Life as an Adult

This sucks.

Yeah I said it, all the years of toiling through school ready and rearing to be out in the real world … what was I thinking? The real world sucks.

I am at my first job, I work at a hyper-local small town weekly newspaper and I hate my job.

I was so excited to get a job four days after I graduated in the field I got a degree in. I wouldn’t be serving food, selling clothes or bumming around my parents’ house feeling like a pathetic loser.

No, I was going to be a working lady and it was going to be awesome — and then I started my job.

My first three months were the hardest.

I was told I had to sign a contract stating that I wouldn’t be permitted to work at another news organization within a 60 mile radius when I had clearly said in my interview that I wanted to work at the daily newspaper that has a circulation of over 40,000. As oppose to my paper’s 1,600.

I was compared to my other young coworker and given the name fluff for my news writing skills and she was given the nickname tough. Does anyone else think my nickname is not quite that flattering? I do.

I have a boss who proceeds to tell me that I will not be compensated for leaving work early to go to meetings near my home and that she actually hired me because of where I live rather than my skill level. Even if that was true, why would you tell me that? Ouch!

My boss also has extreme trust issues and is completely absorbed in looking out for No. 1, and no one else. It is evident, it can be hurtful and it is incredibly annoying.

Then there’s the lead writer that works in close proximity to me who is bipolar, clinically bipolar. He blows up all the time. I have never been screamed at by a grown man other than my father until now.

Just yesterday, I was on the phone interviewing someone and he began yelling at me while I was on the phone, then cussing and turning red in the face. Luckily, through this job I’ve learned to stand up for myself and proceeded to turn around, look him in the eye and mouth “I’m on the phone!”

Quitting may seem like the logical answer, but in today’s economy where I’m not guaranteed another job I can’t seem to decided if it would be the best option or not.

To quit or not to quit? That is the question.

For now, I pray for the strength to get through the day and wait for the clock to turn 5.

This is definitely not what I signed up for.

Last First Day

How bittersweet are the times that go by so quickly.

Well not really, today was my last first day of school and I am so glad, but it is sad in some ways.

I will never have a class full of new possibilities, no more looking at the classroom door to see the new people you will be sitting by and trying to make small talk with to develop an actual relationship and no more little butterflies that I may not find my class and be late.

Fifteen years of schooling have come and gone, and now I can’t believe it’s almost over. The fact is it hasn’t hit me yet.

Within three months I will become a certifiable adult, no more classes or studying in the law library. The days of hanging out with all of the friends I have made are quickly passing because these times I have right now can never be replayed.

It seems so strange how quickly the years have gone by, mom was right, as usual, it does go by too quickly.

I am very excited about the last two classes I will be taking though, I have an 8 a.m. class of macroeconomics, which may not seem exciting but the teacher is excited about the subject and that is motivation to think that the class will be fun and interesting.

My other class is children’s literature, which is the class I am most excited about. We have Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham,” “Winnie-the-Pooh,” and “Velveteen Rabbit” on the list of required readings.

Our final project is what I am really looking forward to, we will be making a scrapbook of our families folklore. I am supposed to research the tales of the McCurdy and McMullen families, gather photos and find out about traditions.

I think that these last two classes will really help me end my undergraduate education with a bang.

Investigative Journalism

I have recently been working on how to be an investigative journalist.

I started looking for sources in hard copy, or books, a word that is not uttered often enough in our culture.

I soon found that finding information by looking through books is much more time consuming and results in far less information than if you were to look up source information off the internet.

So, thus my search began.

I found that looking up article archives is pretty easy when you go to a newspapers Website and that you can just type in the information you want and then it comes back to you.

In a book, you have several pages and pages of information that are completely useless to the subject you are researching but you must prevail or else the grade will sting.

I am not a tech nut, but for a paper on investigative journalism the internet has proved quite helpful.