Quality-Cut Edits, Worth its Weight in Gold

I am going to come right out and say it. No hesitation. No second-guessing. No excuses.

I do not tolerate mediocrity.

That is not to say I do not realize that I, too, am mediocre, but I genuinely, completely, and unequivocally dislike sub-par production. I come with my own barrel of monkeys in the form of my perfectionism, which essentially means I get nothing creative of my own done. In a way I'm the pot calling the kettle black. However, that is not what I'm talking about, here. I am talking about the competition of production, the publication of an essay by a writer who flat out refuses to revise it because it would change the initial integrity of the thing. And because she doesn't want to "completely re-write it."

Now, laziness of the author aside, I use the term "initial integrity" very, very lightly. Whatever integrity of this essay the writer has disillusioned herself of, it is so shallow you couldn't drown in it. No, I'm too busy drowning in the excess flourish of semicolons (not even used properly most of the time), the schizophrenic dash from idea to idea, the unrelenting and irrational jumps in [who-knows-what-kind-of-]logic and the haphazardly created mask of an "experiment" to hide the true nature of this soapbox scandal.

I know I am being melodramatic here, but it is completely necessary. I don't want to give too much away about the work because, even though I feel the utmost disdain for this piece, I know the author and she is a good person, and humiliating her is not my intent. However, that being said, even the title of her work does not actually relate to it. One of the words she uses in the title has the definition of "the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures." Unfortunately, that has absolutely nothing to do with the paper, despite what the author may think.

Not only does the lack of quality of this paper makes me want to pull out my hair, but the professor I am editing with essentially has written me off as co-editor. He told me to tell the writers the overall edits they need to do, and then he would tackle copy-editing by himself. I don't know if he thinks I am not a credible source, seeing as I'm only a student and all, or if he's trying to make himself look good. He seems new this year, and half of his office was still full of cardboard move-in boxes. My frustration mounted when I went to see him last week; he even seemed to like this paper! Not only that, after the short retort from the writer about her "initial integrity," he sent me an email saying, "well, if she is truly unrelenting about her paper, I suppose we'll have to leave it the way it is."

Wait, WHAT? Are you crazy? This paper is in no condition to be published and you are going to let it be printed "as is" simply because the writer puts herself on a golden alter and is too perfect (and lazy) to edit her work? What the fuck kind of editor are you? Seems to me he just doesn't want to deal with a stuck up, irate author. He's just as lazy as she is, in my book.

In a way I am wary of even putting my name on this book. This may sound cold and shallow, but if this essay is published as is, or even with only a few edits, I don't really want to be associated with this edition of the WC Review. I look back at the old editions and they were all full of truly quality work, at least in terms of the essays. The poetry has since improved since the 90s, but man, those essays back then were the real deal. End notes ranging in the 50s to 70s, bibliographies running on for pages...these students were truly that: students. There is passion, effort and style running rampant in those old volumes. Not so much these days. Because students are "perfect" when they come into college and don't really need to be taught anything.

Before I slip too far off topic, I just want to say that even though I sound crazy with rage about this paper, I really do want it to get better. Maybe it's for my own reputation, maybe it's for the college' reputation, or maybe it's just because I want to see the proper use of a goddamn semicolon once in a while.

The Most Morose Editor

Sometimes seeing the greatness of others depresses me. It's not in the sense that I am jealous and that I wish I could be like them (because I am, and I do) but because the talent and skill these people play with appears so genuine, meaningful and universal. Anyone who reads or sees or feels those works is affected and knows it. The thought is so startlingly beautiful.

In the other room, as I write this, they are talking of "projectile shitting."

This is how I see myself; sitting in a room in between one where many people sit, and another in which only a few sit. There is a glass window built into the wall. I stare through it every day, watching them speckled sporadically around the room, drinking in their blank expressions and savoring their bored twitches. I want to speak with them, hear about their days and their conversations with one another, but I can only hear the roar of people from the room behind me. They stuff my ears with their loud voices. The sound feels like cotton balls drenched in hydrogen-peroxide. It hisses and hurts, but I know it is good for me.

In reality, I am sitting in front of a computer worth more than my car pouring through essays for the Review. Right now I feel like a critical bastard because these essays, supposedly the cream of the crop of this years contestants, are utter shit. Okay, okay, maybe not "utter shit," but they are pretty bad. Not beyond help or editing, mind you, but in the "this-is-my-first-draft-but-I'm-pulling-an-all-nighter-since-it's-due-tomorrow-so-I-just-gotta-get-this-shit-done" sort of range or, the "look-at-me-I'm-such-a-great-writer-and-you-should-be-so-impressed-because-look-at-how-many-semicolons-I'm-using!" sort of mindset. I don't know which style bothers me more (I admit that I am guilty of both types in my own right). It annoys me that this level of caliber is let into the Review, yet another essay was originally let in but then later rejected because it needed "too much editing". I simply don't understand. This is probably going to be the shortest Review they've seen in years, I guess because not a whole lot of people submitted work, or because so much was rejected. But if these are the essay that made it in, I'd hate to see the work that wasn't. Yeesh.

