What I learned in 2009

2009 has been a truly transforming year for me. I realized this when the boyfriend and I stepped off the University's free shuttles to downtown (meant to take students to Taking the Next Step, an alumni networking and career preparation event) and took several steps away from the event to spend the day together running errands instead. A year ago I was in those Marriott conferences rooms, begging alumni for some shred of hope that the financial crisis hadn't dealt any fatal blows to my future in journalism, and Washington Post columnist Bob Levy first told me about the Alicia Paterson Foundation, and the general notion that one could fund investigative projects via independent grants.

Like the Summer Action Grant, which I went on to apply for and receive later that year, and used to run, jump, throw myself into (and many other sports metaphors apply here) covering Chicago's Olympic Bid. Now I'm 20, and have my first byline in the New York Times. Damn things change; this much I am thrilled with. But how can I not be overwhelmed by the notion that I really am as capable as people say I am, that maybe I don't have any excuses not to be doing exactly what I want to do with my life, starting now. So I'm 12 days late in the New Years reflection department, but how's that for making up for lost time?

Without further ado, I give you What I Learned in 2009. Some of it's frivolously cosmetic, some of it has completely changed the way I view my place in this world:

1) Life always looks better after you’ve been on a jog and written a blog post, article or journal entry.
2) When I was in third grade I decided that I looked chubby with shoulder length hair, and demanded my parents allow me to grow it out. This summer, I hacked half of it off. The verdict? Short hair does not make you look fat. And I'm cutting it even shorter—will report back with more not-fat results next year.
3) When in doubt, go out. There is more to be accomplished outdoors, with friends, up late, on the North Side, than there ever could be at home in bed with an orange and the books (no, not all the books at once). Though the latter is a comforting prospect...
4) The only way to get real work done is to do so in isolation. But the time you spend not getting working done with friends is much more valuable.
5) Writing the way I do is never a bad idea, though some people will try to tell you it is.
6) The only time people are willing to tell you about themselves is at 11 pm after pancakes. Be prepared.
7) Physics majors are like football players for the least disenchanted of UChicago nerds. So don't hesitate to ask them to move your furniture/suitcases, etc.
8) Sometimes you may feel overwhelmed; your life may seem to hectic; your internal monologue may start to sound like one of those TV sleeping pill ads. You will fall asleep, give it time.
9) Not every ache and pain is the downfall of civilization in your brain. You have no Achilles toenail, tooth, etc.
10) You can count on Ben for much more than you’d ever believed.

...And sometimes a journalism student really can't have hope

The New York Times will Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs at the end of this year.

45 reporters will receive buy-out offers later this week, according to the company.

At least the newsroom wasn't the first place to face cuts, Richard Perez-Pena reports:

The paper has made much deeper reductions in other, non-newsroom departments, where layoffs have occurred several times. But the advertising drop that has pummeled the industry has forced cuts in the news operation as well. The newsroom already has lowered its budgets for freelancers and trimmed other expenses, and employees took a 5 percent pay cut for most of this year ... The Times’s news department peaked at more than 1,330 employees before the last round of cuts. The current headcount is about 1,250; no other American newspaper has more than about 750.

It's a small consolation to an aspiring journalist who all but idolized the NYTimes's institutional model a few years ago.

I witnessed newspaper buyouts first-hand as an editorial intern with the San Diego Union-Tribune last summer. The paper was on the verge of going up for sale, and offered buy-outs to close to 30 staff members—mostly older reporters and editors with long careers at the paper. My editor proudly declared, "I will go down with this ship!" posted lyrics to a Titanic song in his cubical, and hunkered down to weather the "economic thunderstorms" (as Bill Keller called the staff cuts in his open letter to NYTimes staffers) by starting a blog with the bleak name "threatened journalist"; one columnist took the buy-out and left without another word, refusing to finish out his month. The already somber newsroom was awash in whispers. Small, impromptu gatherings around the water-cooler turned into long-winded musings on the downfall of the newspaper industry, and more than one stranger walked by my desk to say "get out while you can, kid—it's not too late to change majors."

If they took the buyout offer, the U-T reporters' reasoned,they would be leaving familiar jobs where they have established reputations and credibility; but a buy-out is in many ways more attractive than the possibility of staying only to face lay-offs further down the line. Younger reporters who recently started at the U-T had no option, but became aware of their more-seasoned colleagues dilemma, and we all wondered if the U-T had reached a dead end.

The New York Times does amazing work, and I wish the reporters a lot of luck making this decision.