Dear Reflector crew (and anyone else who saw my Facebook profile picture today)

Photo credit: CJ LeMaster

Today marks the second year that I'm without a dear friend and college coworker, Adam. If you saw my Facebook profile picture change to the Radiohead bear today, this letter (see below) will help explain why. (You can read what I've previously written about Adam here, or read April's two blog posts here, or read Hannah's blogpost here. You can also read the editorial Kyle wrote the week that everything happened here.)

Today, The Reflector crew is celebrating Adam in Starkville by reading Dr. Seuss's "Oh The Places You'll Go!" in their staff meeting. They're also eating cupcakes from the State Fountain Bakery. (April and I thought it wouldn't be a proper reading or celebration without some delicious bakery sweets.) Most of them are younger, so they never had the chance to know Adam. April and I crafted this letter to help them understand why they're celebrating. 

To my family and friends — I love y'all dearly and am so thankful for each one of you. The Lord has used y'all mightily in my life, and I am a better person for knowing each of you. 

Today is my personal reminder to love others well and love them out loud. Don't ever forget to tell each other how grateful and thankful you are for each other, and be quick to encourage one another. 

Dear Reflector crew,

            We hope today is a little bit of a celebration. (Hope the delivery helps y’all celebrate since we can’t be there in person to help!) After talking about it, we realized most of y’all never knew Adam, and that’s a shame. Adam was one of those people who you love to have in the office. He was a hard worker, and went above and beyond his job description to make our lives easier. He was great at his job, and continually looked to make The Reflector better. There were so many little things he did behind the scenes simply because he wanted us to be better — he saved us so many times by catching little embarrassing errors. He always wanted the finished product to be the very best we could do.

            Adam was a great friend. You know how y’all pull those crazy long hours and don’t get any decent food? (not to mention sleep, social time outside of the office, weekends off, etc.) Adam was quick to go grab Abner’s, Zaxby’s, etc. (in other words, good, off campus food) — and he did so night after night, and would even buy you food if you couldn’t pay him back right away.

            He was really thoughtful and looked out for us. During his final year at the paper, several of us on staff couldn’t drive to campus — we walked or carpooled with roommates every day. On late nights or rainy afternoons, Adam willingly took all of us to our houses and apartments. He wouldn’t hear of us walking home alone in the dark.

            Losing Adam was devastating. He was an incredible asset to our team, and brought lots of laughter, hard work, diligence and talent to our group. When we lost him, we lost a family member. But instead of dwelling on how hard it was to lose him, we’ve chosen to remember a dear friend who loved us well and encouraged us to do our best at work. While most of you never knew him, we hope you can get a glimpse of just how special he was. You would have loved to be on staff with him.

            We could go on and on about how great Adam was, but we would need a whole ream of paper from Ms. Denise. :) So please ask Hannah, Julia, or Mrs. McDavid for some of their stories — and listen to them. In honor of Adam, enjoy the reading (as Hannah will tell you, the book is courtesy of Adam’s sweet parents) and the bakery treats. (They were some of Adam’s favorites … but then again, he liked almost everything from the bakery!) Feel free to blare Radiohead in your car, dance to Lady Gaga, ride a Bully Bike through the office, change your InDesign language to Russian, wear a cheap plastic ring on your finger all day, steal Julia’s scarf and dress up with it, re-hide the “Sword of Truth” somewhere in the office, write each other funny notes on yellow Post-Its and paste them all over the Macs, go take random photos, fall out of your chair at the office, come up with hilarious headlines and cutlines, make a ReflectorCat house ad … you get the idea.

            Most importantly, remember to tell each other that you’re thankful for one another and be grateful you get to spend time with each other. Rally around each other and encourage one another. (And this doesn’t just apply to your coworkers. Tell your friends, your family, those who you care about and those who care about you.) Don’t let people forget that you love them and are thankful for them. We know it sounds cheesy, but we mean it — don’t regret never taking the time to tell someone how grateful and appreciative you are for them, and how much they mean to you.

            We’re thankful for y’all and love y’all. We hope you celebrate Adam, friendship, good work, laughter and memories today.

Love,

April (Editor in Chief, class of 2011) and 

 Aubra (Managing Editor, class of 2010)

Adam

Preface: Almost four months ago, I lost my dear friend and coworker Adam Kazery. This post is way overdue — I’ve been working on it for two months and still can’t make it “perfect.” There’s just far too much to say about Adam! I’d love for you to read The Reflector's news story about him here and the editorial that our editor Kyle wrote here. I’d also love for you to read what April (the 2010-2011 Reflector editor) wrote here. This post is long, but it still doesn’t even begin to do him justice — trust me.