However, it's hard for me to take myself seriously (or maybe I'm taking myself too seriously...dun dun dunnnnn!) when I haven't submitted anything for the past two years and I'm only editing. Editing is easy. Editing is something I'm good at. But writing essays from scratch is hard. I know that. As I'm reading through the unbelievably huge number of TWO. WHOLE. ESSAYS. I'm trying to figure out what exactly the prompts were for them. Is this the final essay for an introductory art history course, or is it an in-depth compare-and-contrast essay given in the middle of the semester for a higher level Greek and Roman Sculpture class? Is this essay for Children's Literature or for Germanic Culture?

I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I can't tell.

A Week of Driving

It's been a week break here in Internland, but I've now got a fellow-intern to bumble around with: Alice! But before I introduce her into this working summer, I'll digress into what I call my One Week of Complete Travel Around Maryland and Lower Pennsylvania in a Car with a Broken Air-Conditioner. And it's not over, yet!

It began last Friday, with my itching to leave work and jump onto the highway to Ocean City. I was shaky as I threw clothes into my travel bag, antsy to get out of my room and onto the road. Gotta beat traffic gotta beat traffic...

Truth be told, I did not beat traffic. Not one little bit.

I finally made it to my grandparent's trailer on 52nd street, but I had little rest, because the next day I was on my way to Travis' house, to the south of Ocean City. The following day I was off again, this time late at night to really beat the Memorial Day traffic, and soon I found myself in and out of Baltimore, thrown into the twisting and winding roads in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

After slipping off to bed early, and feeling old, Emily drove me down to the historic district of Ellicott City the next day, Monday. I fell in love with the place. I made believe I was in a small European Town nestled into the mountains. And I finally realized the true meaning of "nestled into the mountains," with the streets bumping up to the building's faces, with boulders and rock pushing into sidestreets and alleyways and the mountain head looming up above us all. It was truly breathtaking. My desire to see Europe has increased tenfold.

On Tuesday, after a grand sushi buffet, Emily and I drove up to York, PA to see our good ol' graduate friend, Alyse. We fell asleep to Daria, excited about what the next day held: Hershey Park.

Now, I had never been to Hershey Park before, and I was not the biggest fan of roller coasters. I have been on a few before, but they still scared the crap out of me. However, with a lot of cajoling and jokes, Emily and Alyse finally convinced me to go on one the older and more tame coasters: The Comet. Thankfully there were no lines that day, so I didn't have a chance to sit there and bite my nails, wondering if I could actually do this. I just did it.

And despite the good brain-rattle I received, it was a lot of fun! Throughout the rest of the sweat-soaked day, I rode as many coasters as I could handle before succumbing to the dehydration and the nausea. I slept as much as I could on the ride back to York, but had to wake myself up for the drive back to Windsor Mills, and then to Baltimore.

On Thursday, I drove back to Chestertown so I could settle in with Alice, my suitemate and as I mentioned before, fellow intern. We had a nice heart-to-heart over Procs, thunderstorms and vodka.

Today, Friday, I will soon be leaving for Ocean City once again, this time with Ellen to go to Travis' before we travel to Selbyville for Corey's Graduation Party on Saturday. I will be returning on Sunday. After this week I don't think I'll ever want to travel EVER AGAIN.

...but of course I'm lying. I love traveling! I'm just glad I don't get carsick!

And there is a happy ending to this story! At the end of this ordeal, I've finally found out my wages for this summer! Hoorah for gettin' paid!

The Phone Interview

If there is something I fear the most in an office setting, it is definitely the phone interview. I can deal with irate bosses (mainly by avoiding them), I can deal with annoying co-workers, and I can occasionally even deal with a broken copier machine. But those phone interviews... they are my downfall.

Granted, I had never been in a phone interview before, on the interviewing side, no less! I'm a terrible interviewee, so I'd never dreamed of actually becoming an interviewer myself. But it just so happened that as I was zombifying myself with InDesign lessons on my computer, Marcia, editor-in-chief of the Washington College Magazine, (completely different from the Washington College Review) walks in and strikes up a conversation with the other two girls working in the same room as me. Just as I was losing interest in whatever it was they were talking about (I never know when to include myself in these conversations. I don't know about half of the things they say, but I don't want to be rude and ignore them, either) and the droopy, zombie-eyes were coming back, Marcia nonchalantly leans on the doorframe and turns to me.

