19 December 2009

Mort de francais

Walking into the small library where the ceremony was going to be was like walking into an international party in which no one knew what they were supposed to be doing. Rather, that's exactly what it was. The group of French graduates was small, and the library was even smaller. Of the French majors graduating -- there were seven or eight of us -- only three had shown up. It was combined with the Classics department to add a few more bodies to the entire thing.

I came in wearing my black gown over my dress, but once there for a few minutes I took it off. Only the three Classics graduates were wearing their caps and gowns, and who wants to look like one of them, anyhow? Maybe I shouldn't make fun of them too much; I did take a semester of Latin once upon a time in high school...

So we entered and no one really did anything. The cliques stood in their circles and stared at eachother, and every once in a while one of them would venture a glance at the table in the middle of the room, whose aroma of colors was enticing everybody. The food in the middle of the room was calling my name, too. Marshmallows, hors d'oeuvres, fondue, strawberries...it was all just sitting there, waiting. But no one was eating any of it; none of us were sure if it was open to eat or not.

Then one of the Dean dudes (no idea what his name is, oh well) told us to hurry up and start eating. Can I just say, fondue is awesome? Melting delicious things and pouring them on top of other delicious things is rather a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Of all the moments that happened after trying to look like I wasn't hoarding food, I believe my favorite was the instant the French Dean dude informed us that he wanted the graduates to tell the room about our senior capstone theses. Hm. The Classics Dean dude had known everything about his students--where they were from, where they were going, that sort of thing. You can imagine how much his French Dean dude counterpart knew about me, considering that I still don't know his name.

After he announced that he'd like us all to share about our papers, I glanced around the room and found my acquaintances, whose faces were suddenly in contortions of pain, fear, and a little bit of annoyance. It was a little silly; they'd only written 15 pages or so on their respective topics, and there I was, 45 pages floating somewhere in my mind, and they had the nerve to pretend to complain. I glanced at the list of alphabetical graduates in my hand. I would be second to speak, and with this in mind, I gathered my thoughts as succinctly as possible.

All I did next was lift my chin, square my shoulders, and speak a little above my normal volume. Apparently the effect was commanding, because the whispered side conversations stopped and everyone I looked at was looking right back at me. Does this mean that I'm a good public speaker? Maybe. Think of it this way: I like showing off, and being praised. I'm trying very hard not to brag. And now this blog has turned completely away from my intent of telling stories. Well, I mean, minor intent, anyways.

Before we left I rethanked my French advisor/prof for helping me this past semester. She told my dad that I was a hard worker. Thinking about that thesis now....well...let's just say that I'm ecstatically happy that it happened. Emphasis on the past tense.

Death of Journalism

I was wearing the fancy dress and the leather boots with the top folded over. The dangling earrings, a single bracelet. Mascara was layered a couple of times over my eyelashes, creating a somewhat fancy effect. Looking around, I didn't feel over or under dressed. Other girls were wearing five-inch heels and dresses that almost hit them in appropriate places on their legs, but that was pretty much the only difference.

The line of people wasn't moving anywhere, and I didn't know anyone. I mean, of course I recognized people. I'd taken classes with them for the past three years. They'd been in and out of my life on Tuesdays and Thursdays as long as I had been around. So I sort of knew who they were. They're all the same, anyway. "What're you doing after?" "Getting drunk, hells yeah."

No one has any original responses. Even my "I'm baking Christmas cookies with one of my friends" was met with a few raised eyebrows and one "I'll bet you could totally down a couple shots in between batches." After that was a "Ooh, yeah, I guess you couldn't put vodka in cookies."

I smirked a little and shook my head, and chose to look at my phone. I was talking to a couple of my friends, none of whom were at the ceremony, but I didn't mind that at all. When I finished a reply, the line suddenly started moving. My black gown billowed in the breeze that followed immediately afterwards, and I lifted up a hand to steady my cap. The tassels were pulling it forward and their fringe was whipping itself into my eyes. We were all taking tiny, tiny steps up to the doors to go inside, and when I glanced back at the rest of the line I had to laugh: every other girl behind me was also delicately gripping the four-cornered horror on her head with wide eyes.

Once inside, we entered the auditorium to the sound of clapping and catcalls and probably some recorded music that we couldn't really hear. The walk down to our rows of seats was slightly dangerous -- the incline of the floor tilted so much that they almost could have used stairs. I held my head up and grinned at my family as I walked past. We plopped down into our chairs and pretended to listen to the Dean and to the speaker, a supposed hot-shot advertiser who spent more time reading his notes than speaking. I felt almost ridiculous for texting during my own graduation ceremony, but really, once I heard "You can't be afraid to fail", I felt I had learned enough for the day.

They hooded the masters students before the undergrads, which makes complete sense. As the four of them came up individually and were given their honors and applause, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of person would actually want to acquire a master's degree in journalism. I still don't have an answer. A very curious person or a person who really loves people?

With the master's degrees out of the way, they had the rest of us stand up and line up against the wall as they read our names off of the index cards we handed them. I had slipped my phone into my boot, and with every step I took it fell a little further into the boot, rubbing against the thin cloth and making a slightly strange vibration on top of my foot. When it was my turn I handed over the index card and lifted my head so my jawline was level with the floor, and when my name was called I concentrated on making a beeline for Dean Voakes, who was smiling at me emptily -- he had no idea who I was. Later my family told me that I walked across the stage like a snobby ballerina. Graceful and proud. I was only walking.

The chocolate cake they had at the reception upstairs was utterly boring and fifteen minutes after walking across the stage, we were returning to the cars and driving back home. I ran my fingertips over the glossy black diploma cover and closed my eyes. It was a pretty nice feeling.

03 December 2009

Third grade

The room was very quiet. Even the class on the other side of the temporary wall was practically silent; all I could hear were squeaky chairs and every once in a while someone would sigh. My page was half-full of writing, which is what it was supposed to be. I glanced up at my teacher, who was seated at her desk, looking down at something.

I blinked and looked down. Without moving my head, I looked to either side. No one else seemed to be looking around, which was good. They weren't supposed to. My half-full page seemed to be looking at me with an eyebrow raised, waiting. I sniffed at it and closed my eyes, trying to remember what I'd forgotten. The verse was there, splayed on my page in gray scratches.

My eyes opened again, and I hunched in my seat a little. The teacher was still at her desk, but she was looking out the window. I reached into my desk, into the tiny cubby that was resting just above my knees, and pulled out the book. It wasn't too heavy, and oh-so-quietly I drew it out to rest on my lap with its top few inches still laying in the desk. Flipping pages seems so much louder when the only nearby sound is breathing.

I checked what I found in the book against what I had written at the very top of the page. The overall section was right, but some numbers...well, they had to be changed. Mistakes weren't allowed. I lifted my pencil again, this time with the pink end down, and rubbed at the numbers, smooshing them into oblivion. I glanced up. The teacher was just looking around the room, but not at me. There was no need to look at me. My pencil was flipped over and the numbers were rewritten; and even though it was only the slightest change I felt instantly relieved.

Sitting back in my chair, I surveyed the classroom. Other people were still writing, or pounding their foreheads with their fists.

"Michelle," my teacher said, sounding as though she hadn't wanted to say my name at all, "I need to talk to you a minute. Something loud started thumping in my chest, and my throat closed up.

"Ok," I said. I followed her outside the classroom and into the hallway by the glass doors.

"Did you have your Bible verse memorized today?"

"Yeah."

"So what was that book in your lap?" I breathed as quietly as I could, widening my eyes. Quickly my options danced in my mind and I smiled a little.

"My Bible," I said honestly.

"Why did you need your Bible if you had your verse memorized?"

"I was checking the verse numbers."

"The reference?"

"Yes. I didn't want to get it wrong," I said.

"You know that's cheating, don't you, Michelle?"

"I...But I only checked it!" My teacher pressed her lips together and crossed her arms.

"Even so. You need to understand that you can't do that. I'm going to need you to stay here for recess."

"Oh." It seemed like the best thing to say at the moment. She turned and opened the door to the room again, letting me enter before her. I held my head low and almost didn't look up on my way back to my chair.

"Ok, everybody. Pencils down and flip your papers over," she said. Several people groaned as they flipped over their notebook pages and lifted them to our teacher's waiting hands as she walked by. When she got to me she raised her eyebrows a little and took my paper, and my stomach curled a little bit into itself. "If I have your paper, you may go," the teacher said. Chairs were thrown backwards as everybody shoved their things back in their desks and made for the door.

I put my head on my crossed arms, thinking about nothing.

16 November 2009

Hardly random

I am in love with a fictitious character. It's really quite pathetic. I suppose, at the very least, it's not quite so pathetic, since I am able to keep John Krasinksi and Jim Halpert separate in my head. Jim is..... sigh...... he's Jim. Enough said.

There is a hole in my oldest pair of jeans. I almost said they are my favorite pair, but since I got my new skinnies, it's a tough call. Sometimes I pretend to despise myself for being a wannabe hipster from the 40s, but then I get over it. Why fight it?

My little sister changed her Facebook relationship status before talking to the boy about it. I'm slightly ashamed of her. The announcement of the aforementioned fact was the catalyst to several seconds of open-mouthed horror shared with our other sister.

