GLAAD National POC Media Institute-Day 2

After a wonderful first day and night hanging out with my Media Institute classmates and Janet Mock, 8:00 AM came way too soon this morning.   It was time for us to start Day 2 of the GLAAD National POC Media Institute.

We were going to spend the day at a television studio getting professional makeovers and putting into practice what we learned yesterday in front of the unblinking eye of a HD camera.

Since I took the plunge and went first in class yesterday, I earned the opportunity to chill out,  get made up by our makeup artist DeAngelo and his assistant, watch everybody else go through our individual interviews, and be constructively critiqued by Joel and our GLAAD team.

Note TransGriot readers, sometimes volunteering to go first pays off.

It was after lunch before I finally got my turn in front of the camera for my individual interview, and there was major improvement from yesterday.   I also had the opportunity to do a second round of 'Meet The Press' style interviews while being paired with a classmate. 

You know what they say about what happens when you're having fun, and the clock hitting 4 PM meant that Day 2 was over along with the GLAAD National POC Media Institute.

While I'm a little sad it's over, I did get to meet a few of my goals that I'd set before I came to this training.  I wanted to get not only some experinece doing on-camera interviews, I also wanted to get as comfortable in front of a camera as I am in front of a radio microphone.  I made some steps and progress in getting to that comfort level and I'm confident with time and repetition I'll eventually get there.  

One of the other things that happened is I'm headed back to Texas with more friends and allies than I arrived with.

So to my 2012 GLAAD POC Media Institute classmates (New York Division) Pierre, Ardranae, Arianna, Thomas, Shawn, Jonathan, Joseph,  Pamela, Tiq, Maya, Je-Shawna, and Vincent, our media trainer Joel and the GLAAD team of Daryl, Monica, Marcus, Brian and Geoff, thank you for a wonderful and informative weekend and looking forward to working with y'all in future projects and endeavors    

I also thank you New York rainbow community for showing me some love.  That means a lot to me to know how much y'all appreciate what I do and my role as an elder statewoman in our trans community.


To you folks who are about to go through the LA Division of the GLAAD National POC Media Institute, you're about to have a wonderful experience.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did in New York.