Alarm clock

My alarm clock failed me.

I wore it through.

I'm pretty sure it and my poetry professor plotted against me.

The snooze button broke.

The piece of shit fell into the body of the screaming plastic shell of a beast.

It won't shut up.

Please shut up.

I try to fish out the plastic piece of shit.

I didn't like Operation as a child

I do not like it now.

Shut up.

For Christ sake, shut up.

No use.

I start pressing the organs.

Hard, metal organs.

Shut up.

Shut off.

I will miss it here -- coffee

I'm graduating soon. It's sad, true.

When I came here as a freshman I knew I loved it, even though it didn't love me. 

Everyone else seemed to come with their high school friends and had cliques pre-planned. I was from out of state and alone.

Since then I've become editor of my paper, executive news producer of two news TV shows, worked as an RA, fought off policemen in self defense classes, tamed a race horse for the school, went to plenty of hockey games, wrote lots of stories, etc. I've lived and grown up a bit.

And today I realized it. 

My friends make fun of me sometimes for being famous. I'm not. But on campus I do know a lot of people. When I go to meetings and someone says "Hi, Heather" I get a response from the person next to me "Are you Heather Steeves?" I'm getting used to saying "no." now, as it tends to keep me out of trouble. But I get that at least once a week.

Anyway. Today between classes I headed for my usual: an amoretto cream latte from the Oakes Room. 

"Hey Heather," my roommate Seth said.

"Hi."

Behind him I spotted Erik. He was someone I missed seeing ever since our creative nonfiction class ended. I went over to talk to him.

Ashley and Corey were sitting at the next table. They got up.

"I have to go. They're in my class," I told Erik. 

"Oh, you're going to walk with them?"

"No," I said, probably snootily. "But it means I have to go soon."

I started to traverse the backpacks, laptop chords and Odwalla wrappers to the exit.

Then I saw Matt Mac. 

"Hey Matt."

"Hey Heather."

Almost out Jeff Hake ran at me. I do mean ran at me. He kept blocking my way out, like a scrawny football player. I weaved passed him and ran into Danielle, who hit me with a stack of papers as a sort of "hello."

I literally ran out of the room and into the much safer, less populated atrium. 

I made it to class caffeinated, on time and knowing I've made some sort of impact here.

I make her cringe

Abby Goodnough, the Boston bureau chief of the New York Times chatted with me last week. See the article:

http://media.www.mainecampus.com/media/storage/paper322/news/2009/04/02/news/new-york.times.boston.bureau.chief.visits.university-3693756.shtml

On Monday I attended a luncheon where she spoke. I was producing a live stream for Mobile Maine News for it and reporting for The Maine Campus. I then walked her over to The Campus office so she could speak with my coworkers. We chatted on the way over, and I asked her more questions at the office. I told her I was writing about her.

By Tuesday we were well acquainted. It came to public affairs reporting class time. Nagle made it clear: ask, ask, ask, do not have a pause, do not waste time. We were to interrogate the woman.

My classmates had some questions at first, but they lost steam. So I started asking my questions. I asked about FOIA, ethics, "what do you look back on now that makes you cringe?" has she ever cried in front of a source, etc.

When class ended Abby and I staggered to get up. I put my coat on.

"Heather?"

"Yeah"

"You asked what makes me cringe. I take it back. You make me cringe."

I think it's a pretty high compliment from a fellow reporter. 

A follow up

Earlier I wrote "no one teaches you how to be an editor," which was me being a bit whiney about my responsibilities. As a follow up, here's what happened.

I woke up determined. Instead of slamming my already-broken snooze button, which is literally worn through the plastic, I was instantly ... determined. I knew it was coming. This was the day I wrote about. The day I'd set myself up for the question: could I do it -- make a news section with nearly nothing.

I put on heels. This was an amazing first step. Pardon the pun. Then the fedora -- complete with a feather on one side, "NEWS" label on the other. I needed inspiration, and -- if nothing else -- to look the part.

I made it through 9 a.m. psych 100. Somehow. Then Public Administration class. To say "I did not want to go" is a severe understatement. I don't know why, but my heels led my unwilling legs to second floor Neville. I sat with my New York Times waiting for another boring, "duh" lecture.

