Keep It Positive!

…as you slap her to the floor!

Keep it positive! …as you pull her hair, and call her ‘whore’!



Okay, not entirely relevant. But Legally Blonde: the Musical, FTW! ;P

It’s the Sunday after the first week of classes of the spring semester, and let me tell ya, it’s been the longest week of my life. Things have calmed down a bit now, though, but it’s still beyond me why, after all the freaking writing I’ve done this week, I would want to write more. But that’s what writers do, isn’t it? We write. Go figure!

At the end of last semester, I can’t even tell you how stressed I was. I had two semester-long projects (the Gary Hall situation being one of them) coming to a hectic close at the same time. One of them was a group project, and I got more help from my mom than I did from my three group members combined. Bottom line, it SUCKED. I think I called home every day for about a week because I was on the verge of having nervous breakdowns every day. I felt so out of control of everything going on in my life.

The stress I experienced this week was a very, very different experience. I had a new schedule to start getting used to, plus two stories to write/interview people for on any given day. For example…

Tuesday:
Class at 9:30
Class at 11:00
Interview at 1:15 for story #1
Class at 2:00
Class at 5

Thursday:
Interview at 8:45 for story #2
Class at 9:30
Class at 11:00
Class at 2:00
Interview at 5 for story #3

Friday:
Class at 8:00
Work from 10:30-3:30
Interview at 3:45 for story #3
Interview at 5 for story #3 (that ended up not happening, but hey.)

Yeah. CRAZINESS.

Before I was even back on campus, I had two deadlines looming within the week. I was interviewing someone on Monday, before classes even started. And looking at my schedule for the week, needless to say I was a wee bit stressed out that day (and there wasn’t even a new episode of Castle that night! Boo!). I was dreading it and complaining about it for most of the day, until I realized something.

I could do it.

I mean, what good would being negative do? It was all going to be happening, whether I wanted it to or not. So I decided to have a different attitude.

Life? BRING IT!



I’d done interviews before. I’d had days of three classes and two and a half hours of work before. While long and tiring, they’re nothing new. So I went into my first, crazy-ass day of the semester with a positive outlook, and guess what? It wasn’t that bad. For serious! My classes all seemed decent, my interview went really well, and my 2-hour-40-minute class that night let out 2 hours and 15 minutes early. I even had time to write the story I did the interview for, which was due the next day, that I had originally planned to write after my 8 am class. Instead, I got to take a two and a half hour nap!

While still stressful and leaving me wishing for bedtime at 11:30 in the morning, this is the kind of stress I can deal with without having to call my mom and break down in tears. It’s not the choking, terrifying, ‘I don’t know if I can do this’ kind of stress. It’s more along the lines of ‘this is just an overload of stuff I know I can handle.’

In the last seven days, I’ve completed five interviews; written three stories (over 2,000 words on three separate topics and for two different publications) and two sports briefs; had deadlines on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday (and met them all); worked 11 hours at the wellness center; attended my first two editorial meetings for the paper; successfully navigated my first week of classes; AND finished all my reading for the next week. Well, actually, I still need to read for my finance class tomorrow. And my Friday deadline was pushed back to Sunday. But still. Successful? I think so!

And to think… it’ll only get easier from here!

But if anyone dares to tell me that students in the com school have it easy, I WILL BREAK YOUR FACE.



Ahem.

Anyway.

It was a pretty good week! All of my interviews were great! I think it was David that asked me what makes a good interview. I had to think about it for a second, because for me, it’s kind of just a feeling I get. If I walk away happier than I was when I started, it was a good interview. A good interviewee likes to talk, and doesn’t give you one-word answers. They don’t make you feel like you’re being inconvenient, or getting in the way of their busy life. A good interview usually gives you lots of notes, probably really messy and haphazard, with arrows all over the page. A good interviewee thanks you at the end, because they realize you’re writing this story for their benefit, and tells you to let them know if you need anything else. All of my interviews this week fit the bill.

I’m proud of what I’ve written, too! My articles for the Hurricane have been halfway decent, nothing particularly fantastic. But I think my story for Distraction is really good! :) My word limit was 1500, and I’d never written an article that long before. The assignment was really open ended, too – I was basically told to write a 1500-word story about the student trainers at the wellness center, and was given less than two weeks to do it in.

O_O

Luckily for me, I work at the wellness center, and therefore know a handful of trainers. Many, MANY thanks to Sune and Tim for saving my butt on this one! They were both fantastic interviewees, and gave me awesome quotes for my article. I managed to write the vast majority of it in a single sitting and only two or three hours (with Jon as my cheering section! Haha). The editor just got back to me about it, and the only changes I had to make were really minor! So GO ME! (Why yes, yes I am tooting my own horn!)

It was kind of funny to live through the progression of that story, though. I didn’t interview Sune until Thursday, and therefore didn’t really know what angle I was going to take for most of the week. I think it was Wednesday night that I was unbelievably grumpy because I didn’t know what I was doing… but then I figured out my direction, and life was good!

So, for future reference to myself…

Keep it positive! …yeah! Let out your inner freak!

Keep it positive! …miss prissy pants won’t last a week!



…Yep, still not really relevant. :P