Beaches, drag queens, bullstock and dieticians
Out of frustration, I just threw my Coach purse (empty, of course) into the washing machine with my load of towels. I tried the gentler tactics listed online (damp washcloths, gentle soaps, etc.), and nothing was getting the grime off my poor, filthy bag, so I put it to the ultimate test. It's on a light, gentle cycle, so I'm hoping it'll be okay.
If not, it's not like it's a gigantic, earth-shattering loss. I haven't used it in months (due to its dirty nature and the fact that the strap inexplicably broke halfway through the fall semester), and it was the "it's fallen off a truck" bag I scored in the Bahamas for $40 instead of the $165 price tag.
It's kind of strange, but I'm somehow beyond worry at this stage in the week. It's as if so much has gone on in the past few weeks that I've suddenly stopped freaking out all together, and it's a wonderful feeling. To quote Robert Frost, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
I have two meetings today -- one will outline a project that will determine 50% of my grade in that class, and the other will determine the School of Mass Communications' official stance on my summer internship eligibility. I've made some notes for each, and I'm not too concerned about either, because no matter what the outcome, I'll survive. A new day will dawn, ripe with opportunity, and I can choose to seize it or let it pass me by as I sit in the corner and worry over things I can't control. Hmmm...decisions, decisions. I think I'll take the former.
Deadline writing for the Oracle used to freak me out. I wanted time to plan out my pieces and carefully construct questions and interviews that would engage people. Then this week my writers committed the same errors that used to make me sick to my stomach last summer -- hours before deadline, they'd e-mail me and inform me that they didn't write their articles. On Monday, when it first happened (as of 3:30 p.m. we had NOTHING to run in our section for the night) I noticed a familiar word in both apologies -- can't. They didn't write a litany of excuses; they just informed me that the article couldn't be written. And so, three times over this week, I proved to them that it could. It didn't even take the week that I gave them to write it in. Each time, I had three hours or less to interview people, research facts and write the story. Montage didn't run U-Wire at all. We just made it work.
I don't want to come off as a you-know-what to my writers during our Wednesday meeting, but I want to somehow use this as a learning tool, not a "Hey idiot, you said it couldn't be done but look, I did it!" A lot of the time we see our limitations before our strengths, and I want to show my staff that they are just as capable (if not moreso) of writing last-minute clean-copy stories -- if they only give themselves the chance. I don't know how exactly to form the soul-searching rah rah cheerleader speech, and I don't know whether they'll repond to it at all, but hopefully I can show them that it was just as scary for me to put myself on the line, and how rewarding it can be. Who knows, maybe I'll devote more time to article writing despite being an editor.
If not, it's not like it's a gigantic, earth-shattering loss. I haven't used it in months (due to its dirty nature and the fact that the strap inexplicably broke halfway through the fall semester), and it was the "it's fallen off a truck" bag I scored in the Bahamas for $40 instead of the $165 price tag.
It's kind of strange, but I'm somehow beyond worry at this stage in the week. It's as if so much has gone on in the past few weeks that I've suddenly stopped freaking out all together, and it's a wonderful feeling. To quote Robert Frost, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
I have two meetings today -- one will outline a project that will determine 50% of my grade in that class, and the other will determine the School of Mass Communications' official stance on my summer internship eligibility. I've made some notes for each, and I'm not too concerned about either, because no matter what the outcome, I'll survive. A new day will dawn, ripe with opportunity, and I can choose to seize it or let it pass me by as I sit in the corner and worry over things I can't control. Hmmm...decisions, decisions. I think I'll take the former.
Deadline writing for the Oracle used to freak me out. I wanted time to plan out my pieces and carefully construct questions and interviews that would engage people. Then this week my writers committed the same errors that used to make me sick to my stomach last summer -- hours before deadline, they'd e-mail me and inform me that they didn't write their articles. On Monday, when it first happened (as of 3:30 p.m. we had NOTHING to run in our section for the night) I noticed a familiar word in both apologies -- can't. They didn't write a litany of excuses; they just informed me that the article couldn't be written. And so, three times over this week, I proved to them that it could. It didn't even take the week that I gave them to write it in. Each time, I had three hours or less to interview people, research facts and write the story. Montage didn't run U-Wire at all. We just made it work.
I don't want to come off as a you-know-what to my writers during our Wednesday meeting, but I want to somehow use this as a learning tool, not a "Hey idiot, you said it couldn't be done but look, I did it!" A lot of the time we see our limitations before our strengths, and I want to show my staff that they are just as capable (if not moreso) of writing last-minute clean-copy stories -- if they only give themselves the chance. I don't know how exactly to form the soul-searching rah rah cheerleader speech, and I don't know whether they'll repond to it at all, but hopefully I can show them that it was just as scary for me to put myself on the line, and how rewarding it can be. Who knows, maybe I'll devote more time to article writing despite being an editor.