#storylab

After reading about the Washington Post's Coffee House Newsroom experiment this morning, I decided to stop by and give J. Freedom duLac a visit. We chatted for a while about the university and journalism, and of course, Twitter came up.

I've had a love-hate relationship with the social media tool ever since I left last year's NewsVision conference feeling like not having a Twitter account doomed me to journalistic failure. (I caved and joined the next day.)

I agree that's Twitter's great for connecting people, finding cool links and breaking down the lines of corporate communication to, for example, unload on someone about the lack of power in your house.

I followed the #storylab tweets all day but felt like I was eavesdropping. Yes, people post this information publicly, so an expectation of privacy is absurd. But it was odd and surreal to see reporters joking back and forth and editors counting down the hours to deadline. I felt like I was in the newsroom with them, which is ironic considering none of the reporters were even in the newsroom.

Nevertheless, my inner pendulum is slowly swinging toward online re-engagement. I might give Twitter another shot. This evening I told my brother I'm thinking about getting an iPhone soon.

At least it's not an äppärät.

State Department Panel: "Human Rights Advocacy 101"

Idealists, consider yourselves warned. Addressing human rights issues may be the right thing to do, but that logic alone won’t convince any government to act.

Leaders of three prominent human rights organizations and a State Department official gathered with about two dozen students at town hall meeting Monday where they emphasized the importance of framing human rights as a central component of national and economic security, rather than a stand-alone issue.

Human rights advocates keep their eyes on a clear objective but must also remain cognizant of the “political dynamic,” said Elisa Massimino, president and CEO of Human Rights First. “Don’t change the goalposts, but you may have to change the plays,” she said.

Human rights organizations bring public pressure to issues, forcing the government to address them, said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. And as newspapers and their foreign coverage continue to decline, these organizations are often the only ones monitoring conflicts where human rights are being exploited or denied, he said.

National debates over detainee abuse and civilian trials of suspected terrorists that have intensified over the past two years show the world we’re prepared to consider what our laws really mean, said Michael Posner, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor.

It matters who gives voice to such issues. For example, when Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes steps to reduce civilian casualties, and retired military leaders speak out against torture, the link between human rights and national security becomes clearer.

However, “you don’t push hard enough that you disempower those in government,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. Rather, you continue to show stakeholders, including those in the private sector, that advancing human rights does not contradict motivations.

The panel discussed the Global Network Initiative, a coalition of private information and communication technology companies (including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!), nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions dedicated to protecting the freedom of expression. Something like the GNI elucidates to for-profit organizations their role as “a linchpin to this idea of American foreign policy,” Massimino said.

The session did not focus on a specific category within human rights; it gave the students a mental framework with which to approach the issues.

Example: Bad News Report

I know deadline pressure means some not-so-strong pieces have to run, but I wonder if anyone listened to this news item before airing it on the local NPR affiliate station WAMU this morning.

This follow-up to the apparent drowning of a 5-year-old child last Friday in a local pool where five lifeguards were on watch raises a legitimate question: how adept are teenage lifeguards.

The title, "Pool Safety Experts Weary of Teen Lifeguards," seems misleading considering the only people quoted are a lawyer and an anonymous pool attendee (more on that in a second).

The attorney calls pool drownings "almost an epidemic," but nowhere in the report does reporter Mana Rabiee include any numbers to back that up.

The part that really bothered me was Rabiee's awarding anonymity to her community member voice, a woman who regularly attends the pool and has expressed concern over the lifeguards' youth. First, Rabiee doesn't say why the woman, who makes a useless comment about how lifeguards appear to be high school kids, didn't want to be identified. Then, the kicker: the mystery pool-goer adds that she isn't "personally affected by it because I'm a good swimmer, but if I were a parent I might be concerned."

Is it too much to ask for the "man on the street" reaction to be a bit more applicable? It's hard to believe there wasn't one other person around who would a) speak on the record and b) say something at least mildly relevant. Had an editor shaved off that woman's 17 seconds of drivel, I would have wasted only a minute of my time listening to this report.

Fiction

An e-mail I just sent the co-owner of an area bookstore that closed a few months ago:

""The Camel Bookmobile" by Masha Hamilton was I think the only novel I bought from [the store]. Everything else has been nonfiction. As a child I devoured novels, mostly series' such as Cam Jansen, the Boxcar Children and Thursday Next. College courses on international politics and journalism consumed me and I increasingly read current affairs: Friedman, Zakaria, Pollan. The only fiction I recall reading in the last year or so has been John Grisham.

