As all of you know or do not know, I am currently a co-editor of my school's paper. I recently talked to the Journalism advisor and he said that next year he doesn't want co-editors; he just wants me to do it all alone. ARGH! Oh, well, breathe deeply...it will all be okay...breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. LOL. Anyway, he mentioned to me a Journalism workshop/camp thing that will be held August 7-9 at Oregon State University. It has all these workshops on editing, layout design, how to handle sensitive topics, etc. And in the evenings there will be blacklight bowling, pizza feeds, etc, and it sounded really fun. I'm not the kind of person who usually enjoys being shipped out of my comfortable, niche-like home, but I figured that since I have to do the paper alone, it would be worth it. Plus, I thought rather fiendishly, I'd be able to scope out my more-than-likely future campus. So I asked the advisor how much it costs, and he said, "Well, it's $200, but there's a $50 charge on top of that." I was about to say, "Oh...hehehehehehe...forget that, then, cuz I sure as hootin' tootin' can't pay for that," but he said the journalism department/class has enough money that they can pay to send me up there. HOT DIGGITY DOG! (And yes, I've had too much caffeine today.) So yeah, I'm going to that...I'm excited for some deranged reason. Who knows? Maybe I'll meet a cute lil' guy up there. LOL.

Anyway, and a few weeks ago I participated in the Career Skills Contest held at the nearby community college. I placed second in the proofreading competition, which isn't that a big of a deal...I mean, it is, but it isn't. They gave everyone this little packet and a Scantron sheet. You had to mark which line had an error. It was so easy! It was stuff like this:

A.) Jane went to the store
B.) because she wanted to buy
C.) her puppy a new collar.
D.) It's old one was broken.
E.) no error

I mean, c'mon! Line D, perhaps? LOL. I also took part in the poetry reading competition, where I was blown away by everyone's gestures and emotion-filled voices. I had no chance of winning. I, of course, read "Spiritual Rain," but hey...next year I'll know how to really read in front of other people. I got so nervous; I'd never read a poem to people I didn't know before. Oh, and I was in the descriptive writing thing, too, and the judges contancted the school counselor because they were concerned about my "emotional health." It was a poetic type of story about a girl who killed herself and knew that she'd done something really terrible and now she's regretting it because she now realizes that things never get bad enough to kill herself. It was like an anti-suicide thing really, but I'm glad they said something so if someone really DOES need help, I can tell they'd care enough to say something. Needless to say, I didn't place in that one.

~Den-"let them eat cheese"Kara