Flipping brain switches

"People who don't know me very well think that I'm quiet. People who know me very well wish that I were quiet."

That kind of applies to me. I can be "not quiet" when I'm with close friends, but at a certain point, when the group gets too big, I get quiet again, no matter whom I'm with. I think it surprises people who know I'm a journalist that I'm not an extremely extrovert personality — it's more something I switch on and off as needed.

It even surprises my mom, and when she does the following, it bugs me to no end. She'll call me to tell me something, and I'll reply something along the lines of "Oh, that's nice." It happened when my brother placed really well in the area and provincial Skills competitions this year. They called to tell me — "Congratulations. Oh, that's nice." That's really all I had to say. Then my mom gets after me, "Use your journalistic skills. Ask your brother about the competition." No Mom, I'm not working. If he wants to tell me about the competition, he can tell me about the competition. Otherwise, we're going to sit here and listen to each other breathe on the phone. A friend from school and I were talking a while ago — her family does the same thing to her with photos. Both of us are of the opinion, when we go to family events, we're not the designated photographer by default. At least ask us, nicely. And we'll consider it, considering it's already what we do all day, all the time.

So that part, the interviewing and photography, I can switch on and off. The part that I can't switch on and off, and it even bothers me sometimes, is the editing part.

I know there are a ton of complaints about the grammar police. Some, like this post, even make some valid points.

On the flip side, grammar saves lives. Which is it: "Let's eat, Grandma," or "Let's eat Grandma"?

The one thing I really do try for is that if I'm going to point out the errors in someone else's copy, my copy, to the best of my ability, is going to be as clean as I can make it. Still, there is a lot to be said for a fresh pair of eyes, not only by someone else, but even if you put copy away for awhile and come back to it later.

When I wrote my column about Sept. 11, I spent so much time on it and got so close to it that I developed sort of a mind-reading approach to it. Essentially, I forgot to tell people in specific terms, until the final paragraphs, that I was talking about Sept. 11. The words "Sept. 11" actually didn't appear in my copy until the second- or third-last paragraph, because I was so used to thinking, "OK, I'm writing about Sept. 11, I know I'm writing about Sept. 11, so everyone must know I'm writing about Sept. 11, and I don't actually need to say Sept. 11."

Seriously, it would be nice to be able to flip my editing brain on and off, and I swear, I really do try. If I feel like I absolutely must correct the press release with the poor grammar and lack of CP Style, I try and bury it on my desk under some other papers so people can't see I've made corrections to a piece of copy that will never actually see the light of day again.

The last time I was in Calgary, B., a friend whom I've worked with on a bunch of copy and newspapers, and I went for coffee. B. is now the editor-in-chief of the school paper, and he brought some proofs of the paper to show me. The first new online edition of the paper I work for had just gone up, and so we switched — I took his proofs, and he took my phone to look at the new online edition.

We talked about a million things that night, but I kept absent-mindedly flipping through his proofs, and even though we were talking more about layout and design, at one point I started digging through my purse for a pen; there was a correction I wanted to make. B. started laughing and even said he had thought (but forgotten) about bringing me a pen, because he knew there would be copy editing that I would catch, as much as I would try not to.

See, but at least that's an appropriate time and place. What's not appropriate is correcting and editing tweets (of other people) on Twitter. See my problem?

All dressed up with no place to go

There are a lot of Murphy's laws in journalism.

One that I'm still working on accepting is the dress code. In my experience, by and large, unless you're covering a major dignitary event or something in the same vein, jeans and a nice top will do. I find it a bit tougher being a girl — all the male journalists just get to pull on a collared shirt and jeans, every day, any day. While there are some nice feminine collared shirts out there, I generally dislike them on me.

Murphy's law: the day you wear a skirt to work is the same windy day you're asked to go out and cover a rugby game because the sports reporter is on vacation.

However, because of the part-time job I held throughout university, I have a lot of skirts and dresses, because of the dressy-casual dress code.

Usually, when I worked in the office I was always wearing a skirt or dress; when I started running lights and sound I might have been able to wear dark jeans but I never dared, though I always wore pants because of the way I tucked up in the chair in front of the sound board.

So now, finding something to wear in the morning (ie a nice top to go with the three or four pairs of dark jeans that I have) is sometimes a challenge, because the numerous skirts and dresses hanging in my closet are certainly out of the question.