Exhausted by all the informative, educational reading, I longed for lighter fare. But for some reason I just couldn't find fiction that hooked me. The first book I bought at [the store] was Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires." It was a lovely, enjoyable read and I thought, maybe I don't need fiction to fill my narrative void.

But I did. After reading the first few pages of "The Camel Bookseller" in the store, I decided to take a chance and buy it. A couple days ago, I started reading it. I tried to savor it by reading it a chapter or two at a time instead of the normal one afternoon feast that defines my reading habits. This evening I couldn't help it and finished the remaining three-fourths of the book while curled up in a blanket.

My journalism classes last year focused on feature and narrative writing, so I've had no drought of good prose. But drinking in this fiction, noticing its techniques, yet not thinking about anything but the story, was pure bliss. Better yet, the story made me think about our world in the same way the non-fiction did, only in a much more compelling and subtle manner.

So, for that, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reminding me how important it is to just bask in the pleasure of reading a book instead of always thinking that I have to learn something from reading. Obviously that inevitably happens, but sometimes all we need is an armchair adventure."

Lessons from Lou Grant

Yesterday a fellow intern and I compared how we followed Monday's Metro accident. She constantly checked the Twitter feeds of four D.C. blogs on her iPhone. I, after hearing the initial details, waited until about 9 p.m. to read all the lead stories on washingtonpost.com.

She wanted up-to-the minute bursts of information as they became available. I wanted a complete summary of the facts and eyewitness accounts packaged together and organized by the newspaper after the hubbub died down.

I am methodical, meticulous person and easily susceptible to information overload. As everyone tries to predict the industry's future, I'm increasingly intrigued by its past. Yesterday AJR posted my profile of Alan Mutter aka the Newsosaur. Listening to Mutter recount the glory days of newspapers, his voice full of enthusiasm and nostalgia, made me want to know about that business. After seeing a clip from the "Lou Grant" show on his blog and hearing him mention the newsroom drama in our interview, I decided to check it out.

I just watched the first episode on Hulu. I did get some good interview tips, reminding me that even if the newsrooms I work in look different, the basics will remain the same. But, ironically, a scene in the show did make it clearer to me the benefit of tearing down the walls between the press and the public.

Grant wants to run a story on a police sex scandal on the front page, but the paper's publisher, Mrs. Pynchon, doesn't like the story. Grant says something about it being his job to decide what's important and what's not. Pynchon responds that she's the publisher and if she doesn't like it, it doesn't run.

Hearing their back and forth made me appreciate that nowadays, we increasingly decide what's important. Then again, I'm the one who keeps saying she prefers the packaged version so that I don't have to sift through everything to make that decision in the first place.

Hmm. It seems the point I was trying to make wasn't so easily answerable after all. Great. I chalk it up to another symptom of this post-graduation-realizing-there-are-no-easy-answers-in-life-phase.

Creating a Web site

I'm trying to design a Web site and it is driving me crazy. I've spent the entire evening bouncing between Squarespace, Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger trying to figure out which would be the best to host a personal Web site for my resume, clips, and possibly a revival of this blog. I've got a picture in my head of what I want, but the rudimentary Web design skills I learned in an online journalism class almost two years ago are not enough to make that picture a reality.

The cliche "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing," comes to mind. OK, maybe not dangerous, but not being able to create what I want is frustrating the hell out of me.

Anyone know any good basic Web tutorial resources?

Save the Series

Graduation is in exactly one month. Yikes.

But let's not dwell on that. Yesterday I had another front page story in the Diamondback, this one about how some teachers handle student laptop use in the classroom. I was far more pleased with the copy desk's chopping job on this story than Monday's. But you, dear reader, get the online link, where copy runs loose and editors aren't scrounging for space.

But on to more important things. I was incredulous about Monday's Romenesko headline "The days of the six-part series are gone, says Baltimore Sun editor." Mr. Cook, are you telling me I've spent four years and probably around $100,000 learning how to write news stories when all I have to look forward to are blogs, blogs and Twitter. Seriously?

Ironically, a little more than four hours later, a slew of Pulitzers were awarded to stories, columns, cartoons, and ahem, series.

And the next day, the following rebuttal, via Romenesko, "Why multi-part series are even more important for newspapers today." I'm really glad Temple talked about the value of series for reporters in addition to their obvious value to the community and public at large.