I read other people's blogs and gasp with their heart-rending angst and wish I were more compelling like that. And then I wonder, why would I want to be depressed all the time? Even if I weren't, why would I want to pretend to be?

Final project in Magazine writing: A Day in the Life. Subjects from classmates include a high school freshman who has cerebral palsy and is blind, a stripper from Philly, the guy who runs Suburban Home Records (used to be run in his basement), and a kindergarten teacher who is going blind while her husband goes deaf. I hung out with an ex-"drunk-a$$ college student" who works at the Children's Museum. It seems like a situation I should be laughing at. Like one of those super awkward jokes that only one person in the room laughs at, but only because it reminds them of another, more funny, joke.

I spent 60 bucks today on graduation announcements and a cap and gown and tassels. 60. There's a sticker on the gown that reads, "Do not wash. Do not dry clean." Hm. So, in other words, "Single use only. Place in proper trash receptacle, you taken-in idiot." Thanks a lot, University. I'm very glad to be leaving you, too.

Does anyone know of a job that includes creative writing, arts and crafts, making enough money to pay off college loans, and people who aren't boring? I'd like one.

30 October 2009

Concerning alienation

A few months ago, a girl I knew decided to do a huge research project. She tried explaining to me about how it fit into her five-year plan and everything. Something about this and this and this will happen, and then grad school and then happiness. Pretty sure she also threw in a husband and a nice house. Or at least a boyfriend.

She was a great person and all, I just think she got a little obsessed. I mean, plans are awesome. They really can help if you're not quite sure of what you're doing. At least when you have a plan, you can make yourself believe that you're in control of things. The project was literally sucking her life away. I used to talk to her all the time, but after a summer of doing nothing but research on the computer and in the library at school, I hardly ever spoke to her. I don't know...maybe she was trying to push something out of sight and mind? Who knows?

I just thought it was insane; it was such a huge undertaking, and usually people do the kind of stuff she was doing with a year set aside for it. She was talking about finishing in half of a year. Maybe if I'd've kept up with her more, I would understand it better now. Any time I actually saw her, she had this wild look in her eyes, like a velociraptor was being reflected in the green of her irises. Actually, I think she sort of stopped communicating with some of her other friends, too. There's at least one or two specific ones that I know of. I wonder if she even realized what she was doing?

Probably not. I just don't get it. She finished the project and called me up a week or so ago; I could hear the grin in her voice and I knew she was back. When she called I was getting ready to go somewhere, and while we talked I looked in the mirror. Mirrors are funny things, you know. We look at them for a certain amount of time in the morning, and then expect our reflection to stay the same for the rest of the day. And when we realize that our reflection has changed, we flip out. It's like hearing your own voice in a phone message. Creepy. Unnerving. Jolting.

The best part about this all is the subject of this girl's project: alienation. I must have asked her twenty times ever since she started it to explain to me what it was she was researching. Something about a French dude and drugs and searching out "a state of alienation". This last time she called me, it finally clicked in my head. I let out a long, "Ohhhhhhhh..." and started laughing into the mirror.

She'd mentioned that she'd thought about trying drugs for the project, just to see how things really did change. The only problem is that she's completely anti-fake stuff, especially stuff that can be addicting or dangerous. So I guess it was more of an amusing idea than anything.
Back to the laughing..
So there I was, holding the phone in one hand and a tube of mascara in the other. Laughing into the mirror, looking straight into my own eyes.

It's hilarious, really, that a project about alienation, the purposive act of becoming "other", can lead to an actual alienation.
Green-gold eyes smile vividly in front of me as I give up on makeup and simply walk out the door.

24 October 2009

Now

Now that it has been decided that I'm not getting honors, I'm finding it more than difficult to actually sit down and finish my paper. I just rewrote a few introductory paragraphs, one for each of my four-ish sections, and now...oh, now. Now I need to just finish the lot.

It's funny, a week and a half ago, I was in terrifying freak-out mode. I was scaring my friends and family, I'm pretty sure. I couldn't be awake without spending almost every moment thinking about my paper, and what I had left to do, and how much time a day I had to spend on it to keep the world from combusting. And now... It's like in the Bible, when people were kept from seeing things, and suddenly they were allowed to see and understand them, and it says, "And the scales fell from his/her eyes..."

I seem to have lost my scales, but I don't know that I'm going to go looking for them. I'm having quite the difficulty remembering a time when I really enjoyed writing my thesis. I love research (I'm good at it) and I love writing (again, small, albeit subjective, talent). But it seems that writing in English and writing in French have only the use of words in common. I should have known that. It was always so frustrating in France trying to explain things. Simple things like the story of my life, to complicated things about my emotions, were blown so completely and amazingly out of proportion that they became indistinguishable from near insanity.

So I should have known that French was going to kick my... butt. And I suppose God did try to tell me. It was hard enough convincing Elise to be my thesis adviser and to let me do credits over the summer. I can't even begin to explain the other hoops I had to jump through to find a committee. It was stressful even from Day One. And now... less immediate stress, I guess. I find myself hovering above a creepy pool of dampened emotions. I know they're there. They always are, no matter how much I try to ignore them.

I don't care to know exactly what is in the pool, but I have a feeling that if something else not-so-happy happens, I'm going to splash right in and be forced to find out how deep it really is. That's the now. The later, well, I'll worry about that later. Rather, I'll not worry about it later, because I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of pushing myself to my limits. Just because Michaux did it (the subject of my thesis), doesn't mean I have to. I used to think that at least creatively, I was a little like him. He pushed himself, he wrote strange things that only a few truly loved. But he was trying to break himself up, pouring fragments of himself into an abyss that he imagined was in his mind.

Now I know better.
Why did I enjoy this past summer and all the work I did? I was spending 2 to 4 hours every morning after my run writing a story about a girl named Aralie who saves a dying magical forest.

19 October 2009

"It's not honors, but..."

I had a birthday this week. I'm old and young now, and it's actually the first time in years that it actually occurred to me that I am no longer 19 or 20. It's strange how that pseudo-teenage feeling stuck around for so long. Wishful thinking, perhaps? Who knows.

I had a meeting with my thesis advisor on that day. It was a busy day with work and going to the photo lab to turn in other homework, and when I got to her office, there was another student in there, also talking about some sort of thesis. Her French is beautiful, I thought to myself. Much more refined than mine. I waited, slightly awkardly. My insides churned a little; the deadline for my thesis is very soon, it should be done, but life, as I should have known, never runs the way I want it to. I'm not done.

I peered in the crack of the door, debating. Knock? Loud cough? I knew whoever was in there also needed the time to talk. I didn't technically have to talk to my advisor right away. Twenty minutes of stepping up to the door, lifting my hand and hesitating went by much quicker than I thought they would. Then suddenly they switched to English, talking about some format changes, and I heard my advisor exclaim that she'd forgotten about her other appointment: me. The door was yanked open and her head was there, just at my level, and I tried my best to grin and not look exhausted. "You should have knocked, or something!"

"Désolée," the other student said when she left, smiling conciliatorily at me. I shrugged. "Ben, ça va." I went inside and put my bag and waterbottle down on one end of the gold couch. It hugged my legs and sucked me down, making it hard to sit up straight. My shoulders squared, we began. The format was better, the phrasing had improved. Little things, all of them, but together it was a huge improvement. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, and then she leaned back in her chair and said, "I spoke with Chris Braider this week."

I nodded. I took a Lit Theory class with him a while ago. Pseudo-atheistic Quaker who grew up in Ireland and went to Trinity College. One of the best profs, and the most fascinating, I've had. He's now the French Honors Department chair.
"I wanted to check on the deadlines with him; I've been concerned with our speed of progress." The final copy is due on October 27. Defenses must be made by November 6. "But we spoke and no matter what happens, you'll be able to graduate."
I cocked my head, probably also squinting a little. "What do you mean?"
"If you truly only have until the 27th or 28th, we don't have enough time. We still have to correct the French." My advisor raises her eyebrows in that French way, making my insides churn once again. I feel for an instant like I'm about to hit the floor, but it passes and I smile. "I can do it," I hear myself saying.

"Well no matter what, if we do not make the deadline, Chris says you may present your paper as a senior essay. It's not honors, but..." she trails into oblivion, which also seems to be where I am going.
"But we can still try?"
"Of course. We will still work toward honors. And if it doesn't happen, well, it was just honors." I laugh a little, like the sad thing she just said was a joke about my life, which I suddenly realise it was. She laughs too, caught in the same sort of realisation. I look at her, and at the large calendar behind her. Dates and weeks twist in my head.
"So you don't think I have enough time?"
"Not if the date is truly the 27th, no. But..."
"I'll call tomorrow and double check."
"Ok," she says, looking at me strangely. I can't tell if it's pity or a milder sentiment. "Let's keep in touch, then, let me know what you find out."
"Of course. And I'll work this weekend using this new draft for a foundation."
"Good. Well, bon week-end!"
"Merci! A vous aussi."

