Crayons to Chaos

Notes of a middle-aged cub journalist from the crucible called Columbia J- School.
Follow me as I put these crayons to chaos, from seance to seance....

dancing bipolar

Here it is the day after Labor Day, almost exactly a month after I started this blog - so jazzed1 so hopeful! so scared! -- and we've already had more than a week of silence.  Not that I haven't started posts; I have a couple thousand words written after three days in Astoria, when I had just met one of the more extraordinary people I've met in a while and interviewed some young women and men who offered windows into Astoria I'd not expected. I was so overwhelmed with trying to get that done, and equally overwhelmed with the flood of information, that every time I sat down to write I grew literally dizzy.

I was also, of course, trying to run away from how horrible and inadequate J was making me feel -- a reaction expected, if not planned, by those who run it. I learned on noon Friday that Robert MacDonald, the director of admissions here, lays it out like this: "September, you're overwhelmed. October, you're depressed. November, you start to suspect that maybe you'll make it through."

I hadn't heard any of that when I was on the train Friday, having had the story I'd slaved over all weekend justifiably popped by Stacy,  wondering if it was too late to get a refund of all Uncle Joe's and my dad's money, if I decided I just wasn't up to this. I was already freaked out by  the facebook of the class, in which I learn that 22-year-olds here have published books and that other masters' students include Alex Poolos, former managing editor of Women's Enews,  and Dina Temple-Ralston, whose book about Rwanda I've already praised in the other blog -- and panicked after meeting the wonderfully genial and terrifyingly no-nonsense Dale, who made it clear that two stories a week were going to be torn apart and renewed. So that those two stories being red-inked beyond easy repair had me crying, terrified.

I guess I am/was conflating September and October, in MacDonald's schema. The whole concept did remind me of the old saw about law school -- "first year they scare you to death, the second they work you to death. the third they bore you to death." It sounds like we get all three right away.

Talking to my classmate Elsa, just now, I learned yet again that we all feel this way. Elsa said gently: "I think we'll get through it." And the whole thread has made me come up with a new answer, for when people ask how J-school is going. "Oh, it's pretty bipolar."

I wanted to get this intro out of the way before I go back and tell you about the week with Father Brady and the stor(ies) that resulted, let alone the intros to writing about the Mayor's race and other tidbits thrown our way during the second half of orientation. I also know I haven't introduced Dale properly at all -- or talked about Josh Friedman, who gave me (and many of us) a framework for what's happening in New Orleans. But that will be, I think, my next Book of Days piece too.

Meanwhile, as this week blazes forth I'll have Patti Smith/U2 as my soundtrack - just with slightly altered  lyrics: "I'm dancing bipolar/In the air I spin/Some strange music draws me in/Makes me come off like some heroine...." Like some heroin/e, indeed.

September 06, 2005 in Books, Journalism, Music, writing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

About

My Photo

My blogs so far

  • Crayons to Chaos
  • bookofdays

My Online Status

  • AIM: cmlboheme
  • Yahoo!: cml_blue

Recent Posts

  • when fake journalism is the norm
  • lombardi goes local, gets clips, and returns to the old obsessions
  • reality check
  • gateways, blood spatters and pen de mort
  • z crew part two
  • one little word
  • a uniform what?
  • a filigree of stories
  • the train coming from the other end?
  • and now for something completely different

Categories

  • Books (4)
  • Current Affairs (13)
  • disability (7)
  • Film (2)
  • Food and Drink (3)
  • Journalism (23)
  • Masters' Project (3)
  • Music (1)
  • Religion (9)
  • Reporting (17)
  • Science (2)
  • Television (4)
  • Travel (5)
  • Web/Tech (3)
  • Weblogs (3)
  • writing (21)
See More

Keeping Current

  • Newsfare
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Our Word | ourword.org
  • Rummy's Diaries
  • Detainment

  • Progressive Women's Blog Ring
    Join | List | Previous | Next | Random | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Skip Previous | Skip Next
    Powered by RingSurf
  • Columbia Newsblaster: Summarizing All the News on the Web
  • Today in Iraq
  • New York Times on the Web
  • BBC NEWS | News Front Page

the current bookshelf

  • Alicia Suskin Ostriker: No Heaven (Pitt Poetry (Paperback))

    Alicia Suskin Ostriker: No Heaven (Pitt Poetry (Paperback))

  • Dao Strom: Grass Roof, Tin Roof

    Dao Strom: Grass Roof, Tin Roof

  • Gerard Prunier: Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide

    Gerard Prunier: Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide

  • Ian Davidson: Voltaire in Exile

    Ian Davidson: Voltaire in Exile

  • MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: The Fifth Book of Peace

    MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: The Fifth Book of Peace

  • Miljenko Jergovic: Sarajevo Marlboro

    Miljenko Jergovic: Sarajevo Marlboro

Subscribe to this blog's feed
Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 07/2004