well, I like my sunshine-and-rainbows approach

For all my complaining and lack of confidence, I really do love my job.

It's something I need to remember frequently and loudly, because journalists as a rule seem bound and determined to be cynical. I love Overheard in the Newsroom, but it gets a bit repetitive and grating if I read too much at once.

This is a job where you see a lot of stupidity; not denying that. And seasoned reporters don't hold anything sacred -- any tragedy is just timely fodder for comedy. You cover corruption and inefficiency and selfishness so often that it's sometimes hard to find a good story to hold onto. That's one of the reasons I so enjoyed covering the miners saga this past summer in Chile -- not only was it a thrilling, around-the-clock breaking news story, but it was a good story, coming at a time when Chile and the world needed a good story. Thirty-three men presumed to have died awful, despairing deaths half a mile underground survived -- that's fun to write about.

But it's not just those epic adventures that make me love my job. I love it because I'm always learning, and learning the most random things. I'm working on an update for my cougar-hunting-with-hounds story, so yesterday, a representative gave me some articles from WSU to read. I learned that there are a few scientists out there who believe killing off the old male cougars in a population makes the younger hooligans act out more, thus increasing the danger to humans and livestock. These scientists talk about cougars -- and elephants, and condors -- as if they were people, with a complex social dynamic in which the mature animals teach the younger ones what's appropriate. Random, but fascinating.

I'm still lacking the institutional knowledge I really want, but I'm trying to accept that that only comes with time. For now, I'm taking it in as fast as they give it to me -- transportation budget proposals, liquor privatization possibilities, which-lawmaker-is-under-which-state-agency's-thumb -- everything.

I'd still very much like to do environmental reporting. That's what piques my interest most these days, and it would let me learn more science. ("Science" sounds so vague, and immediately gives away my humanities-major tendencies...oh well.) More learning, every day learning, meeting new smart people who are less bound up in politics than my current sources are.

It's nice to be reminded sometimes that I have a cool job. One of my friends from the UW, who is going to change the world and is currently working on a triple major or something equally absurd, gets all excited whenever I talk to him about what I'm doing or post a new story on Facebook. It's encouraging, especially in a time when most people consider journalists to be gossip-mongers and exploitative and loose with their reporting integrity.

Today I'm reminding myself that I'm good at what I do. (Well, not right at this moment, since I'm blogging instead of researching cougar hunting.) The Senate transportation budget came out today; I started writing at about 2, and with numerous Facebook breaks, had an 800-word story by 3:30. A budget story, too -- lots of numbers to check and compare to the House's proposal; lots of information that needed to be boiled down into some readable format. The only edit it received was the addition of a graf comparing it to the governor's budget proposal.

So I'm good at this. And I like what I do, on the whole. And I only have a month left of employment, so I'd better enjoy it while it lasts.

Love always,
molly