all I saw was:

On the mend from vocal chord surgery, her's was easily the most anticipated performance of the night, and she BROUGHT it. Her weepy speech for album of the year was semi-comprehensible, but when she started babbling in her British drawl all I saw was Audrey Hepburn as pre-Higgins Eliza Dolittle, and loved every second of it.

I'm really not sure why they allowed Chris Brown a performance, let alone two of them in a single night. The first one began with his raw voice blaring, which I knew wouldn't last long. Once again his set focused on his footwork rather than his voice. It's the Grammys, Chris, you don't bring a dance to a sing fight.

Then they had the gall to give him an actual award. You can nominate him all you want, but it will always be in bad taste to actually award him for anything he does from here out. He still get's testy when you speak about his domestic disturbance with Rihanna, (see Robyn Roberts GMA interview that ended with a chair going through a window) and he thinks that the present and future can completely mask the past. It can't.

Taylor Swift was already mentioned in this post once. If you want to read a review of her performance go elsewhere. The second she came on I left to go tweeze my eyebrows.

Once they announced Katy Perry as the next performer I prayed to everything sacred in the music industry for her to lip sync. Michael's sequined glove and Armstrong's trumpet came through for me, while Bjork's swan dress sulked a the corner.

She performed a new single, which was decent, nothing terribly deviant from her previous singles, but her blue crimped weave was messed.

Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood did a lovely rendition of "It Had To Be You," but all I saw and heard was Marla Hooch.

The somber note of the evening was Jennifer Hudson's tribute to the late and great Whitney Houston. The tribute fell a little short for my liking, especially for someone who was once so well known. Granted they only had 24 hours to put it together, but Hudson could have sang more than one song, or a video montage of her hits could have easily been done. I guess I'll have to hope that "The Bodyguard" was brilliant enough that she'll get the tribute she deserves at The Academy Awards in a couple weeks.

No matter what the autopsy reports say, I'll know deep down that it was the crushing reality that she was foolish enough to marry Bobby Brown that got her in the end. She was preceded in death by her voice, which died some time ago after extensive abuse and neglect. I hope they have adjacent burial plots.

RIP

For a complete list of winners from last night's Grammy Awards, check out http://blog.music.aol.com/2012/02/12/grammy-2012-winners/

As inconceivable as it seems, I'm actually going to write a post that's relevant to the title of this blog.

Yesterday I covered Trenton's State of the City Address, and it was an honorable presentation, especially considering it was the Mayor's first official public speaking event.

Some of the most memorable moments had nothing to with the city at all, but rather the citizens and officials attending the event.

I arrived at the event, ready to eat some free food and listen to a speech, so I sat down at one of the tables closer to the podium where someone else had already draped their coat over the back of a chair. A promising 2 hour friendship was about to be formed, a duration long enough to hear about a job and lack of free time, but short enough that I'd avoid hearing about dreams, goals and relationship issues.

But about five minutes after I sat down she picked her coat up and moved across the room. Yes I wore deodorant. No, I did not fart. Yes, I was well behaved. No, I did not have crap in my teeth.

That's fine. I didn't want to hear about why she named all five of her cats "Paul" and gave each one a different spelling anyway.

After being left in solitude, people began venturing toward the buffet to fix their plates and engorge on a beef and noodle dish. Of course I had to get up there with everyone else, I didn't have to pay admission, who knew if they were even going to let me eat?

As I was finishing my salad one of the convention center workers came over to the tables adjacent to mine and told them they could go get in line for food now. Whoops. As a woman at the table to the left rose, she eyed my already full plate and shot me a quick glare before proceeding to join the rest in line. The only thing stopping her from lunging at my food in primal fury was surely the tight grip I had on my plastic fork. Always defend your kill, lest the scavengers attempt to take it.

The crowning moment of the pre-speech meal was when a woman, friend of the glarer, dropped her plate food-side down on the floor when she was but two steps from her chair. A worried "Oh shhhhhhhhhoot" was all she had to say about it. Her self-control was impressive. If I had just spilled a wondrous bounty all over the floor the thought of having to stand in line again would have been enough to string together a memorable chain of vulgarity that would never be forgotten.

The excitement died down after that and the mayor began her speech. There was little in the way of further comic relief.

I said the post would be relevant to the title, not dripping with meaningful experiences.

For the actual story about the Trenton State of the City Address by Mayor Kyle Stack look on thenewsherald.com

So, I need to make a professional Facebook and Twitter page so I can get the word that I'm social media savvy but also mature. Ugh.

Facebook won't be too bad, becuase whatever reader base I get is bound to friend or like my page, so the people who want to know what's going on will be there. But Twitter is going to be a whole different story. Not as many people use Twitter, and the ones that do have the attention span of 140 characters. Sure, my headline writing will get put to the test, but first you have to find followers who actually care what you Tweet. Ugh again.

By the end of this semester I'd like to have a professional Facebook page and a professional Twitter page with at least 50 followers. God help me.

As you've probably guessed from my previous Disney blog, I enjoy a good animated feature. Emphasis on good.

So of course I went to see Beauty and the Beast when it was re-released in another profit ploy by the company. The classics are so much more enjoyable when you are old enough to catch every lyric to every song and every slight piece of adult humor.

I mean, when it only takes you 5 million to remaster color and add 3D effects but then you make almost 30 million opening weekend, why wouldn't you recycle the classics? (See The Lion King 3D)

Apparently Disney has set the stage for other silver screen gems to return to theaters and offer us a third dimension of... fun?

Well, I guess it would be fun, if all the re-releases were exciting. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace will be back early next month, and hopefully the others will follow.

But the more disturbing site was the poster I saw atop all the others at the local MJR: Titanic. Set to be re-released in April in 3D.

I can only imagine how thrilling it will be to watch a pre-pubescent Leondaro Dicaprio run around a boat jumping and screaming at my face. I may get coerced into seeing it with friends, where I'll promptly fall asleep and set an alarm to wake me up in time for the sinking scene so that guy that falls down the length of the ship and richochets off the propeller will smack me in the face. Then I'll promptly bribe the nice man in the projection room to loop that scene at least 4 times.

Maybe if they added a scene like this it'd do better.