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For as long as the weather has allowed it, my Sunday routine usually includes a walk around D.C. proper, and during that walk I usually find myself at the National Gallery of Art. The art is okay, though I’d take Rothko over Rembrandt any day (and they stick all the modern art in I.M. Pei’s inscrutable labyrinthine East Building that I refuse to re-enter).
I keep going for one exhibit: Robert Frank’s “The Americans” photographs.
(That picture is of the entrance closest to the exhibit, with a piece of one photo enlarged above the door.)
I never stop being amused by the herds of tourists on Segways rubbernecking at the front pages displayed outside the Newseum. Sometimes I walk by just hoping to see this.
Evergreeners will be glad to know my organizational strategy still consists of a pile of sticky notes nestled around the base of my computer monitor and covered in tiny checklists.
This is from the last glorious Cupcake Monday. Today is my final shift at the Student Press Law Center, though I’ll be in D.C. about another week to go catch all my favorite attractions one last time (and see the Supreme Court on Monday!)
My grandparents asked a valid question the other weekend: “We like seeing all the things you’re doing around D.C., but what are you actually doing at work?” First of all, I’m shocked at how consistently busy I’ve been the whole time. Essentially I’ve been writing about student media issues, but it was harder than I expected to balance everyday news updates with long-term magazine stories. (It was kind of like last spring, actually, with my Evergreen stories and thesis, but that was an ordeal I hadn’t anticipated revisiting. This wasn’t that bad, but it was still hard.) The soft deadlines for the magazine stories really challenged me, and then after I’d been researching and interviewing on a topic for months and months it was hard not to write 70-inch behemoths.
So where are all these words I’ve been stringing together? Nowhere, yet. The magazine isn’t going to the printer until the end of next week, but eventually all the stories will be online. For now we have a bunch of online updates on the left side of the SPLC site.
I really like the people I work with here, and I will miss our lunchtime lessons on regional stereotypes (now I can properly judge a person for being from Long Island or New Jersey), among other things. Below, waste time on YouTube SPLC interns-style.
Something has been gnawing at me about this question posed to the NYT editorial page editor last week in the ongoing “Talk to the Newsroom” feature: Why aren’t there any “serious” female NYT columnists?
The two regular women who write are, of course, Gail Collins and Maureen Dowd. (Those who read this blog thoroughly enough might know that I usually like Collins, sometimes like Dowd, and never miss a Friday post from blogger – and occasional columnist – Judith Warner.) Dowd and Collins generally write about serious news topics in a humorous way. They’re quite entertaining, and they also make good points.
Editor Andrew Rosenthal responded:
“O.K., so I admit. I’m answering this because it’s a slow, hanging ball. … I would be the last person alive to suggest that Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins are not serious columnists. They are indeed, very serious.”
It took me a while to figure out what I seemed so wrong about this exchange, like a microscopic cut that keeps stinging even when you can’t ever quite see what’s wrong. And yes, it’s a feminist thing, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.
Even the announcer at trivia last night was making fun of newspapers. The question was which three newspaper won Pulitzer Prizes for the first time. The announcer joked that it was a bittersweet victory, since all three are shutting down next week.
Apparently that’s not an obvious joke anymore. Before reading the next question a few minutes later he added: “On the last question, I don’t know if everyone knew I was joking when I said they were all shutting down …”
As for the question, I only got one of the three, but at least I knew which states the other two were in. And I completely rocked the “songs from animated Disney movies” round.
Test your own trivia skills with some of the questions we got:
- What two college football teams’ rivalry game is called the “Sunflower Showdown”?
- Feta cheese is made from the milk of what animal?
- Which 1971 film has a scene set in the Korova Milk Bar?
- Which state’s name comes from the largest island in the English channel?
- What is the unorthodox scientific belief championed by the Zetetic Society?
- What is the only letter never used in the periodic table of elements?
Answers below.
Problem: The time difference between me and most of my friends on the West Coast means I’m hesitant to update Twitter in the morning in case people have the tweets going to their phones. I would need to be preposterously witty to justify the possibility of waking someone up at 5:30 a.m. Likewise, I’m hesitant to have tweets sent to my phone because I’m trying to get to bed at a decent hour, thank you, and I don’t need updates all night.
Someone has probably already thought of this, but I’ll put it out there anyway. Twitter alarm clock! You should be able to halt tweets at, say, midnight, and then have any new overnight ones show up all at once the next morning at 7 or 10 or whenever you get up. Most of us use our phones as alarm clocks anyway, and it would be much easier to wake up if that dreaded wake-up tone were accompanied by pithy comments from friends. They could even make up some silly name for it related to “early birds” or something.
Someone should let me know if this already exists. The disappointment at not being original would be outweighed by the joy of this invention.
I spent two days in New York at Columbia’s accepted students open house program, which is basically when everyone tries to decide whether they’re going to do this or not.
More specifics on this soon. For now I’ll say I’m leaning pretty heavily toward “yes,” but of course I still have more overthinking to do. Also, the journalism building strikes me as weirdly similar to an overgrown version of Murrow East. I could picture living there.
Though “nothing relevant” is by far my most frequently used category on this blog, occasionally I like to write posts that are relevent – dare I say even useful – to those of you who bother to stop by. This one goes out to all of you journalism types considering law school.
There was a time not that long ago when I could have counted myself in that group. I’m not promising I won’t change my mind again, but at this point I’m extremely glad I have no plans for law school in my future. I think I would enjoy the actual learning part, but let’s be honest about the reasons: Law school is an expensive contest of intelligence and stamina, and I can’t see other people suffering in a prestigious way without wanting to join in.
Being in D.C., and especially at the SPLC, puts me around enough lawyers and law talk that I’ve picked up all the basics. But I’m no expert by any means, so I’m hoping to collect and post various thoughts in the next few days.
My roommate Stacey is a 3L student at George Washington University, so tonight I interrupted her 15-page paper (one of the last ones ever!) to get some answers about law school. She warned me that in law school you learn to never give a direct answer – unless a judge is asking you. Then you give a direct answer.
I’m no judge – but if I couldn’t get answers, I do think I got some solid advice. Hint: For better and worse, law is more like journalism than you think.
I was curious whether Capitol Hill would be busy on Easter, and the nice weather prompted me to find out. There were still plenty of people out, though fewer than a usual springtime Sunday. For those of you who, like me slightly more than a year ago, haven’t been to D.C. and can’t picture what Capitol Hill looks like, I shot a quick little 360 video with a corresponding map (red star represents my vantage point). It was extraordinarily windy today, so I just deleted the obnoxious audio.
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