To the kid in my journalism class - this is why we can't be friends.
Today I rode my bike across campus in dress shoes and pants in the snow to interview a provost. I made arrangements to be late to a class so I could curse the cold and try to get a man with too many titles to forget about his incessantly ringing cell phone and say something that didn't sound scripted. You slept in and checked Facebook.
It's not that we couldn't be friends; I think you're swell. But we can't be friends - it wouldn't work - not when this huge part of my life is something that in all truth you're just passively studying. You'd get annoyed about my having to transcribe all the time, and I couldn't fathom how you can act like that textbook is god. It wouldn't be fair for either of us.
If you want to be friends, I suggest you join a publication. Soon enough you'd know why it's insulting when said provost dismisses the journalist who just got done interviewing him with the admoniton: "don't forget to do your homework." Then you could properly rejoice with me over a well-written headline, and feel triumphant after spending too much time thinking of just the right words for a story that's only going to get read and thrown away tomorrow.
Please join a publication. Or two. If you stayed, we might finally have something substantial to base a friendship on. Until then, we'd best leave each other more or less alone. I've got stories to write.
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