May 21: Waiting Game

 

It finally hit me.

Well. Sort of.

I’ve coasted through the past few weeks. Assignments have been turned in. Exams and quizzes taken. A few goodbyes have been uttered reluctantly. And, as you’ve all heard over and over, my life as a college student has all but come to an end.

So what?

I haven’t felt a thing.  Not the slightest hint of emotion or nostalgia. Just numb. I’ve taken my last class, hosted my last TV show, written my last column. Still, nothing.

So the last couple weeks I’ve gone from waiting for it all to roll over me, to trying to figure out why I’m on a permanent emotional anesthetic. Look, I’m not trying to start bawling at the drop of a dime. But graduating from college seems like a fairly significant step. It should get to me at some point, right?

Then I figured it out.

Ever since last summer my focus has shifted from graduating to getting a job. Fairly typical. But it’s more complicated than that. It’s not that my goal simply is to graduate and get a job. Instead I have invested so much mental energy into getting that first break that graduating has lost its luster. Almost entirely.

It’s just part of the process. It’s like finishing a 10-page paper for a class. You get that out of the way, great, but it’s part of a larger scheme. At the end of the semester you won’t be relieved that the paper was done in March. The real accomplishment is getting the A in May. That paper won’t mean a thing if you end up with a D. And graduating won’t hold any weight if I don’t get a job.

It’s weird. But this is what I’ve come to.

I know this is the case because when I think about walking across the stage it brings but a hint of a smile to my face. But when I think about landing a job in (Insert small town), (Insert respective state abbreviation), I get chills.

For a couple years now I’ve known pretty much what I want to do career-wise. After spending last summer in Bristol, Ct. talking with guys like David Lloyd and Mike Hill of ESPNEWS, and Stan Verrett, Scott Van Pelt and Neil Everett of SportsCenter, I have been prepping myself for the process of getting a sports reporting/anchoring gig in some small town. I’d have to put together my resume tape (which I plan on finishing tomorrow), ship it all over the country, make some visits, a few more phone calls, and pester sports directors until they give me the nod. All while sharpening my writing skills and on-air presence and delivery. So that’s been the focus. Graduating has always been a given. Getting a job is the challenge.

Now, I don’t know what I’ll actually feel when Thursday rolls around and I get my diploma. It could all come to a head then. But I’m not getting my hopes up. Instead, I’m remaining optimistic that, with some patience and persistence, I will be the new face of a town’s local sports broadcast at some point in the next 3-33 months.

And that’s when it will really hit me.

Well. I think.

Pictured: What helped get me through my round trip fight to Birmingham. I am halfway through ‘To Catch a Predator’, which is an inside look at the Dateline NBC series about online sex predators. For whatever reason the show piqued my interest, and Stefanie Lis, a fellow Towerlighter, got me the book as a graduation gift. It is both fascinating and disturbing. Eye-opening and heartbreaking. If you don’t recognize the utter depravity of mankind before reading some of the horror stories this book has to offer, you will get a glimpse of it within the first few pages. While my eyes scanned the first 100+ pages, my ears were tuned into Wilco’s latest release, ‘Sky Blue Sky.’ It’s good.

May 10: (What) To-Do

A year ago I knew exactly where I would end up come summer time. Around late May I found out that I had landed an internship with ESPN in Bristol, Conn. Getting the phone call from Kimberly Lode, my internship supervisor for the summer, was probably one of the most satisfying moments of my life. And the experience certainly didn’t disappoint. In many ways it was probably the best summer of my life.

Fast forward a year.

Every year people ask you what your plans are for the summer. It’s one of the most elementary principles of ‘Making Conversation 101.’ Got nothing else to say? Ask about summer plans. Last year I loved being able to answer the question. This year, it’s been a bit more difficult. As of right now I am completely clueless as to where I will land in the next month or two, or six, or 12. As I said in my very first entry, that is both terrifying and exciting.

Lately, it’s been wearing on me.

I am more than confident in my ability to get a job at some point. It’s just a matter of figuring out where and when. And hopefully the answer to the latter will come sooner rather than later. I’ve never been the best at letting things play out. But for the time being, and in more ways than one, I have no choice but to do just that.

From now on I won’t be frustrated when people ask me what my plans are. I’ll be excited. Instead of being worried about where I’ll end up, I’ll remain optimistic that the details will be sorted out in due time.

I’m graduating in two weeks. I don’t have time to be sweating the next year of my life, when I have just one final opportunity to enjoy the last four.

Checklist update:

Three minute sportscast for Dr. Turner’s Sportscasting class

One inning of play-by-play at an Orioles game

Journal entries for Mass Media Graphics

Individualized Fitness Exam

Coaching Exam (Monday)

Coaching Handbook (Monday)

Mass Media Graphics Website (Tuesday…and I’m one animated GIF from being finished)

Resume Tape (Three Weeks Ago…and hopefully getting some of it done Friday)

I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week… I’ll be done in a week…

April 24: Hot=Tired

There is a law at work in all bad aparments. It doesn’t have an official name, but the concept is pretty simple. If it is cold outside, it will be freezing in the apartment. If the sun is beating down on the pavement outside, you’re going to walk into an oven.

There’s no such thing as a comfortable temperature. Cold is perpetuated. Heat is elevated.

