Accent pdfs

I am now the proud owner of three years worth of Southern Accent pdfs.  That's right.  I went in to the Accent office this evening to get the pdfs of the pages with my articles on them to use for my digital portfolio. But I ended up just taking all the pdfs for this entire year since I didn't want to have to look through all the folders for only my articles.  Then I found backup folders from the past two years as well.  Since I'd written some articles in last year's paper, I took those. And then, since I'd already got the files for two years, I figured might as well grab the last one too.  So, that's my exciting news of the day.  Oh, and also, I had no exams today, so I started packing my clothes.  But then that wasn't very interesting so I stopped.  I hate packing.

Last Accent

Bryn's recital was awesome.  Of course, I'm a biased big sister, but I heard other people say similar things about it, so my opinion must be right.  I especially loved seeing her in the Green Room getting ready for the event.

After the recital and talking to Bryn and my other family members and friends for a bit, I headed back to the Accent office to finish editing the last issue for this year.  It was a strange feeling to be at work tonight and know that I won't ever have to rush from orchestra on a Tuesday evening to get to the office and start working.

Ack, this year is really and truly coming to a close.  I remember the first Monday of the school year when Emily (the editor) and Emily (the photo editor) and I met in the office to discuss what we were going to be doing for the news section this year.  I was completely overwhelmed with having to get eight stories for the first issue without the help of the News Reporting class.  But somehow that issue came together, just like all the rest have throughout the rest of the year.  And now, suddenly, it's all over.  How does time go by so fast?  One summer day I'm reading a list of scheduled events that we will have to cover during the school year and then, all of a sudden here I am, just back home from my last night in the Accent office.

I'm really going to miss the fun and camaraderie of hanging out (and yes, working too) with the staff.  I think part of what made it so much fun was that most of the staff are journalism majors and, while I knew all their names before working on the Accent, I actually got to know them by being in a room together for hours each week.  I know I won't miss the stress of working with the News Reporting class or trying to find writers for last-minute articles or doing deadline writing myself if no writers could be found, but I'll definitely miss the people.  Emily, Katie, Adrienne, Emily, Stefan, Aimee, Matt, Aimee and Mr. Lale (and other staff members who occasionally dropped by the office), thanks for all the memories you've given me of a great year as a newspaper-creation team.  It's been an awesome experience!

Full office

Seems like all my Tuesday posts are about the Accent office.  Forgive me, interesting things have happened there in the past few weeks.  Besides there's only one week left of the Accent after today, so you won't have to read about it for too much longer.

Today Andrea came in and told us that there would be a group of people coming in to look over our shoulders and watch what each of us does - her next year staff.  She had told them that they should come around 8 or 8:30 since that's when most people are in the office.  Usually that's true for me, but tonight was Jonathan's bass recital so I had to leave before 7:30 and run to the music building.  I didn't get back to the office until just after 9, and by then it was filled with students who are in News Reporting right now (and one graphic design major).  They had taken all the extra seats in the office and were sitting in a circle (some people were even sitting on the floor) in the middle of the office.  I grabbed a page off the board and started reading through it standing up.  But that got uncomfortable really fast so I went out to the student center and pushed one of the chairs into the office, making it more crowded.  Anyway, the point is that we usually have six or seven people in the office at a time, but tonight there were six extra bodies filling the not-really-huge room.  It was pretty cramped.  And then the next year staff were having a big discussion about who else they should get for the positions that weren't filled yet.  It was kind of hard for us current staff to communicate with each other.  And also hard to objectively look at the news articles since most of the people in the office had written them and were listening for any hints about what we thought of them.

After most other people had left, the potential next year news editor stayed around to ask me all about my job since I wasn't around earlier when he'd first come in.  So I had to stop editing and tell him about that, which was fine but meant I couldn't leave as early as I thought I'd be able to.  Oh well, I'm glad that Andrea's getting her team together now and having them come in and talk to us.  I wish I'd had that opportunity last year because then I wouldn't have just come in cold at the start of this school year.  I'm really curious what the Accent will be like next year with all these sophomores running the operation (well I guess they'll be juniors by then).  OK, I'm done now.

