My Inner Dorkiness, Part Deux

Apparently, I'm getting really psyched for my copy-editing job this summer. So psyched that I keep on posting funny editing things. At least I think they're funny. Psyched and very, very bored of my schoolwork, even though I am going to miss it when it's done. No, none of this makes any sense.

No More Teachers, No More Books...

Today was my last college class. Quite possibly my last class ever.

I am sort of shell-shocked.

One of Your Dime-a-Dozen Mediocrities

"Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time."

This is about the time when colleges start doling out awards and honors for graduation. I'm not getting any, which I've known for a long time, and it was never my goal to get any. But, still, I feel sort of, well, mediocre. Like I'm not particularly good at anything or exceptional in any way and that I will not leave any mark on this place, where I have toiled for four years. I love Columbia, but maybe it doesn't love me. And maybe I'm not exceptional in any way, but it's a sucky feeling to not be recognized at all.

Which makes me wonder if I'm going into the wrong profession. After all, copy editors are notoriously unrecognized. (My brother helped this sentiment while I was home for Pesach by asking incredulously: "You really want to be a copy editor? A copy editor? You have a Columbia degree and you're going to be a copy editor? It's like being a janitor.") I sometimes refer to copy as "the bastard child of journalism," and if I want to do this, I have to be OK with that. Because at the end of the day, copy editors don't get the bylines and they don't win the Pulitzers--and I'm not saying they should; I'm just saying I have to be OK with that going in.

My copy-editing hero (yes, I have one) has this quote in one of his books:

“As an editor, you do sometimes feel as if you weren’t invited to the party. But you should already have known that when you took the job, and editing is by definition a behind-the-scenes job. Sometimes it’s a creative, prestigious behind-the-scenes job, and sometimes it’s a lowly, grunt-work behind-the-scenes job, but either way you have to get out of the shot and let the actors be the center of attention.”

And I'm just not convinced that I will always be content with being behind the scenes.

In other self-esteem-lowering news, I found a nasty comment about me on a blog I shouldn't be reading anyway, but do. It was anonymous, though, so I don't even know who apparently hates me, which makes me really paranoid of everyone, which is less than healthy. Sigh. And it makes me doubt the usefulness and intelligence of blogs. Which is funny because I have a blog, and I'm blogging that skeptical sentiment. Right.

Dorky Humor

I haven't had time to really post and I probably won't for a few weeks. (Let's just say I have about 90 pages of work due in the next three weeks. Ouch.) But I saw this, and, call me a geek, I thought it was hilarious.

Foot Psycho-Analysis

As my feet recover from a Shabbos of cobblestone-balancing stiletto-walking on campus, something to think about, courtesy of The Times style magazine.

Payment for a Deprived Childhood ... Or Acting Like a 5-Year-Old

Some little girls want ponies. When I was a little girl, all I wanted was an American Girl doll. I had read all the books, I salivated over the catalogs, I collected the trading cards. I knew which one I'd get--Samantha. I envied my friends who had the dolls. I remember back in the day when the American Girl enterprise was comprised just of three dolls and their books. (It now has eight historical figures, plus three friends, plus choose-your-own doll, plus a magazine, plus three stores, plus a million other things.) My parents told me they weren't going to spend $100 on a doll.

So, when my mother started talking about buying my younger sisters American Girl dolls, I told her that if she got them dolls, I wanted one too as a payment for my deprived childhood. I was joking. Sort of. But on Friday, after a trip to the chaotic circus that is the American Girl Place (I cannot even begin to describe what a Fifth Avenue four-floor store crammed with little girls and their parents dropping hundreds of dollars on dolls looks like) with my mother and sisters, I might just have brought a big red American Girl doll-size shopping bag back to my dorm.

Part of me thinks this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done and I should take it back. Part of me is more enthralled with my sisters' new dolls (mine is at Columbia and I am home) than they are. Part of me is trying to figure out where to put my new doll in my dorm room ... and wondering if it's OK that she doesn't match my orange-and-pink decor.