"They give the staff a way to grow," Temple wrote. Yes, it's nice when I can summarize my thought into a 140 character Tweet, but that's just a micropayment into the happiness bank. Writing a really good story, on the other hand, well that'll brighten a whole day or two. And though I haven't written a newspaper series yet, I can only imagine the weeks of joy and satisfaction that stem from seeing an idea blossom into a fully developed project.

Even better, series allow a newspaper to take readers to unexpected "journalistic heights," Temple said. Sure, we all know the beauty of crafting a mysterious lede or assembling an eye-catching multimedia package. But when a reader feels that same wonder -- well then we've really done our jobs.

Stories and series aren't going anywhere. I won't believe it. Sure, they might not be called newspaper series per say, and I'm willing to accept that multimedia is increasingly part of any good story. Let's go back to finding a new financial model that allows us to do those series rather than downplay their role the news business.

Same Headline, Different Story

I picked up today's copy of the Diamondback feeling anxious. My story was on the front page and I was hoping the copy editors had been merciful with their digital scissors.

One look past the jump told me they hadn't. Although the lede and nut graf on page 1 were unchanged, there was no way the rest of my 600-plus word story was in those two half columns on page 2.

A quick scan of the text assured my fears. It seemed like half my story was missing. Interesting anecdotes, quirky quotes and fun facts had been deleted into oblivion. I wasn't mad; after all, space is space. But I'd spent hours on Friday crafting sentences and weaving paragraphs together.

The story was on Bob Moyer, an alumnus who now works for Pixar. (That famous alum I mentioned in Friday's post was Muppeteer Jim Henson, who, like Moyer, created his own major here). While drafting an e-mail to Moyer with the link to the story, I considered sending my original draft too.

I glanced at the online version of the story and saw the words rust and chrome. That wasn't in the newspaper, I thought.

I read closer and compared the two versions. To my surprise, the online link was my original draft.

Yes! I thought. Then I paused. The headlines were identical. But the stories technically weren't, right?

Obviously, I'm excited that the paper posted my original work. But on some level it seems a little misleading to me to have two different articles under the same headline. Has anyone seen any other papers do this?

Stay tuned; good days are coming.

Any day that begins with bright sunshine, a cloudless blue sky, a new coral colored polka dot blouse and a hot cup of coffee has to be good, right?

After the gloomy rain we had earlier this week, such spring weather was sorely needed. Even more so today because it was the final prospective student open house of the year. Mom, Papa and Neeraj came to learn all about biomedical engineering. I ran around campus selling the j-school to admitted students and covering a lecture from an alum who's carrying on the legacy of one of our most famous alums. (That story will run in Monday's Diamondback, so I'll keep you in suspense until then.)

Back at work I got the interview set up for my AJR story (keeping lips sealed on that one too) and ran off to cover yet another event for yet another paper. After developing the story with my main source, my mood was almost back to the over-the-moon status I walked out feeling almost as good as I did over the winter. I shoulda known there was a bigger reason why.

It turns out Romenesko picked up my Mark Bowden post.

Ever since NewsVision, I've been incrementally repackaging myself as a journalist. I signed up for Twitter, fixed my resume, figured out how to create my own Web site, and most important, stepped up the writing.

Just as a heads up, the new Web site won't debut until after graduation. I'm going to step up activity on this blog, so stay tuned! There's lots to share.

Mark Bowden's Tips on Narrative Journalism

The closer I get to graduation, the more I worry I may be an anachronism. I dream of delving into long-form narrative journalism at a time where it seems the public’s attention span is increasingly limited to blog posts and sound bites.

The Internet has forced journalists to write shorter and faster, but, as journalist and bestselling author Mark Bowden pointed out, the internet also offers something newspapers and magazines do not – infinite space.

“We swim in a sea of information that’s as wide as the globe, but about an eighth of an inch deep,” Bowden said. “If you’re human, you’re thinking about the how and why behind a headline,”

Clad in a simple navy blue turtleneck and round gold glasses, Bowden spoke to my complex story writing class yesterday. His tips quelled some of my fears about entering an industry in transition and assured me that the narrative hasn’t lost its power.

Behind every breaking news tweet and cable news ticker is someone who wants to explain themselves. “People are dying to tell their stories,” Bowden said.

The key to being a successful narrative journalist is finding a story’s dramatic center, Bowden said. Zoning board meetings are dull. But talk to the man who wants to build a three-foot high fence in his backyard and the neighbor who’d have to live with it, and suddenly you’ve got characters and drama.