"What is a leader?" my teacher started. She's a tiny little thing who has probably been behind a town office's desk for the last 50 years.

I sigh. Oh. Good. Another hour of my production day wasted. I need to go pull four stories out of my ass, not learn definitions of "government" and "leader."

She goes on.

"Roosevelt said a good leader leads in times of crisis -- and succeeds."

It hit me. I wrote it down. I listened more intently to the next 49 minutes than I can remember listening to any lecture.

I've gone to church. I've gone to a few Al Anon meetings. Sometimes it's a zero. Other times, particularly I find, in times of need, it's there. Whatever it is. Whatever you need to hear most.

I learned about this in journalism camp. When that story just isn't working, you're tired and down to that last cigarette and you go out to smoke it and there is the story. Falls right into your lap. Most seasoned journalists get this at one time or another.

An argument is to be made. It might always have been there, whatever "it" is. The butterfly, they called it at camp. I can't remember the story, except that a man needed beauty and one day when he reached out to his windowsill there was a butterfly. The butterfly may have always been there. Every day at that same time; it's when you need it that you notice.

So maybe my butterfly was always there, just sitting. Perhaps lecturer Mary always spews wisdom that I just don't need. But today I got it.

I went into the office. Stories came in, as they tend to. I edited, fact checked, reported, wrote, copy edited, etc.

And everything was OK.

Maybe that means I'm a good leader. Or maybe it was always there.

No one ever teaches you how to be an editor

I love my job. It is the best job I could ask for; and soon, I will have to give it up. In return, I get a cap and gown.

I'd toot my own horn, it would be a familiar sound. But not today.

See, through the journalism program -- and I've been through all of broadcast and print -- you learn to be a production assistant, reporter, copy editor, writer, intern, janitor, etc. but no one ever teaches you how to be an editor.

It's just one of those things.

I'm not complaining. I don't expect my undergraduate courses -- in which some kids struggle to learn news values -- to teach me the complexities of knowing how to handle 60+ reporters, constant deadlines, coworkers, production/photography. It doesn't fit into a four-year curriculum.

So when deadline comes, and all the assignments given have fallen through, no one ever teaches you what to do. Nothing I've read tells me how to magically fill five pages with meaningful content, when given 150 words of student senate beat. It's not something I'm going to find in my text books. Strunk and White say I'm SOL, and AP is laughing at me.

I guess these are the times that test journalists to see how creative they can get.

Did I pass/fail? You decide: Thursday's Maine Campus news section.

Family

Through my anthropology course and spring break, I've been forced to think about family. ANT 102 says that in America, family means you have a blood or marriage connection to someone — everyone else is a friend. Fair enough.

My parents were divorced last month. Tonight, my first night at my father's (previously "parents'") house for spring break, I found something curious. Near my bed I saw a pink gimp-and-bead necklace next to a pink doily. First of all, I did not grow up in this house. Secondly, if I did there certainly would not be necklaces or doilies — maybe model horses, Tonka trucks and shelves of books.

So, I've come to the conclusion that my dad is dating someone with a child. A small, girl child. I wonder if this means I may have to expand my views of family. Or does it even count this late? Can I get a new sister at 21? A child that I probably could have given birth to had I been a more mischievous teenager? 

The zombies are after me

Death is following me. You might want to stand back.

Sunday I got a call that a kid died. A UMaine student, I found out. His name is Dylan. I had to get the story, talk to his friends, family and police. I had to knock on the door and ask about Dylan. Ask how he smashed his skull into the basement floor after his drunken fall down the stairs. His friends put him in a bed down there and let him sleep it off. Police found him the next morning in the bed, skull fractured, body laying in a pool of vomit. This has not been published yet.

Then I was forced, via homework, to read story upon story about death.

Going to bed last night I had nightmares. I haven't had nightmares for years. I was trapped in a basement. A killer upstairs. I was with another girl, I had to kill her to be released. In a separate dream I killed people and they came after me as a mob of zombies.

When I woke up I went to English class. I got there late, but I knew. I could feel the death again. Somber. I interrupted it. After class I asked my friend Lisa what would, any other day, have seemed like an odd question. "Lisa, I got to class late. Did someone die?" She explained to me that the professor's father had a stroke and his mother was in some state of dying.

I don't know what's going on, but I'm getting tired of making people cry.