Senior Jenny Jessen is working as an intern this week at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. She will be updating this post every day with her experiences working behind the scenes.

Updated Sept. 11 at 8:18 a.m.

Friday:

Today isn’t really worthy of a post, but as I am still here I guess I’ll give you an update. Today is the day all the glamour is stripped away. The press boxes are dismantled, the workspace is gutted and the convention center and arena return to their normal, non-political appearances. So today I took apart tables, stacked chairs and coiled wires for an hour before I was driven to the airport so that I could return to the mundane life of a high schooler – which is where I am sitting right now. The airport is PACKED because everyone is trying to get home today. A fun little fact I found out is that the DNC used TSA security people to man the checkpoint at the venues and the man who was running the scanner-thingy I went through was my security friend who gave me the umbrella – small world! For the DNC as a whole I had an absolutely fabulous time, and if ever given the chance I would go back without a question, and I strongly suggest that everyone who is even the slightest bit politically inclined go to at least one convention (regardless of party affiliation) because it is an amazing and astounding experience!

Thursday:

If there was anyway to describe today it would be pure and total chaos, but good chaos. We started the morning off slowly, getting some coffee (caffeine was a necessity by now) and meandering to the workspace. We sat around for a little bit and then went out to get some good lunch for all the producers (again, we were getting sick of the excessive amount of preservatives in our food). After lunch we were asked to do a “little favor” for the producers which entailed handwriting 150 shipping labels – not my favorite part of the day but necessary and part of the job. As soon as the labels were done we headed off to the arena before security got too tight and the buildings would be “frozen” so the presidential motorcade could go by. Of course, as soon as we got to the door the sky opened and it just POURED. We still had to go through security which luckily was under a tent. Remember that security guard I befriended? Well he took pity on me and gave me one of the confiscated umbrellas to make my trek through the rain. I gave the umbrella to one of our correspondents from Irish TV because he was already done with make up and if he went through the rain he would have looked like, and I quote, “a box of melted crayons”, which is not what you want a top correspondent to look like on live television. We finally got into the arena and to our skybox. About five minutes later, much to my surprise, Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of Public Education in D.C., walked in to do a interview with Inside Edition (if any of you watched that I was right behind the camera which was pretty cool). After she finished I asked for a picture and then we talked about how I want to take on public education in the future and how I was writing my Extended Essay on public education and its pitfalls, specifically focusing on the D.C. metro area. She said she would gladly do an interview with me, and gave me her email address to contact her after the convention. When Gabriel Giffords came out on the stage to do the Pledge of Allegiance the entire arena exploded with applause. I thought it was exceptionally moving and a wonderful, patriotic move by the Democratic party. The night continued on and we watched Dr. Jill Biden’s speech and half of Joe Biden’s from the skybox when our bosses, Sarah and Emilie, came by and told us to come with them as fast as we could. Honore and I thought we were in trouble and once we got to the stairs they told us we had a ton of extra floor passes and we were going to try to get on the floor for Obama’s speech. I can’t even tell you how different of an experience being on the floor is compared to being up with the press. There was so much energy and everyone was “fired up” and “ready to go” and it was just amazing. One problem was that we always had to keep moving so that we didn’t block any aisles or get strongly reprimanded by the fire marshals, so we missed the rest of Biden’s speech. When Obama took the stage the entire arena went berserk. We were standing at the back of the first level for the beginning, but soon decided we needed to be closer. While we were walking down the side we realized that no one was telling the people on the ledge (it’s like half a step up from the aisle on the floor) to move and that there was a gap in the…. wait for it….. FRONT ROW. So I got to watch Obama’s speech from the side of the front row of the floor and, because I had a press pass, I could have gone up on the curtain (the divider between the steps of the stage and the crowd) if I had been using an Iphone to take pictures. I, the unfortunate child with a non-smart phone, was not able to take advantage of this, but Honore and Emilie were (I was so jealous). As soon as Obama finished speaking, the crowd became a mass of enthusiasm, energy and chants of “four more years”. When confetti poured into the arena the masses of people somehow summoned more energy, and even more energy when the First Family, the Second Family and all the important people got up on stage. Once they left the stage we made a beeline for the door and beat the crowd out of the arena. I used my talent of bobbing and weaving through crowds – which I had perfected in the overcrowded halls of AHS – to get back up to the skybox before anyone else. I then faced the choice of staying until 3am and getting a picture with Anderson Cooper and all other sorts of famous people, or leaving around midnight and getting a reasonable amount of sleep. I chose the latter, and, after going on a scavenger hunt through the parking garage to find the van, arrived at the hotel ready to pass out from exhaustion.

