For the past three weeks, I have stopped crossing off the days on my calendar, hoping that without the black marks scribbled across the boxes, I’ll somehow manage to stop time. I don’t want to acknowledge that finals are around the corner, that half my friends are graduating and planning their post-Conn lives and that I’ll soon be entering a whole new territory called “Senior Year of College.” (Shudder.)
With all of the responsibilities and opportunities that senior year presents, the one that I am most looking forward to is running The College Voice with Dave. And the one that I am most terrified of is running The College Voice with Dave.
I remember the summer before freshman year like it was two weeks ago. I was excited about starting a new chapter of my life — moving away from home, meeting a whole new crop of awesome people, buying way more dorm furnishings at Target than I could cram into my tiny Larrabee triple.
That same summer, I stalked the Connecticut College Facebook group for the incoming class of 2014 and saw a post that advertised for the Voice. “Meetings every Monday night at 10. Awesome people. Awesome music. Awesome snacks,” it read. I was hooked.
I soon received a message from Jazmine Hughes, news editor and avid Justin Bieber fan. I had posted an “ironic” photo of myself on Facebook earlier that week sporting a “Bieber Fever” sweatshirt, which Jaz took as a sign that I loved the Biebs just as much as she did. She welcomed me to Conn, invited me to attend the first Voice meeting and said that she hoped we would be best friends since we had the same taste in music. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I couldn’t stand JB, but three years later, that doesn’t matter because I gained a great friend and mentor in Jaz, and she somehow converted me into being a Bieliber.
Since the first time I walked into the Voice office with Jerell Mays, I knew that this place would become a home-away-from-home for me. I’ve worked every week at the newspaper with both Jerell and Dave since day one of freshman year; we started as staff writers and copy editors and worked our way up to higher-level positions, learning the ropes and indulging in the occasional free 2Wives pizza with the staff.
I’ve watched three years of Voice staffs grow, bond and work their butts off, sometimes staying up absurdly late to make sure that the paper was off to print. I’ve been awed by and honored to work with Lilah, Jazmine and Meredith, as well as the other senior staff members, particularly Annie, Ayano and John Dodig’s beard. Though I never had the opportunity to work with her, I’ve heard so much about Claire Gould that I feel like we’ve met a dozen times. Their dedication and passion for this newspaper has been constantly inspiring during my three years at Conn, and I hope that by the time we graduate, Dave and I can leave behind that same legacy.
It might be because I’ve been subjected to taking “family photos” at the end of each EIC’s term (see: matching blazers), but the Voice has honestly felt like a family to me. Staff members come and go every year, but the memories that we make in this office have stayed with me. From jumping on the couch singing “One Direction” to repeatedly learning what a dangling modifier is and forgetting two seconds later (sorry, Annie) to finally cleaning the Closet of Secrets and throwing out five-year-old oatmeal, there’s never a boring day in the office.
So when Meredith and Ayano wrote on the office whiteboard after their last issue: “Below are our well wishes and recommendations for success…1. Quit while you can,” I know that their advice comes from an honest but joking place. This paper was their baby — tossing and turning and screaming in the night, sometimes — but they loved it, and now they’ve entrusted us to take care of it.
Sitting in the office with Dave, writing our editorials, feels surreal. It might be because I’ve had the stomach flu all weekend and would rather be lying in bed, watching 30 Rock reruns, but it hasn’t hit me yet that this is it. I’m terrified and excited to be in charge of the Voice next year, and I’ll be happy if I can give back even half of what it’s given to me during the past three years.
In the last editorial that I wrote during Meredith’s run, I discussed what the role of a student publication was — an outlet for news and discussions, opinions and suggestions. The College Voice’s role has always been to inform, educate and entertain readers; Dave and I hope to make sure that we continue this next year by increasing the quality of writing, the readership and the transparency of the Voice on campus and on social media sites. We welcome you to help us get a head start and voice your opinions about the paper at our open forum this Thursday at 4:30 PM in Coffee Grounds.
To wrap this up, thank you to Meredith, Annie, Ayano and the rest of the senior staff for an amazing year. We all survived Fishbowl-gate and Meredith’s insistence on listening to Spice Girls and other bad ’90s music on repeat. To our incoming staff, I’m looking forward to new ideas, awesome pizza parties and rocking sing-a-longs into the late hours of the night. And to Dave, I couldn’t ask for a better partner-in-crime to take on the Voice with next year.
Keep Conn and Floralia On.