Bowden recounted his experience going on a drug raid with Anne Arundel County police. A young reporter working for the Baltimore News-American, he didn’t trust himself to challenge the police’s characterization of the raid at the morning press conference. So he turned the raid into a narrative and described what he saw. And of all the pieces written about that police press conference, I’ll bet his was the most-read.

The key to drawing readers is to make the subject matter accessible. Be ignorant, Bowden said, only half-jokingly. Ask the stupid questions, because chances are, readers are no more experts at technical scientific principles or covert military operations than you are, he said.

A good reporter stays on track by constantly sketching story structure. This tells you what you need to know, but more important, what you don’t. While Somali anger at U.S. forces was important for context, at its heart, "Black Hawk Down" was a narrative describing battle.

It’s easy to lose sight of narrative in the inverted pyramid world of journalism. Newspapers tend to tell stories backward, Bowden said. A court story will lead with the verdict, describe the trial and mention the crime, sprinkling details where necessary. But sometimes, straying from this inverted pyramid offers the most compelling story.

After all, when a reader finishes a story, it’s not the beginning, but the end that’s freshest in their minds. To exercise his creative muscles, Bowden said he sometimes likes to rewrite stories with the lede at the end.

So, where can I find the story that will become the next nonfiction bestseller?

First, find something that interests you, Bowden said. Don’t worry if it’s outside your area of expertise or if it lacks timeliness. Write for story, not for setting, he said. (Though Mark Bowden’s editors probably don’t worry about nut grafs the way the editors of this budding journalist will.)

But it’s a lot easier for an editor to reject an idea than it is to kill a fully written, thoroughly reported story sitting in their hands.

Although the Internet means that stories aren’t told with words alone, Bowden’s advice reminded me why I’m excited to enter this field. Good stories will always need to be told.

After all, how many professions enable you to walk around in other people’s lives and let you understand their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, he said with a smile.

Am I reserved?

In the past couple months, multiple people have used the word "reserved" to describe me. To me, "reserved" synonymous with "shy," something I most certainly am not.

In effort to reconcile this apparent disconnect, I looked up the word's definition.

Dictionary.com: "avoiding familiarity or intimacy with others: a quiet, reserved man."

Unsatisfied, I decided to go to the people who know me better than most.

"Would you say I'm a reserved person?" I went into the kitchen and asked my parents.

"No," my dad said with a smirk and no hesitation.

"I didn't think so either." I said. I told them how it's bothered me to hear people say that. But then Papa said something about how at large gatherings, he's fine just talking to one or two people.

In my case, I relish meeting new people but hate being the one to initiate contact. Once someone else comes and says "Hi" to me, I'm an open book. I'm not comfortable making the first move, though that doesn't mean I won't.

Hmm, maybe that's what people meant by reserved. Time to give the dictionary another try.

MerriamWebster.com: "restrained in words and actions."

Ah ha. So reserved can also be synonymous with "composed" or even "controlled." Now that I can deal with.

The Value of Communication

I saw Tai Shan's cuddly face staring at me from this week's Washington Post Magazine feature and I expected five pages of "awww" reading.

I didn't expect another somber life lesson.

But then I read this:

"We're all losing our shirts," said the National Zoo's Berry. "People think: Oh, you're making money on these damn pandas. You're making a fortune. Every penny we make is plowed back into this species."

Then again, he added, "this is about advancing science and all biology . . . It's worth losing the money on. We lost money on Apollo, too, you know."

So, basically, capitalism rewards the worthless things in life. OK, that's a bit harsh, but echo that with what one of the other interns told me last week, while we were talking (what else) jobs.

Her recently graduated boyfriend works at an engineering firm and makes more than double what I can even dream my entry-level salary will be.

"I love him, but he's a horrible writer," she said.

"Why is something as essential as the ability to convey thoughts in a coherent manner undervalued?" I asked, not really wanting an answer.

Journalism isn't just reciting the news or telling a story. At its heart, journalism is about fostering communication. And with the increasing specialization or, as one attendee at NewsVision called it, the "niche-ification" of the internet, I fear losing the common ground of the newspaper that fosters communication between, and not just among groups.

NewsVision 2009

Journalists hoping to walk away from the first annual NewsVision conference March 30 with clarity on the industry’s turmoil probably needed a stiff drink at the post-conference happy hour at the Capital Grille.