I leave, she locks her door behind us, pausing to wave a little. I don't know if she's just waiting a while so we don't have to awkwardly walk down the stairs together, or if she is really going the other way, but it doesn't matter. I catch my breath, stop for a second in a dark corner, and breathe out. I feel sick and thirsty. Laughing, I shake my head and head down the stairs, focusing on the sound of my flats slapping the treated concrete. No one else is in the stair well, and the lump in my throat is getting larger. By the time I get down the three floors to the doors leading outside, I can barely swallow, and I'm hiding well behind my black sunglasses.

A girl looks at me strangely; she is entering the building through the door next to mine as I leave. I look back at her, about to challenge, when I realise my cheek is wet. I toss my head and lift my chin, at least superiority is easy to assume behind disks of anti-light. Fixing my cheek is easy; going to pick up my check from work and joking with my co-workers is the hard part.

29 August 2009

Professor J. Sheeler

I seriously considered changing Sheeler's name, but as I was considering it, the realization dawned that I have absolutely nothing terrible to say. I suppose changing a name is more a protection for me than for the person involved, but, hey, it doesn't hurt to be kind.

I met Prof Sheeler about a year ago, in a reporting class at school. I believe it may have been his first semester teaching at the university, his alma mater. I remember walking into the classroom and thinking, "Oh my gosh it's Stephanie's dad."

My friend Stephanie's dad is small, slightly timid, and grins sideways when he doesn't seem to be exactly sure of what's going on. Sheeler seemed to be the same way: very slender, just below average height. I guess what really made the connection was that he was wearing khaki slacks and a white long-sleeve button-down shirt with a dark tie. Loafers and light brown hair parted on the side completed the ensemble of an altogether unassuming persona.

The students in my class arranged themselves relatively silently as we waited for the quiet man poking his fingers at his Mac to say something. Maybe he was nervous; I'll probably never know. When we found out the kind of writing he'd done in the past, my peers and I raised our eyebrows. How such a quiet-looking man could be an award-winning obituary reporter who'd also happened to write an award-winning book was nearly beyond me.

And then, all of a sudden, it made perfect sense. I thought of the past reporting/journalism professors I'd taken classes from in the past and suddenly I knew that there was no way I would have opened up during an interview with them as I would have talking to Sheeler.

As much as I generally do not enjoy reporting, Sheeler made the process much less painful. No question, at the end of the semester, the entire class was pretty much set on the belief that Sheeler was/is one of the best teachers who has ever graced the halls of the Armory.

I'm pretty sure that he's married with kids, although I don't know how many children he has. Two? Three? I could probably look up the information, but I'd rather not. It's like writing about people who have died or who have gone through terrible things has made Sheeler a calmer man, one who understands the meaning of being a person and not a source who gets quoted in the nut graph.

People in the J-school love Sheeler. He doesn't make it easy; he still makes us work for our grades and for our experiences. He's the kind of person who, if I ever saw him yell or even raise the level of his voice higher than just below speaking level, would shock me like crazy. Yet it also strikes me that the person he is in class could be altogether different from the person he is off of campus. Maybe he's a graffiti artist goth who spends his free time pulling off spiders' legs in the women's restroom. But as fascinating as that would be, I like it better that Sheeler is approachable and doesn't wear black lipstick. I feel like that would take away from his general cool-guy persona.

People...the disclaimer

People are the most interesting things in the world. This seems like such a boring thing to say; I mean, of course. Duh. What else is there? The thing is, I didn't even consider saying, "My sister's cat, Harley, thinks she is a dog and I don't understand it."

That's why I've decided to write about people. The only problem is that I'm planning on writing about people I know. People who are around me every week and who, quite possibly, will not appreciate me talking about them so, well, honestly.

So names will be changed. And if you recognize yourself, congratulations. The only reassurance I have for you is that it's unlikely that many other people comprehended the profile and labeled it with your face.

Then again, if it's a good enough profile, there shouldn't be anything to be sad about, should there?

13 August 2009

Michulie-a

I went to see Julie&Julia a couple of days ago for a friend's birthday. It was the perfect adorable chick flick, and the worst decision I could have made at that moment.

You see, I am Julie. Er...and Julia. I am Michulie-a.

Seeing images of Paris brought back this terrible nostalgic feeling, like I had finally figured out how to teleport, but could only move the upper half of my body. My mind was in Paris, my feet were on a popcorn-encrusted floor in Colorado. And then there was Julie's story, about writing novels and never finishing them, about wanting to write and be read and actually getting published in the end. And watching that was like someone had read my diaries, done a little bit of creative work (I am, after all, so definitely not married), and set it up on the big screen.

I'm mad at myself for not having kept up with this blog all summer. I've been writing my thesis and working on some fiction stories I really am going to try to get published; not sure yet if I'll self publish or if I'll play the game with an agent. I want to do some more research, first. But with my last semester starting pretty soon...and with no more internship to talk about, I'm going to have to change my blog subject again. Maybe something more permanent?

Who knows? Does it even matter? Anyone reading that cares?

....thought so.

p.s. I have come to the devastating conclusion that I am one of the most depressing people I know. Dang sarcastic pessimism. It's like an awkward birthmark, no joke.

30 April 2009

The Last Day

It is my last day at The Greeley Tribune.

Sigh.

I have edited, rewritten, designed, fixed, written, and researched.
I can use Quark, NewsEdit, and Photoshop quite easily.
I have laughed at the sports guys, the silly citizen commentators, and the Greality page.
I've listened to complaints from all sides of the spectrum, joined in on a few of them, and rolled my eyes at others.

But most of all, what I think I'll carry the furthest from this experience is how much power a group of seven people had over what kind of news an entire community received. It actually scared me a couple of times, when I was editing a story for length, how whatever I cut out could make all the difference in the world as to the feeling people had in their stomachs after they read the article. Sick? Butterflies? Excitement? Satisfaction?

Editors have power, more power (sometimes) than the writers themselves. When the story is on the page and you have three lines of space and ten lines of text, you can only squish the letters together so far. Sometimes you have to chop out an entire sentence, or two halves of different sentences. Do you leave in the context, or take it out, and hope that the quote stands on its own? If one side of the issue shows optimistic and pessimistic views, which one do you leave in? So many images are based on what people read in the paper, or what they think they read in the paper.

This is why I'm starting to think that online newspapers are a great idea. You don't have to cut down for space when you have a virtual abyss to fill with words. These value judgments won't be left to people who have no problem simply cutting out the last half of the story, ignoring the fact that the best view of the other side of the issue is in that half.

Taped to the monitor of the copy desk chief's computer is a list of questions that you can ask yourself to ensure that you make good ethical decisions. Here are a few of them:

1. What do I know? What do I need to know?
...4. What organizational policies and professional guidelines should I consider?
...6. Who are the stakeholders -- those affected by my decision? What are their motivations? Which are legitimate?
...9. What are my alternatives to maximize my truthtelling responsibility and minimize harm?

The list is numbered to ten, though you can see that several numbers have multiple questions. How many editors have something like this right in front of their eyes, always reminding them to be balanced? Very few, from what I've noticed.

Maybe we should stop gasping when politicians actually speak their minds (thank you, Joe Biden) and just write it all down. Don't try to cover leaders' tracks. Let it sit out there and stew, and then perhaps the public will be best-informed, not just well-informed.

21 April 2009

Save the Daily Planet!


I'm sorry. I can't help myself. This has to be one of the funniest political cartoons I've seen in a while. It came from http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Saving-Newspapers.htm

The affected effect

I want to share with you all one of the most helpful things I have EVER found on the internet. How many of you have ever been in the middle of writing a paper, when you suddenly had to stop and whisper to yourself, "Affect. Effect. Eeeeffect...Uhhhhhffect? Crud..."

Although I'm sure very few of you actually say, "crud," like I do. Anyway, a simple solution to this problem does exist, though I can't take any of the credit for it. This explanation comes from Grammar Girl, a person who is, not even joking, now one of my heroes.

Here're her word-y explanations of which is who and why and all:
"Affect
Affect with an a means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Ardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo." Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."
Effect
Effect with an e has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo.""

But the best part is how she illustrates it:
Now, whenever I am writing about the effects of hurricanes and how they have affected peoples' living situations, I picture those blue aardvarks in my head. It's quite possible that in some countries, this is an illness.
The only thing left now is for someone to tell me which crazy person decided that two words with two such highly related meanings would have the same phonetic sounds.

Something else I noticed while I was editing today: One of the shorter articles (called a "breakout," as if its set-apart style is jumping the electric fence of a newspaper penitentiary) had parts of it highlighted. Of course, I suddenly had a flashback to my middle school history and science books, many of which had important words and phrases in bold type so that our young minds would know to pay attention to them.

I always knew that journalists are supposed to write for an average 8th-grade-level reader, but isn't that going a little too far? If you're going to do our studying for us, why not just give us bullet points?

16 April 2009

"Good" policy

"[Republicans and Democrats have finally gotten together to hash out this state budget problem]...it is time to put aside politics and make good policy." -Rep. Mike May, Parker, CO.

Since when are politicians not devoted to making good policy? Oh, yeah, since we're so devoted to a two-party system of politicians running around and screaming, "Every man for himself!"

