well, we beat the final time of putting the paper to bed from the first issue--by ten minutes...

i left the lab at 5:20 a.m. during most of the day, i was freaking out about everything--we weren't going to get it done, we weren't going to be able to beat the virus shit, we weren't going to be able to publish (i'm still nervous about that, but i'm refusing think about it)...but once 1 or 2 a.m. hit, a cool composure came over me. yes, the paper would get finished. in fact, the paper was going to look great. and i hit my zone--checking every nitpicky little thing to make sure it's absolutely correct. stuff i didn't think i knew. ideas about layout (which i'm really getting interested in--i took a book from the lab and will probably spend much of tomorrow pouring over it) and whatnot.

and i'm proud of this issue. not that i haven't been proud of the other two--obviously i have--but the stuff we have in this issue is tremendous. layout, the stories we were able to get, the lengths the staff went to to get them...i'm proud.

granted, i don't know if paul was just saying this to appease baz and myself because were were still there at 4 a.m., but i don't see why he would have said it if he didn't think it--there was no reason to. he said that he felt the first issue and this issue are award-winning issues. and when baz and i then replied wise-assedly about how we sure as hell better enter them in a competition this year, he replied right away that we would be.

hearing something like that filled me with excitement, adrenaline, and even more pride.

and leaving the lab tonight at 5:20, walking home in the chilly air (is it actually october???), i was filled with happiness, exhaustion (obviously), but again, the sense that, no matter how much i bitch about it, this is what makes me happy to do. and the thought of doing this for the rest of my life is pretty damn sweet.

i got home, saw bethy (who was half-asleep, silly girl), then went and sat on the front porch. the sky had changed ever so slightly from black to an deep, rich indigo, and it was beautiful to sit there in the silence (save for a car passing by on rt. 15 in the near distance) and realize what the defender staff does. well, we bitch, we moan, we curse people up and down, but we spend these hours preparing the campus for what they're going to know each week. granted, a great number of them pick up the defender to laugh at it and then cast it aside, or just to read campus speaks or whatever, but they look at it, nonetheless.

and my goal for this semester (at least, still undecided about the year-long committment) is to make sure they can't find a justifiable reason for laughing at the defender. i'm not going to allow anything in the paper to let them laugh.

how's that for motivation?