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| I'm writing for Shift, a journalism project funded by the Carnegie and Knight foundations that myself and 12 other fellows are working on.
We're reporting for young, urban, recent college grads exploring and making life decisions that will impact their identity, community, careers and relationships.
Enter the Web site here, and please tell your friends about it.
You can also see my broadcast work here.
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| Nine months later, I'm writing again, mainly because I feel I've lost my touch with words. And because I need an outlet.
This journalism thing is tough.
When temperatures dip below zero degrees Fahrenheit and my nose hairs freeze and I'm on deadline for a story I'm not sure I'll get, I am not a happy camper.
But somehow, at the end of a 12-hour day, the story's there, as a living, tangible product. It's a pretty good feeling. Until the next day.
Actually, the sun never sets on the 24-hour news cycle.
I don't know what that means for the rest of my life yet.
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| Back in my hotel room after the day's festivities. (Belly sated with wine, cupcakes and strawberries.) Now enjoying some alone time which has been reduced to a rarity since school ended. Trying to avoid tiresome texts and calls - mostly from one particular NYer who keeps me on a tight rein. Enjoying my wonderfully spacious king size bed, a greater area than the currently unoccupied part of my small bedroom back home.
The weather is characteristic Chicago spring - windy, rainy and biting. Purchased the first - coincidentally the ugliest - umbrella I could find. Hair is matted against face and jeans are soaked three inches above hemline. Very unglamorous. But loving it, either by some masochistic chip in the brain, or by the notion of leaving home and doing something new again. Staying in LA is becoming more of an afterthought, though trying to stay levelheaded. Faculty, students and alumni: amazing. Drooling over the thought I could be working as a foreign correspondent in Paris a year from now. One of many paths. Lucrative? No. Spine-tingling? Oh yes.
Probably will call it an early night - do some work, order in and knock out (across the width of the bed.)
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| ...still.
It feels wonderful to be done with my undergrad career after the torturous week.
I'm just a little bummed about not having a spring break. Full time work starts tomorrow. I get tired when I realize the only time I can play and meet people is after work, at night. And no playing on the weekend. BOO. I wish I had at least one day out of the week to sleep in.
I need a vacation before I go back to school in the fall. Which, at the moment, is either crosstown in Troy or cross-country in Evanston, Illinois. We'll see. I wouldn't mind leaving LA though. Too many cars on the roads, too few single men around.
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| You know those moments you look into the mirror feeling like a million bucks?
Those have become exceedingly, no exponentially, rare over the years for me. Now is no exception. The fear of my own reflection - it's the culmination of eating whatever the obese lady upstairs craves, while doing damage control in the fitting rooms. (Dress size increasing by small but deadly increments.) My mom has always assuaged my fat girl thoughts with her mantra, "Just wait until you're 24." She swears she looked best at 24, so I guess if I received any of those genes (doubtful) my prime is around the bend? Maybe feeling ugly now will make the great reveal that much greater. Eleven months, baby.
I'm glad I work for a doctor who so flippantly says, "You're lookin' kinda pimply today," and prescribes me drugs that I call in myself. Or she just zaps my zits with her magic needle in between her more important patients. Nice that she points out facial eruptions before I consult her, granted they're hard to miss.
And thank God for the Tae-bo instructor from hell, who'll juice every drop of energy from me if it means demanding another set of - oh God no - side kick/squat combos. I HATE THOSE!!! I especially love when she obnoxiously pushes my leg down and screams, "Keep your leg up, I wanna see your leg up!"
And what would I do without a mother who deftly slaps my wrist when I reach for the pie? "I'll cut you a slice," she kindly offers. What usually ends up on my plate is more of a 2D sliver, than the beautiful 60° triangular piece my stomach originally envisioned (and made room for, mind you.)
So, I suppose I'm not in such terrible shape as my reflection might tell me. Although, all three aforementioned women would gasp at the way I've set up my finals banqueting feast. Alls I know is I need caffeine, energy, and all my midnight oil to press on through my last two weeks as an undergrad.
Then I can start making money to buy all the self esteem my heart desires. I know God don't mind a fat girl, but mama says boys do. And papa says sooner I find a man to take me off his hands, sooner he can rest easy. And they both say I got 'til my 24th birthday.
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