The mighty journalist

About nine months ago, I adventured out and got a job as a journalist for a local newspaper called the South Valley Journal. The South Valley Journal covers four cities and is delivered to every home for free each month. In case you're wondering, as I was, they pay for publication through advertising.

I have covered the education beat for the newspaper. I have really enjoyed writing for the newspaper. I have to admit, that while I love to write and although I taught journalism for a couple of years, I really had no idea what I was doing at first. It took a big learning curve for me, and I'm really grateful for a patient editor. I realize that I've always been more into creative writing. I love telling stories. Writing in the newspaper genre is completely different than what I'm used to. If I were to go back to teaching journalism again, I would do a lot of things differently, now that I've had some real experience in the field. But I do feel like I improved over the months. I'm proud to say that I started our writing three to four articles a month and now average six to seven articles each month. And I have had so many priceless learning experiences and have had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people. It was wonderful for me to still have a connection to the education world, and it was my job to really spotlight the amazing things going on in the education world. And believe me, there are some AMAZING things going on! I have been touched and inspired many times by what the children and teachers are doing in our schools.

Here are some of the things I've learned from this experience:
1. I can do hard things. It was very intimidating to me at first to write in a different way and to go out to schools and be assertive. So often I want to fall back into my shy shell, but this job has really pushed me and taught me to talk to people. I've realized that I really can do challenging things if I set my mind to it.
2. I've learned that there really are wonderful things going on in this world, we just have to keep our eyes open for the good in life and not always get bogged down by the bad.
3. I am still a procrastinator. It seems I receive my best inspiration when my articles are due in two hours! =) When I was teaching, I remember getting frustrated with students who waited until the last minute to get their assignments done, but I'm realizing that, sometimes, that's okay. We just need to be patient with people and realize that we all have our own way of doing things. And while I might be a procrastinator, I'm still dependable. Sometimes the kids would be running around in just their diapers, eating cereal out of a box and watching reruns of Barney as I hurriedly wrote my articles last minute, but I really worked hard to get my articles done by deadline. I also have learned that deadlines are my kryptonite!
4. I love being involved. I like the idea of making a difference. And I truly believe that the written word can make a difference. I also believe that the media has a greater responsibility to promote good in the world than it realizes.
5. I really, really do love writing. It has been so good for me to be forced to write more often. I definitely need to make goals to write every day. Life is just better when I'm writing!
6. My husband is a very talented headline writer. For some reason, I really struggled with writing headlines. Nic probably doesn't want me to announce this to the world, but he's got a way with words and many of the really good headlines were written by him!

So, as I'm approaching a new chapter in my life--having three kids under the age of three--which I've entitled 'Insanity'. I've decided that I just won't be able to write for the newspaper anymore. This is my last month. In fact, tomorrow is my last deadline, and of course, I have four of my six articles to write still. I'm sad to not being doing this anymore but happy for the experience. I feel like I've really grown from this experience. I have a lot more confidence in myself and am excited to try new things like this through out my life.  In honor of my journalism 'retirement' I'm just going to post a few of my favorite articles in the next few posts. Please take note, that these aren't my favorite articles because of the amazing writing skill demonstrated (often it's quite the opposite!), but because of the inspiring people I met in writing the articles and the good changes they brought to my life.