Held at Washington D.C.’s Newseum, the conference, titled Journalism Jobs in Transition, unearthed fascinating paradoxes within the changing media landscape. Organized by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in partnership with the Online News Association, sponsors included The Newspaper Guild and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.

The next few years will probably get even tougher, speakers warned, but the fundamentals of good storytelling will come out stronger.

“I’m optimistic about the future too, but I’m scared to death about how we’re going to get there,” said Lou Ferrara, a managing editor at the Associated Press. “It’s not as simple as creating a Web page anymore.”

But the media world revolves around the Web. In a survey released today, 39 percent of online journalists reported increases in their newsrooms over the past year. The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, also found an “uneasy optimism” among online journalists. While 82 percent are at least somewhat confident that the industry can find a profitable business model online, 57 percent said the Internet is changing journalism values and 54 percent think journalism is headed on the wrong track.

This may be because the media as we have known it, where editors handpick information and package it in a newspaper or broadcast, is disappearing, maybe for good.

Since the concept of packaging has changed, journalists should stop distinguishing between platforms, Ferrara said. Washingtonpost.com Managing Editor Ju-Don Marshall Roberts added that the rapid pace of technological development means that any business model must have flexibility built in.

But as journalism undergoes massive transitions and the global economy suffers through the recession, that business model will likely take a few years to emerge. We’ve raced from a world where readers explored content in a newspaper to one where users exploit search engines and social media for information, said Eduardo Hauser, CEO of DailyMe, Inc., a personalized content aggregator. We can’t handle either and are trying to reconcile the two extremes, he added.

While the Internet has dramatically reduced start-up costs for independent ventures, the PEJ study found that 71 percent of online journalists work for legacy Web sites and 63 percent say original reporting is their most important content. Least important to these journalists is user-generated content.

And yet, the Internet’s potential for interactivity is what makes it so powerful. In connecting people, the Web has given users control over what they consume. Social networking gives the media a chance to harness that energy and improve their own content. Tools like Twitter are no different than real-life networks, said Orlando Sentinel technology columnist Etan Horowitz.

Instead of posting a generic call for story ideas, “think about how you’d talk to someone at a cocktail party or a networking event,” Horowitz said. Enter with low expectations since “you don’t know what you’ll get.”

Scott Karp, CEO of Publish2, a content-sharing site, emphasized collaboration within and between newsrooms. USA TODAY’s Patrick Cooper discussed reporters as curators of a specific subject, telling stories and becoming a go-to source for readers much like Gene Sloan and his Cruise Log blog.

Journalists must also rethink the fundamentals of storytelling. For decades, media has focused on text while using video “for eye candy, not for context,” said Tom Kennedy, former multimedia managing editor at washingtonpost.com. Journalists now have a repertoire of tools – text, photos, audio, video, podcasts. The key is determining which tools go with which stories.

The industry’s flux makes it the perfect time to be creative in storytelling. “If you’re not making a certain number of mistakes, you’re not experimenting,” PBS Senior Vice President Jason Seiken half-jokingly said.

Washingtonpost.com’s Marshall Roberts said that, for the first time, her newsroom feels like a start-up. “The scary part about that is it’s like driving down the highway with the lights turned off,” she said. “We have to embrace the chance that we could fail.”

But failure is a scary prospect for those who rely on journalism to pay the bills. Yet another paradox arose as panelists discussed how journalists can remain competitive during turbulent times.

Politico co-founder and Editor in Chief John Harris likened today’s reporters to athletes, each with his or her own talent to hone. The deluge of content has reduced the importance of brand names and the wave of entrepreneurialism means reporters can use their talents and create niche content.

While Harris emphasized mastering one skill, other speakers reiterated the need to be proficient in all areas of storytelling. The conference’s keynote speaker, NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller mentioned that the organization is spending $2.5 million ($1.5 million of which came from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) to teach its entire staff digital storytelling skills.

Fundamental changes in the distribution and consumption of news have left journalists uneasy and put American democracy at risk. But we have the unique opportunity to not only witness history, but shape the future of the media industry, Schiller said. For someone eight weeks away from graduation, that was reassuring and inspiring.

Breakfast

I don't usually care for toast, but a bottle of Ikea's lingonberry jam stared right at me from the top shelf in the fridge when I opened it to get the milk for my tea.

