i should be catching up on my papers….but i felt like blogging…
all this heat and rain, it reminds me of the Philippines. I like it. Anything is better than snow.
school is hard. it’s easy to freak out….or, honestly, it’s easy to let myself freak out over some pretty petty things.
the other day, i worked on a Netflix story. My prof/editor said straight off that this sounded more like a PR piece, than a news story. He sounded ticked off. I got scared. so, I scrambled for analysts, data, anything to show that it’s more than a pr piece. I think did pretty good, called up two analysts from SF and NY. Got the low down on how blockbuster figured into the DVD rental game. Found some interesting articles on the stock price for Netflix.
I talked more to my prof about it. One girl overheard me talking about Blockbuster’s attempts at online rentals. She told me that she heard me talking about it and she said straight off that I could be wrong, because of something she “thought I read a while ago.”
Ok – yeah…..so….we’re comparing something she “thought” she read vs. a subject I researched intensely for the last 4 hours – plus the information I got after I interviewed three experts. Uh-uh….I did my best to stay patient. I was about to sweep the comment under my desk and get back to work. Then she said, “I better look that up for you in case you’re wrong.”
I called on whatever last reserve of quiet well-being I stored/had left over from yoga that morning and kept a straight face. I shruged. Internally, I blew up and rained down a mess load of curses and insults in the back of mind. I called Mark and vented in the empty classroom next door to the newsroom. That helped me focus a bit. She finally left the newsroom and that helped too, because it removed the physcial reminder of someone who basically told me my research is shit. Since she was a self-proclaimed lover of all things techie, it seemed liked she expected me to roll over on my stomach and to pant gratefully for her analysis of my shoddy reporting. I couldn’t help but think the nerve of this chick who didn’t work a serious day in her life and the attitude she had over me, who had real tech support experience for the last three years before Medill.
But when came down to it, I filed the story on time. My prof said he was surprised and impressed that I managed to get more out of this subject than a PR piece for Netflix. I told him that he kinda scared me into looking for analysis on the whole DVD rental gig. He said I did a good job….
when it comes down to it, that’s all that matters, his opinion…and not the arrogance of a former undergrad with some sad delusions of techie grandeur.
i’m turning 26 in a few weeks. damn I’m old….but I do remember graduating from UC Berkeley. I thought I had this whole living-on-this-earth routine under my belt. I thought I knew a lot. But I learned that there was more to life than my undergrad experiences.
So will she.