daines'n around

The rain slips slowly past my hands, dripping down my fingers and collecting with rushing water around my feet. The city is mourning, the sky is leaking, and the news reports only read storm watch. It's 2006, and suddenly I'm reminded that I started high school 12 years ago. It's February, and the rains have come a month later than usual, but they are here.

The rain doesn't bother me. It makes me silently content.

The rain hushes the noise of the city around me. The lack of noise seems to have a calming affect on me, one of the few things that can possibly do so lately.

Tonight we sat in the newsroom preparing tomorrow's issue and we were examining other daily university newspapers. UCLA has a staff of more than 50. Pen State has a sports section that is more than 7 pages long. I sit and wonder why CSUN can't be this caliber of a paper.

We have the students, 32,000+ of them going to school together. There is an apathy disease spreading around campus. I try my best to remain ambivalent to the corrosive forces of the skeptics. I try my best to remain critical and offer suggestions to improve, but I can't fight a sinking feeling that I'm going to have to change something, or nothing will change. All the pep talks and confidence building in the world won't change the attitudes of reporters. I have two reporters who make efforts to cover anything Arts related. No one else seems very interested.

I can only imagine the frustration of the news section, with only two or three news stories a day the demand for photos increases... and I'm not sure if it is to feature the photos or to fill space. I pray that something, anything changes in the minds of the reporters. Something that would allow them to might find reason to inspire them to search out the investigative and interested pro-active approach to reporting.

So here I'll write about my experiences in an obtuse manner. And here I'll let the rain wash away ambivalence. Here I'll try again, to recapture my desire to excel, even if I have to write every article myself. I'm grateful I took out that loan. I’m grateful to maintain this journal.