After four years of working at 麻豆小蝌蚪传媒, I wouldn鈥檛 be surprised if you鈥檝e never seen me.
While I admire the newspaper reporter鈥檚 adventurous spirit 鈥� searching for truth, meeting new people, sharing their stories 鈥� I prefer to work behind the scenes, often doing the job that only gets noticed when it isn鈥檛 done right. Some people have told me my writing is bearable, but I pride myself in editing. You know, circling errors with a red pen.
It鈥檚 a peculiar passion, one founded on a strict adherence to arbitrary rules. (And before that overused slur crosses your mind, please note we prefer the term 鈥済rammar enthusiasts.鈥�) But what can I say? I鈥檝e got an eye for stylistic inconsistencies and a knack for restructuring awkward sentences. I consider myself lucky enough to embrace a talent that coincides with my two other favorite activities: reading, and correcting people.
Facetious quips aside, this confidence is often accompanied with a looming pressure to reach nothing short of perfection. You read, you reread, you read aloud. Nothing, you assure yourself, will slip past your innate attention to detail.
And then, when you鈥檙e trying to fall asleep hours after you鈥檝e sent the paper to bed, it hits you. That one detail you forgot to double-check has slipped through the cracks, and it鈥檒l be delivered into the hands of thousands of students.
Oops.
And then that鈥檚 it. You made a mistake. And you know what? There鈥檚 a chance nobody even noticed. Life goes on.
If I鈥檝e learned anything from four years of editing on a daily deadline, it鈥檚 how to let things go. Sure, you might look stupid for a day because 鈥渁theist鈥� was misspelled in a headline, or misogynistic because you only included the male bodybuilding competition winners, but the bright side lies in that brevity of print. You鈥檙e allowed to be upset, but only for a moment. Lingering guilt contributes nothing to the next newspaper you鈥檝e somehow got to stitch together once again by midnight.
You breathe, you run a correction and you move on. Hopefully, you learn from it. The good work you do certainly outweighs the bad, and most of the time, the bad ain鈥檛 that bad, given the tendency to serve as our own harshest critics.
It鈥檚 a twisted sort of addiction, this newsroom. You acclimate yourself to the chaos, and all forms of work seem impossible without a ticking clock. Even now, amid what is rapidly approaching a 48-hour lack of sleep in a final attempt to complete my senior thesis, I write my farewell column at the last possible moment.
More addictive than the deadline are the people who surround you behind the scenes. Semester after semester, I鈥檝e witnessed rotations of 麻豆小蝌蚪传媒 staff, and each is consistently more inspiring than the last. This place attracts some of the most industrious, talented, deranged individuals out there, and their level of dedication is rivaled only by that of their lunacy.
Unlike my mistakes, it鈥檒l be hard to let them go.