I also know that I may longingly look at my heels in the morning, but I always choose flats. I have two pairs of heels — one are typical high heels, they're black and purple and not much else special about them, and the other pair are the best pair ever invented. They're round-toed and look like 1920s jazz shoes; they look very similar to what girls wear for dancing in musical theatre, as they have a strap on them too. And they are the most comfortable things ever.

I almost wore them one day, then though better of it. Funny enough, that day I got sent out to shoot a fire, and was traipsing through brush, up hills and through high grass. Comfortable and versatile they may be (I've been known to run through the theatre with them, like I said, they were made for dancing), I don't think they'd stand up to that.

So, in addition to a few more nice tops, I am in search of the perfect pair of flats. They dress up an outfit a bit, but it's also not the end of the world that I'm wearing them when I'm sent out to a marsh to photograph a beaver release. Though I'm also sure there's better footwear to be wearing.

The following flats criteria is all based on previous experience. In a nutshell, they will be comfortable enough that I won't feel every pebble when walking down a dirt road, durable enough that I can wear them every day and they will hold up for a considerable amount of time, made of some kind of material so they don't get immediately smelly (as all flats inevitably do), and cheap enough that I don't feel so bad when they only last a couple of months (remember, because I'm wearing them every day, in all kinds of conditions).

I'm not a huge fan of socks, and will wear flats well into October until the snow is deep enough that I look incredibly foolish, instead of just foolish. And the minute the snow is gone, I pull my flats out, and that's all I'll wear through the spring and summer.

Take that, Murphy's law.

Everything I need to know, I learned in marching band

It's been four years since I was in high school and in a high school marching band. I miss getting on a football field sometimes for band practice, but I don't think I could go back. I chose not to go into Stampede band, and made the ill choice of auditioning for Outriders on an alto sax instead of my usual tenor.

A bunch of high school kids — how good could we be? At the time, there was no questioning it. Now, I see that they're (we were) just a bunch of high school kids, but you also have to consider the band has travelled to every continent but South America and Africa, has been invited back to overseas competitions numerous times, has won enough awards that there isn't enough space for them in the trophy cases, and has a name for itself.

It never was easy. But the mosquito bites, sun burns, heat stroke, heartbreak, tears, exhaustion, laughter and joy I experienced because of it? Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Which is why everything I need to know, I learned in marching band. I apply a lot of these principles to journalism, because after surviving band practice, I can't imagine any other way of doing it.

1. Be passionate. It's easy to lose sight of why you're doing what you're doing sometimes. So find a new way of doing it. People respect you more when they know you're invested in what you're doing.
2. Find passion. Even when you're exhausted (try hauling around a 16-pound instrument in the middle of a summer day), give it one more shot and give it the same energy as if it were your first.
3. Leave your baggage at the door. We were told that when we stepped on the field, it didn't matter what was going on in our lives. There would be time to deal with it — happy or sad — later. What mattered was giving your undivided attention to the drum major, and your full energy to the show. It goes back to being passionate, and invested in what you're doing. 
4. Trust each other. I was a tenor sax player, and sax players have their own way of protecting themselves on the fields. But for tubas, they can't see you on their left side because of their instrument. (And trombones need a little extra space in front.) So if you're backing up, to stand beside a tuba on his left side, you have to trust that he's standing where he's supposed to be standing, and not slightly to one side, because you can't shoulder check and he can't see you. And getting hit by a tuba hurts. The same thing for bass drums — they might possibly hurt even more.
5. Know how to teach. There's the kind way, and there's the hard knocks way. The kind way is explaining what someone is doing wrong, which works sometimes. The hard knocks way is also specific to each instrument. For saxes, our bells stick out in front. If you're going to back into us, we'll brace our instrument so that the bell ends up between your vertebrae. Even being a sax player doesn't make you immune to other sax players doing it to you if you mess up (it might even make you more likely to be on the receiving end) and believe me, it's a good reminder to pay attention to your co-ordinates.
6. Learn how to (at least) tolerate everyone. Tour days usually start at 7 a.m. (or earlier) with breakfast, and goes until at least 9 p.m. when practice ends, if not later. You're practicing in the middle of summer, in very warm weather. We once competed at night, then had to load the buses in Traverse City, Michigan, at 2 a.m. so we could make Chicago on schedule. You're with these people all. the. time. Everyone gets exhausted. Emotions run high. And you still have to love them.
7. Be there. It's not easy, to be at 7:30 a.m. practice and 6 p.m. practice and weekend practice. But people depend on you. 
8. Drink water. Even if you think you don't need to.
9. Work hard, play hard.
10. Hug like you mean it. At the end of practice, we'd often be asked to hug a couple people before we left. One of the drum majors gave the best hugs of all. I've had my fair share of fights with him, but even now, I always want just one more hug, because even after everything, he still hugs like he means it.
    Consider all the perfunctory hugs you get – in a day, in a week, whatever. And then tell me the "real" hug isn't the best thing ever.
11. (edit, July 2) Wear layers.
12. Don't  B♭ (be flat), don't B♯ (be sharp), just B♮ (be natural).

