Friday, April 09, 2010

warming up


the view out of the back of the el train, purple line to evanston.

end of my second week of my second quarter. this week was decent. i filed two stories this week, the first of which made it to the "front page" of our web site. to be fair, one third of the newsroom - the "urban" reporters - weren't in that day and so didn't compete for front page status. business stories, unless linked with some hot topic or glamorous topic like sports or celebrities, aren't necessarily front-page fodder.

part of the reason i'm thinking the week wasn't so bad was because i only had to get up at 5:45 a.m. twice this week. wednesday was the "career fair" in evanston so i slept in til 8 that day. woo fucking hoo. career fairs are all the same. predictably lame. i walked around, talked to CNN, bloomberg and travelzoo, got some free pens. i also went to a meeting in preparation for this workshop next week, for which i am a student volunteer.

been skyping with trev at night. it's nice for me because i get to wind down from the day hearing his voice and what he did the day before. once he starts work next week it won't work out so nicely - shanghai is 13 hours ahead so his mornings, which he's been spending leisurely talking with me, will be a tad busier. and my mornings tuesday through thursday are brutal - i'm out the door when the sun is coming up. we'll see how this works out, time-wise, this quarter. international relationships, as good as we are at them, are tough.

Friday, April 02, 2010

i need a pick-me-up

friday nights = too tired to do anything + too anxious to not do anything

is this why a disproportionate percentage of journalists are alcoholics?

i started my second quarter, including the voyage towards specializing in digital media. it's pretty remedial so far... i'll reserve my comments for a later time, when i've taken more than just one class, but i hope it goes faster than this first class. we're blogging on wordpress.

everyone says how j-school is one of the best years of their lives. i'm not experiencing that. i'm learning a lot, but it's stressful and grueling and not that fun. so, let me dispel that myth.

for the first time since i left california in early december, i'm actually feeling sort of homesick. it's weird, because i plugged along in the freezing weather, and now that it's warm out i want to go home.