Love and heartbreaks

I never thought that I would have a job I wouldn't mind doing--I just thought adulthood was about doing things I had to do. I may have found a loophole, and it's a fantastic feeling.

Love isn't perfect, though. It comes with heartbreaks and frustrations. My heartbreak is leaving work and waiting two days to get back to it. My other heartbreak is not being able to edit as much as I would like to (if I overedit, I may insult the client). My frustration is non compliant people, e.g. trying to get information from the Johns Hopkins interns and JHU Media Relations.

It was understandable at first: both girls were going through orientation, learning about their roles at JHCC, and getting settled in to their responsibilities. This game that one of the girls is playing--the "I'm too busy to set aside ten minutes for something I agreed to" game-- is silly. I'm not taking it personally, but I am also very busy with rush, classes, work, internship, and personal stuff; and when I agree to do something, you can be sure that I will commit myself to finishing the job. Is it so hard to take ten minutes out of a one hour lunch break just to chat?

On the brighter side of things, It has been a joy and a challenge to do the Ogonna Nnamani and the Vicki Hall stories. I arranged an interview with Ogonna's dad to get the other half of the story--coming from Nigeria to the US and watching Ogonna grow-- which I think will make this a full, beautiful, warm, and inspiring story.

Vicki Hall's story is coming out quite well. I just passed it over to Susan to look at, so hopefully we can get it over to design sometime soon.

I've got another story in the mix, which features what students are passionate about ISU. It isn't surprising, but a lot of people I spoke with said their favorite thing about the University was either a) the warmth and camaraderie you feel when you're on campus b) the quality of the professors/ classes here and c) the number of opportunities you have to grow and succeed. I've got the warm fuzzies, oh yes I do.

Steve has also been giving me stories and documents to copy edit. I just finished a ten page document yesterday that I had to hand edit about four times to make it "acceptable". The thing was loaded with grammatical errors, inconsistencies in pacing and register, unnecessary sentences/ spaces, and other forms of "editor candy". It was a challenging document to work with, but I need a challenge (how else will I be able to improve?). I hope the client understands my corrections, changes, and suggestions.

Writing/ editing makes my heart pound (in a good way). I love the pressure/ rush of a deadline, the self expression, communicating with people, and working with a team to deliver one final and tangible goal: the publication.

The Odd Couple

Yesterday was fantastic.

I began my day with the easiest task (calling people), seasoned it with some brief editing exercises, and finished it with solid reflection/ writing.

The JHU story may be the most difficult story that's been assigned to me. It isn't due until April 1, but it's still a little unnerving not to get a comment from anyone after two weeks. I made a few calls to JHU Children's Hospital, dealt with Media Relations, and called a few more people here at ISU. I know the interns won't get back to me for a while, which was agreed upon, but I'm running out of things to do :-(.

Strangely, the story I thought would be the most challenging turned out to be the easiest. I called Ogonna, she answered, and she was delighted to speak with me. I was freaking out the night before the interview because I wasn't sure what to ask an Olympic Athlete, but then it dawned on me: so many people talk about Ogonna Nnamani the athlete and her achievements; people never talk about how she got from being a child who wasn't allowed to participate in sports (she has severe asthma) to a two-time Olympic athlete (and she's training for another one! O.o).

She's a real eye-opener, that Ogonna. She's humble, friendly, extremely nice, and loves to chat. I could say so much more about her, but you're going to have to wait for the actual article for that ;-).

Steve handed me another assignment for one of our departments. The only downer I've found with Business to Business editing at a university is that I can't fully do my job as an editor. As far as I understand it, the job of the editor is to bring the text to the best possible state. If the submission is poorly written by the organization/ client, we can't rewrite the content for them (it's perceived as an insult to the writer of the piece). Instead, we can only make minimal changes to sentence structure and major changes to formatting and punctuation, which is difficult when you're working on something that is loaded with errors.

I'm not trying to be insulting by any means. I guess the most important thing I have to learn is how to accept imperfection (within reason). I don't feel comfortable with it because I am a perfectionist, but I have an inkling that it will be a large part of what I plan on doing for the rest of my life.

Channeling Oscar and Felix...

Capturing Humanism

The economy has made me a little afraid of the job market: there are fewer jobs and pickier employers. I've also had my fair share of graduation jitters--I've been asking myself whether I chose the right major, whether I'd be able to get a job, and so on. But working at UMC for a week has helped me realize that I love my job and I did choose the right major. And those graduation/ getting a job jitters? They're still there, but I won't let them get me down.