I always thought, while I was in France, why anyone would want a political system that takes longer than twenty minutes to explain to a person who hasn't grown up with it. I dream of a world when one of the things to make our lives the most complicated would be the simplest part of them.

Freedom of Speech

It occurred to me a couple of minutes ago that I could have been using my blog to pretend to write editorials. Opinion pages are usually really interesting, anyway, and it would have allowed me to, well, editorialize. Isn't that the fun part about being a part of a newspaper? You get to say whatever you want, whenever you end up printing something that you didn't really agree with; or when you want to add something to an on-going argument.

Since I have a couple of minutes before I get my next project, I thought I'd do my own little commentary on a guest column from Friday's Tribune (page AA4), written by Charles Martinez. He doesn't specifically mention any arguments or postings, but he does speak generally about how disappointing it is that we the people have turned instant communication gratification into some sort of monster.

I guess I at least mostly agree with the points he makes. People seem to take advantage of whatever opportunity they can to prove that they are, in fact, complete idiots. If you read almost any block of comments--and I really do mean "any"--you'll see for yourself. Take, for instance, the youtube.com video of Susan Boyle singing "I dreamed a dream" from Les Misérables. There are many videos, and each video, of course, has gotten different comments. The video hyperlinked above has what I would consider to be uplifting comments.

Another video, which I have either lost, or whose comments have been erased since my fellow copyeditors showed it to me, was literally covered with f***, c***, s***...pretty much the entire ABCs of foul, offensive language. I really hope that the reason I can't find this particular version is that someone complained and had it removed. Why does something so amazing need to be destroyed like that? Words are so powerful, from broken promises to blessings, and throwing them like mud on Starry Night is not only mindless, it's revolting.

Mr. Martinez was also referring to the fact that when it comes to web comments on newspaper articles, it seems that only those who have charged themselves with being proven to be brilliant (yet who are not) actually write anything. I always believed that deep down, everyone just wanted to show up everyone else (hurrah for capitalism! or is it just human nature?), but in all of my time editing people's essays and whatnot, I have never been so amazed with the sorts of things that people say about one another, whether anonymously or not, as I have while working for a newspaper.

"You're an idiot."
"Those silly Republicans."
"Those silly Democrats." (as if saying those two things is insulting)
"You're going to hell."

These are only summarizations of some of the things I've read. I've inserted commas to fix run-on sentences, articles to fix thoughts, and I've changed spellings so that whatever the commentator was saying wouldn't make them look like a complete doofus. Why do I even do that, I ask myself, if they're just going to do it again? Sometimes I wish I could rewrite what they've told us to print on the opinion page, but that's completely out of the question. You only fix commas, not thoughts. You can't change people. And besides, that would be censoring and hiding the truth from the people.

And, well, I'd rather the community know what kind of people were living in it. It's nice to have checks and balances on politicians; I wish we could put harnesses on normal people. Or maybe make it required for them all to have nasal septum rings. We could tie all the stupid ones together and yank on their common rope when they felt compelled to be even more rude.

Maybe that's a little overboard. OK, not a little overboard. Very overboard. Like, in the water surrounded by killer whales overboard. At least when they eat me, I will be contributing to the 100,000 (about) killer whales from around the world. My life will help them live.

Also, I got in to Western Michigan University's summer translation program! OK, so maybe it's not a huge feat, but it makes me happy! This means I'll be spending the month of July in Michigan (please, no one tell me about the humidity), learning about the business of translation and hopefully also keeping up on my French.

14 April 2009

A successful day of pagination

Pagination is such a great word. It doesn't quite roll off of your tongue, but it has a sort of fantastic consonant-vowel ratio that I just can't seem to get over.
pAHgination. PAGEination. pgntin. paguhnatin.

It's been a long day, you see, and since it's almost completely over with, I find myself thinking again about how much I have to do, how much I have done, and how much I just want to win a couple of millions of dollars and just write and never work again.
Isn't it lovely to have dreams?

I did a very good job of keeping track of everything I did at work today--I hope my professor enjoys the huge pile of before-and-afters that I printed out. It was actually the first day that I really paid attention to doing that; I don't know why I didn't really do it during my preceeding weeks at the Tribune. It does take a little bit of extra work, but not too much. I did not, however, take home all the printouts that I simply copyedited. We lose track of those rather quickly, and I'd rather not force people to stop working for ten minutes just to find those six or seven pages I looked at. It seems even more useless since usually the only things wrong with the pages at that point is misplaced commas and some random misspellings.

Today I put together the Obits page, and a pseudo-business page dedicated to April 15. I had to do a LOT of story trimming for that second one, which is good, because I love actually slicing apart things and putting the puzzle together. It must be like the feeling a surgeon gets when he or she is performing a major surgery. I just don't get any blood anywhere.

Of course, when I was literally seven lines of cutting text away from finishing the jigsaw, I did something very silly. In seeing if everything would fit if I just moved the letters closer together, I highlighted the entire story, clicked in the em space box, hit some keys, pressed enter, and gasped in horror when I looked back up at my empty columns. Oops. Of course, I began to laugh. Seven lines away, and the last time I had saved, I had been about 20 lines away. The things I do to myself to make my life easier.

Luckily, I am not alone! Ryan laughed at me (ahem, with me) and talked me through going back to the original copy and finding the last time I saved the page...oy. I was able to get back to where I was, and it was beautiful. Then I waited, silently striving to disguise my concern over being congratulated or not, to get his corrections back. OK, so in reality I sort of forgot that I had given him the page because I was working on editing other things. BUT he liked the headlines that I came up with, even if one of them was a little off. That in itself makes me happy--for some reason, I am terrible at coming up with titles and headlines. It's like I read into the story so much differently than some people do, and then I also want to do something creative; and it just never goes perfectly.

So that was the day. I'm glad that the longest day of my week is over with, but I also feel a lot of tension about all the research I have to do before the end of next week. It doesn't help that the majority of people I graduated from highschool with are getting their university diplomas in a month. Of course, I do enjoy knowing that most of them are freaking out and having panic attacks and as of yet have neither job nor plan, and that makes me happy in a very sadistic sort of way.

I should be careful, though: that'll be me in November.

02 April 2009

Editorials

NB: This post technically was begun last week. Busy-ness really takes away from productivity, doesn't it?

A "Two Cents" piece from page AA4 of Friday's Tribune:

"Zeke N. needs to get a life"
'Just calling because every time I see Zeke N. in the paper, it's a negative report about the paper. It's amazing that he's always in the paper. He needs to get a life.'
-This amuses me mostly because it's so incredibly true, I can hardly take it. Zeke N. invades every editorial page that he possibly can. I don't mind participation, but when the only things you have to say are the same things every day.....And then you have the person who notices that Zeke is calling in or commenting every day. Hm.

The first paragraph from the front page of the Adventure section, page AA1:

"Rocky Mountain National Park is once again temporarily closing the Lumpy Ridge and Sheep Mountain areas to protect raptor nesting sites."
-Did you know that raptors are birds (cue the giggles)? Because I didn't know that, I had to look it up. Here I was, having flashbacks of Jurassic Park, and all they were talking about were birds of prey. Actually, I'm just a tad bit disappointed. I was hoping for dinosaurs.

A random thing about editing that really bothers me: Not using the last comma in lists of things.
For example:
"But Pinnacol, business groups and lawmakers are still at odds..."
"We should stick to the facts instead of using empty rhetoric that punishes people working, fighting and sacrificing for our country..."
I always feel like I have to say the last two things in the list super fast; which is why, when I write on my own, I always insert the comma. I like to breathe, you know? Get some air in my lungs (or in the lungs of my readers) before jumping to the next line of business.

Story from the Associated Press:
"President Barack Obama asked Congress on Thursday for $83.4 billion for US military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was a senator and George W. Bush was president."
-This makes me think about all of the complaining and finger pointing that goes on when politicians in control seem to suddenly change their opinions or votes on certain issues. I wonder how many people are furious that Obama changed his vote in this case? I mean, that is a rather large chunk of money, right? Of course it is. But one thing that people don't often realize: We change, things change. Guess our president is voting for change!

And my all-time favorite comment of the day (which comes from a long line of comments on an article about an article concerning using racial adjectives in stories):
"Instead of mentioning the emotionally charged "Robbed" or age, race, height or weight for fear of offending someone we'll abandon our job of reporting the FACTS (race, age, height, weight) of an incident and simply be happy that our advertisers and readers aren't offended.
And newspapers wonder why bloggers are the new media.....at least they call it like they see it.
"
-Oh, good. The bloggers are calling it like they see it. Whew. I was starting to wonder when I was going to get to hear about all of that. And this is coming from a person who enjoys reading blogs. Who enjoys writing blogs. Who doesn't seem to care that very few people see her blog. Yet one must wonder: Is what the bloggers see really so different from what a paid journalist sees? Sure it is. Paid journalists can get their news organizations to fly them to Iraq to do in-depth stories (although if you ask me, the whole "in-depth" thing in that issue is a GIANT question mark of uncertainty), while surrounded by tanks and machine guns.
Not exactly where everyone wants to be, but it gets you the story. If I were going to be a reporter, I would want to be at the front lines of everything, not sitting behind my computer commenting about articles from the New York Times. At least, I like to think I could be brave enough to be that proactive about being unbiased.
Next thing you know, we'll have to start paying to view blogs, what with this monstrous ego I sense growing over the Web.