Almost.  Just wanted to add that Jonathan's recital was great.  It's always interesting to hear bass solos cause you usually just hear them play in orchestras on jazz ensembles.

Nothing to say

My blog posts are getting boring.  But forgive me.  I'm in three W classes and two of them (plus the pointless SM class) have major writing assignments due before I can graduate.  I don't have time for extra words.

Only interesting thing I can think of: for about 40 minutes tonight I was the only person in the Accent office.  Emily (editor) and Katie were at their soccer game, Emily (photo editor) was finished her job for the evening and left, Matt left to change for his soccer game, and Adrienne and Stefan hadn't got out of classes yet.  Andrea also hadn't come by the office.  It was very different to be in there alone, but it was nice and quiet and gave me time to thing about and write my article.  At least that's one writing deadline that is finally over.  I did the main interview for that piece around the end of January and have been putting off writing the article until tonight.  I'm sure it could have been better, but oh well.  At least it's finally done.

New editor

Tonight was different at the Accent office. This semester I come in around 6:30, since I'm at orchestra when we're supposed to start at 6. Typically only Matt and the two Emily's are in the office when I get there. Last semester almost everyone was there right away, but this semester a lot of people are in classes until a bit later. Adrienne comes in at 7 and Katie is sometimes there at the start, but more often comes after 7 or so. Stefan has a class until 9 or 9:30 and Aimee comes around then too. It's interesting to watch the dynamics change as people get to the office. At first we're all pretty studiously editing, but we get more vocal and chatty as more people come in.

But tonight there was a new factor thrown in. Andrea, a student from News Reporting class who writes for the paper this semester, came by around 7. She was just informed that she'll be the new Accent editor for next year. This are going to be WAY different next year. Most of the leadership staff will have graduated. Let's see. Here's a list of those of us graduating: editor, managing editor, news editor, copyeditor, one of the layout people, front page designer, religion editor, opinion editor. There might be more, but those are the ones I can think of right now. So, as you can see, most of the main leadership of the paper, and many of the other contributing staff will be gone next year.

Andrea wanted to see how things happen at the office. When she came in, only Matt and I were there. Emily had just left to go to a soccer game. So I talked to Andrea about what we did in the office on Tuesday nights and then told her about my specific job and tried to tell her a bit about some of the other jobs on the staff. Then I told her she was free to help us edit some of the pages. She took me up on the offer and stayed around until more people showed up so she could see how things really work when everyone is at the office. She asked everyone what their jobs were and watched the transformation of the paper. Anyway, I know the Accent will be way different next year, but I think Andrea is a good person to leave in charge. I bet she'll be hanging out in the office with us until the end of the school year.

Sports page

I wrote an article for the Sports page in the Accent, which makes me happy because I've been telling Emily for more than a month that I was going to. And now I have and the best thing is, no one (except you guys) will know that I just stole it off my own blog, edited it down by a few words, wrote a tidy little intro and conclusion, and sent it in to the sports editor. Am I sneaky or what?

Accent happenings

Today was by far the most stressful day of this semester for me. Actually, it very well could have been the most stressful day of this school year, which might also have the potential of being my most stressful day of post-secondary education. And I'm going to stop there and not go back any farther back in my education history.

So, I had been having a hard time trying to track down the right people to interview for my news story for this week. I was invited along to a golden-opportunity group interview of eight of Southern's Haitian students last Friday night after vespers. I got the e-mail about an hour before vespers started and was struggling with the idea in my mind. On the one hand, it would be great to just go and meet the students and get information from them about how their families and friends in Haiti are doing since the earthquake. On the other hand, I felt like doing that would be bordering on work and I really wanted to have a nice relaxing start to the Sabbath. I felt like going to the interview would disrupt my time with God. So I signed out of my Southern e-mail and spent the time I could have been interviewing for my story listening to a couple sermons on AudioVerse. I think that was the right choice for me at that time.

Anyway, back to my today-story. I had tried to contact the guy who invited me for the interview to ask him for some names of students I could talk to for my story and he eventually got back to me, on Monday night. So I had to try to arrange for all the interviews on Tuesday. In between calling to set up interview times I worked on my first draft of my Advanced Creative Writing piece. I just wrote it totally stream of consciousness and felt like it was terrible, but I just needed to get the thoughts and memories all down before trying to clean the article up. Finally I had all my interviews scheduled and I finished my draft just before having to leave for class.