This law is constantly at work at my Colony apartment. I wouldn’t say it’s a crappy place, by any stretch. But it certainly isn’t some luxurious loft. In the winter the cold air penetrates the 35 or so glass sliding doors that line the front of the apartment. When temperatures rise, heat settles in the various rooms, while the clogged vents make a lot more noise than they do difference.

Right now, the latter is the case.

Beginning my day with a mile and a half run pretty much ensured that I would be dehydrated and exhausted until I got a solid night’s rest. The good news is I finished in 9:22 (good enough for second in the class, and the highest possible score). The bad news is that it was extremely humid, and left me gassed and with the headaches you get when you clearly are low on fluids. They’re the type that don’t go away regardless of what you eat or drink the rest of the day. Oh well.

When I hopped onto ESPN.com this morning I read about the death of long-time author and sportswriter David Halberstam. The Pulitzer Prize winner was in a car crash Monday night, and he passed away at the age of 73. I admittedly don’t do as much reading as I should. Aside from various articles on the internet and stories in magazines like ESPN, I am pretty oblivious to the literary world. And it’s not something I’m proud of. I just have a tough time staying consistent with a book when I’m wrapped up in school and other activities. It’s tough for me to set out the time in each day to knock out a chapter or two. But lately I’ve been making note of books I hear about here and there that I might want to check out at some point.

April 23: I’m Beat

*The following times are approximations. The following events are 95% truth, 4% hyperbole, 1% the result of slight delirium.

11:13 pm: The above picture was taken. It’s what I came home to about 45 minutes earlier. My room isn’t so much a room as it is an abnormally wide hallway. With doors on each end. My roommates regularly use it to get from the kitchen/their rooms to the living room. I should have put a stop to this a long time ago. Just like my room isn’t really a room, my desk chair isn’t really a chair. It’s a place I store my clothes when they’re not really dirty, but they have already been worn. It’s apparel purgatory.

10:06: McDonald’s drive-thru. Probably the only place within 30 miles open for business. I tried avoiding this because, well, it’s the only logical way to end a miserable day of eating. And also, I have to run a mile and a half for my Individualized Fitness class first thing in the morning and I just hope it washes out of my system by then.

9:52: After close to two hours in the Media Center working on a feature story on Towson Men’s Lacrosse co-captain, Bobby Griebe (I accidentally typed Booby…ha), I have given up. The soundbites from my interview with him are basically pieced together. But I need more action shots of him, access to equipment to do my voice-overs, and a redo of my stand-up. It was due for my Sportscasting class about two weeks ago, but back then I had a legitimate excuse. Since then, a touch of laziness has set in. Thankfully my professor is Dr. John Turner, known to his students as the Kindest Man Ever To Walk the Face of the Earth. I’ve never seen him remotely angry. Honestly I don’t think he is capable of it. It’s not even that he’s a pushover. Everyone has tons of respect for him. He just has an inhuman amount of patience (and his own Facebook group: ‘Dr. John R. Turner Fan Club!’…I’m a proud member).

*Editor’s note: Apparently this is going to be way longer than I expected. I chose to use this format because I’m tired, don’t feel like posting, and I have to do laundry soon. I thought it’d be quick.

7:46: Me and my roommate, J.D. (there’s a funny–and moderately offensive–story behind his nickname. There is no ‘J’ in his actual name. I may never tell it, some people may be upset by it. Are you allowed to put periods in parentheses?) leave the Charles Village Pub after Towson’s special Senior Week Happy Hour. I leave with a commemorative glass and a stomach full of Cheddar Bacon Fries and Hefeweizen.

April 20: Look Ma! I’m on TV!

I’m one of the lucky ones.

Maybe I’m a bit jaded by four years at a school like Towson. One with a lot of students who seem to coast through their four (or five, six…) years without getting their feet wet in anything other than classes (if that). But it seems like a lot of college students graduate with no more of an idea of what they want to do with their lives than when they first set foot on campus.

Don’t get it twisted (I’ve been wanting to use that line for a while). I love Towson. Have thoroughly enjoyed my four years. Granted the opportunity to do the college search again, my choice would be the same. But the school simply does not have the type of student body that inspires people to get involved beyond the bare minimum (classes, fraternities, and sororities). With over 18,000 students and just about 4,000 on campus, it’s no secret that it’s a commuter school. And plenty of people have firmly grasped onto the ideology that accompanies that sort of environment. You show up to campus for classes, and very little else. Not too many people could possibly be accused of wearing out their welcome. Especially those who spend the majority of their weekends at home.

So, why do I consider myself lucky? It’s simple. I arrived at Towson knowing exactly what I wanted to study. With each class, and each activity, that interest evolved into a passion. From a passion to a dream. And from a dream into the first step towards a career.

As a 5-foot-4-inch high school junior with less muscle mass than Calista Flockhart, it was pretty evident that college basketball was probably not going to be a part of my university experience (Instead I settled for 5 intramural championships, and two trips to regional tournaments). So I decided to go with the next best thing. Sports journalism.

By the end of my freshman year I had my own radio show on XTSR, Towson Student Radio (‘Trippin’ with Parker’, with the infamous Josh Parker). I had my first beat with The Towerlight (Towson Women’s Lacrosse). And had numerous appearances as an analyst for the student television station’s (WMJF16) longest running show, Towson Sports Weekly.

The opportunities around campus were aplenty. And I was ready to experiment.

This is what I discovered: