I think it would be safe to say that the Tan & Cardinal saved my life.
That doesn’t mean that I was ready to off myself and the newspaper swooped down like some giant eagle of justice a la Lord of the Rings and showed me the light, but it definitely saved me from the typical early-20s apathy.
You know, I’d be driving along and thinking about all the homework I didn’t want to do and be like, “Well. Driving off this cliff isn’t really an option because then who would make my pages? There’d be a mad panic. God, I can’t do that.”
It’s given me … OK, this is just dripping with cheese, but it’s given me a purpose — a reason to not lie in bed and have a laugh with the ceiling about my lack of motivation to greet the day.
Late nights spent arguing over comma placement, brainstorming pun-tastic headline verbs and laughing over rude emails helped me realize something: I’m not just wasting my time here. In the daily grind, the routine that drags through each week, it’s easy to panic that the one corner you’ve boxed yourself into by senior year isn’t actually what’s going to make you happy.
But editing makes me happy. Giving feedback and helping writers makes me happy. And jeez, more than anything, writing makes me happy. The Tan & Cardinal not only saved my life, but my sanity, too. And isn’t that funny? Most of the time I might like to argue that it’s robbed me of my sanity, but I don’t really think that’s true.
It’s not just the work. I’m not a robot; at least I don’t think so. If I am, I’m the least functional and reliable robot ever. Anyway, it’s not just the work, it’s the atmosphere of this paper and all those involved in production that keep me from laughing manically as I swerve off a cliff, too.
Do you like reading other people’s inside jokes? No? Then skip on over to another article, because here we go.
Alyssa, my roomie, my love, my life, my shining star, the apple of my eye, the Amy to my Rory, the Gwain to my Lancelot, the Hansel to my Zoolander: Thanks for making me look awesome in comparison to your terrible opinions.
Josh, I don’t want to be rude, but I was told there was going to be bacon. #cornucopia
And I just put a hashtag in a newspaper; someone confiscate my First Amendment rights.
Hail to the editor-in-chief: Lindsey, thanks for fielding all my production night whining and delirious laughter over the state of my pages. Best resident ever. Mike, too, for that matter. I value your opinion perhaps more than you know.
Steve, I forgot that thing I was supposed to remember. Jordan, thanks for always stealing my headline fonts, jerk. Kaity, you’ve got a great future in hand modeling. Kristen ASapp, I don’t even know how many headshots you patiently cut out for me. Anna, what am I doing?
And of course, Dr. Warren. Thanks for letting us do our thing, and now is probably the time to tell you that I’m not actually mute — I’m just awkward. And Swags, you’ve been a great addition to our team/family thing, and I’m sorry you had to put on your serious face and give me the same lecture twice. Oops.
Oh, I’m a huge mess. I want to get intoxicated (responsibly and off the clock, of course) and tell you all how beautiful you are, inside and out. The T&C is the first job I’ve ever liked, and leaving just plain sucks. You’re the reason for the teardrops on my keyboard.
Holly and Sabrina, you’ve got this. But if you don’t publish a picture of Joe Biden eating ice cream, you’ll have failed me completely. Get on that.
We need more productive political discussions
