Right now, I'm in the same mindset as I was at the dawn of my first semester, which is essentially: "Oh my God. Everyone is so much younger and better than me. I'm going to be a collosal failure at this. I may as well just quit, but that'll just embarass too many friends and family, so I'll just plug along until I flunk out." So it's reallly upsetting when I pass everything.
This all kind of stemmed from an assignment we had to do today. We had to transcribe a newscast and read it to the class. This is taught by two instructors. One, the male, I don't think has ever said a nice thing to me about my voicing. His complaint today was that I have too much energy for reading the news. I have to tone it down a little. That, and because of the energy, I don't emote enough. He does have a point. It is kind of bad to sound perky when you're reading a news story about child molestation.
I can't help it, though. Because I have been a natural ham most of my life (and made good money doing it in Japan), I have a lot of energy when you turn on that microphone or get me in front of a crowd.
Still don't understand where the other instructor, the female, keeps saying I'll do good in news. I think that stems from the fact that my university arch-enemy, Brad Goertz, beat into my head how journalism should present a balanced picture. In the little intros to journalism I've done so far, I tend to harp on that quite a bit. Yeah, Brad and I had our differences, but he actually taught me quite a bit.
And now tomorrow, I have to be at NAIT to do my first official on-air shift on the student radio station. That, to be honest, is scaring the shit out of me. I'll be doing remotes, meaning I set up in the school's lobby, and at every commercial break, they cut to me and give a one minute spiel on some upcoming campus event. You've all heard them on real radio stations: "Hi, this is Jimmy Crane, and I'm down at Frankie Ford where they're having the push, pull and drag it in sale...."
Now, why is this scaring me? Mainly because they haven't taught us how to do it yet, and I really don't know what campus events to talk about, so I'll just be winging it. I've kind of accepted the fact that, because I don't know anything and this is my first time, this is going to completely suck. Once I embrace that, I can have fun with that.
Kind of like when they didn't renew my contract in Japan. On one side, I felt completely liberated. To know that I no longer had to be prim and proper in all my classes made me cut loose a lot more and my classes became a lot more fun.
Once you accept that it's all coming to a screaming halt, you don't care. And when you don't care, you're free to have fun with it.
Next Issue...The End Is Near
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