edit: Ironically, I started "Stumbling" after writing this post and found this. :)

Intern days

I'm not going to lie — I feel a little silly writing this.

Since I stopped working in the city in August 2009, I haven't spent any substantial amount of time in St. Albert besides the occasional visit when I lived in Edmonton last summer for four months and would drive over to St. A for an event or if I needed to wash my car. (Yes, I know Edmonton has car washes. But for me, self-serve, do-it-yourself car washes have to be stupid-proof, and there's one that meets that criteria on Green Grove Road, just off St. Albert Trail).

And so while I only spent four months working at Saint City News as an intern, it still breaks my heart a little to hear that the paper will close its doors for good at the end of this month.

The university program I graduated from requires all second years to write for a community newspaper, the Calgary Journal, so I had been published before, but this was my first time working for a "real" newspaper.

I don't know if I'm just super easy to impress, but it was a really good internship. I had some friends who, on their internships, were pretty much handed the keys and asked to put out the paper by themselves for a week or three. (Which, admittedly, while scary, is probably an OK way to learn too, though the lack of feedback would have bothered me a bit.) Other friends have interesting stories, to say the least, that would probably make me swear off journalism for some time.

I, however, got what I call "intern benefits." I was treated like any other person in the newsroom — I was assigned a list of stories each week, I worked weekend rotations with everyone else, I had some pages to lay out each week, and 40 pages of copy landed on my desk each Thursday for the first copy-editing go-round. But at the same time, as long as it didn't conflict with anything else I was working on, I was allowed to shadow the other reporter on City Hall and court cases, something I had little — read: barely any — experience with, eventually working my way up to doing a few of my own City Hall stories. As long as it wasn't near deadline, I could ask any questions I wanted about CP style, ethics and general journalism, and someone could usually give me five minutes of their time. And the editor also put up with my attempts at sports coverage when the sports reporter went on vacation.

I'm pretty sure that's where my love for copy-editing was born — I still remember the fear the first time 40 pages of copy landed on my desk. I could barely remember the copy-editing marks we'd been briefly introduced to in first year, now they're second nature.

It's also where my poor sense of direction was identified. I nearly went back to Edmonton one day because I forgot where I was heading and almost turned south on the highway (which doesn't have many easy turnaround points) because I couldn't figure out which direction I was facing. And when I was worried about getting lost going to the Edmonton Humane Society, the editor jokingly (I think) told me not to call him unless I was in Mill Woods (very south of Edmonton, while the humane society is in the north part of Edmonton, just south of St. A).

When I texted a friend to tell him the paper was closing, I think he recognized I might possibly have a bias and asked if the other paper in town was any good. I seem to think they're in a different circulation category than Saint City, but nevertheless, each paper has won its fair share of awards. It's also something that my instructors recognized when I went back to school — as an editor for the Calgary Journal in third year, one second year was getting frustrated with the layout I was working with him on, and suggested we call the production instructor over. The photo instructor heard the exchange, and suggested to S. that he let me play with the page for a bit, I'd probably learned a good thing or two after working at Saint City for the summer.

It's not like there weren't days when I didn't want to get out of bed, but for the most part, it's a really good paper, and I learned so so much — even though it was two years ago, I still refer to things I learned there, which people must be tired of, and which is why it breaks my heart a little bit. And one more thing I learned: it wasn't so much the case when I was an editor at the Reflector, but ask the editors who worked with me as an EIC at the Journal — I'm still on quite the warpath against dog-legged columns (when the column is made smaller partway down the page by an ad or other element that juts into the column).

Dream On: a (in-progress) wish list for interviews

Most of the job interviews I've had for newsroom positions are pretty standard — I'd almost say they're easier than a job interview for a corporate position. Or maybe that's just me, my personality just works better in a newsroom interview, editors aren't as concerned that I talk with my hands or talk too fast (both which I've been told are nervous tics, except I naturally talk with my hands, and the talking fast — yeah, that's super natural for me too).