We're out of bagels, so white bread (blech) was the only other option. I toasted the bread and slathered on the jam. I usually don't turn the light on in the kitchen in the morning and since all the blinds were closed, it was darkish and gray. But out came the jam and suddenly it was like one of those photographs where everything is black and white save one bright red object, usually a rose or flower of some sort.

"That's why red is my favorite color," I thought to myself, yet again. (I've never had a favorite anything, but sometime last semester I decided on red. Since then, I've been a little more proud of myself than I should be for doing so).

I slid the knife over all corners of the bread, smearing it onto the surface the way a paint brush glides over canvas. Some spots got only one swish of color, but the middle of the bread was saturated. I sat down at my desk, and in the light from my window, the jam went from the red to a brilliant red-pink. I bit in and realized how important looks really can be. The jam isn't very sweet and has a fleeting bitter aftertaste that I'm not too fond of. The plain chewiness of white bread adds nothing. Still, I'm in awe of just how striking something as mundane as spreading jam can be early in the morning.

Published

Not surprisingly, the semester has sucked me away from posting, which isn't good for an aspiring journalist.

Speaking of which, I was finally published today! No, it isn't my first time being published, but this is the first article I've written that is likely to reach more than five people.

The profile I wrote was a Web exclusive for the magazine where I'm interning this semester. I mass e-mailed my family/former teachers and colleagues with the link (friends will get the link off Facebook) and have since gotten some replies, including this message from the subject of the profile.

"Thanks. You were kind. Best of luck."

My editor was impressed with my initial draft and made only a few minor changes. I too am impressed with myself, namely the fact that I got this assignment on Thursday and turned it around by today. The best part is that I now longer fear the reporting process, in fact I relish being on the phone and having an excuse to ask people almost anything. And I don't even know where to begin explaining the joy I get out of taking what people tell me and assembling it into a coherent, creative and meaningful narrative.

I have so much more to say about this semester and my new love affair with reporting, but my eyes are heavy and I'm afraid I feel a sore throat coming on.

to be continued..

A Clockwork Immune System

At some point during the third week of January, I get sick.

Two years ago, I was wrapping up a three-week long, four credit microeconomics course and starting my internship in the city when my body gave in. I had overambitiously thought that attending class from 9 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., commuting a hour and 15 minutes,then working for three hours, and then commuting back was a good idea.

I lasted three days doing that. The morning of my final exam, I awoke feeling miserable. My body ached and my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I could barely recall what an opportunity cost was; there was no way I could go to work.

Less than a week in and I'm already calling in sick, I thought. Boss is going to wonder what kind of a slacker did he intern did he just commit to. I sighed and dialed his number with trepidation. He didn't answer, so I left a message, apologizing at least five times in the process.

Fast forward one year. I was adjusting to life in Spain, and while details escape me, I do remember suffering from a nasty sore throat and cough that lasted a good two weeks. The pharmacy gave me some bitter orange-flavored powder that I mixed into water and forced down once a day. When that did nothing, Señora sent me back to the pharmacy, and when all they did was give me a worse tasting powder, she damned them and gave me her homemade remedy: a glass with the juice of one lemon, a tablespoon of honey and some water. Mmmm that stuff tasted so good. I sometimes drink it even when I'm not sick.

And now, dear reader, I am suffering for the third year in a row. I sensed it coming on Friday night when I crawled into bed. There was a tickle in my throat and a tingle in my nose that warned me to watch out. And sure enough, yesterday morning I awoke feeling like crap. I spent the entire day hunched over my computer working on the thesis with Aley. We ended up being extremely productive, and for that reason I didn't have time to think about my weakened state.

But once we wrapped for the day, it went straight downhill. Luckily there's no sore throat, just sneezing, coughing, body aches and a nose I've been blowing like a foghorn.

Final semester, here I come.

An Asking of My Own

Since October, I've been following The Daily Asker, a blog documenting one woman's quest to, as the name suggests, ask for something every day for a year.

Last week I made an asking of my own. I'm not meek by character, but I'm surprisingly deferential to those with authority. I use the term authority loosely, because in this case, all it took to confer "authority" was a glass ticket window.

About two weeks ago, my friend Christin and I decided to get dinner and a movie. The parking lot was half-full, but the ticket area was empty save the two bored-looking high school girls manning the booth.

Christin walked up to the blonde on the left, I took the brunette on the right.

"One for the 6:45 showing of Benjamin Button," I said, handing her my credit card. As she slid me the receipt, Christin, who was still getting out her wallet, asked if there was a student discount. There was, $2 off.

