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...