graduation – Write. Snap. Click.

*self-gratifying sigh*

Here I am. Fifteen years later. This is THE DAY it’s all been about.

The day I get a piece of very expensive paper that says: this girl is smart. This girl knows stuff and she deserves a shot at making that paper (money). This girl is finally a cog in the machine.

Okay, that is not where I was going with this but what the heck I’ll just roll with it. While I am super excited about this so called milestone, it is the beginning of the end isn’t it?
I have been in professional day-care for fifteen years and guess what? I just signed myself up for more. Because a degree isn’t enough anymore – I could very well work in sales for the rest of my life. Bleak prospect.

So I’m bumping myself up a bit, to get that deluxe you-deserve-a-job-ticket. I have decided to do this through the one thing I am good at, writing. Well two things I’m good at – writing and questioning. But I fear that after I have completed my Honours in Journalism degree. It might not be enough, then what do I do?

Many qualified graduates in South Africa are left either jobless or stuck in less than desirable jobs once they have graduated. (This information comes courtesy of a Stats module I did.) I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

This piece is about the day that commemorates how far I have come. Somehow all the naps in lectures, Mike Ross-like skim reading and verbosity in essays have paid off.

Okay, let me stop being self-deprecating (holla to English Literature for that one). I actually did work my way through my undergraduate degree. Probably not as consistently as I would have liked, but I’m here.

I am very thankful for having indulgent parents who let me sign up for things that took my interest. They could have easily forced me to do something more “stable” that would make me a shit load of money. But they didn’t and I will always be thankful for that.

They let me have debates about Biko, the evils of capitalism and the origins of man. They let my young self, already keenly literary, truly bask in a plethora of works I would otherwise have never engaged with.

What I studied is directly proportional to the person I have become.

*drops mike and walks off stage*

This week was very short and therefore a little hectic in the newsroom.

We went on a ten day break, which was just what we all needed. I got to sleep for more than five hours every day, imagine that?! But that was then.

On Tuesday morning things got real again. Our news conference was a hot mess. No one pitched anything that they believed in, or anything that was super newsworthy or even the least bit juicy. This left us with a very “thin diary.”

To be completely honest I pitched nothing. I literally had nothing, save for an old story that kept being taken in and out of the Zion that is our “revised folder.” You have to understand – when your story is finally in the revised folder you are two or three clicks away from being in the paper that week. A place you really want to be.

Luckily I ended up with something to contribute to this week’s issue. I unexpectedly offered to write our Slice of Life segment. Which is exactly what the name implies, an opinion slash diary slash refection piece. I wrote about the only interesting that has happened to me in while – my graduation.

The piece was originally a blog post of mine (I say this with great confidence now that the paper has already been sent off and there is nothing that the powers that be can do to stop me – mwuhahahahaha). Obviously I edited to be fit enough for the paper (but not so much that it lost its flavour). Not because I was lazy or couldn’t find a new angle but simply because the blog post captured the way I felt and still feel about my graduation. My colleagues seemed to like it, I just hope everyone else does.

I actually haven’t been nervous about anything I have written in the paper. Now I am. My picture accompanies the article and my unbridled thoughts will be right there for everyone to see. Oh well, they best get aquainted 😉

ps – I totally dominated with design today, I really enjoy it and suspect I will be quite legendary at it soon enough.

Tag: graduation

The day I got to wear my Hogwarts uniform

The Newsroom 4.0