There are certain people I think about every day. Adam Kazery is one of those people. It’s amazing what little things make me think of him — the Spell Number app on my iPhone, a Radiohead song, breaking news stories, photography, big black trucks, any technology updates/gadgets, yellow Post-It notes, pianos, Sundays at 5 p.m., MSU maroon “Bully Bikes,” Naked Juice, and countless other things.

Adam’s dad asked us (those that worked with Adam at The Reflector) for stories about him. I feel like I have enough stories about Adam to write a book. With the help of The Reflector staff, I’d have enough for a series. All the “little things” I mentioned above have a story hidden in them:
-The Spell Number iPhone app: Adam installed this application on my phone for me. He used to send the funniest text messages with these hilarious emoticons and icons. When I couldn’t get the application to work correctly, he took my phone and figured it out (all within a span of about 30 seconds…of course. He was a genius with anything.)
-Radiohead songs: Adam loved Radiohead, and the Radiohead bear (see the image above). He had it on his desk at work, on a vanity plate on his truck, as his Facebook profile image, as his iPhone background, everywhere. He even stamped a bunch of one dollar bills with the bear symbol and gave me seven of them saying, “I want these to end up in all 50 states. See how many places you can spend them.” (For the record, I got them into four states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas — now, I’d do anything to have one back.) After his death, our Chief Designer Carl created a Radiohead bear badge that ran next to the dateline on all our front pages for the rest of the semester — a small tribute to Adam. I’ll forever associate the Radiohead bear with Adam.
-Breaking news stories: Whenever something big happened, Adam knew about it. If it was in Starkville, Adam was on it immediately. One of my last story memories with him was following up on a rumor about a rape in town. Adam drove me to the jail, sat with me as we waited to view the jail log, and almost had to help me sweet-talk the officer into letting me view the log (since it was past viewing hours).
-Photography: If anything big happened, Adam was there with a notepad and a camera. We never had to call him and ask him, he just jumped right into the action. He also took amazing candid shots and won journalism awards for his photography. (You can see some of his work here.)
-Big black trucks: Adam drove a big black Nissan truck. He never wanted anyone to walk home after work, so if anyone stayed later than he did at the office, he took them home. I can’t even begin to count how many nights Adam kept me from walking to my apartment!
-Technology updates: I’ll never forget telling Adam, “Hey, Verizon called me. They offered us a free advance trial of two Android phones. Would you be up for playing with them for a week and writing a story?” He was so excited —he looked like a little kid on Christmas morning! He had a great time playing with the phones and learning everything about them (of course, he had already researched them and knew all about them before he picked them up for the trial). His story was great and still remains as one of the top-read Reflector stories of all time. (You can read it by clicking here.) That’s just one of a million stories I could tell about him and technology…seriously. He was an Apple guru and loved anything related to Macs. I’d love to ask him what he thinks about the new iPhone.
-Yellow Post-It notes: Adam was great about writing little encouraging or funny notes to people in the Reflector office. He’d write a brief message on our yellow Post-It notes and stick one on your computer screen when you weren’t looking. They were simple and yet encouraging. I’ve saved mine and will treasure them. His last one to me: “Aubra, Keep being awesome. Adam.”
-Pianos: Adam played piano, even though he didn’t tell a lot of people about it. During he last semester, he was taking a piano class. He played by ear and told me he wanted to take the class to learn how to read music. I told him he was truly lucky and gifted to be able to play by ear. He shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I want to be better, and reading music will make me better.” Typical Adam — always looking for a way to improve!
-Sundays at 5 p.m.: The Reflector editorial board had meetings every Sunday at 5 p.m. Often times, many of us were late. Adam was always prompt and we could always count on him being there. We weren’t always happy about coming back to work after the weekend, but Adam was there with a smile ready to get back to work. He was quiet during meetings, but never ceased to keep us entertained. He loved sending funny texts to us to make one of us laugh and also loved taking candid photos of us and posting them to his Twitter account.
-MSU maroon “Bully Bikes:” Adam loved his vintage bike, but he always found something goofy to do with MSU’s Bully Bikes — like the night that he found one on campus and rode around on it in the Reflector office to make everyone laugh.
-Naked Juice: Occasionally, Adam would show up to work after class with a treat from the State Fountain Bakery and a bottle of Naked Juice. I loved Naked Juice and hated it when the bakery stopped selling them on campus. Adam made my day once by telling me, “Hey, you do you I’m buying these from that new store inside the Union, right? Let me go get you one.”

