I can't believe I handed in a nomination form for Arts and Life editor of the Eyeopener. I've never even written for this section of the paper. And what do I know about the arts? Hell, what do I know about life?
The Eyeopener is Ryerson's independent student newspaper, and I started writing for it this semester. Well, technically I wrote one article for them last year, but then I started writing for a smaller paper on campus called Night Views. I got paid at Night Views, but it didn't have the cache and prestige of the Eye. And the Eye is actually a pretty big deal at Ryerson. Notable alum include Wendy Mesley and Christie Blatchford.
I'm majoring in broadcast, but writing for newspapers satisfies me in a way that TV can't. I have a love affair with the written word. And it's not necessarily a passionate love for creative similes and analogies in feature writing. It's a practical, clean, no frills kind of love for hard news leads and nut grafs. News stories come together in my head like a jigsaw puzzle. The stories click and flow in my brain in a way that makes me feel like I'm doing something right.
I wanted to run for News, but I know I won't win. But do I even want to win? Is that the point? Winning? I figured that there was nothing wrong with throwing my hat in the ring. The news editors told me that no one usually wins their first time running, but it's fun to go hear the speeches and give it a shot. So, bang bang, I'm giving it a shot. It seems futile to attempt to win anything at the Eyeopener now though. I'm heading into my second semester of third year. If anything big was going to happen for me there, it would have happened already. I feel foolish running for editor of this section when I've never even written anything for it before. The closest I came to writing for Arts came when Greg, the current editor, asked me to watch the most vile and explicit pornography I could find in a computer lab at school and then write about what happened. I said no. But after a semester of he said, she said, RSU dramatics, it might be nice to exercise my creativity.
But do I run for something I know I won't win or do I run for something that I have a chance of getting, even if it's not what I really want? Writing that out now, the answer seems obvious to me. And I'm kicking myself for whiting out "news" and writing "arts" instead. But I guess I'll just go to the Imperial tomorrow night, make an ass out of myself for two minutes in front of the entire masthead and then they can count the one vote that will be cast in my favour (submitted by me) and I can go back to writing hard news pieces next semester, with hopefully some arts and life thrown in. I just hope the stories won't involve me getting thrown out of the library or the j-lounge by security and having my lab privileges revoked.
