November 17, 2010

• hey luvs!

  I promised you an update so here it is... I may be repeating some stuff that I've written about in passing at some point this month but too bad, so sad, suck it up and deal with it  

  I haven't had much going on that is interesting and I'm sure you don't want to be hearing about my boring classes and massive amounts of homework, even though I have been occasionally posting things I've had to write for class. I'm still a little upset that I haven't been getting a very good mark in my writing class because I thought I was a fairly decent writer. Maybe I'm just not meant to be magazine writer or I just haven't figured out the difference in magazine writing compared to other writing or I just haven't found the right magazine to write for? I dunno. I could probably get away with writing a blog for some mag or book publishing company but not actual articles...

  Anyhoo, here is an update of the major events in my life these past couple weeks. 

   

  Tues 9th
  Today our classes were adjusted to be just one hour each instead of five in total because half the class would have had to leave early to volunteer for the Giller Light Bash.  The Giller Award is this big literary prize that many Canadian authors would want - prestige, money, and all that jazz. There is the real award ceremony for all the rich bigwigs, and the "Light Bash" for those who are less rich and less important and like to have more fun. All the proceeds of the Bash go towards a literacy college fund that I think is located in Toronto somewhere. 

  The volunteers were fed pizza, given a tour, and trained (aka a five second overview of our responsibilities) before the bash started. I was on the drink ticket table with three other people... believe me, it is NOT a job for more than two people. Well, unless there is another table which they had but closed early because no one went to it because it was tucked away in a back corner and no one saw it *envy* 

  My shift was for nearly the entire night! I was stuck there until midnight while others finished anywhere from 9pm on. Doesn't it figure that they stick one of the only people who would dance on the latest shift?! Because that was a responsibility for the volunteers that had shorter shifts, to get the dancing started. 

  I had a decent time though. I got to meet some of the students in the other half of the program, the servers were cute (keri gave her number to one and they've been texting since), one of the bartenders was hot (he would shout out my order the second he saw me and always filled my glass to the top), I was given free drinks (sprite) instead of having to pay for them like everyone else, I got the contact info from a guy at a publishing company (he was actually kind of cute too for an older guy) and suggested that I get in touch about an internship, and best of all I did get some dancing in.

  Because most of my class's volunteers all left before I even finished my shift I ended up hanging out with some people in the other class who came as guests in the process of getting drunk and just having a good time. I dont know any of their names but they were fun to hang out with and the guy wasn't half bad looking  He even complimented me, sort of, by saying he was watching me and thought I was a pretty good dancer. That wasn't saying much considering I was one of the few there who could dance -there was a lot of shuffling going on- but I'll take it anyways. 

  All in all, it will look good on my resume AND the co-ordinator said we could use her as a reference. 

   

  Thurs 11th
  Today was another field trip. This time it was to a printing plant in or nearly to Etobicoke which is an hour or so by transit  Thankfully I managed to catch a ride with a classmate because note only would I really hate to be traveling for that long -can we say car sick?- but I would likely get uber lost. The two people who I was going to take the transit with ended up deciding to go home so I would have been totally alone. 

  It was mostly pointless in my opinion, I mean we didn't really learn much at all! We got to see the printing presses and how things are embossed but that was about it. It was kind of interesting, but I'm not sure what exactly we were supposed to learn on the trip. I guess the highlight is the fact that we didn't have to be at school for the final three hours (but for those who took transit, it wouldn't have been a plus because it took one girl three hours to get home from the plant!)

  There was a mini quiz after that asked general questions about the plant. The first question was to name ways the plant was eco friendly and I said it had mini windmills on the roof. I won a bright neon green t-shirt and the accolades of being observant because apparently I was the only person who noticed out of all seventy-two people in our program (the other class had their tour before our class did) 

   

  Tues 16th
  Our editing instructor is getting gradually more annoyed with our class. The two mean girls are downright nasty to him which in a way is kind of funny because an editing teacher should be able to write handouts concisely, understandably, and without mistakes... none of which our teacher is capable of. In a way I understand it because I tend to be wordy and miss mistakes in my own writing but I'm not the expert he claims to be *shakes head*

  I have to admit that we're all being very childish in regards to this issue though; we are supposed to be professionals so we should all just shut up and deal. It does not put us in a very good light and he is after all a part of the publishing industry. I highly doubt he will be recommending many us to his contemporaries or even consider hiring us at the college press. 