"Oh, can I get the student discount too?" I asked, pulling out my college ID.

"Sorry, the transaction's already gone through. You have to ask for a discount first," she said monotonously.

Normally, I would have believed her and simply accepted the higher price to avoid causing a scene or looking like a cheapskate. After all, what do I know about credit card machines. But this time I decided to fight for my $2.

"Well, I didn't know there was a discount. Can't you just cancel the transaction and do it again?"

No, that would take the manager's approval, she said.

"Couldn't you just give me $2 cash? I mean, I am a student,"

No, then their cash drawer would be short.

I kept pressing, firmly but politely. They mentioned the manager again.

"OK, then may I speak to the manager?"

The two girls exchanged a look.

"You really want me to call the manager over $2?" the blonde asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I'd appreciate it if you could," I said.

She sighed and got the guy, who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me.

"Oh yeah, we can do that for you," he said nonchalantly after I explained him what had happened.

I thanked him and the other two profusely and Christin and I went on to watch God's greatest creation (Brad Pitt, *sigh*) reverse age for the next two hours.

Gained: $2, the self-assurance not to believe everything I hear, and the self-confidence not to care what two bored high-schoolers who I will never see again thought of me.

Inauguration

What an incredible day.

When we left campus at 5:45 a.m., a crescent moon was shining in the deep navy blue sky. By the time we made it out of Metro's L'fEnfant Plaza station almost 75 minutes later, an indigo sky and the artificial orange glow of street lights bathed the river of people on Seventh Street. One name graced many of their hats, scarves, shirts and sweatshirts. Shouts of "Good Morning," and "Welcome to the Inauguration," came from red-hat clad volunteers.

By 7:30 the six of us were rooted to a spot of the National Mall's cold packed dirt between Seventh and Fourth Streets. We stood, we (well, I,) dozed, we waited. The sky went from lavender to to cerulean and the sun's pointed rays did nothing to keep the 20-degree air from seeping through the multiple layers of socks, gloves, leggings, and sweatshirts, numbing our fingers and toes.

While we waited, we sang along to "American Pie" and "This Land is Your Land" replayed from Sunday's concert. We stamped our feet and marched in place to jumpstart blood flow. We craned our necks around the 6-foot-4 guys in front of us for fleeting glimpses at the jumbotron. We waved the American flags the Boy Scouts of America gave us. The occasional pushy spectator jostled through, but despite everything, a celebratory air permeated the jovial crowd.

Four-and-a-half hours later, our 43rd president was introduced for the last time. Many booed; we didn't. Our country's leaders deserve respect, whether or not their policies are agreeable. Then our 44th president stepped up to take his oath. The jumbotron came into view and I captured the botched swearing-in on video.

Finally the moment arrived. Ever since I missed the Obama rally on campus during the 2006 midterm elections, I'd been waiting to hear the Great One speak. Sure, the best view might come from sitting at home, but the enraptured silence of the audience, the echo of his voice off the city's marble monuments telling us how we will succeed, nothing, absolutely nothing can top that.

Officially, Obama's constituency resides in the United States. But the entire world seems to be pinning everything on this man's shoulders. I don't think anyone has ever faced such pressure. Yet in this speech, Barack Obama reminded us that and that we will rise above these rough times not because we as Americans are entitled to, but because we owe it to the rest of the world to. It's no longer us vs. them, it's us and them.

No, charisma isn't everything and talk only gets us so far. But there is something in this man, a seed of passion, an innate determination that says, trust me. Things won't change tomorrow, but they will soon enough.

So was it worth it? Braving the cold for more than four hours, weaving through intense crowds for in search of food for another hour, standing in a stuffy hallway for two more hours while waiting for the Metro back to campus- a total of 13 hours, sore legs and an aching back just to hear an 18-minute speech? Yes, it was worth every bone-chilling moment, made even the better because each was spent with friends new and old.

Incredible, indeed.

A Very Good Year

"When I was 21
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for
City girls who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was 21"

2008 was a very good year. Contrary to what the morose headlines in the news suggest, this year was, in fact, the best, at least for me.

While my year contained none of the bygone romances Sinatra so wistfully recounts, yours truly finally became a city girl, exploring her way through Spain's capital city. And last March I did get the best haircut ever, an 11-euro deal whose layers and bangs curled in just the right way around my oval-shaped face. But on to the important stuff.

