As a print journalist, I've always been far more comfortable with a digital recorder in my hands than with a digital camcorder. I enrolled in this course because I knew that it was certainly going to be interesting to practice different mediums, and each such field - video, in particular - has become more and more useful in the changing face of journalism.

I've been involved with newspapers of some kind for more than four years now, but the last time I even got behind a professional camera was ninth grade. I'm not worried about the rigors of video journalism; I'm just not sure what to expect, really. I figure the same concepts that work in print journalism - piecing together insightful clips from a variety of interesting sources - also work in video journalism, but I have no idea how.

From watching the videos shown to us in class last Friday, it seemed to me that the best clips had stuff that didn't really need intervention from a journalist to capture. Those videographers weren't asking questions to grab great quotes. Rather, they were merely training their lenses on what was happening around them and letting the magic happen naturally. Since I don't always enjoy asking the so-called "tough questions," I think that freedom of the field is definitely going to be something I will relish in the coming weeks.

Overall, though, I'm very excited to again get behind a camera and see what I can do. I know I'll take my share of lumps throughout the process, but it's a skill that I nonetheless really hope to acquire, even at its most basic level.