31 March 2009

Insanity v. Brainwashing

One of the first things that I did after sitting down today was browse a little for an interesting story to comment on. Lucky for me, the first headline I saw not only provides adequate material for this endeavor, it also is such a story that I think everyone will be able to join me in a little

"WHAT?"

How about everyone takes a moment to look at the story about a Maryland mother who joined a cult and starved her son to death? Here are a couple of different versions:

CNN,
Washington Post,
Associated Press.

It's difficult for so many reporters to get the same story differently, but just in case you don't like one organisation, well, there you go.

What I would like to know is, how are we defining insane nowadays? I was talking about this "event" with the head copy editor, and we were trying to decide if this lady was really insane or not. My first impulse is to maintain that while I wouldn't necessarily say that the woman is insane (I go more for brainwashed), I believe this "Queen Antoinette" person probably is insane. I mean, who else would take on a name like that? Not to mention convince her followers that a member's baby was a demon because he wasn't old enough to handle saying "Amen" after meals...

On the other hand, "insanity" seems to have a much broader definition than I had previously thought, according to Merriam-Webster's Online Medical Dictionary:
Main Entry: in·san·i·ty
Pronunciation: in-primarystresssan-schwat-emacron
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
1 : a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as paranoid schizophrenia)
2 : unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility

Some officials are saying that Ms. Ramkissoon is not, in fact, insane; and I would like to agree with them. However, can insanity be taught, as through being brainwashed? Isn't that what brainwashing is? Creating a "severely disordered state of the mind"? Maybe that's the reason they're still sentencing her, because of the ambiguity of the definition.

If this is how the dictionary defines "brainwashing":
Main Entry: brain·wash·ing
Pronunciation: primarystressbramacrn-secondarystresswodotsh-ieng, -secondarystresswäsh-
Function: noun
: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas

Then perhaps it really is possible to induce insanity, if the "contrasting regimented ideas" mess so much with a person's head that it is impossible for them to understand things going on around them. Read that as saying: That it is impossible for them to understand that murder, no matter what sort of resurrection you're waiting for, is wrong.

Is forced homicide insanity or brainwashing? And does it matter?

25 March 2009

A list of amusing things

It's rather amusing:

1. When I use spellcheck on Quark, it wants to change internet addresses that end in ".org" to "orgy."

2. Hearing a reporter on her phone behind me ask a source, "So...let me get this right: The dog was just sitting on the floor?"

3. Being able to hit the keys for spellcheck (Shift+Option+Apple+L) all with fingers on my right hand.

4. Watching Eric Bellamy, one of the photographers, pantomime Salazar's signature (read: only) photo pose. "What's that? A photographer? I must put my foot up on this chair, lean forward, and tip up the brim of my cowboy hat. And smile."

5. Reading the "Good News/Bad News" article in the business section of the Tribune for tomorrow's paper. It lists all the good things that are taking place in the economy, and then reminds us how the numbers are still worse than forty years ago.

6. Hearing that same advertising girl from last night still complaining about her life. Did you know that her biggest pet peeve is people who leave dishes in the sink? I do, now.

7. Finding out about The Greeley Report. They tout themselves as the Tribune's even-handed competitor. Half of the copy desk didn't even know they existed until five minutes ago.

8. Watching hockey on the TV across the desk but only being able to hear the sound from the Leno show from the TV on the sports desk.

9. Getting to work on my first-ever wire page! OK, so Ryan sat next to me and guided me through a good chunk of it, but I still put most of it together myself! And worked on trimming stories by myself!

10. How excited I am to work on a single page (A5, check it out in tomorrow's Tribune), even though it took me about two hours. So...much....reading.....

24 March 2009

Tick-Tock Clickety Klack

I am such an amazing person. I'm spending my spring break....at work!
OK, so I'm not spending the entire break here, I'm just doing the same number of hours at the desk as any other week while all of my peers are lounging on the beach and pretending that they don't have papers to write and textbooks to read.

I can't pretend. Life moves too quickly for me to forget about those papers. Oh well.

Time has really been flying by tonight; that is, up until about two minutes ago, when I caught up to everyone else at the desk. I started out earlier doing some editing for a project called "Panorama," a review of really awesome Weld County residents who spend a good chunk of their time volunteering and just generally helping other people. There are about 15-20 profiles in the whole conglomeration, and while the pages were done being put together, Ryan needed me to check styles and stuff and fix a couple of headlines.

It took almost two hours. That's the only reason it takes so long to put together a newspaper (ignoring, of course, the fact that you have to research stories. Psh, who researches stories, anyway? Kidding, kidding...); we spend so much time clicking between programs, checking photographers' names, reporters' names, cutlines, frames on the photos, page numbers, jumps.....that's not even the entire list!

And then, right after I finished that project, I had four pages to check the copy on. And now...silence. Hallelujah. About an hour ago, it was anything but silent, and oh man, I was about to go crazy with Theresa's stapler. Or the phonebook. Something heavy. One of the girls from the little advertising (at least, I think that's what it is) area was on her phone for a good half of an hour complaining to who-knows-who about someone telling her to fix things but not being specific.

I can still hear her whining voice in my head. One of the copyeditors (I won't divulge his or her name) sitting across from me slapped his/her fingers down in front of her keyboard at one point, growled, "That's it, I can't take it any more," and pulled his/her earbuds out of his/her pen drawer/purse. So much for no personal calls at work.

So, yes, this silence is golden, for it is the simple non-silence of a newsroom at work. I've come to love this, hearing at least two or three different TV channels on, along with the police scanner, and people clicking their mice and tapping on their keyboards like rain falling on a skylight. It's funny what sorts of sounds become soothing for you once you get used to them. I used to hate my alarm clock--it tick-tocked so loudly at night that I almost went insane the first two weeks I owned it. Now that I use my cellphone as an alarm, I still leave my old alarm clock on my bedside table. The battery is dying and it never stays on the correct time, but the constant clicking of the minute and hour hands somehow reminds me to relax.

Or maybe the clock is creepier than I think. Maybe it's just saying, "I'm-Watch-Ing-You. I'm Watch-Ing-You." Great. Now I have a stalker alarm clock.

I've run out of projects to do. Two and a half hours left in my "day" and now I can only sit and wait for someone to finish something so that I can look at it. I'm still not cool enough to do much besides putting together the obits page, writing brief headlines, and making minor changes to pages. Someday, someday. I must be getting tired: I just spent a good thirty seconds poking my fingers into Theresa's squisky wrist rest. Wow.

I'm sorry I'm not very copyedit-y tonight. I really thought I would be, since I don't hate being here. But sometimes I pull up my blog page, place my fingertips on the keyboard, and can't think of a single new thing to say. Time it takes to put together pages? Check. Sounds and environment? Check. Current project status? Check.

I could give a play-by-play of the women's basketball game that's going on on the TV across from me. That is, I could do that if I knew the rules of basketball. Now, if it were a soccer game, that I could do. In class last week, the girl next to me was watching a NCAA game on a live feed on her laptop (No, she wasn't supposed to be doing that. That's rude to the teacher. And very distracting, of course), and the guy sitting next to me nudged my shoulder and told me to whisper him the play-by-play in French.

Not until this moment did I realize how creepy that sounded. Interesting. Anyway, I laughed. I don't know any French sports terms, which is too bad. I should have paid better attention. Or maybe sportscasters should stop using "GO-AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" as a word for every language.

19 March 2009

On building a page

No, the paper's not going under; but apparently Greeley's mayor does hope that it folds, just as the Rocky Mountain News crumpled a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't look like anything like that will happen to the Trib any time soon, so I guess Mayor Ed Clark will have to wait a while before it happens.

I wish I had been at the Trib for a longer period of time (maybe I should be careful what I say, hm?), so that I could offer a better perspective on all of this. Clark says that the Tribune is biased and hates him and is no good for the city as a whole. Well, ok. The newspaper, I am beginning to discover, does lean a little to the liberal side, at least in terms of what stance the editorial pages take. One of the copydesk people said today that if there's anything we've done wrong in relation to the Mayor and reporting on him, it's that we haven't reported on enough good things that he's made happen in City Council meetings.

Yet, I wonder, how many of those things are there? I have no idea. People have no idea exactly how much goes into making a newspaper. It's insane. Just building a page, for a complete beginner like me, takes about an hour. It's probably safe to say that when you know exactly what you're doing, it probably takes about half of an hour. But then, there are so many pages to put together, and that's only putting them together. That's not planning on the advance stories, the surprise briefs and wire stories from around the nation.

You know, there's a huge running list of mini articles compiled by The Associated Press and some other news organizations that details, minute-by-minute, what's happening around the world? And when we put pages together, we don't look at those lists first? First the ads go on the page--newspapers are, after all, built on advertising--and then we format the articles and all the things that might go with them. You may have heard about "new media" and "alternative story forms" if you have a journalistic background. "New media" really just means using the internet to its full potential (videos, photos, sound clips); "alternative story forms" means that editors are suddenly realizing that people are bored with normal inverted pyramid writing styles.

