Saturday, January 25, 2014

Getting stuff done

This week’s bitter weather has not been pleasant for the redhead. We learned recently she’s suffering from lupus, and it’s not pleasant. It’s not disabling at this point, but it’s not fun.
And it’s not stopping her. If anything else, it’s making her more determined.
She is settling into her role as a senior reporter for Central Michigan Life.  As a townie, she was around for winter break, so she provided a great deal of the online content while the rest of the staff was off Christmassing. For the first print issue of the year, she wrote five of the 16 locally produced, news-side stories.
But this is the world of newspapering and a website. Those beasts need to be fed, and you don’t get a lot of time to bask in your glory. “Great job. So whatcha go for tomorrow?”
She’s thriving on it.
The CM Life newsroom feels like a newsroom these days. I recently heard an actual cheer come from that end of the fourth floor of Moore Hall. I’m not sure what happened, but that’s what’s supposed to happen in newsrooms that succeed.
This girl knows what good journalism is. That kinda happens when you grow up in professional newsrooms. She’s showing me drive, ambition and passion I haven’t seen from her in a very, very long time.
This week, she got new glasses. She likes’em. She is scheduled to have an interview with Jeff Daniels run before his appearance at CMU. She led the paper Friday with a court story. She understands the concept of feeding the beast.
She’s still working weekends at Veterans Memorial Library and selling the odd story here and there   to the Midland Daily News.
She applied for a small-town internship that often has gone to students at that green school down U.S. 127, and she might just get it. And as soon as she sent off the application, she started looking for more opportunities.
The first few semesters at CMU were difficult and not terribly successful. But she’s grown, and grown determined. Her class load is full time. Her cat, Max, is growing rapidly. She’s told her instructors that “lupus is just a word.”
She’ll just get things done.

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