But I had one newsroom interview, for an internship at a paper in western Ontario, where they asked me a bunch of character-testing questions. We'd been warned about those in an internship prep class, but they still kind of caught me off-guard.

One of the questions was, who is your dream interview?

I still don't know how to answer that question. Do I answer it selfishly, with someone I'm interested in and would never get to talk to otherwise (example given below) or do I answer for the good of the community, like in Lloydminster, Jack Kemp or Bill Kondro? (see 'virtual exhibit' tab on main page.)

At the time, my answer was I would interview the original Crickets — the two guys, J.I. Allison and Joe B. Maudlin, who were long-time bandmates and best friends of Buddy Holly in the '50s. Might as well throw in Niki Sullivan and Sonny Curtis for good measure. (note: this interview list does not take into account the fact that some of those listed might have passed away, like Niki Sullivan.)

Even now, I'd love those interviews. (That kind of interview fits into the selfish, self-serving category mentioned above, by the way.) However, I don't know if I'd interview Buddy Holly himself. I'm not sure if that's because it's hard to imagine "what if," since the man died 52 years ago, or because I get the impression he might not be the best interview ever, based on the interview tapes I have heard with him. Meet him? Hell yes. Interview him? Not sure.

The Calgary Herald ran a story on Sunday about Keith Richards, and I realized he's on my dream list to interview. He's had an intense — for lack of better word — life, and he's honest and colourful about it. I think Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings would also fit into that category.

So I started thinking — who is my dream list to interview? It's a work in progress, and embarrassingly enough, a short list right now, but:

• The Crickets — by the way, for not being a journalist, Paul McCartney did a very good job of interviewing them, and others, for the Real Buddy Holly Story documentary

• Keith Richards, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash — see above

• A veteran — I don't want the typical war story. I don't know what exactly I want, but it's on here anyways. (By the way, I've interviewed a Holocaust survivor, which I'm now realizing — not that I didn't realize it at the time — is pretty special to be able to put on my list of people I've interviewed.)

In short, I just like interesting people — but I guess, doesn't everybody? I mentioned earlier that I keep some old interviews as a pickmeup, and some of the interviews that take up the most space are the ones conducted for this story. It was a semester-long assignment, so I had certain guidelines — read: word counts — to adhere to, so some good stuff, like when he talked about the fact that he normally doesn't talk about his job, or else offers a very short description (unlike this story, which took probably five or six hours of interviews with him alone) of what he does, didn't make it into the story.

I'd love to get on a project like what the Lloyd Archives is doing, interviewing prominent members of the community, and then transcribing them for posterity. When I worked at Natural Resources Canada, I had a research project that involved reading a lot of interviews from guys who had worked for the forestry service in its early days (Canadian Forestry Service celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1999). What was interesting was that while most of the people who work at Natural Resources Canada are now scientists first, foresters second, in those days, it was reverse. And fascinating to read interviews from the 1970s and 1980s, when one of the first questions asked was, "Please state your birthdate and birthplace," and often, the reply was sometime in the late 1800s!

edit: Since this post is a work in progress, I'll note the times I add people to my wish list. 

Dear Mac: a computer love letter

Dear Mac,

We've been together for nearly four and a half years now. I didn't want to meet you at first, thought this relationship would never work. I'd seen you from a distance and heard people talk about you, but I was perfectly happy in my relationship with PC, a distant cousin of yours.

PC and I, we never really had any major problems. Granted, I was willing to cut him a lot of slack, because I'd never been in a relationship like that before. The first time I lived with a computer was in Grade 9.

I heard of friends who had problems in their PC relationship – files were lost, memories erased, or the blue screen of death (also known as the silent treatment). But we never thought about giving up our relationship with the PC we loved, and who gave us everything we needed (usually).

And then I went to university and met you. At first, it was a casual acquaintance. PC and I were slowly being forced apart, but I was still very attached to him, and given the opportunity, would choose him over you. But slowly, that changed. I found your interface much more attractive, and it seemed much more intuitive to figure you out.

Soon, it became difficult to interact with PC. Sometimes, it was a challenge to even turn him on. So the relationship with you intensified. We started spending all hours together. In the second year of our relationship, we moved in together, and our time together often extended long into the night, telling stories about Calgarians or preparing an essay together.

