Letter From the Editor

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because — full disclosure — it is 1:11 a.m. on Monday (yes, today) and I am still sitting in front of a computer trying to make a newspaper with the haggard shells of my most dedicated staff.

In a second I’ll go outside for a cigarette, and if the aforementioned staff members collectively curse my name the second I’m out of earshot I won’t be mad; let’s be real, they don’t want to be here either. They want to go home more than I want to get a drink at the Village before last call.

It’s now 1:18 a.m. Five of us remain. We have been here all weekend, interrupting ourselves only for brief visits to the toilet, our bedrooms and the floor of the Student Media Center to sleep, or sob quietly with some shambled semblance of dignity.

Just kidding, kind of.

We inducted a smattering of new staff this weekend, too. They are no longer with us. Their formerly-vibrant, if not shamefully naive, faces departed hours ago. As rowdy returning students (you, dear reader) shouted, sprinted and peed on Broad street this weekend, the staff of the CT became increasingly more comfortable marinating in the stench of our own collective sweat.

But we’ll come back. Week after week (for 29 more weeks) we will be here at all hours of the night (and ass-crack of dawn) laugh-cry-arguing our way through homework, projects, ideologies and work ethics built one hour at a time by begrudgingly accepting the harsh realities of “long-term gratification,” or whatever.

I tell you this for a few reasons. I’m really not that smart. In fact, the longer I spend on this campus the more I realize how little I know about anything. And I firmly believe that is exactly the point.

Similarly, I urge you (whoever you are, reader), to find something you will give up last call at the Village (or whatever your impermanent hum-hallelujiah is) in exchange for the residual stench of sweat and cigarettes inside a too-florescent, utterly windowless room, for entirely too many hours.

Three years ago a very distinguished faculty member told me, shortly after I arrived on this campus, what the point of higher education is:

“Finding something that blows your fucking dome. Find that thing and don’t stop going after it; find the thing that you won’t allow yourself to stop going after.”

Three years ago I couldn’t begin to synthesize this sentiment, partially because I was still an over-confident-about-everything-and-nothing 18-year-old kid (I still fit that description, to be fair), but mostly because I was so dumbstruck that a professor, a real life adult with a Ph.D., had just said the “f” word. In the latter regard, I’ve gotten way the fuck over that. Let’s be real, I run a(n award-winning) newsroom now. The “f” word is a staple in maintaining this operation.

Long story short, join the newspaper — you don’t have to know much, or anything, so long as you give a shit. I won’t keep you here until 1:40 a.m. (at least not right away, I swear). Jokes aside, though, I urge you, reader, to find the thing that blows your fucking dome. And don’t stop until you do. We’re all spending too much money, time, energy (and missed last calls at the bar) not to.

‘Til next week, friends.

Executive Editor, Sarah King
Sarah is a senior studying political science and philosophy of law. She is a copyeditor for INK Magazine and reporter for the Capital News Service wire. Last spring, the Virginia Press Association awarded Sarah 3rd place for Public Safety Writing Portfolio and the Hearst Awards recognized her as the 4th place winner for Breaking News Writing. In April, Sarah was invited to the White House for the Administration’s innaugural College Reporter Day. She previously worked as an editorial intern for Congressional Quarterly Researcher and SAGE Business Researcher in Washington, D.C. // Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
kingsa@commonwealthtimes.org