The Joy of Publication: Torn Contacts are a PAIN

(Transferred from my old blog on 18 August 2008.)

The Century Magazine is finally out (it was supposed to be out for Friday), and it was cool to see my name in print, no matter how short and simple the "article" (which was more like a snippet) was. Then at the New Era, they gave me a contract for a short "Instant Message" I wrote that will be in the January 2006 issue for $25. I had put a story on Janet's desk more than a month ago and had not heard anything, so I assumed she hadn't liked it and didn't say anything. However, today, she came to me with a smile on her face and said, "I love this! Kids will really relate to this. It just needs to be this long for a two-pager." She pointed at the midway point on a page. I said, "Yes! It's easier to cut than to lengthen!" I looked up and Paul was standing there watching me. I reiterated that cutting is enjoyable and preferred, and I realized he was standing there just to hear my reaction. Wahoo! Wahoo! A two-pager! That means a PICTURE! Yippppy!

So I've been going to that editing class and I really love it. I find it so interesting. Did I already tell you about the front page analysis last time? That was cool. On Friday, the Chronicle (U of U's newspaper) had a full April Fool's edition. It was hilarious! I thought it was so great that I read it over and over and just laughed out loud in public. Today we went over some articles and edited them, and I sat next to this girl and watched the paper she was correcting. The funny thing is, I mentioned a couple of times things she had missed, and she made a remark about the teacher being picky when I would have been even more so. Oh well. The teacher called me "a very special visitor dedicated to improving her editing skills." She hadn't even mentioned me to the class, but today there were not enough computers, so I moved to the back and everyone was looking at me, wondering why there weren't enough (that means everyone came to class for the first time since I've been going). By the way, let me hear your opinion on this. A kid gave a presentation on the difference between "who" and "whom." His method was fine and everything, but I raised my hand and said, "I find it easier to tell which one to use by seeing if there's a preposition preceding it." Then the teacher put a sentence on the board and acted so sure that I was wrong that I was afraid to fight it. I'm sure, though! You tell me. If you were to fill in the blank in the following sentence, would you put "whomever" or "whoever" (that is, if you wanted to be grammatically, prescriptively correct): I need to talk to ___________ is in charge. She said "whoever"!

I tore a contact last week and put in a new one, however, it MUST have been the wrong one, because I could not see. I called the eye doctor and made an appointment, then dealt with a perma-headache. Since Monday I've only been wearing glasses, and yesterday I had the biggest migraine-ish thing ever! Today I finally got to go to the eye doctor, and I felt tortured and abused (repetitious, I know). I almost cried at one point, because my head hurt and they kept changing my prescription, which made my head hurt more, and I just wanted to be able to see and then they dumped goop drops in my eyes and made me sit around and on and on, and now I'm sitting in the dark, typing, waiting for my headache to subside.