There are even studies proving that when the page is pretty, and uses pulled-out quotes and boxes with condensed information, the reader retains more information. What a surprise. But when you use all these separate boxes, they take up even more room. So it's only after all the fancy, "necessary" stuff is on the page that we look for what we call "filler."

"Filler" isn't bad, it isn't ostracized. It is, on the other hand, filler. If we happen to have a little space left on the page, there's a sort of backlog of information that we go to in order to fill the spot. Since Greeley is such a locally-focused paper, the short articles (briefs) used for filler are usually national and international issues.

This list of filler.....is huge. The amount of information out there is amazing. It astounds me. And even the bigger newspapers don't use half of it. Why not? Space? I actually don't know. The internet can hold just about anything. Maybe that's the problem.

17 March 2009

Even more to remember

Even more to remember and think about. I think that's the pseudo-description I would give the past 12 hours. The day began, like most Tuesdays, much earlier than I wanted it to. Why a Journalism class can't just meet by videofeed is beyond me. That would be amazing. Just stay in bed, turn on my laptop, and participate online. Sounds like "new media" to me.

I'm only half joking.

Our guest speaker today was Peter Eichstaedt, author of First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resisance Army. He's been working as a freelance reporter for many years, and currently works for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in The Hague, Netherlands. Obviously, he has spent a lot of time in Africa.

What struck me once again was the underlying theme of most journalists admitting that not enough reporting is done in the world. "Everyone knows about Darfur," Eichstaedt said at one time, just before stating that no one really knows about the fighting going on in Northern Uganda. While that is true, I would also like to point out that until a year or two ago, no one I knew had any idea that Darfur was experiencing genocide. I hope this doesn't mean that it's only a matter of time before people know about it and produce a long-reaching outcry.

Only after I knew what to look for, did I find anything. This, while seeming to be an obvious statement, shows how little information there is about the subject. CNN.com has current stories listed for Darfur, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. BBC.com mentions Madagascar, Darfur, Gambia, Nigeria, Uganda...Perhaps the most amusing thing is that on cnn.com right now, the most popular story to view is "Actress Richardson Hurt Skiiing." Or is that not funny at all? I'm sorry, my news judgment seems to be fading.

Maybe I'm just biased. I should give the American press another chance to prove itself. Perhaps it's the economy. CNN and ABC can't afford anymore to send good reporters to the middle of nowhere. Those poor companies, they probably don't even have enough to give out bonuses!

I am, however, heartened by the attention Africa is getting since the pope is in town. Not everyone may agree on his views on lifting the ban on condoms in Africa, but the way I see it, the more attention African countries get from nations who are not themselves enduring genocide and child soldiers, the better.

Here's an idea: All those bonuses? Let's send them to African children. Pay for health care, education, clean water and healthy food. Get the countries devastated by the innappropriately-drawn boundaries of colonization back on their feet.

05 March 2009

Recording the records

I got to take my first shot at designing pages today!

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Like I pseudo-prophesied on Tuesday night, I forgot almost everything that Sandra showed me during our little learning session. Well, let me be a little more specific. I remembered most of it, meaning that I remembered that it happened and I remembered what to do once something happened; but as for opening certain templates...

I wasn't too great at that part. To add to the difficulty, the page I got apparently had a very strange ad stack (the composition of the advertisements) on it. I'm not familiar enough with ads and how they usually look to be able to know how weird it was, but in the end, Sandra had to help me out with making things fit (ie. adding some filler).

That's another thing that makes it hard for interns -- one of the things you learn while becoming a veteran at a paper is where everything is. I, only having been here since late January, know where almost nothing is. It took me about forty-five minutes to do the obits page earlier, but the biggest reason for that was my wandering around the editorial folders trying to remember where templates and mugs were. Yeah, I know, it would be a lot easier and a lot faster to simply ask.

But if I don't figure it out myself, or get made a fool of in the process, I won't remember anything. That's why I will always remember where to find the initial pages, which have the ad stacks on them and are just waiting for stories and pictures. I tried to find it for about six minutes, then I gave out a little sigh and asked. Theresa came over, set her hand on the mouse, and showed me where to find it. She did it very kindly, and without any sarcasm or teasing.

I still felt silly.

On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with myself for having been able to manage most of the rest of the page. I just kept reminding myself that it was the first time I'd ever used Quark, and the first time I'd ever created a page for a working newspaper. I may never have all of the magic keystrokes memorized, but at least I can figure things out the long way!

In other news, I recognize everybody's initials now, so after I've given a first or second look to a page, I know who should be looking at it next. I know where the box is to put pages to be read, and I'm finally getting the hang of how far apart things need to be on the page. There's actually quite a long list of things I now feel very comfortable with, save a single thing.

Remember how I hated getting to work before the building closed at 5 p.m.?

Go figure that last week, the Tribune changed its opening hours to finish at 4:30 p.m. Now, no matter what time I get here, I have to ring the doorbell. At least nothing funny happens when I press on the little white rectangle. I just have to stand and wait for a kind person to get up from their desk and open the doors for me from the inside. I wonder how long it'll be before they're so tired of getting up for the interns that they just decide to get keys made for us.

Nevermind, that will probably never happen. It's not on the same priority list as getting a gas stipend (which I have gotten, thank you, God). I suppose I will just have to keep ringing the bell and smiling sweetly when someone comes to get me.

03 March 2009

Moving forward (?) to whiteness

I have learned a lot of things today.

I'm afraid that I won't remember any of them tomorrow.

That's how I'll forever think about my first day of training to use Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I've used all but Illustrator before, but it's been a while.

Maybe I should mention now that I have earned the right to begin to learn page design (cue the cheers). I know my lack of exclamation points may be deceiving, but I really am very excited. This evening I spent a couple of hours watching Sandra design and asking her lots of questions.

It seems easy enough. I mean, besides the point that everything she could do, she did at breakneck speed, and had to stop every once in a while and undo what she had done so that I could see the process. Even then, holy canoli, there are so many keystrokes. Let's see...there's...AppleEKLOptionAltFunction48AppleApple Pear Fruitcake. Yes. Fruitcake.

Like I said, I'm afraid I'm not going to remember any of it tomorrow. Luckily, this doesn't seem to phase me. I know that no matter how many times someone tells me where to find the library of editorial templates, I'm never going to remember it alone until I'm sitting in front of my computer, staring into the abyss of the screen. Sometimes inspiration strikes, and I suddenly remember which database to search to find (ie.) the correct mug shots. Other times, I spend such silent moments contemplating the least plaintive way to ask for help.

But I am nearly thrilled for Thursday now, the day Sandra said I get to put together the obits page.
It doesn't sound nearly as interesting and cool when I type it out like that. The obits page is definitely a special page. It's the page seasoned designers feel safe giving to the intern, if that says anything else about it. If you're not familiar with what you're doing, it could take a very long time to do. You have to give different styles to each of the following: names, ages/residences, first paragraphs....etc. Other pages are easier to do; you only have a couple of stories to format. But the obits page can get up to five or six stories (depending on length), and that means you end up doing a lot of highlighting and clicking on formatting styles.

I didn't do a very good job of describing the monotony and difficulties, but they do exist, I promise you. It should be interesting to see how long it takes me to put together a page that takes Sandra about ten minutes to do. One hour? Half of an hour?
------------------------------------
"Time for news!"

That's something my grandpa says when we're at my grandparents' apartment and my grandpa decides he's tired of watching Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends or What Not To Wear. I wish I could do the voice, but I can't. Just picture an 85-year old Dutch man trying to be mischievous and sneaky, and you can do without the voice.

And it is time for news. I've been doing research for a French project, which I'm presenting tomorrow afternoon, and I've discovered something very alarming. Currently in the class, we're reading Frantz Fanon's Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks). The chapter I'm focusing on is titled "La femme de couleur et le blanc" (The Woman of Color and the White Man).

Fanon's objective was to see if real love can exist between a black woman and a white man, considering all the history that moves to keep them separate. I started my research with nearly the same objective, but I wanted to focus on how badly some black women wanted to be white.

I know most of you don't read or speak French, but here is one site that just amazes me. I unfortunately can only figure out how to translate it from the google.fr search page, but hopefully some of you others will be successful. The article even mentions Fanon and his book.

On another site, I found a statistic saying that today, 20% of people of African descent living in the Parisian area try to whiten their skin. Products used range from acne medication to steroids. Fanon says it stems from an inferiority complex, and all I can think about is Michael Jackson and plastic surgery.

The most interesting thing, for me, is that all I have to do to find information in French is enter (in French) the words "whiten the skin." Almost everything after that includes news sources, random blogs, articles... almost everything is directed at black women and the effort they put into lightening their skin.

On the other hand, when I do the search in English, I have to say "black women who whiten their skin" to get any results even minutely related to what I want. There were a few entries at first on yahoo.answers.com of fair-skinned women looking to have the classic translucent white skin, and I suppose that IS nearly what I was looking for, but I feel like it had less to do with inferiority and more to do with beauty images.

