Realities collide

Before we started our internships, we were given an overview of what to expect. Number one on the list of Top 5 Things to Know Before You Start Your Internship is

You will cry on at least one occasion.

I haven’t cried in the newsroom yet, but I had tears in my eyes in the cab on the way back to from covering this story.

I’ve always known I’m not cut out for that type of reporting, but a number of people treated me like I was a monster today for trying to find out what happened. I get it. Reporters are intrusive, but it’s our job. We can’t just not do it.

I called the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend a few times to vent in my downtime and inadvertently made myself even more upset by thinking about relationship things at the same time.

When I got back to the newsroom, there was a message waiting from the financial consultant who worked with my mom before she died. He said her remembered her well and I could hear something in his voice, maybe caution or sympathy, I’m not sure. But I heard it.

To get my mind off all of these things so I could calm down a little, I logged into my TalentEgg email and started answering emails.

For some reason, my responsibilities at TalentEgg had the power to take me away from that painful moment where everything that hurts my heart and mind — work, love, life — had intersected at once. I knew I made the right choice.

I just hope it wasn’t the Tylenol I washed down with a bottle of Pepsi talking.

The triumphant university grad moves back home

In about three weeks when my internship at the National Post is complete, I will move back home to live in my dad’s house.

It feels so weird to say move back home for many reasons: I haven’t lived there in years. I’ve barely visited. I no longer have my own room there. Toronto feels much more like home than Cambridge. My lifestyle has been totally different since moving out.

I moved out in the fall of 2005 when I started university and, although I had to move back home the following summer for a few months due to unforseen circumstances, I’ve lived in Toronto ever since.

I always disliked Cambridge and when I moved to Toronto I definitely felt like I was moving up in the world, so I’m still trying to decide if moving back there is a step up or a step down or neither. Maybe it’s just a step.

The major difference between then and now is that my granny moved into my empty room a year or two ago so I no longer have my own space. It’s a pretty small house and the only space for me is in the unfinished basement which has been my family’s dumping ground for unwanted or underused things.

I have my work cut out for me.

But I am truly looking forward to it. I can become close friends with my little brother again. I can help my dad with all the things he’s too busy to do. I can garden, sit outdoors and still have privacy, sleep in silence and pitch black. I will be losing a lot by moving away from Toronto, but I’ll be gaining some too.

And then there’s that other nagging thought: that moving back home as an adult is somehow a failure on my part.

The truth is I’m swallowing my pride to move back home. I’m doing the smart thing. I have a lot of debt from school and my first post-grad job is awesome, but it’s not going to make me rich.

And in my family, I’m not the sort of child a parent has to survive. I will definitely accept any financial help my dad will offer to help pay down my debt, but I’m willing to do a lot of work in return.

At my dad’s house, I’m the boss – and not in a Pay my bills, Dad or Do my laundry, Dad sort of way. I take charge of the chores and the big projects and, if anything, I’m something of a bossy annoyance because I’m trying to get everyone to do more to make their own lives easier.

The future is still a bit foggy, though. How long will I live there? Will I be happy there? Will I end up dying to get out because I hate the town and I’m used to living on my own?

I honestly have no idea. But it’s an opportunity I’m going to take and hope for the best. Wish me luck.

My life in the Twilight Zone

Today was one of those absolutely bizarre days when nothing really bad happened to me, but I saw certain things that made me wonder if I was a character in some kind of sci-fi or psychological thriller.

I woke up late. Left the apartment late. OK, that’s not so stange, but I forgot my glasses and didn’t realize until I was already on the subway.

I was sitting across from a well-dressed, well-groomed man probably in his late 20s or early 30s. He looked professional, wearing a pea coat, dress pants and black leather dress shoes.

But he was laughing. He was alone, reading Metro and laughing hysterically. It started under his breath, then it grew into quiet snickers and then he was full-out laughing at whatever he was reading. I didn’t grab a copy of Metro today, but I can’t imagine what was so funny.

The weirdest thing was nobody else seemed to notice he was laughing. I found it hard to keep a straight face while watching him, yet no one else was even looking his way.

Then I got on the bus. I sat facing the back doors, which were open. Then this three-legged dog hops toward the bus and gets on ahead of her owner, who’s a young woman about the same age as me.

How often do you see a three-legged dog?

And then Clare and I went to the bank at lunch to pull out some cash for food, and there was a creepy doll sitting in the window which had either been left behind by a child or, judging by the water trapped inside her plastic body, found in a snowbank which had recently melted.

She was almost like a Barbie, but she was South Asian, wore a blue sari and definitely didn’t share Barbie’s horrifying body shape.

Almost out of instinct I picked it up and looked at her more closely (maybe because I wasn’t wearing my glasses).