"Hey, you want to try something new out? I'm sure you're getting sick of doing...whatever it is you do all day," she said.

Hallelujah! Don't get me wrong, I love learning about InDesign and Photoshop, but my eyes were going cross-eyed by now and my brain was ready to explode inside my head. Some of the steps were pretty tedious and even though I was becoming very accustomed to the InDesign interface, I still felt like I wasn't really learning an exceptional amount of information. Half of the pieces were already done for me and I just wanted to make something cool from scratch! "If I have to format another fake newsletter...!"

I gave Marcia a nervous smile and said, "Uh, sure! ...What do you need me to do?" I realized a second too late that she had asked me a loaded question.

"Okay, could you set up a time to interview this alum that just won an award for Chemistry? You can then write an article to put in the new issue of the Magazine. I'm not sure if you have any interest in the sciences at all, but it doesn't have to be too in-depth, and you can just ask the alum to clarify anything for you, if you've got questions." And from the mouth of Prof. Olsen from Arthurian Literature class, I had just succumbed to what is known as the RASH VOW!!!

What was I thinking? I had never interviewed anyone before, and my journalism experience comprises of a big fat zero! How would I know what to say, what to ask? And sure I'm interested in the sciences, but I don't really know anything specific about them! How am I supposed to know how the quantum mechanics of the biomolecular processes of protein-folding affect the calculations of classical molecular methods in computational simulations...?

"Sure!" I said.

"Great! I'll send you an email with info the article needs to include and a CV of the alum. Just send me back the article when you're done so I can see if it's good enough to put in the magazine. Thanks!" Marcia said, and left.

I sat back in my chair, awaiting the doom-filled email to drop into my inbox.

Okay, okay, all lightning strikes and thunderclaps aside, Marcia didn't ask all that much of me. I knew most of my fear came from my inexperience, and my irrational fear of talking to strangers on the phone. It was just something I would have to overcome if I wanted to truly become a well-rounded writer. I kept telling myself that as I saw the email come in and stared miserably at the alum's phone number for over an hour.

The two other girls in the room left for lunch, and I knew this was my opportunity to conduct the interview without feeling incredibly stupid (more so than usual) if I did something wrong. I wrote out a few questions and mentally prepared myself for another 15 minutes before I whisked up the phone and dialed the number before I could think about it twice. It rang. And rang. And rang. ohmanpleasedon'tpickupthephonepleasedon'tpickupthephonepleasedon'tpickupthepho--

"Hello?" A man's voice asked. Aw, crap, here we go!

As I bumbled through the interview, I felt like how I was probably viewed in these sorts of situations: Young, stupid, and inexperienced. And I hate that. I was grateful with how understanding and good-natured the alum was as I interviewed him. By the end I was dizzy, terrified and my heart was racing. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I was so stressed out from the ordeal that I couldn't work on the article for the rest of the day.

I felt absolutely lousy. Wow, E, you sure are a top-notch intern. I bet the one last year flew through stuff like this with flying colors. You're still floundering around in grayscale... I called my mom for some pep-talk and advice, which she gave through stories about the beehives and additions to the gardens she kept on her farm.

I guess the sort of advice my mom gives is slow-acting, because I didn't feel completely rejuvenated or sure of myself until the next morning, in which I sat down at my desk at work and just jumped into the article head-first. I finished drafting, revising, sending it out to both Marcia and the alum for editing and coming up with a final version in a matter of a few hours. Granted, my piece was edited quite heavily with changes, but at the end of the day Marcia came up to me and said, "You know, I think the piece is ready to go. Thanks."

And that was that. I had written something (with the help of others) that was officially going to be published in a printed magazine. Granted my name isn't going to actually be attached to the article (no one's is for these mini-news stories) but it still feels like an accomplishment, a step up from where I had been standing before. I may be bumbling, but I'm bumbling in the right direction.

Besides, the next day Marcia came up to me and said Meredith, the head honcho, had overheard me conducting the interview and told her I sounded very professional. I wondered if Meredith and I were thinking about the same interview, but I told myself she probably didn't hear all of my nervous giggles.

Now I'm just waiting for Marcia to give me a new assignment. Maybe. As long as there are no phone interviews involved.

Becoming an Intern: A 3-Step Process

This summer I am interning in the College Relations department of Washington College, the partner-position of my main job as Student Editor of the Washington College Review. So far the job has been easier than expected--granted, there's not much for me to work with yet, but it has been a smooth transition nonetheless.

Ironically, this entire endeavor started on a whim. I had read the campus-wide email one day second semester, and for some reason I didn't delete it, even though I wasn't particularly interested in the position. I wanted to go home this summer, see my friends, get away from all of the drama and stress I had been encountering at school that year. But there was a small voice nagging in the back of my head, probably the remnant of a conversation I had had with my mother earlier that week: "You need to get a job this summer. College tuition is going up and you need to contribute more to your education. We can't have a repeat of last summer." In the previous summer, I had been unable to find work thanks to the wonderful state of our economy.