Awkwardly enough, PC was still living under the same roof, but we made it work somehow.

You've always been there when I needed you. You've never corrupted files out of spite, and if you gave me the spinny wheel of death (the silent treatment), it was never for very long. In some instances, I know I've taken advantage of you, yet you never crashed.

Printers haven't always liked our relationship, but the Adobe Creative Suite seems to approve of my relationship with you more than it ever did with PC. (Except that one time in second year. We don't talk about it much, but making me wait four hours to load a Dreamweaver file was not cool.)

So what gives now? You've been very temperamental over the past few weeks. I saw the signs – you were slow waking up in the mornings, and gave me the silent treatment more than once. I took heed and tried to get you the attention you needed, but apparently it was too late. Now that you've recovered slightly, you're still acting out.

I can't be the one in this relationship who handles all the files. I need you to do your part – move the proper elements in InDesign when I ask you to, and not to walk out on me when we're working on an important file.

I love you, I really do. Even last summer, when I could only spend evenings and weekends with you, and had to spend my days working with and being personable to PC, you know that wasn't my first choice. For those who don't approve of our relationship, who thought I was better off with PC, an illustrator acquaintance pointed out that the design work you do with Adobe CS surely requires just as much computing power that a PC does with games.

So let's work this out, OK? Especially, I don't know what's going on between you and the mouse, but you guys need to figure things out and communicate better.

Love,
Me.


Note: It's not just my computer I have this "relationship" with – my car's name is Minnie, (short for Minnie Mouse because she's silver and her side mirrors look like ears) but when I hit a pothole or am trying to coax her to shift gears a little quicker, I usually call her babe. My laptop's name is Peggy Sue, and my GPS used to be Gertrude, until my friend switched the navigator voice. So if anyone has a good name for a GPS with a male Australian voice, I'm taking suggestions.
I think the habit might have started at Jubes – the office has a really temperamental photocopier/printer that was named Stewart. Actually, all items in the office were named, but only Stewart and the name for the paper slicer stuck (kind of). So if you hear Jubes office staff swearing at "Stewart," the printer probably ate a piece of paper again or something.
The habit got to be that I even would encourage the printer in the editors' room in the Comm Centre (and got made fun of for it) even though I never named that printer.
My work computer's name isn't really Mac – I don't actually have a name for him, though Mac might work, short for Mackenzie. Or I'd take other suggestions… originally, he was a silver 21.5" iMac, but lost his tan (i.e. we switched my computer out when that one crashed a few weeks ago) and is now a white 21.5 iMac.

I need to get out more.

'Cool' degrees

One of my friends once wrote on her Facebook status "Journalism is a cooler degree than yours."
It's entirely possible to disagree — I wouldn't mind having a minor in geography, so clearly I think that's a pretty cool degree; I also sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd chosen to take my degree in marine biology, graphic design, or a diploma in sound engineering. There are different reasons for why all those didn't pan out, but that's a different blog post.
Obviously though, from the fact that three of those four areas listed above don't really have anything to do with journalism (though I guess sound engineering — ie being the recording technician behind the sound board could be linked in to radio/TV broadcast) it's clear I have a wide range of interests, which translates well to journalism.
Just before I graduated, I had a friend strongly encourage me to apply for a job at a daily newspaper in a major city (he works at the sister paper in another city). He sounded confident enough in my abilities to handle the stresses and demands of the job, straight out of j-school.
We probably had about a 20-minute chat about the job, and why he thought I should apply. Even after I took this job at a twice-weekly paper, he still asked a couple of times why I didn't apply for the other job. My main reason was that I didn't want to be pigeonholed.
In my opinion, working at a daily newspaper in a city, I would do one thing: report. Don't get me wrong, I love telling people's stories. Some people are so freaking interesting.
But I chose a smaller newspaper because there's so many more pieces to journalism than just reporting — although with just reporting, I've been on the catwalk and in the broadcasting booths of the Saddledome, I've flown in a two-seat biplane (the morning of which I watched the Buddy Holly Story, which was not a good idea) and I've been privileged already to hear countless stories of people, with the opportunity to hear countless more.
But I also like shaking things up a bit — photography is fun, and spending 9 or 10 hours laying pages out and copy-editing is my idea of a good day. Eventually working at a paper that incorporates video into its website is also a possibility, though I like editing and compiling video more than I like shooting.
There's benefits to any job, I'm sure. But try to tell me journalism isn't a cool degree, when you get to do all this.