I feel like somehow all of these things are tied together, but that it’s going to take me weeks or even months to figure out what it all means.

Probably not, but that’s how it happens in the movies anyway.

What is a “real” job anyway?

Since I started my internship at the National Post last week, family from all over the country has been congratulating me and asking me about the future of my career. (Mostly on Facebook, but that’s because I’ve been posting the links to my articles on my profile almost daily.)

Although I tend to be a little too modest in person, I’m more than happy to receive praise from them online. What I hate, however, are the questions about my post-graduation job.

In less than a month, I will be finished my four years as an undergrad. As I mentioned last week, I’ve already lined up a post-grad job at TalentEgg.ca as the editor of its new online career magazine, the TalentEgg Career Incubator.

I’ve been working part-time from on that project for a few weeks now and I absolutely love it and I can’t wait to devote to it the time and energy it deserves and needs to really get off the ground.

Being an intern takes up most of my day right now and although I love many aspects of journalism, there are times when I truly hate being a reporter. I hate it the most when I have to be aggressive and part of The Pack.

The Pack is a group of three or more reporters crowded around an interview source in a public place, like a political office, a court house or an event. We have to chase people down who often don’t want to say anything to the media and who are probably intimidated by all of us shoving microphones and voice recorders in their face.

I had to do it on Thursday while covering a court appearance by two local businessmen accused of murdering one of the men’s uncles, and again on Monday when I was shipped up to Vaughan to cover a closed-door meeting at city hall. Both stories were short and neither contained much news, but they were the two most stressful stories of any I’ve written since I started at the National Post.

Now, I’ve known I didn’t like this type of reporting since Day One, but I’ve had to suck it up to get through journalism school in one piece.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait to work on the Incubator when I get home each night and I really enjoy doing it. But sitting at my computer doesn’t make for very good stories to tell family and friends.

So, inevitably, I get asked the big question by well-meaning friends and relatives: Do you think the National Post will hire you when your internship is finished?

Well, no, I say. The newspaper industry is, for the most part, cutting jobs, not creating them. And the company which owns the National Post (and most of the large media outlets in Canada), Canwest, is in financial trouble.

As much as I love having my work published for purely narcissistic reasons, I’m graduating at possibly the worst time ever for journalists. Almost every seasoned journalist I’ve talked to since I started at the Post is watching their back, and for good reason.

Besides, I already have a job. I don’t know if I could turn TalentEgg away if something like a reporting job at the Post came knocking. And, if I did, it wouldn’t be for the right reason.

That reason would be that I feel pressure to have what the middle-aged (or older) people who are extremely interested in my life consider a “real” job. Many of them don’t even understand what email is. When I try to explain what TalentEgg is and what I do at the Incubator, they just don’t get it.

And I think some of them would rather see me choose a job in a dying, somewhat backward industry which they can identify with than a role at an online company. They don’t say it, but I can see it in their eyes and body language as we go through the conversation.

I have no plans to ignore my own feelings and desires, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about since last week. And it’s something I’ll have to come to terms with.

Have any of you chosen something your family or friends don’t consider to be a “real” job? Would you?

Signs of life for Hollywood North (and me)

The first three days of my internship at the National Post have already come and gone, and, as usual, I shouldn’t have stressed myself out so much beforehand.

In some ways, it’s exactly what I expected, but mostly it’s not what I expected at all.

For most of the day (until it gets closer to deadline), the news room is almost as quiet as a library. Most people just mind their own business and do their own thing.

I was introduced to a dozen or so people, but I couldn’t tell you what most of their names are.

Except for the two other interns on either side of me, I have no idea what anyone else is working on. I catch snippets from other reporters’ interviews if they’re sitting near me and talking loudly, but mostly everything in the paper the next day is a complete surprise.

The majority of the people who work there are men, and almost everyone is white.

And interns are definitely not coddled. I think I’m already trying my editor’s patience with how much I communicate with him (especially near deadline).

Tomorrow, my first article — Signs of life for Hollywood North: ‘Toronto is back on the radar’ — will be published in the Toronto edition of the paper.

Although I did work really hard on the story, I was kind of surprised at how easy it was to put together. After all, I didn’t think in my first week I would be interviewing Mayor David Miller, producer Ivan Reitman or the men who financed and run Filmport, among others.

Having a large publication like the Post behind my name when I try to set up interviews has given me a greater confidence. I know my own skills are strong enough to get things done, but it feels so nice to not have to say “journalism student” or “reporter at [a publication you’ve never heard of].”

It’s not a family feeling like we had at The Ryersonian, but I can already tell I’m going to get a lot out of it — the really nice clippings are just a bonus.