Paperback Writer

The word paper has finally been turned in. I was the first in my class to turn it in (I made sure to get it out of my backpack in third hour, right before English, and have it ready as I entered the English room), so I should be one of the first to get it back, if she does things the way she did for the trial paper. Jenny and Ross both read it at Barnes and Noble on Sunday, and said it was pretty good. After spending a lot of time painstakingly laying out the body paragraphs and searching for the right word order, I slapped together the conclusion in five to ten minutes. I just sat down and wrote, and left it the way it came out. As a conclusion, it's pretty bad, but it made me smile, particularly my completely random reference to "discarding regret in a forgotten Dumpster of unpleasant emotions." Don't know where that came from, but I kind of like it.

Okay, so no more going on about the paper. Sorry if I've been boring. Last night was Scoopie night for Quiz Bowl. It's this fundraiser thing at Culver's; members from a club or organization greet customers as they enter, take trays to tables, and so on, and try to get people to turn in little cards when they pay so that ten percent of the profits goes to the group. It wasn't bad; before my shift, I ate supper with Josh Boykin, Amy Nyberg, and Laura Burns, all people from school whom I don't know well but who seem nice and smart and everything. It was a little awkward; there were a lot of inside jokes and references to people I don't know, but at least I didn't have to eat alone. I worked the second shift, greeting people at the door and trying to get them to use the little cards. Ryan and Tyler worked that shift, too, and Alex Sward and Lindsey Pearson came to eat, so I had fun chatting with them. A fair number of Auburn teachers came, too, including the Longhenrys and their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Those two are very cute with their granddaughter, a lot of baby talk and stuff I never would have expected. I always thought the Longhenrys were very serious, erudite people, and they are brilliant, but they also have a lot of corny everydayness in them. It's nice to watch.

Today the newspaper came out at school. I felt kind of embarrassed all day because I had six articles in this paper, up from zero last time and one or two in every other issue this year. Freshman and sophomore year I wrote a lot more, but this year people seem to assume that I have a lot of work to do as the editor and don't have time to write regular articles. This does mean that I get to write a lot more fun stuff, like book reviews and scathing editorials, and I have to turn press releases into short articles once in a while, which is easy and the kind of work I like. I always hate having to approach people for quotes. People either say stupid things or don't want to comment, or I just forget to ask people until I get to newspaper each day.

My most infamous article in this issue was an angry editorial written after my recent encounter with the hall aides, basically about how they shouldn't be so rude, and also that enforcing rules at the expense of the system they're supposed to uphold is stupid. I got a lot of comments, which was flattering but a little embarrassing. Several people shared their own hall aide stories. When I walked into English, Mrs. Longhenry said something like, "Nice article. Go for it," making me feel like I'd done something endearing but kind of dumb. I don't know. Then, later, while Lindsey Claeyssen was lecturing, doing a Lacanian interpretation of James Joyce's short story "Araby" (which, by the way, we've analyzed in every high school English class so far), Mrs. Longhenry interrupted and said something like, "If you want to know about objectification, read Colleen's article. That's what the hall aides did to you, they made you an object, and you stood up to them." Cue every head in the room swiveling to stare at me, an awkward silence broken by Lindsey's feeble "Go, Colleen" and clapping, and several people in the room grabbing newspapers and flipping through them to the article. I feel silly complaining--people tend to be annoyed by excessive modesty, as if the person's fishing for compliments or something--but it was highly embarrassing. I felt my face get bright red. A lot of the day was like that, actually; I'd hear people talking about the article or about the paper in general and not know where to look.