It figures. I’ve known for years I would be writing a -30- column, yet here I am, a few hours before it is due, still figuring out what I want to say.
I always assumed that somewhere along the way, I’d have a moment of clarity in which I would know exactly what The Bruin meant to me and what I should say in my farewell.
But it turns out, it’s not that easy. When I look back on the past three and a half years, I see a blur of late nights holed up in the infamous windowless office, reading stories, struggling to plan, and getting through it all with drinks from Kerckhoff Coffeehouse.
There were great days ““ when I edited a compelling article a writer had spent days preparing or when we broke national news (some of us will always be haunted by the word “Taser” and get panicky when we read words such as “teaser”).
But more than the moments of triumph, I remember the moments of frustration and exhaustion and the feeling that no amount of effort I put in would be good enough.
Too often in the past years, I have lost sight of the importance of what we do, and my work at times became more about getting the job done than about doing something great.
When day after day I came into the office, left late at night, and was rewarded with only another day of work and maybe a reminder of something I had done wrong the day before, I sometimes wondered just what it was that I putting so much effort into. After editing a long story on the state budget or a board meeting, I would wonder if anyone would read them or even care.
So for those of you signing on to the daunting task of a year (or another year) as senior staff, I would offer up just one last piece of advice (in addition to all those I have been giving you nicely and not-so-nicely in the past months): On those 12-plus hour days when everything has gone horribly wrong and all you want to do is go to sleep, remember that as a staffer at The Bruin, you have a chance to do something great.
You have the chance to write important, great stories, to touch readers, to inform the community, and to work in an environment that is unlike any in the “real world.”
When you are done, leaving The Bruin for the outside world I now face, I hope you look back on your time at the paper not with regret, knowing you could have done more, but with pride, knowing you gave everything you had to make your work the best it could be. It will be worth the extra effort.
Taylor was the 2006-2007 News editor. The stress of the Daily Bruin proved too much for her, and she will spend the summer playing with puppies.