First Week Back

Three weeks into my Advance Reporting class I finally decide to post a blog.

Although, class has been in session for three weeks, I am considering this week my first week back in class. I am considering this my first week back because I am finally to the place where I can begin to focus on school --especially the advanced reporting class. I haven't quite reached the point where I'm ready to sign my life over to the Missourian, but I am ready to at least mentally prepare myself to walk into the newsroom again.

I've been showing up at the Missourian for four years now, but it's still something about this newsroom that feels foreign to me. I don't get a sense of work when I walk in, but I feel like I've yet again been suckered into working for the top school for journalism. While some students are eager to show up and shine, I am quite comfortable learning things I feel I never would have discovered on my own.

After six years of calling myself a journalist, I'm ready to put myself to the test. For me this semester is about honing in on my skills. I should be able to put a story together with some pretty creatvie angles in a descent amount of time. While this sounds like the basics of journalism, for me it's more of a decision make: to pursue a previously decided career path, or decide upon another path that embodies my passion.

With all this in mind, and the fact that I just got paid so I an quit thinking about money 24/7, I wanted my first week back to be smooth. I once again have to remember I'm a journalist and its my job to be informed of the news. I once again must find my voice for a mainstream newspaper when I know I'm more concerned about seeing my community prosper through access to information.

So, for my first week back I did okay. I wrote two stories about Michael Eric Dyson coming to campus. I received compliments from two editors on the flow of my stories -- something I'm proud of becasue usually I have a problem with organization. Additionally, I plan to catch up on reading this weekend. I'm pretty happy I didn't let my first two weeks persuade me to give up. I'm proud for pitching a story a week before several people decided to pitch it daily in budget. I wrote something for on-line and didn't decide to cancel because it wasn't going in print; I realized this on-line thing is serious business
(something I've been hearing for years, but something that doesn't register for a person who just bought her first laptop and doesn't have internet access at home).

Let's hope the second week (actually the fourth) will be just as successful!