Since I don’t work at the Chronicle anymore, I did not get a chance to write the end of college /thank you/senior reflection that some of my former co-workers got to write for the final issue. So I figured I would take advantage of my online j blog and do it here.
My time at Columbia has been amazing. It’s been stressful and frustrating, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve had some great teachers and I’ve met some incredible people. I’ve had great opportunities and I made friends who mean the world to me.
Words do not seem strong enough to say thank you or tell you how much you mean to me, but they are all I have, so here goes:
Mom and Dad - you guys are amazing and words cannot express how much I love your or how grateful I am for everything you have done for me. Thank you so much for supporting me and giving me the chance to do what I needed to do.
Miss - you are the best sister and partner in crime that anyone could ask for. Thank you for always being there and being able to make me laugh like no one else. I love you and I can’t wait for you to be home again. We’re going to have all kinds of fun.
Tara - you will always be my bff even though our crazy lives only let us talk once in a blue moon. Thank you for always listening to me rant and being supportive. I love you and maybe now that I’m done with school, we can actually see each other once in awhile.
Avis, Aunt Deb and Uncle Ron - thank you guys for being my back-up parents and for being my friends. Your love and support means a lot to me.
Katy and Kathy - thank you both for being my long distance support systems. I love you both and can’t wait to see pictures of your little ones.
Suzanne - thank you for always being there. You were a great advisor and teacher and Elections will always be my favorite class. Thank you for all of the opportunities and the guidance.
Jess, Brett, Sara and Chris - thank you for giving me a chance to be part of the Chronicle. It’s an experience I will never forget. Good luck to all of you and Chris, thanks for always being willing to listen.
John Lendman, Tim, Kelly, Thomas and Bethany - thanks for being awesome and making it easier to get through those long days and nights at the Chron and during classes too. We had a lot of fun amid the craziness.
Meha - we had some good times, girl! We’ll always have St. Louis. And Panera. And Cafecito. This semester hasn’t been as much fun without you at Columbia.
Angie, Miles, Laura and George - even though I just met you guys this semester, I feel like we’ve been friends forever. Thanks for all the good times and all the fun we’re still going to have.
Jessi - it’s been a crazy year and it’s been fun getting through it with you. I love you and I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble we’re going to get into now that we won’t have school to hold us back.
Jonny - you are my best friend at Columbia and I could not have gotten through this past year without you. Thank you for always being there and putting up with my craziness. I love you and I’m looking forward to continuing the burger quest.
Graduation is less than two weeks away. I’ve got seven more classes to go to and then I will be finished with college forever. So why does it seem like there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done?
I’ve had a rough semester and I expected it with the heavy load of journalism classes I signed up for. But every time I think I’ve dug myself out of a hole, I remember a million other things I was supposed to do.
I’ve always been good at working hard under pressure, but I feel like the pressure should have eased up by now. I just want to curl up with a book or go outside and take a walk by the lake, but I can’t because I have too much homework to do.
Everyone I know is stressed out. I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep so I got online and a bunch of people were on Facebook and AIM because they were awake, desperately trying to finish homework assignments. It’s not right. Shouldn’t we be enjoying our last two weeks as college students? The real world is going to be stressful enough without burning ourselves out on last minute projects and articles.
May 17 is 11 days away, but it might as well be light years from now.
I don’t live in the city, but I spend a considerable amount of time in the South Loop, specifically in the journalism department in the 33 E. Congress building.
I pulled up the neighborhood on everyblock.com and read about what was happening in the area. I have very little interest in the real estate listings or the foreclosures because I barely have enough money to commute to school every day, let alone think about actually moving to the city.
The crime statistics are the most interesting thing on everyblock for someone like me who is going to the city on a regular basis. There were a lot of thefts in the area, in stores, on the street and on campus. There were also several cases of domestic violence and even a report of child abuse.
I think everyblock.com is a great site for people to get know the various city neighborhoods. One of the founders came to talk to our Community News class a few weeks ago and it was really interesting to hear what went into the site.
I’m going to be honest…I don’t listen to podcasts.
