Lost at the bottom of the barrel

I pride myself for knowing where I'm going or how to get someplace. I might not be able to give others those directions, but I at least know where I am going. Not anymore. I don't think I have ever felt so isolated. I also never thought I would ever really need a Garmin-type thing. So I am dedicating tomorrow to figuring out where the hell things are and finding decent ways to get places.

As for everything else that has been going on...

WORK: It's like a dream. Seriously. I am doing what I LOVE, and I am getting paid for it. I am still a little slow at getting pages out, but I am sure I will get better in the next few weeks.

I have realized one thing, though. Someone mentioned this on Facebook/Twitter/a blog/or something (sorry I don't remember who it was!), and I have come to agree with it. The Missouri School of Journalism is awesome, I learned so much while a student there, but the one thing I didn't learn was how to be at the bottom of the food chain. I didn't expect to be on the top of it coming out of school, but I never really thought about it. Now I know what it feels like to TRULY be at the bottom of the barrel in a newsroom. It's not too bad; I'm just seeing everything from a different perspective. My age is a dead giveaway. More than half of the people I have introduced myself to at the paper assume I am an intern. "Nope," I told a photographer today. "I'm legit."

I also have a plan that I will be laying out in the next month or so. The paper doesn't have a design styleguide. There are paragraph styles, character styles and library items, but there isn't one aggregation of all of the styles of the paper (that is probably why its taken me so long to learn them...). I want to help create one.

Once I know what the eff I'm doing.

SOCIAL LIFE: It's getting there. It's hard. I met some people on the beach, and they are really nice. They are all working people (a doctor, lawyer, grad student), and they know each other through a church group. Not quite sure what kind of church, though. Regardless, they seem to be really nice people, and they let me tag along with them sometimes. I don't exactly have a compatible work schedule, but it's been workable.

APARTMENT: Still empty. Next week, they say. Yeah right, I say.


So from the bottom of the barrel (and the floor of my apartment), I bid you good night.