The Frustrations Post

I have just been dancing. Because it's the end of another long week and I am halfway through what they call "Journalism Boot Camp." It is six weeks of intensive 9-5 courses, 5 days a week, with a lunch break in between. One course is in news writing and the other one is in arts journalism issues. Every week has a big writing assignment, every class is discussions and practice working with audio files, writing different types of articles (so far, profiles, spot news, and fake obituaries - I killed Kristin Chenoweth this week). Currently, I have three large pieces, two is a 750-1000 word feature pieces, and one is a multimedia piece. I sleep about 6-7 hours a night and these days, I instinctively wake up at 7AM.

Coffee is a necessity now. My undergraduate self would be laughing at me.

And yet by this point, in any other class, I would be late most days and pinching myself to stay awake. The latter does happen but the former is not, which is an improvement. Instead, there is always a need to stay alert and listen, as well as to produce good work in class.

Then, in those spare moments throughout the day is spent going around and interviewing members of the community for my articles. Half of reporting is sending out e-mails and voice-mails and hoping that people reply back to you promptly. Sometimes they do which makes everything so much easier and other days....most days this week actually, they choose to ignore you and I'm left wondering what should I do now about deadlines.

I find myself becoming more and more angry with the state of the city, with people for being unprofessional and negligent to you because you are writing for class instead of for a publication, for my own helplessness and not being able to get into my car and drive away my frustration, and for too few moments of respite where I do not need to worry. I miss what I knew in California and angry at the weather, the city, for its foreignness and illogical aspects (such as lack of visible street signs or the humidity).

There have been days this week when I went home and just shut my door, not wanting to talk. The apex of my frustration saw me walking home with tears down my face, missing home and feeling like the universe was having fun at my account. I made brownies that night.

So tonight, I danced. And jumped around, and forgot for a little bit that I had been frustrated and angry.

Sometimes you need to think about something else entirely, so that you can stop concentrating on your anger. And to remind myself that everything will somehow work out, I've done all the work I can do now.

Now I am looking forward to a weekend of putting my information together for my articles, and knowing that it will turn out in its own time. Being angry about it will not help.

This is a building on campus. A pretty reminder of why I chose the university. Beautiful architecture.