Thursday, January 20, 2005

Three and a half hours of sleep, bitches!

I am very, very optimistic about this year for the CT. I left around 6:45 - I wasn't really needed, and I decided to get some sleep before class at 11. I stopped in the office for lunch after class, and I was told that the remaining editors were finished before 8 a.m. Consider that my first production night lasted until 11 a.m. (obscene even by our standards.) Now, consider that in a month, Emily and Shweta will have more experience and they will know what to look for when editing, they will know their way around InDesign and will need much less help with that, their writers will have more experience and will be better writers, and there will be two or three copy editors/staff instead of just me, and we as well will be more experienced.

This year, I think the paper will be easy, excellent, or both.

I've noticed for a while that I'm always sort of uncomfortable when in the company of a group of people who are all more left-wing than me. I wonder why. I don't have a problem with them individually, as a rule, but for some reason I can barely stand it when I'm the most conservative person in the room. Whether it's a college special interest group meeting, my dad's very left-wing family, or a classroom. Could it be because I've bought into the negative stereotypes pervasive about the Left in this country (a possibility that just occurred to me in class listening to professor Johnson, who until today I had had almost no respect for)? Could it be because I realize I'm relatively far to the left, so I figure that anyone even farther than me must be way out there?

Or maybe it's because I'm iconoclastic in general. So whether the status quo of the room is the CT office, a Bible discussion group or my dad's family, I don't like it if there's unanimity and I reflexively disagree with it if there is. Or because I'm not just left-wing but also liberal, and any group of politically like-minded people is likely to be relatively close-minded.

I decided to skip "Freedom and the First Amendment" today. I have other stuff to do, there's no attendance, bla bla bla.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I get the same reaction whenever I'm surrounded by a group of 'leftists.' Especially 'East-Coast Democrats.' (I wouldn't dare call them liberals.) Personally, I run into the problem of the leftists thinking that I will agree with them. If I don't, I become "one of THEM."

There is also the realization that most people don't take the time to make the distinction between "me" and "crazy leftists." Makes my liberal head hurt. :-)