Opportunities

They’re gonna have to introduce conscription
They’re gonna have to take away my prescription
If they wanna get me making toys
If they wanna get me, well HELL, I got not choice

Career opportunities are the ones that never knock
Every job they offer you is to keep out the dock
Career opportunities, the ones that never knock

Careers
Careers
Careers
Ain’t a-never gonna knock

Joe Strummer, The Clash, "Career Opportunities"

Jobs. Wow, really. I'm going to have to get one. I think I have pretty good skills, and regardless of what it is I grab a hold of after May graduation, I'll still be able to build toward magazine writing with freelance work.

Over the turkey break I stopped by a friend's house, an older friend from back in the day who is now teaching in the Real World. He asked me what I was writing about lately. I stammered something about how I'm putting a lot of work in at the Buzz. True true, but it felt unsatisfying; I wanted to say, "Oh, I've got work coming into x, y and z publications." But I don't.

I've had a pair of summer internships and loads of time with Illini Media. I'm a research assistant (read: type transcripts) for a fairly prominent magazine writer. I blog regularly (no, not just here). So my resume isn't weak -- at least I hope not -- but I feel pressure to do more and more. Thankfully, I've had a lot of multimedia training through the News-Gazette class this semester; I'll continue that trend for next semester.

We'll be coming out the other side to a dying industry in a tanked economy. Reading through everyone's blogs, I can tell that those concerns are weighing heavily on all of us. There is hope; though, for times of upheaval are the best for the innovative and creative. If you think you need multimedia experience, do it. Make multimedia. What is going to make you better, make you more of an asset to a company, do it.


The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

Strummer, The Clampdown.

Barack and the (Puppy) Bowl System

Well, OK, so I might talk about our president-elect a bit. He's going to do good things. One habit that could get him in trouble, however, is his mixing of light and heavier topics: I love Barack talking hardball in a figurative and literal sense (as in, Go White Sox). When you're president; however, everything you do becomes a political issue -- even adopting a puppy. He says he wants to get a mutt, just like him, but daughter Malia is allergic. Hypoallergenic shelter animals are a bit hard to come by.

I would go with a hypoallergenic Welsh Pembroke corgi. It is well documented that corgis are adorable, playful and intelligent, all traits that I would also assign to our soon to be commander in chief. The corgi, known for its extensive herding ability, would be a fit in any place within the White House, from the West Wing to Secret Service Detail. I can already see the made-for-TV Disney Channel Production, A Barker in the Office.

Gratuitous cuteness.

On Barack's victory (and the frontpages afterward)

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm going to have to say that the Chicago papers. The Sun Times went with a very narrow-focused portrait of the president elect, and I think it works quite well -- but it isn't the home run that the MLK and Obama mirror was, while the Trib cover carrier the "new traditionalism" of the redesign. But let's check out the other regions.

I find it delightful that nearly all are incredibly triumphant, from "Yes He Did!" (Huntsville Times) to the San Bernadino Sun's "HISTORY." Some go with the simple -- (Obama wins) and others choose the superlative (Historymaker). We in the press love a good story, and Obamamania certainly provided it.

Inertia

In response to Amy Gahran's excellent blog, I would have to say that a number of things have to happen within the j-school to remain relevant. I often banter about institutional inertia and its evils -- it's one of the reasons that I became (or am becoming) a journalist. A major project of mine is a story about information science schools -- they call themselves iSchools -- isn't that cute? Information science is incredibly interdisciplinary. GSLIS here on campus is tied to a plethora of departments, each needing its number-crunching, database-building expertise. Am I saying we should be so promiscuous? No, but we do need to reach out.

Madness!

H.P. Lovecraft has been a favorite writer for years now; he is like Ed Wood if Ed Wood was at all respectable. Actually, a better comparison might be Bruce Campbell: You love him for his endearing goofiness. He was the master of the interrobang (a nonstandard English-language punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the question mark (also called the interrogative point) and the exclamation mark or exclamation point (known in printers' jargon as the bang). The typographical character is a superimposition of those two marks. The same effect is also frequently achieved by using both, for example, "How could you do such a thing!?" or "How could you do such a thing?!") as well at intensely used italics, the guy could simply write, and his imagination was as dark as it was gigantic. For all of his grammatical foibles, he remains a wonderful American artist, whose nature just as our nation's is flawed but beautiful.

Subjunctivitis

The Subjunctive case? What a jerk. I won't be subjunctive to anyone!

OK, I'm sorry, but I really want to talk about the Rays victory. This is good for baseball, believe it or not. Just because all of those NESN jerks love talking about Boston all day doesn't mean that the baseball world is entireley located in the Northeast. It's crap. Baseball is a GLOBAL sport, I tell you.

My pick? The Rays in 7. They head back to Tampa down 3-2, but get going at home, winning in dramatic and historic fashion.

Diagramming Palin

Uh oh, look what's gonna happen to our language when we start droppin' the letter G off of all our words. That governor from Alaska is so adorable, with her colloquialisms and folksy solutions to real-world problems. Who care about politics when you can just make stuff up and wink into the camera to score a victory. That and the fear mongering. In any case, her language is hilarious. Let's consult Kitty Burns Florey's recent piece for Slate, a wonderfully critical essay detailing the diagramming of the G.O.P.'s vice presidential nominee:



I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

How incredibly frustrating. If she's in office, then I am out of this country.