There’s something sad and magical about lasts – whether it’s the last page of a 300-page book, the last time your roommate lets you use the kitchen unsupervised or, as in my case, the last shift you have as a Daily Bruin copy editor.
While holding a freshly printed copy of a finished page to run the next morning, I realized that, after more than three years, it was the last time I would be in Kerckhoff 118 in the middle of the night trying to make deadline. While I expected it to be a sense of relief, the feeling that found its way to the front of my mind had a hint of sadness to it.
I looked at the printed page before me, satisfied with the accuracy of the headlines, the clarity of the articles, the length of the photo captions, and I couldn’t help but feel that the page itself was a manifestation, an expression of everything that is the Daily Bruin. Flowing through its headlines, its texts and its photos is the passion of talented students not only from this past academic year, but moreover from the accumulation of former staffers and the history they leave behind.
Often people would ask me what it is I did as a slot editor, and after hearing my long answers about editing and fact checking while heavily caffeinated and bloated from consuming a two-choice order from Panda Express, they would ask why, with my love for creating, did I not become a writer or a photographer or an illustrator instead?
I am not a writer or a photographer or an illustrator, but as a copy editor, I am able to access something rarer. I am able to come into contact with writers, photographers and illustrators, with every form of creation that finds a home on the page or the website.
A copy editor is in the most basic sense “a silent guardian, a watchful protector” – from making sure you know the difference between “The squirrel Tom ate my lunch” and “The squirrel, Tom, ate my lunch” to double checking that sentences end with punctuation and not like
Being a copy editor is nothing glamorous. In these last few years, I have yelled at inanimate objects after our server crashed, broken down when I tried taking a shift after a family loss and quit because giving up seemed like the only option. But through it all there was always someone yelling at inanimate objects with me, someone to give me a hug and tell me they will take over, someone welcoming me back with one arm outstretched and the other arm filled with snacks.
Looking at the printed page in my hands one last time, I knew that the papers to come tomorrow and the next month and the years after will have a similar undercurrent of passion and collaboration, a similar sense of magic distinct only to the Daily Bruin.
Lai was a slot editor from 2011-2013 and a copy editor from 2010-2011.