I’ve tried a few different ones, and it’s just not my thing. Listening to someone talk and not having anything visual to go along with it is boring to me. I don’t think I could have survived back in the day when people only had radios and no televisions.
Like any good journalism student, I’ve listened to This American Life on NPR. Some of the shows are interesting, but I find myself easily distracted by other things and then I stop paying attention and give up halfway through.
I also listened to some of the Sound of Young America podcasts after Jesse Thorn talked to our class last week. I think I found his stuff more interesting because I had a sense of who he was after talking to him via video chat in class. I think it’s pretty cool that he does everything from his apartment.
I truly hate that expression. It’s right up there with “everything happens for a reason” and “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” None of these are helpful things to say to a person going through a rough time.
A lot of bad things have happened this semester, most of them within a three-week span. Things have gotten progressively worse to the point that I am convinced I’ve given myself an ulcer. (Logically, I know ulcers are not stress related, but something is eating at my stomach and making me nauseous 24/7).
It’s not just me. Bad things seem to be happening to a lot of my friends too. Is it because we’re graduating soon and going into a world with zero job prospects? Did we do something horribly wrong in a past life that the universe is punishing us for? If so, I’m really sorry, please make it stop.
My laptop is nearly five years old, which is pretty ancient in technology standards. But for the most part, it does what I need it to do and that’s all I can ask for.
Lately, it seems to be on a mission to make my life a living hell. I discovered it’s best not to turn it off on a regular basis because it does not like to be restarted. (Which takes the “portable” out of the equation). So I leave it on all the time and hope the power doesn’t go out. Once every 10 days or so, it likes to reboot itself in the middle of the night (which always wakes me up, usually around 3:00 in the morning). But as long as it comes back on, I’m okay with it.
On Thursday, I realized I hadn’t restarted it in over two weeks. (I knew how long it had been because I had been signed into my instant messanger for almost 15 days straight). Anyway, I decided I would shut the computer off for awhile and see what happened.
I came home and turned it back on and it took over 10 minutes to start up again. Once it did, there was no volume. The control had disappeared. So I had to turn it off and restart it four times before it finally brought the volume back. Then I went to watch a video on YouTube and it told me I needed the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. I went to download it and did so - about 20 times - to no avail. I gave up and decided to worry about it in a few days.
Well, now it’s Sunday and I have to watch a YouTube video for my Business Beat class. I asked my dad to look at it and after two hours of reconfiguring things, he got the Flash Player to download and YouTube to work again. But then I tried to sign into AIM and it wouldn’t let me. Awesome.
I managed to get that working again (I think it was an AOL problem, not my computer), but after restarting the computer multiple times, the volume had disappeared again. I figured I might as well go for broke and downloaded the latest version of Itunes. Five restarts later and I had volume again.
But the screen keeps flashing on and off like a bad strobe light. If a close the top a few times, I can usually make it stop, but at that point, I already feel like I’m having a seizure. I’m pretty sure this is my computer’s way of warning me that its days are numbered and I need to prepare myself.
I don’t have money to buy a new computer. The best I can hope for is that this one will at least make it through the last seven weeks of the semester.
One of my friends has a countdown to graduation on her Facebook page: 55 days. In 55 days, I will be a college graduate. I will be done with school and I will have a degree and a mountain of debt that I need to pay off. But how am I supposed to do that?
My parents are already starting to pressure me about finding a job. I’ve made the mistake of making off-hand remarks about some of my friends and their internships. Why don’t I have an internship, my parents ask. Have I started looking for one?
No. I haven’t done anything I’m “supposed” to do. I haven’t started a portfolio. I haven’t updated my resume. I haven’t even started looking for jobs because the pressure is too much for me to handle. I’m not even passing all my classes at the moment, so that whole graduating thing is slightly in jeopardy.
I’ve been putting off thinking about this because it scares me to death. But 55 days is nothing and May will be here in the blink of an eye. Part of me (most of me) wants to just hide under the covers and pretend this isn’t happening.
But it’s too late for that. So instead, I’m going to do what I do best: dive head first into pure, anxiety-ridden panic.
