Total Bull Spit

Today was this semester's first official meeting of the Erie Square Gazette at SC4. It was my first-ever meeting - as a writer, or anything else - so I was very nervous...and excited...and also pretty nervous.

The newspaper advisor, and my teacher, Professor Lusk, was expecting me, and greeted me warmly, but I didn't know anyone else at today's meeting.

Even though it was obvious by all the people who sat alone, looking around like sheep that I wasn't the only new face in the bunch, something in the air made me feel like I was not in the same boat as the everyone else.

When the editor in chief, Brian Johnston, began calling names and searching the room, I waited quietly.

I knew quite well that I hadn't put my name on any list from which to be called, but still I sat, rapt with my most thoughtful attention, just in the crazy case that...well, someone else had...

Of course, my name wasn't called. It didn't go unnoticed.

I had to exchange only a few clumsy words with Johnston before it came out that the newspaper, sure enough, is a one-credit class (with grades and everything, who knew?), one for which I hadn't registered.

This is real crap news for me to get now, halfway through my payments on this semester. Especially due to the fact that I am already enrolled in only six credit hours because it's all I can afford to budget. (My days with student loans are over - well, my days of taking them out are over...) Trying to squeeze out another almost-$200 for the two remaining payments this semester is going to be very tough.

Worse than that is the fact that everyone else is already enrolled. I seem to be the only one vacant enough to have not looked a little deeper into this. I obviously should have taken this more seriously, and I can already see that I'll pay dearly for my negligence.
Today, after skating through 47 pages of syllabus as a group (I know, right? It's a full-on class!), the editors started passing out story ideas to everyone in the room...everyone except me.

He said there's room at the paper for a guest writer, but that their priority, I have to understand, has to be with the registered student writers. The first edition is going to be basically fluff anyway, so I shouldn't worry about it. We'll figure something out, he said.

Unacceptable. All I am is a fantastic version of everyone else. A little more talented than the average Joe, perhaps, but no different. Therefore, I refuse to be treated any differently. I can't have some special relationship with the editor in chief which sometimes affords me a chance to contribute to the paper as a guest writer. It's flattering that Johnston would allow be the opportunity, I suppose, but I expect a staff position nonetheless.

It's lucky for me that campus clubs each have their own advisors, and that the Gazette's is none other than my doting news-writing teacher, John Lusk.

Lusk and I have a special relationship of the positive variety. The kind where I work hard to impress him, looking up to him as a true expert and role model, and I think he does his best not to let me down. He respects my talent as a young writer, while highlighting opportunities for growth. His eyes betray the aging hippie beneath his clean, professional appearance, so I imagine cultivating emerging talents comes naturally to him.

At the end of the first newspaper meeting today, Lusk pulled me aside to ask me if I had gotten set with a story ok. I said I hadn't, and choked for a second on the explanation that followed. It was embarrassing, but I began to make plain how I never thought to ask if the newspaper was something I might have to sign up to join. Before I got to the beginning of the meeting today when I first spoke with Brian, though, Lusk stopped me and said it didn't matter.

He said, even if I went to the registration office and, for some crazy reason I couldn't get in, he would let me work for the ESG. The paper could still use me, he said.

I registered as soon as I could get home and to the computer. I will have to find a way to pay for it...some other day. I haven't exactly figured it out yet. I will have to come up with an extra $50 in February and March, but that's in February and March, I guess.

All I can really think about is now. And right now I'm thinking of how awesome John Lusk is, and how I can't wait to be an m-effing writer! (Classy, I know.)

Wish me luck(, my readership of zero)!!!