Maybe I'm wrong about that last statement, but it just makes me so sad that women would do this to themselves. Here's an article from the British paper The Guardian. I think this is probably the best English article I've found about the issue. It borders between a rant and a serious article, I feel, but I believe it's very pertinent.

Also, this video from ABC looks like it should be really good (I can't watch it with the sound on). I'll have to look at it tomorrow morning before my presentation.

26 February 2009

"Got anything for me?"

I had been sitting at the desk for about ten minutes when I heard one of the sports guys (Scott?) start talking to Colin, a copy editor/reporter.

Apparently an intern called him earlier this afternoon and asked if they were going to have any work for him to do. Sports Guy Scott said, "Uh...Yes." Intern Dude said, "Ok. Cuz I just didn't want to waste any time and was just making sure."
...Interesting.

Wow. I don't know about you all, but in my world, that's not exactly something you say to a potential employer. That's not something you say to anyone you've agreed to go and work for. I know that I haven't had very much work experience besides bookstores and volunteering and now this opportunity at the Tribune, but calling in to say anything besides "I am dying of tuberculosis" or "This blizzard is so bad all the highways are closed" is, in my book, out of line.

I even secretly hate the part-timers from the bookstore who would tell me, the unbiased student who of course relates to everything via drunk stories, that they were really tired but were going to go out anyway and get completely sloshed and call in the next morning. I'm sorry, did I miss something? Are we supposed to be lazy and shirk all responsibility?

Of course some of you are thinking right now, "Oh, sure, she's one to talk, she's blogging while at work. Hypocrite." I'll just point out that the blog is required for the internship class, I'm in between projects (I don't write this all at once, you know), and, last but not least, I take no official breaks.

I told Sports Guy Scott that he should be sure to give that intern the most mundane job he can think of. As I write this, Intern Dude is typing up the schedule. And that, for a terribly evil reason, is immensely gratifying.

Oooohhhh....a new project! I get to triple edit the Tribune's Stylebook! Yay!
And by that I mean, oh help. This stack of paper is almost half of an inch high. I might need more than one felt-tipped pen to finish this baby up.

Now for a word question. Why do we pronounce "indictment" as [in-dahyt-muhnt]? It came from the middle English "enditement;" why didn't we just keep it the way it was? I'm sorry to say that before about two years ago, I had no idea that it wasn't [in-dict-muh nt]. I really didn't. I knew what "indictment" was, I just didn't know how to spell the real word.

I wonder how many other words there are like that? I used to be so vain about my spelling skills, hurrah for spelling bees. Then I started learning French, and speaking a different language with so many cognates whose only differences are spelling (usually "s" in French when it's "z" in English) really messes me up. It's like I don't know who I am anymore.

It's even worse when I realise (see? Example #1) that the British spell it differently than we Americans do; and like the proper snob that I am, I decide to go British. I don't know why part of me thinks that the British are cooler speakers than Americans are. We just sound so....dull. Like no one cares about speech anymore. They just want to get it over with; if they just barely manage to get their point across, that's fine by them.

I say that everyone should start caring and begin pronouncing vowels the way they were born to be pronounced! .......Uh.....And how was that, again?

24 February 2009

Wikipedia and Opining

Sometimes the addictiveness of certain websites really scares me. Take icanhascheezburger.com for example. I love that website (with a very mild, detached love I mean). It makes me laugh, and shake my head, and roll my eyes, and a lot of times I'll get on it to take a five minute break, but not stop looking at the pages of pictures for at least half of an hour.

It's really rather ridiculous. But today, it wasn't pictures of funny cats and their captions that got me. I fell into the Wikipedia abyss. "It's not a credible source," teachers say. "Stay away from it except for looking up simple things you are supposed to know anyway and will never cite in your papers."

But I was doing research. I was looking at conservative and liberal media, and trying to find a simple list of corporations (papers, networks) that would give me any idea of what everyone else thought. And I did find an article about "Media bias in the United States". It was very easy to find. I can hear the tiny voice in my head of one of my teachers scolding me and making sad tsking noises.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I read the entire thing. I'm sorry I've turned into every other college student on the planet. It's very shameful, and I apologize.
But where else can you find easy information?
Wikipedia seems to have a little bit of something for anything you want to know. And other sources of information do not lend themselves to the usage of broke college students (hey, that's me!). Sometimes it's just not possible to find information in "credible" news sources.

And would Encyclopedia Brittanica have a side-by-side comparison of the most and least liberal news media organisations in the States? Nope.
"There are no topic results related to your search." Okaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy.... Great. Thanks.

Even I am really tired of hearing classmates and professors rant in class about the decline of the newspaper and how much they hate blogs and Wikipedia and Twitter (and who knows what else) because they demean journalistic integrity, but still. Since even I fall into this hole, I suppose I still don't have a set answer in my own mind.

I do find it incredibly amusing that some students of journalism hate blogs because they contain too much opinion. I am apparently not a "real" journalist.

Now, I really don't think...

Oh, I'm sorry...I forgot that opinion has no place in "real" journalism. I'm supposed to participate, but not contribute, is that it? How in the world can you write an article, not put your opinion into it, and keep a reader from falling unconscious after the second sentence?

Saying that makes me think of my AP History teacher, Mr. Lightfoot. He was an interesting person. Maybe I'll write a profile about him someday. The strangest thing about Lightfoot was his inability to answer questions. At least, that's what we thought it was. Turns out he actually hated history, and only wanted to teach biology. Go figure. Anyways, sometimes we would ask him who his favorite president was. Or even the top five. He would NEVER give us an answer! He'd say, "What I think doesn't matter. I don't want to color your judgment."

The entire class would always bristle at that. Color our judgment? What, are we lemmings? Mindless and hopeless with a penchant for only following the leader?
Yup. Apparently we are.

Why else would we spend so much time complaining that FOX is conservative, the Times is liberal, and that something needs to change? The conservatives want more conservative reports. The liberals want more liberal reports. No surprises there. I find, to my relief, that a large number of the people whining about media biases are at least the informed citizens.

And I believe they're all complaining because the liberals are afraid that people will listen to the Washington Times and turn into Bible-thumping pastors, and the conservatives are worried that people will listen to the Wall Street Journal and become, what? Sorry, I can't think of the opposite transformation. Something about gays? Probably.

Of course, the relief I felt after finding out that journalists are worried about the general population being led astray disappeared quite soon after I remembered that they are, after all, simply complaining and slinging mud at one another.

I did find an article, written in 2005, about the findings of one UCLA professor of political science. Of all of the outlets researched, apparently Jim Lehrer was the most central-thinking. Looks like I'm going to have to do some more research. I wouldn't want to read unbalanced material and stop thinking for myself.

Final thought: Apparently FOX News execs get morning memos detailing the stories of the day and how they will be covered? I actually have heard this before, but I'm still wondering about the truthfulness of the fact. Who's to say the other papers don't get the same thing?

17 February 2009

Hating conservatives and liberals

In honor of journalism and all that is fair and good in the world, I'm going to begin a mini research project.

I want to know why everyone hates conservative journalists.

I'm sure there is a good number of you who are now saying, "But I don't hate them! That's not true!"

It is true. Just try sitting in on one of my Journalism classes, it doesn't matter whether it's Reporting or International Media or any of the others. If you enter into ANY sort of discussion about what newspapers students read, there is ALWAYS at least one person who says something along the lines of, "Oh, and I look at Fox News sometimes. But I hate it."

And then someone mentions Rupert Murdoch, and then someone says something about conservative journalism in general. During the entire discussion, I sit in my seat trying to figure out why I hate neither liberal nor conservative journalism. I hate reporters who only ever talk about one side of the story, and then claim that they are unbiased.

What I really want to know is this: How do we KNOW that liberal papers are unbiased, and that conservative papers are biased? Or vice versa?

Because it seems to me that in the end, all it comes down to is a matter of personal opinion. So we'll have to see how this goes.

And on a completely random note:
The sports desk is listening to songs from the Little Mermaid (Disney, of course) on YouTube. It's very strange to hear middle-aged men singing along with a cartoon I was tragically devoted to when I was little. At present, I am afraid of sharks and fish in the ocean. Tragic.

12 February 2009

Disturbia: war.

First I should mention that I hate that song. But I've used it as my title today to preface some things that I've had a chance to see this past week.

I wish our world wasn't nearly this disturbing, it's really very terrible.
Here's a clip about a man charged with sexual battery against a SIX MONTH OLD LITTLE GIRL.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29165667/

I don't understand why people do this, and how you could resort to hurting another person, an infant, because he or she was bothering you. Why would you leave your daughter with a person like that? I don't know if he was the father, brother, cousin, neighbor, or whatever. You don't do things like that.

Second, two Florida teens were arrested for FAKING A RAPE on another teen boy from their highschool.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29167296/
also at:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/02/12/0212simrape.html?imw=Y

May I just say, WHAT?! I...I just....I don't understand! What kind of family lives did these two boys have that even hinted to them that doing this was OK? Seriously disturbing. He "realized his actions were inappropriate"?? So that means that the peer pressure to prey on others is so great, that kids will go so far as to fake rape?