  We got our midterms back today and we were all pretty upset. The teacher was surprised that we did so bad compared to our assignments but that should be a really good indicator that it was a badly written exam. He said that each question was answered correctly by someone but when the majority of the class is getting things wrong the teacher isn't teaching right or isn't testing right. He even had questions with two right answers but one was more right... editing is subjective so what is "more right" to one person might be the less right to another! 

  Out of the nineteen people who showed up for class (our other class had been canceled) not one of us got the very first question on the test right! The teacher said that so-and-so asked that question in class so obviously it was covered and we should know the answer... every single one of us shouted "she's not in our class!" The teacher can't even keep track of what he teaches to us and what to the other class, he should make notes of things that come up so he can discuss them with the other class and all learn the same things. It is unfair to test us on things that one class might have covered but not the other. 

  Because of that he said he might give everyone an extra mark. It is not like it is a big deal since he is already giving everyone two extra marks anyways. He graded the test wrong saying it was out of 51 when it is only out of 50 because he had two questions numbered five and six. He even had multiple choice options of A, B, and B *shakes head* I dont even know why he's giving us the other extra mark... perhaps it is because he said he decided to take out question ten but forgot? 

  I'm going to give you an example of a test question in which we were to choose which one was right. I cannot quite recall the entire sentence but I put the gist; it was actually a lot longer and more convoluted but whatever. 
  A) Matt's killing his fiancee was considered a tragedy by the grieving family  
  B) Matt killing his fiancee was considered tragedy by the grieving family
  Apparently A is correct because it puts the focus on the person rather than the action, but I fail to see how a person can own a "killing" since it is an action and neither is the apostrophe S a contraction for "is" or "has". 

  Maybe I'm not cut out for copyediting?

  Wed 17th
  Today we had a meeting for the online team of On The Danforth magazine and what I have discovered really ticks me off!  Some of you may know that I applied to be a section editor for both the print magazine and online but was given neither role. I could understand for the magazine since the people chosen are awesome but for online... Jill, the head of the team, told me that she thought the others had more experience and asked if I was willing to be the final editor. I found out that only one person of the team has dealt with the program we'll be using, so how does that make them more experienced than I am? I found out that only one of the other on the team has an online blog (other than me) so, again, how does that make them all more experienced? I just really don't get it! 

  One of them is leery of being the feature editor because she doesn't want to do much work and is worried it will take a lot of effort, so why the heck can't I have that position? Jill said the editors might have to do a fair bit of writing themselves, especially the first couple months and three of them don't want to do any writing. Why aren't they just a copyeditor while I be the section editor, because I'll sure the heck write!

  The mean girl in class is also on the team and I almost think she discouraged Jill from "hiring" me because when I went to join the meeting she gave me a look and groaned. Way to make me feel that we're all in this together and be working co-operatively. If I just knew what it was about the others on the online team that made them more experienced it wouldn't be so bad, but I just can't figure it out at all. As far as I can tell we're all basically on par in regards to qualifications. 

  It isn't going to stop me from pitching ideas and maybe even writing them, though. It would be excellent to have a bunch of articles in my portfolio, or put on my resume that I've been published xx times for the magazine. The hardest part would be how to tie everything into the Danforth area but, according to Jill, there is always a way.

  We're updating the website once a week which means I have to do a final edit on approximately 25 articles a month! The chief copyeditor in the other class said she had too many editors and not enough to do, and I'm sure my class has more editors than needed for the print magazine, so why the heck am I the only one with the most work to do?! Silver Lining: it will look good on my resume to say I can handle it... so let's hope I can!

  Our first online update will be mid-December and the next will be mid January (because we have a rather long Christmas break) and since I want to get some articles in I need ideas. Can anyone give me good Christmas/holiday and New Years suggestions? 

   

  SUMR

  • 8:02 pm
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