I love that my job requires me to sit down and think about how I can inspire people, wow them, draw them in, or even make their lives a little bit better. The point of the Alumni Magazine is to spread cheer, build pride, and so far, I think we're doing a pretty good job of it. On Wednesday, K--- assigned me to a 700- 1,000 word feature on Ogonna Nnemani, a Bloomington-Normal native who played volleyball in the 2004 and 2008 olympics. I'm really excited to speak with her. She has done so many things in her lifetime, yet she's only a few years older than me.

I spent most of Wednesday doing research on her, coming up with questions for her, and contacting her family for her information (she's in Istanbul at the moment).

I also spent most of my day coming up with interview questions for the JHCC interns and communicating back and forth with them. That story is also fascinating because it really puts Illinois State beyond the expectations of most people (a lot of people call ISU "I Screwed Up" because it isn't UIUC). I think it really says something about our university and deploys the myths about the caliber of our professors, students, and faculty. I personally chose to come to Illinois State because I knew that I wouldn't get the same individual attention or the same sense of community at U of I. Strangely enough, I gained a lot more out of my experience: I got awesome, talented professors, a close-knit group of friends, tons of opportunities to get involved, and a stellar education. If that's the case, I think I'll change the abbreviation of ISU or ISNU to IDNSU (I did not screw up).

One of my assignments is a short story on a lady who received a library scholarship that hasn't been given out to anyone for years. This is intriguing considering that she is the first recipient of the scholarship since the University axed the library science program. The research and pre-interview process has gone well so far, and we interview on Tuesday. I'm very excited.

Assignment the second is copyediting little bits and pieces of text for our copyeditor. Copyediting for UMC is a lot easier than it was for STSS--they follow a style/ communicate their needs for the content--and it certainly is a lot less stressful. I won't say that my internship with STSS was a total waste, but it was definitely more difficult to get it across that a certain sentence did not work either because it was too long, it was irrelevant, because it was a fragment, or because it was punctuated incorrectly (people were less willing to listen). It could have been a matter of specialization, but no bother. UMC's style is easy to follow, it's solid, and I'm relatively familiar with it (they follow AP mixed in with CMS).

Assignment the third: going through back issues and looking for content that will attract a collegiate audience. This is going to be interesting since it will be my first attempt at market research. So far I've thought about stories dealing with greek life, clubs, and on-campus activities, but I still have to go through the back issues and determine if that is what I want to do.

Looking back on it, I'm happy I had such a short stint at the Vidette. If I had stayed, I would have had five articles per week piled on top of schoolwork, research, fraternity stuff, and regular work. Part of me wishes I had stayed, but the other part of me thinks it's worth it to take it easy for once (I've been a ball of stress for the past few years. I need time to recharge my batteries before I hit the trenches again). I can say that working for the Vidette has made the idea of working for a publication more tangible and a little bit more excited. Shall I say, "Don't dream it, be it"?

If I go back even further, I am a completely different writer than I was a year ago. French certainly helped me expand my vocabulary and understand English linguistic structures, but writing for the news helped me peel away unnecessary words and other things that were taking away from my main point.

The new challenge is capturing "humanism". As a news reporter, I spent a semester talking about facts and using people as devices to deliver the facts. As a magazine writer and editor, I have to spend a semester writing about people in a factual yet creative manner, but also use them as devices to deliver the best story possible. A true test of my writing skills, but also a great opportunity to refine an unfinished sculpture. I'm excited.

HEY YOU GUYS

A lot has changed since I first embarked on my journey as an English major at ISU. I was able to gain a bit of experience by working at the Daily Vidette, so my writing skills should be pretty solid by about now. Interestingly enough, the director from my last internship called me in to help him fix a graphic I had created in my last internship, which was an easy fix.

After meeting the UMC team at the Alumni Center's annual NYE Chili cookoff, Susan and I got right down to business. She assigned me two articles: one on the Eunice H. Speer Scholarship winner and the other on two CAST graduate students who were selected for an internship at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Both are due the first week of February, which should be a breeze compared to having to write an article in 3 hours. The only tedious part is finding my interviewees when I need them. *Blesses self*

I also got a sneak peek of the February issue. It looks fabulous.

I know it was only my first day, but the atmosphere of UMC is very different than STSS. Everyone at STSS was pretty agreeable (save a few people) but the people here seem to be good-natured and really, really excited to be at work... and so am I!