Wednesday:

Today was much more relaxed than yesterday. We headed into the Convention Center around 9 a.m. but didn’t really have anything to do until 12:30 when we were supposed to pick up a camera guy back at the hotel. Sarah told us that if we wanted we could go early and get ourselves a good lunch. We jumped at the chance because after eating stadium food for three days you begin to crave something with more real food than preservatives. After making our lunch run and picking up the camera guy we headed back to the Convention Center and relaxed for a little bit, but soon enough we were headed back to the arena to set up our station to hand out credentials. And that was where we stayed until Bill Clinton’s speech. The fun part about working with the press is that you get copies of the speeches the speakers are supposed to make and you get to sit with a group of people with a mixture of political beliefs which makes for wonderful commentary throughout the speeches. One of the CBS guys was watching the speech and realized that Bill Clinton was ad-libbing for a good deal of his speech. Either way he really got the crowd enthused and when Obama came on stage the arena went, for lack of a better word, NUTS! As we left the arena around 11 p.m. Michelle Rhee walked by us and I decided I had to get a picture with her the next day.

Tuesday:

Today is the actual start of the DNC, so things were a lot more hectic today. I started the day at 11 a.m. – a really late start – but when I got there I immediately got to work. I started by counting leftover credentials and making sure we had enough to go around. As soon as I finished, I was told to help escort a guy to his live shot which was in the arena, three blocks from the convention center. We had a fiasco with credentials (an underlying theme in this convention) but finally got him to his shot on time. I spent the better portion of the afternoon between the convention center and the arena running errands for my three bosses – Emilie, Priya and Sarah – and making friends with the security guards who now know my name (small victory?). Around 3:30 I was told to stay at the arena (I was very happy to hear this as I had walked nearly 5 miles) and help – you guessed it – handing out floor credentials. Luckily, the interest was pretty low for most of the night so I got to watch all the speakers from the skybox. Some pretty cool stuff happens up there. We share a space with CBS, as I said before, so I get to meet the anchors from CBS and of course their special guests, one of whom was Rahm Emanuel. He smiled and waved at me and if I wanted to I could have reached out and shook his hand, but he was working and we were supposed to be professional. Probably the highlight of my night was the fact that I got a wonderful seat to see Michelle give her speech. That, and the fact that Anderson Cooper’s work station is only three skyboxes away. I also got to see Eva Longoria as I was leaving – another star sighting! We left right after the benediction which was around 11:45 p.m. to go back to the workstation. We ended up actually leaving the convention center 12:15 a.m., but apparently that’s a normal schedule here. When I got back to the hotel I really wanted to do nothing but sleep but I hadn’t had dinner yet – everything was so busy we just didn’t have time – so I ate some leftovers and then slept for a few measly hours before dragging myself out of bed to go back to work.

Monday:

To get into any venue at the convention, you need credentials. Credentials to get into the Convention Center where the workspace is, credentials to get into the Time Warner Arena where the actual convention is, extra credentials to get to the Founder’s Floor and the actual Floor of the arena, the list goes on. And of course, these credentials don’t just magically appear in your hotel when you need them, you have to go pick them up. So that was what I spent most of my day doing – handing out credentials to EuroVison clients. To start the day off though I toured our work space (it’s a computer paradise, with cables everywhere and monitors on every table and people rushing in and out) and then went to the arena and saw where the Live Feeds were going to be taken. Eurovison shares its work space with CBS, so sometimes the live shots are on the Suite Level (the view is the same as the view you get from behind the Fox News or CNN guys) and other times they are an aerial view of the stadium from the second floor. After I was shown these rooms, I was sent uptown to the location where we were distributing credentials. I think the most exciting part of today was my adventure through Charlotte, mostly because I went the wrong direction for about two blocks, then ran into sidewalk closures and finally made it to the location only to find myself incapable of finding the front door, much to the amusement of the security guard. The flow of people to get our credentials was pretty slow, so I had a lot of time to get to know the woman I would be working closest with. At one point we bet a bag of chips on how long the rain storm would last. Sadly, I lost. We ended the day around 5 p.m., and headed back to our hotel (the central hub for all hotel reservations for the media) where I spent the rest of the evening doing what all high schoolers do – homework.