25 Days and Counting

My Google homepage is programmed to count down the remaining days in this semester. Today it tells me there are 25 days left. It's a sad admission--the fact that I'm eager, maybe even desperate, to move on from this 4 month period of practicing daily news journalism. I'm paying up the nose for it, after all-- I must be learning something, right?

Well, yes, I'm learning a ton. And I have dozens of opportnities at my fingertips, many of which I've taken advantage. But boy, I've come face to face with some combination of insecurity and aversion every time I've had to go out on some crazy assignment and ask random people about their feelings. Yesterday, doing a story on gas prices ($3.44/gallon for regular in CA) and Thanksgiving travel, I was actually ASKED TO LEAVE a particular gas station, because the owner said that by asking customers questions as they pumped their gas, I was essentially harrassing them. Can't say I disagree. I hate that part of this job. Some days, I wonder if that means I'm not cut out to be a journalist.

But then there are other days, days like this Saturday when I chatted with my dear friend and colleague Mary, a long-time reporter who I'll be accompanying to Central America this January. Mary runs a non-profit called Round Earth Productions, which produces radio stories throughout Latin America and distributes them to NPR, World Vision, MSNBC, and some other major outlets. I met her in Ecuador in May, as you may recall. Anyway, Mary and I will be going to Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Southern Mexico beginning January 2, to report on a bunch of stories. The ones I'll be in charge of are 1) on a Mayan rock band in Guatemala, and 2) some sort of effort to combat climate change in Mexico. Planning for, and talking about, and researching this trip-- gets me excited in a way that is so fundamental to why I'm in this field. It's about discovery, curiosity, adventure... and a quest for that perfect combination of profundity, humor, irony, and emotion that make a good story. And yet, when I'm standing at a gas station in South Berkeley, with my dorky little notepad and pen, asking my reluctant interviewee if high gas prices are going to affect her holiday plans, knowing that she'll say 'of course not,' somehow all of that inspiration and purpose seems so very far away.

Better get ready for work. Good cheer to all.