Thursday, May 04, 2006

I'll Say A Word That Don't Mean Nothin'...Like Loopid!

It's a wonder I made it through this semester without totally going off on somebody. People may not have believed me before, but I did vow to change that about myself - for the better.

I think I did, others may not believe that or cared enough to give me the chance, but that's okay. Maybe it's what I needed. Maybe I needed the problems I faced this year. This isn't to make anybody feel sorry for me, because I brought some of it on myself, but I'll be damned if somebody tells me I didn't try to better The University Star this semester.

This is probably my last blog entry from San Marcos as I'm planning to be out of my apartment by the end of the weekend.

On the 13th, I'm travelling to Washington, D.C. for a couple of days of vacation before I start my orientation session with the Chips Quinn Scholars Program. I referenced the program in an earlier blog when I paid about $50 dollars to have my application sent overnight. Well, they recieved it, I passed my tests, the interview and was accepted into the program.

I plan on catching the Red Sox @ the Orioles, visiting all the standard tourist fare as well as visit the Freedom Forum and the offices of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (of which I am now a member).

With the scholars program, I have been placed as an intern on the city desk at the San Angelo Standard-Times. I start there on the 24th of this month.

It was weird. Up until about a month or so ago, I was still a little scared about going to San Angelo. I had this feeling like I might screw things up or I might not be ready. Well, fuck that. I'm tired of having this feeling like I might not have earned what I have. I didn't get anywhere because my name was Joe Ruiz, I got where I am by working hard and trying to learn something new everyday. This may sound like a rah-rah entry, but you haven't heard from me in a while, so it's going to be a lot of everything.

I met some great people over the last few months. I got to meet one of my favorite "celebrities" last weekend.

As part of the Trojan (yeah, that Trojan) College Roundtable, I met Dr. Drew Pinsky (of Loveline fame). The roundtable was a discussion of sexual health, censorship of the student media and sexual culture on college campuses. I grew up watching Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla on Loveline and listening to them on the radio (via a very small amount of online streams). Dr. Drew is really as easygoing in person as he comes off on the radio. He seemed to truly listen to us and care about what we were saying, but he also challenged us to think beyond what we walked in with. As badly as I left The Star this semester, I still fought for them to be active in future roundtables as I think there are a number of things the paper could learn and capitalize on with its coverage.

It's still hard not to use possessive terms when describing myself and the newspaper.

I finally got to meet in person (albeit too short of a time) Zachary Austrew of The NT Daily. He helped The Star out one night when we couldn't get any information from a Texas State softball game at North Texas. I called, Zach answered and we rapped about the college newspaper biz off and on until we finally hooked up for dinner (including his managaing editor Gabe) at TIPA weekend in April. I see Zach's passion for his newspaper and for journalism as a whole and it inspires me to be better at what I do.

It's good that we're not alone in our thought of journalism, Zach. I'm pretty confident that whatever's next for you and I is going to what we need to take what we've learned during our late nights at our respective newsrooms and put it to use.

Adam got a job with the Dept. of Defense in Washington doing exactly what he wants to do (as far as I know, but it is doing more than drawing maps and using nice fonts in his typing). I'm gonna miss him, but I'm sure a 5:30 a.m. text message about the Yankees kicking ass is going to be the rule more than the exception with him.

I don't know what the 24th brings for me, other than it's the chance I've been waiting for to prove myself in the career and goal path I've chosen. I guess it's time for me to put up or shut up. Oh, well, this is what I wanted.

I couldn't be happier.

To my fellow San Martians, please keep in touch if you so choose. If not, be well. I'll try and make it down for a football game and I know I'm going to try and make it down for the Southwest Coalition fantasy basketball draft, but if not, know that this town is one of the most beautiful, relaxing places when it can be. I will always love the Texas Hill Country.

On a side note, I'm listening to Loveline and I still love hearing Dr. Drew so eloquently tell somebody they've got some problems.

Again (I know, I know), I hope this is the first of a new beginning of frequent updates to the Theory.

1 Comments:

Blogger Lois Lane said...

You need to update dammit. Where are you?

Monday, 24 July, 2006  

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