After class I raced to the top floor of the music building where I got out my computer and did a really helpful interview with Pastor Brennon. I had been trying to track him down all day. In the morning he wasn't in his office and when I called back in the afternoon he had just come into the Campus Ministries office, but immediately went into a meeting so I asked the secretary to see if he could talk to me at 4:45 p.m., just before orchestra. We had a great interview and he told me lots of really great stuff. In fact, after that interview I thought I could probably write an entire article on just the information he gave me (although, as any good reporter knows, writing an article using only one source is just a recipe for disaster). By the time we said good-bye, I was 10 minutes late for orchestra so I rushed downstairs and got my violin out as fast as I could. We practiced with a bunch of the soloists for our Concert Concert in a couple Sundays. Our rehearsal with the last soloist went over our normal ending time and Mrs. Minner said that anyone who absolutely had to leave, could. I did have to leave so I went back upstairs and did the interviews with the Haitian students that I had contacted earlier that afternoon. Both of the interviews were pretty short, but each students gave me tons of excellent quotes and many terribly sad facts. I told each of them that I would pray for their families, especially the ones they haven't heard from yet.

When those interviews were done, I raced over to the Accent office and started furiously writing up my story. It took me more than two hours to have it fully completed. There was just so much information that I had to wade through to find the most newsworthy and relevant-to-our-campus facts. When I finally finished the story it was more than 630 words, but the copyeditor helped me pare it back down to less than 600, which I think made it a stronger story. Then there was another issue I had to take care of. Let's just say that a SJ&C professor told me he would have a student in his class write an article for me and when I got that "article" I found out it was really a press release. The editor and I finally got that situation figured out and started to breathe again. After that I read over and edited all the rest of the pages and got done by 11 p.m. Then I still had to do an interview with a guy from my speech class for our introduction speech we have to do tomorrow. I'm not sure how I got it all done, but somehow I did. I'm so thankful that the News Reporting class is now going to be writing stories for the Accent issues from now on. It takes a lot of the pressure of finding at least eight writers every week off me.

Unsalted beans

I made rice and beans for supper tonight. The rice was a little bit watery, but nothing too terrible. But the beans, that's another story. I actually cheated. I used canned black beans. I really shouldn't have. I opened the can, poured the beans into a bowl, and warmed them up. Then I tried some. I really shouldn't have done that either. They tasted terrible. I wasn't quite sure why they were so gross until Bryn showed me the can. Not only were they unsalted, but they were also organic. They were awful. Danielle tried to make them edible by adding virtually all the spices we had in our cupboard, but it didn't help. I ended up throwing them out. I guess I'll have to pay more attention to what I buy the next time I get black beans at the VM.

On a less gross-tasting topic, I'm really happy with this week's Accent. For a first issue of the semester, with no help yet from the News Reporting class, I think it turned out rather good. Thanks to those of you who helped me out with writing! You all did a great job!

Work again

Tonight was probably the least stressful deadline day I've ever experienced. I had left writing my story for the Accent until today and I should have been pretty stressed out, but for some odd reason, wasn't (which is very good, just rather atypical since I like to be on schedule and get things done earlier rather than later). Yesterday afternoon I e-mailed my two main sources to get interviews with them so at least those were all set up and scheduled. So this morning I just went and haunted the SA office for about an hour, had great interviews, and tried to get another interview with a faculty member. She was out of her office until after lunch so I went back to my apartment to write for the rest of the morning/early afternoon. I called my third source after noon and did a phone interview with her. Then I wrote up my article in a very relaxed fashion. I even had time to donate to Danielle, who came over to use some of my resume paper and my editing knowledge. She was sending off the last of her grad school applications. After she left I ignored the giGANtic pile of dishes in the sink (unfortuntely we don't have a dish washer) and kept writing and editing and revising and writing some more, finally finishing about half an hour before my only class of the day.