I thought about it long and hard--and I looked at an email my mom had sent me listing a series of internships and possible jobs I could apply to. After cleaning and organizing my room, I felt myself rejuvenated and confident; ready to take on the work force and show 'em E. Walburg's coming to town!

In reality, I was sitting at my desk, despairing at my lack of money and said, "Fuck it. I might as well just send in the damn thing to make my mom happy."

I honestly believed I would not get the position. I sent in other applications, expecting to maybe get one of those, and looked toward May thinking "I wonder if Jimmy John's will hire me back this summer."

About a month and half after I had sent in my application for the Student Editor position, I get an email saying it was time to set up interviews. I blinked at my screen, trying to remember what the heck they were even talking about until I jogged my memory. Oh yeeeeah...

The day of, I was actually pretty nervous; I even put in some effort to look nice and pulled out an old white blouse I hadn't worn in 3 years and slapped on a black skirt. (Hey, I said some effort, not total effort...) Tripping my way down the Cater Walk to Prof. Volansky's office, I finally made there in one piece, passing by one of my competitors along the way. She smiled and said her interview had gone wonderfully. Great.

I get into the office, though, and find Michele Volansky is one of the easiest people to talk to that I have ever met. Comes with being an actress, I suppose, but it was still comforting. I left feeling like I had done a pretty good job, even though I spouted out some of my worries about my lack of skills in certain areas. It's one of my downsides as an interviewee; I'm painfully honest about myself, even if it makes me look bad. Still, though, I thought, "oh come on, you've got some pretty intense competition. You'll never make it."

The next day I received an email saying I was one of the top three finalists for the position. I was stunned. I was doing so much better than I ever expected and now I had something invested in this. There was a followup interview, and a week went by. I walked into work one day (also College Relations. I had had an in and didn't even realize it!) and was speaking to one of my superiors about my hopes to get the Student Editor position. She blinked and said, "But you have it already."

I stared and said, "what?"

She looked a little peevish and said, "Oh, Michele didn't tell you yet? You've got the position. But I suppose you aren't supposed to know yet since Michele didn't email you. Please don't tell the other competitors, they..." but I had stopped listening by then.

Me? I got the position? Really?

I was giddy and completely relieved that I wouldn't have to freak out looking for a job this summer. Granted, I would have to spend all that time in sleepy little Chestertown but hey, I would be making money and putting a fantastic addition on my resume. I called my mom in a rush, all smiles and shaky fingers, spewing out a hundred words a minute. Her reaction?

"Oh, that's nice! So does that mean you won't be able to work on the garden this year?"

Realization

Ugh, without my glasses it looks like I have an emo haircut. WUT.

Something I wrote April 7, 2008

10:22 PM

These motions we take with smiles, these waves we willingly let crash over us, desiring to fill our mouths with tingling anticipation. How we sit, the sand rolling and moving and washing over us until we are buried alive under our own fantasies; we inhale all of it with shaky breaths that drown us steadily in our sheets. What else can we do but lay and shiver as we are immersed in endless droplets of water we cannot drink, cannot feel but only in expectation? Why should sparks lend themselves to the road of my spine, petering out into a firework display of my shoulders? My head, bent so low over tumbling words, does not lay heavy upon any chest; who can heave under its confusion and fear of the future? Can it willlingly place itself on sticks planted so high in altar-grounds of words and emotions and nebulous feelings that blindly grasp a dull, metal medallion?

A vision of what could be passes its tarnished features weeping through my fingertips, if how tiny fingers cling to belt loops and tiny thumbs stroke strong hip bones all the while shaking under cold skin. Anything is truly possible when they trace such doubts and fears and veins of self-depreciation, of unworthiness, of uselessness. Greatness, the ever-elusive word. The angry, green-eyed snake coils around the neck of the ever yearning, the ever hopeful, the ever useless endeavors of beating muscles behind closed bars. Once-new shoes stand steadily in muddy puddles while green, green hills roll happily by, hurling themselves onward, forward. What comes of childish attempts but realizations that hills are more than mountains, more than glaciers hungrily eating at your toes and icing your fingertips.

And when this body is gone, when all of the visions and dreams and shameless attempts are chewed up and swallowed up into the cold permafrost of slow-moving rocks and dirt and grime, will it still produce warmth? Will it hum and tickle your feet when you walk over unmarked graves of hummingbirds and albatrosses and shoes never worn? Can it still grow poppies to will to you sleep in a gentle caress, if only for a while?

Can a grand old oak ever enjoy the company of a wilting dandelion?