When I was young, I was in love with my words. Getting edited was the most painful process on those 2 page, double spaced, papers about the inner motivations of savage boys on an island with a conch shell or the most annoying character that ever lived (Holden Caufield) or whatever other topic I wrote about in those short short (I say this in hindsight) papers before college.

Yesterday, I picked up a story for Liz when she needed it last minute. Fine fine, no matter. Story easy enough call someone get some information, use a press release, check the clips. I talked with the ACE a bunch to find out what he wanted, wrote up a story. Then watched as he rewrote the entire thing. I suppose it’s a good thing my attachment to words has weakened, or else it would have been heartbreaking. After we finished and he asked me what I felt about it, I said “well at least I wrote the headline.” Part joke, part passive aggressive bitterness I must admit, I guess I must also admit I’m not good at doing something I am passionate about. I wasn’t attached to any of the words in my story about American Airlines because, well, I never would have cared about it on my own. Still don’t really care about it. But that’s really been the only story I didn’t ‘like’ just did it to get it done with. And it was the most brutal editing, as well.

I have always been one who pretty much despises crime and politics stories, most “hard news” stories, to be honest. I might even go so far to say I might be part of the news hating generation, ironically enough. Which makes working at a newspaper hard at times, and has probably been one of the main causes of several “what-am-I-doing-with-my-life” sessions throughout the past few weeks. But I suppose this class is required, but it’s sort of a bummer the Vox beat doesn’t exist. It’s not so bad as I’m making it out, especially when I get to work on stories that I pick/pitch stories that I am interested in (veering as far away from crime and politics as possible).

Only thirty more minutes of GA shift left, where hopefully I won’t be forced to go to the police station again. I seriously could think of a thousand things I’d rather do than that, one of them including drowning.

Interviewing Bob the firework man for our multimedia project was probably my favorite thing I had to do so far, I just hope that I end up liking this more than convergence reporting even though I’m starting to think that might have been a better fit for me now, since it seems to be the only stories I pitch are longer more involved pieces that err on the side of magaziney rather than breaking news. C’est la vie.

No looking back now though.