After orchestra I returned to the Accent office after more than a month-long hiatus from student newspaper work. It was fun to hang out with the SJ&C crew again and good to get my brain back to editing. We were all really surprised how fast things came together tonight and how quickly we were getting done. When I got home I got an even bigger surprise; the sink was absolutely empty of dishes. Bryn and Josh had washed them for me, even though it was my turn to do the dishes about three turns ago . . . All I have to say is sisters and friends are great!

Christmas on the Promenade

Tonight I finally got to see the inside of the Doll House. I've been wanting to since it got moved to its present location and tonight I got my chance. It actually seems a lot bigger inside than it appears to be from the outside. I had read the plaque outside the building before and had also read the story in the Southern Accent about all the uses the Doll House has had since it was built, but it was neat to see the write-ups and pictures that were posted on bulletin boards inside. I also thought it was neat that Santa Claus was set up on the porch of the Doll House. It seemed like a very appropriate place for him to be. Oh and there was also a gingerbread man right near the line for Santa. Jonathan took a picture of Danielle and I posing with him. Other than that Christmas on the Promenade was the usual, although it seemed warmer - at least to me - than the previous two years that I've attended. One thing I was a bit sad about was that it was my last Christmas on the Promenade and my two siblings couldn't enjoy it with me. They were in Film Evaluation class. Oh well, I found others to hang out with and that was fun too.

After the Christmas festivities, I had to go work at the Accent office. It was super nice of our editor to let us take part in the fun before having to work. Work tonight was a lot of fun, although that could be because of the Christmas music, homemade cookies and apple cider waiting for us back in the Accent office. Tonight's issue took an extra long time - half because we started working late because of Christmas on the Promenade and half because I think we all really wanted to make sure that this, our last issue of the semester, was as error-free as we could make it. Also I think we wanted to make sure all the stories about Kirsten were as correct, appropriate and sensitively-written as possible. When I was finally done editing and fixing and changing things around, the copy editor, Adrienne, and I left together. Reading all the information about Kirsten made us want to stick together as we left the student center so I walked with Adrienne to her car and she gave me a ride to mine. I wonder if extra precautions actually keep you safe or just make you a more-easily-scared human being?

Busy Day

It's really hard to track down some people at Southern. It was a very on-the-phone-a-lot type of day. I finally was able to get a hold of the people I needed to so I could get some stuff accomplished. More recently, I was in the Accent office from 6:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. tonight. It didn't even seem that long since I was busy editing and working with the other Accent staff members. It was fun tonight...a lot more fun that last week when I didn't have much of a clue about what I was supposed to be doing. I think I might be getting the hang of this whole News Editor thing. So here is the best and worst of working tonight. Best: I finalized my news budget for next week's Accent, ran it by our editor and e-mailed it to the people who needed it. I feel like that's a huge accomplishment in itself. But there's more. I also got writers for the last two stories in next week's issue that needed writers. Yay! Now I only have to write one story for next week and I already have it half finished. Worst: I had to miss the David Payne drama. I'm so disappointed. I really wanted to see it. Maybe somebody took a video I could watch though. I hope so...

Phoning

Today I made ten phone calls. That's a lot for one day, at least for me. I'm not too fond of phoning people. I'd much rather just talk face to face with the people I know. As for people I don't know, I'd usually rather not talk to them at all (eg. people calling to do a random over-the-phone survey).

Until I took Advanced Reporting last semester, I relied on either e-mailing my sources to make appointments or just going to see them in the hope that they could take a few minutes to talk with me. That method worked all right for News Reporting when almost all of my stories were on campus. It didn't work so well in Advanced Reporting. My news beat in that class was the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library. It just wasn't logical to drive downtown to the main branch whenever I had a story due and the closer branches didn't always have the information I needed to know. Finally I realized calling my sources over the phone was a pretty efficient way to get information from them. Plus, I quickly learned that taking notes in a phone interview is a whole lot easier and way faster than writing them all out in a face-to-face interview.

I still am not a huge fan of the phone, but being able to effectively use it was an asset today. Of the ten calls I made, nine were to writers (the other was accidental). Three of those nine gave me the results I wanted. None of the e-mails I sent to those same contacts even got answered.