During my semester abroad, while residing in a small, un-insulated cabin somewhere in the upper peaks of the Andes Mountains in Peru, I received an email from the Voice and realized there was no escape. I also realized that I didn’t mind that in the least.
When I joined the Voice as a first year student, I made the mistake of sitting on what is possibly the grimiest sofa in all of existence that calls the Voice office home. I watched the banter between the editors and older writers and was in awe of their advanced maturity, wisdom, humor and obvious mastery of the English language. They joked, they criticized (both the school and one another), they casually mentioned jaunts to the mythic campus bar. These were the beautiful people.
And they still are. While the I-am-not-worthy feelings have subsided to a point where I can stand to stare directly at Dave, Melanie and Julia without being blinded by their genius, in all seriousness, I completely admire and respect them as college journalists, intellectuals, and, overall human beings. They turned the newspaper from a not-quite-charming campus tabloid to a legitimate source of news that I haven’t seen used to clean up spills in Cro lately. It contains things like words and ideas…good words and ideas. For lack of a better word: it’s sexy and I can only hope that I can maintain this progress.
In terms of the “vision” I’m supposed to have for the coming year to make the paper my own, I don’t think I’ve gotten that far. I’ve gotten to the point where the idea of running this paper is only slightly less anxiety-inducing than eventual graduation. All I know at this point is that I have a pretty fantastic staff of enthusiastic editors, as well as a few old so-and-so’s from this year’s legendary staff.
I thank Dana Sorkin in advance for cradling me as a sink into an incoherent babbling mess in the face of Adobe InDesign, I promise I will tag-team you out when it gets to be past your bedtime. Thank you to Luca, Matteo, Eleanor and Hallie for not being graduating seniors and sticking around our quaint, chair-crowded office.
Even though there are moments I consider stealing Dave and Mel’s diplomas and making them stay forever, I don’t think there is anyone here that could have prepared me any better for the challenge that awaits.
-Ayla
