New things

I officially have a little too much to do every week. I was supposed to use yesterday to do some major homework reading, but a friend called in the middle of the evening, and, well, there went the rest of the night.

I don't understand why I haven't kept up with my blog for the past two handfuls of months. You'd think that I'd be on here every second I had free. But no. I'm not. Rather, I'm here now on assignment. That's the sad part, this isn't even a pure form of writing on my own whim. As part of my journalism curriculum at school, I'm required to spend three credits of this semester in a class called "REPORTING 3" (dum, dum, duuuuum). This class is a rather refreshing step away from the first two classes of that same category. In this one, the entire class is thrown off of school property and forced to get internships in local print media.

I was one of the (few, I think) people to choose to get a copyediting internship, instead of a reporting internship. I made this choice for a couple of really good reasons, the first of which is that I'm honest to goodness absolutely definitely really super tired of reporting. Sure, I loved studying under Jim Sheeler of "Obit" fame, and it was fantastic to finally have a teacher who didn't insist that I write in a tiny sealed box of his or her own making. Yes, that was great. The problem I have with reporting is this: I have no innate curiousity.

There. I've admitted it in public. Now if only my journalism advisors and professors would believe me and listen to me when I say it. ha...ha....

I won't tell the story of how I got the internship, as it may put certain persons in not-so-favorable ultra-bright flourescent lights, and I'd rather avoid that sort of thing here. Suffice it to say that after a sufficient amount of freaking out and confusion on my part, I was given an internship at the Greeley Tribune in, of course, Greeley.

I've worked a total of two quite long days (long because my hours there have me in the newsroom until just after midnight), and so far have no complaints except for some of the keyboards there are a little more dirty than I'd like to notice.

I mean, really, people. It's a keyboard, and other people sometimes have to touch it. You could just clean it every once in a while, you know? Or every year? Once a year? Those little white keys next to the splotchy brown keys also used to be pearly and clean, did you know that? It's just so disgusting when I'm given a free desk, and I look down and start coming up with ways in my head to ask if I might be able to use a different desk in the room, for the sake of my fingertips. My hands actually hover over the keys, not from writer's block or not being able to decide which search engine to choose, but from a fear that some sort of fungus is in fact on those keys. You can't be too careful, you know.

So the next few months of blogging will almost completely be dedicated to this internship, and the little things that I learn about copyediting on the way. Every once in a while I'll probably post links to an interesting story or two. Well, you know, once I really begin reading things online that aren't in French. It wouldn't do much for me to post things from Le Monde, would it?