The first half of this year was all about travel. I logged close to 25,000 miles by air (unfortunately I only just registered for a frequent-flier program two weeks ago) and another 6,000 by bus, train and car across Western Europe and the eastern United States. That adds up to about 59 hours by air and 117 hours on the ground, for a grand total of 176 hours, or the equivalent of one entire week spent sitting in a chair waiting to be a tourist.

Exhausting? You bet. And the days sandwiched between those travels typically offered no break as I constantly searched for things to do and see in Madrid. More times than I care to remember I asked myself, why is it that I'm walking through [insert city name here] but all I really want to do is crawl into my own bed and sleep.

But outnumbering those instances were the ones where I looked around and thought simply, Wow. I thanked God every night, not just for the chance to travel, but for the loving Spanish family I joined, the engaging Spanish professors I had and the energetic Spanish language I spoke.

Come June, castellano was replaced with talk of cloture and voice votes as the Eurotripping gave way to my summer internship covering congressional hearings. Enter the second major theme of this year: my increasing love of journalism. A few weeks into the gig, once the politicians became just people and the wood-paneled hearing rooms lost their luster, I realized I really liked deciphering these complicated bill discussions and delving into the minutiae of policy.

Then my journalism-filled semester rolled around, and I was hooked. I fought it for three years, but the j-school won and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could pull off writing for a living. I, of course, realized this after throwing myself into the grad school/law school process, thinking for sure that foreign policy was my future. And so here I am, ending the year with no definite plan but a smile still plastered on my face.

Of course, 2008 wasn't perfect.

In Madrid, it took almost eight weeks for me to settle into a close group of friends. And it took the same amount of time for me to get back in the groove with school friends once this semester started. The 15-pound weight gain I deftly evaded freshman year found its way to my butt, thighs and belly via La Mallorquina (damn you chocolate napolitanos). And in more ways than one, I realized that life is a hell of a lot more complicated than I ever could have imagined.

2008 was the most exciting year I have ever had. But I suspect it was just a preview, the appetizer to the glorious main course of change that is making its way out of the kitchen.

I hope that everyone out there is as excited as I am for whatever 2009 has in store. Happy New Year!

The Absence of Magic

For days I've been meaning to post about how magic-less this holiday season has felt. And then this quote from columnist Erma Bombeck popped up on my Gmail toolbar:

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."

Yup, that just about sums up Christmas 2008. On Christmas Eve night I had no problem falling asleep and yesterday morning Mom had to drag me out of bed around 10 a.m. I plopped onto the living room sofa, busying myself with the Washington Post's A section. Only after scanning the headlines did I give the wrapped boxes beneath the tree a cursory glance. Absent any real sense of expectation or excitement (I didn't ask for anything specific), I buried my head in the throw pillow and closed my eyes as we waited for Neeraj to come down.

It's not that this year's was a particularly bad holiday; my family and I just never really found the spirit of the season.

Take the tree for example. Normally the white lights of our 7.5-foot artificial Christmas tree are shining by the first or second weekend in December. But as we drove down my street last Friday, the day I came home for winter break, one dark window stuck out like a missing tooth in a gleaming row of houses.

Papa finally put our tree up last Saturday night but it sat depressingly naked for an entire day. On Sunday evening, while a tired Mom and Papa watched TV and Neeraj studied for an econ exam, I pulled out the ornaments and began the chore of decorating. It was clear my heart wasn't in it once I was through; the lopsided pearl strands and haphazardly hung glass balls made the tree look sadder than it did pre-decor.

I convinced Mom to redo it on Wednesday and by the time Santa started wrapping gifts, the pearl strands were draped symmetrically and the glass balls glistened. This year, Santa got so lazy that he (re: Papa) wrapped all the gifts in plain sight as Neeraj and I sat surfing the Web in the family room.

The holiday wasn't totally devoid of surprises - everything was already boxed up so we didn't actually know what the gifts were. But, and here's the sad part, in the moments before gift-opening, I found myself anticipating that evening's Christmas meal more than what sat in those boxes.

And as for that magnificent Christmas dinner we had planned, well, by 7 p.m. no one was hungry so we postponed it to tonight and ate soup instead.

Erma's aforementioned quote brings to mind what one of my former high school teachers, who I'm fairly close to, told me in a recent email. Her son is almost 3 and though he didn't really understand the concept of Santa last year, "This year he gets it and can hardly contain himself!" she wrote.

So it looks like the magic-less Christmas is here to stay, since seeing anything through my own kid's eyes is still a waaaays away.