Let's move on to other parts of the world. I found this article published online today by the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7887520.stm

"FIVE CHILDREN SHOT IN AFGHANISTAN"
I seriously doubt the troops were aiming at the children; what I would like to focus on is the fact that children were anywhere near that sort of situation. I've never been to Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, or any other countries in that immediate area. Yes, I'm the privileged white chick who, one might argue, understands only that Prismacolor pencils are the best and that some university professors respond better to BS than others. But I think I know when and where children shouldn't be around adults, and I'd say war is one of those times.

For that matter, adults shouldn't be around adults at that time. I'm tired of reading death counts and hearing about martyrs and children being killed because they were in the middle of a situation everyone says they hates yet no one can ameliorate. A couple of semesters ago, one of my journalism profs would give my class pop quizzes on the headlines of the day. The last question, 8 times out of 10, was, "Current Iraq War Death Count?"

I'd honestly never paid attention to it before. But when you're reading through the obit page every day, reading about people who you didn't know who are now being buried under dirt and flowers, and you're watching this number climb every month....

Maybe this is entirely unrelated, but I watched the Incredible Hulk last night with one of my favorite friends. I would suggest seeing it, Edward Norton, I would argue, was the best Hulk so far. In the beginning of the film, General Ross calls in a group of soldiers to hunt down Banner, who they've found in Brasil. Here's the pertinent part: Does the general tell the soldiers exactly what they were up against? That Banner would turn into a fifteen-odd-foot tall anger machine and tear them to pieces? Nope. He tells them that the scientist stole military secrets and was a fugitive from the law.

OK, so the film was made by Hollywoodiens. It's part fiction, part social commentary. It just makes me wonder, how much of the truth was told to the soldiers going into what we call the Middle East? In relation to what they were told, I don't care as much about what I, as a citizen, know. If it were between me knowing and them knowing, I'd want them to know.

When I get into things like this, all I can keep thinking about is how sad our world is. Look at some of these photos: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/europe_warehouse_a_home_for_italy0s_migrants/html/1.stm

Sometimes I wish I were more politically and economically minded, so that I could at least explain these things to myself.

10 February 2009

The heart of an editor and The Stylebook

It's another Tuesday at the Greeley Tribune, and Nicole, one of the copy editors/page designers here, keeps on breaking computers. She says the first time she did it, it was on purpose. The second time, all she had to do was sit down in front of the computer we use for photoshop, and it spazzed out. She went to open the program and the screen went BLLAAAAAAACCKKKKK.

I feel happy that I haven't killed anything yet. I suppose the day will come.

I feel like this internship is going pretty well so far. I mean, I haven't done anything incredibly stupid, and when I do miss things, they're usually special Greeley rules, or things I haven't been told to pay attention to in the past.

One of my projects earlier this evening was to edit a short article written by another intern named Jessica. She goes to UNC; I met her a couple of weeks ago and she seemed like the energetic, go-getter type. This idea was confirmed when I was told that she, unlike most every other intern here, is an English major.

I don't want to say that she's not a good writer. I think basing a person's writing ability off of a single example of newswriting is really kind of mean. But this piece. Oh, this piece. I read the lead (the first line). Twice. Three times. She'd never interviewed anyone before, and it showed: The entire article read the same way I'm sure my newswriting did when I was in Reporting 1. Dull. Very little personality.

That was the moment I realized I've turned into a newswriting snob. I don't think I was like this two years ago. It made me feel bad, like I'm a mean person who only finds joy in demonstrating my writing superiority over others. I told Casey this (he's one of my mentors) and he almost laughed and said, "Well, that's a good quality to have if you're going to be an editor."

The tiny snort of a laugh that Casey gave while keeping his eyes on his computer screen didn't exactly make me feel better. Editing some mini briefs he had written and finding mistakes in them did. So it seems like I'm either a very mean person....or I am going to be a fantastic editor, because I don't care about feelings when I edit. I care about the words sounding right.

Then again, I feel like a sort of diseased something is churning in the pit of my stomach. I never wanted to be one of "them." I've always hated pyramid-style articles -- hated writing them, hated being forced to read them -- and I have to confess, I'm a tad horrified with myself right now. It doesn't matter so much that I really did make it better. What matters was my first instinct to push the pertinent information to the top. Like my French prof would say, I've started my "chute au mal." My fall to evil.

But at least I really did make it better, at least, Casey said I did. I'm a big fan of reading things out loud, sometimes I'll plug my ears after editing a piece and whisper it to myself. It's a little difficult to do that and not feel weird, since the newsroom is really quiet after 5:03. With just sports and the copy desk still sitting around and working, the only loud things that happen mostly concern bantering and the police scanner. I had to do the ear plugging thing a couple of times with Jessica's article to get it right. See? Fall to evil.

Hopefully I can get to the point where I can just glance through things and not have to look up punctuation entries in the AP Stylebook. Oh, and concerning the Stylebook? Oy. I'd always been convinced that it was simply the collocation of strange rules written by a bunch of completely sloshed news editors trying to change the world of journalism.

Now that I've been using it more frequently, I am almost positive that my hypothesis is correct. How do you decide that in all American newspapers, "traveling" will only get one "l"? Or, for that matter, that all punctuation (except for that question mark) goes inside quotation marks? Oh, but there are even more exceptions.

I don't really know what they are yet. I just know that they exist. That's the most frustrating part of what I do: knowing that there may or may not be something wrong with a sentence, and knowing that its correctness lies solely in the hands of a bunch of drunkies. That if the sentence appeared in almost anything besides an article in a newspaper, it would be perfectly fine.

I can understand why being a copy editor isn't really on the top of the list for careers. You have to follow rules. Lots of rules. Some rules don't even have an explanation. In the Stylebook, they're just listed as a single word. Like "seesaw," or "'hooky' Not 'hookey'."But why isn't is "hookey?" Who decided? Was it a linguistics thing? Is "hookey" actually a bad word? How can normal people know these things, unless they had a hand in creating the Stylebook?

They can't. And that is why we editors are the elite (haha!). Although, the elite as compared to who, I'm not exactly sure. Who knows. But I'm sure that somewhere in the world, there exists a career that is the proletariat to our bourgeoisie.

05 February 2009

The best pictures

It's Thursday again, and the worst thing about today is that it was nice enough to wear shorts. I almost feel sad that I live in Colorado, and we seem to be completely skipping over winter this year. Whatever happened to the February flurries, the blizzards trapping my car in the driveway (at least, that's where it would be trapped if my parents let me park in the driveway, instead of on the street)?

Then again, I'd better not complain too much. Driving in snow and ice up to Greeley twice a week ...yech. That doesn't exactly sound fun. Or safe. And then I would never get here before 5, as it is my eternal goal to do, and then one day, one fateful day, I will have to ring the doorbell. It laughs at me whenever I leave work at night (or is it morning?) to go to my car. Someone put a piece of fake fauna on top of it, probably as some cruel joke to camouflage something truly evil with the reassuring presence of green vine leaves. But I see through the guise. I know what it really is.

Today, as with most Thursdays, I started the evening by checking the wedding, birthday, and engagement announcements. The first problem I ran into was totally me. I forgot how to enter the search commands so that all of the announcements show up at once, in a neat little row. I sat in front of the computer and wiggled my mouse around a little, perhaps hoping that I would accidentally click on the magic command. I didn't.

I should have just asked, but I've done this three times already (yes, three. Oh, so many times), and, as I've always known, I'm rather proud, and I like to figure things out on my own. This is probably something I should work on, i.e. change. I'm trying to ask more questions more often, but it's hard for a person who is used to being able to assume knowledge, if not fake it outright. If you haven't noticed, I'm somewhat ridiculous.

After I managed to find all of the announcements (though through a different means than normal; I'm glad I was actually able to figure it out), I found the best wedding photo ever. Well, maybe it's not the best ever, but it was so much cuter than all of the other pictures. I always make sure to look at the photo attachments when I check the engagement and wedding announcements. I think I do it for the sake of being girly. Or something. I don't really know. I just really like looking at these photos, and knowing that this is how the world is going to remember this couple.

Sometimes they're not very good pictures. Sometimes I look at them and inadvertently grimace, because neither subject looks very comfortable, or because the photographer thought that it would be oh-so-adorable to have every single one of his clients stand with the girl holding her hand on the guy's chest. Maybe it was cute the first time.....but the twentieth time? Not so much.

But today, the picture was of a December 2008 wedding, the Carrico-Dieke wedding. The woman had long blond hair, swept into long ringlets reaching halfway down her back, and she was smiling the smile that comes halfway between laughter and trying to hold a serious face. Her groom had long dreds tied at the back of his head, and his nose was pressed into the woman's cheek. He was grinning, and the white blocks of his teeth made me want to grin with him. A painting of two praying hands pressed together was in the background.

The reason this picture stood out to me is its moment. All the other pictures are too simple. The bride and groom stop, turn to the camera, and smile. Click. This photo wasn't staged. It was like the bride had asked for one more picture, the groom wanted to walk away, he wanted to kiss her. They started talking, they started laughing; the bride wanted to be serious and take the picture, so she turned to the photographer and started to smile.

Sometimes the best pictures are the ones where no one cooperates.