Though I still miss him, this week was the first week that I didn’t shed tears, bite my lip or freeze when I heard his name. Two weeks ago at Target, I smiled through my tears as I heard a young mom gently say, “Adam, please stop playing in the clothes rack and come here,” to her skinny, grinning, adorable 6-year-old son. One week ago, I swallowed and let a tear fall on the phone when the Census Bureau dispatcher said, “Thank you for returning our call, Ms. Whitten. My name is Adam and I’ll be asking you some questions today.” This week during my new intern training for RUF, a fellow intern turned to me and said, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Adam.” Without any hesitation or tears, I immediately smiled and extended my hand. “Adam, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Aubra.”

I don’t know exactly why it finally “clicked” this week, but I’m thankful. I’m not a tearful person, and I know Adam wouldn’t want tears or sorrow from anyone. He’d be glad that I smiled with genuine joy at meeting another Adam this week. (Don’t worry, Adam. No one’s ever going to replace you — I promise!)

He’s far from being forgotten by any of us. I do still occasionally start to text him when I hear a rumor about a new Apple product. He was the second number I dialed in late April when a fire broke out at my complex. (Had he been around, he and his camera would have been there in five minutes!) In March and April, I sometimes had problems at 4:50 a.m. while doing the website; my first thought was immediately to call or e-mail Adam. I don’t dwell on those dark, sleepless, draining February days anymore — I smile when I remember him and still laugh when I read our text messages and Facebook posts to each other.

Throughout this whole ordeal, I came to appreciate Adam more. I knew he was amazingly gifted and talented, but I didn’t know just how gifted and talented he was. At his visitation, I listened as friends shared about his many gifts, ranging from skateboarding to piano to graphic design. When Kyle and I were forced to quickly pick up the Reflector website duties, we learned what a genius and mastermind Adam was with our site — we ran our site through a publishing platform, but Adam had skillfully modified parts of it and created custom HTML code to help the site work and look better. He was humble and quiet — he never told any of us that he created custom codes or reedited our works to make them optimal for online purposes. He did all of that without asking because as he once told Kyle, “I just want it to look good.” Kyle and I initially struggled with the website, especially during the first night without Adam, but we got it working. (I know he’d be so proud of us for figuring out how to activate the site and how to modify the HTML code to keep everything running properly!)

Adam was an incredibly hard worker. I knew this, but I didn’t fully recognize it until I became Managing Editor. As Online Editor, Adam was the last one out on production nights — he stayed later than me most productions nights! He graciously put up with the staff’s procrastination, last minute changes and crazy HTML issues. He never complained about being the last one out of the office, nor did he complain about waking up at 4:50 a.m. twice a week to activate the website. (That’s another example of his humility: until I mentioned the early morning aspect at our end of the year banquet, his own mother didn’t know that he had been getting up at 4:50 — he never complained about it, even to her!) When someone else didn’t do his or her work, we sent Adam to do it — and he always did a great job. Adam saved us on countless occasions. He had a great eye for page design, knew AP Style, re-edited photos, fixed bugs on the pages, created house ads at the last minute and caught countless errors. When Kyle asked me in January who I thought should get the Editor of the Year award at our annual banquet, I immediately said, “Adam. He’s saved us so many times, and he never takes credit for it. It should absolutely go to Adam.”

Adam was funny and knew how to make your day. One of his responsibilities was to lay out and run the bulletin board/ads page. As Managing Editor, I had to proofread and edit all the pages for every paper. One night, I was really behind on editing pages and Adam knew I was in bad mood. He came up and slipped his page to the back of my stack of pages saying, “Just read it when you have a chance. I’ll wait.” I finally got to his page and broke into laughter. He had changed the whole page into Russian! I looked over to see him grinning at his desk. “You needed to laugh,” he explained with a grin. “And don’t worry — I didn’t save it in Russian. I’ve got an English version for you right here.” I could tell stories for hours about how he made us laugh!

Adam constantly thought of others. He knew when one of us was having a bad day, and he did whatever he could to cheer us up. He’d bring you a treat from the bakery, leave a Post-It note on your computer monitor, or simply come by your desk and say, “Do you need anything? Let me go get you something to eat.” (In fact, the day that he went missing, I had brought $6 to work because I owed him for buying of us Abner’s on a particularly crazy production night.)

After the almost 24-hour period from Adam going “missing” to finding out what happened, I remember sitting at my desk waiting for Kyle’s phone call. I’ll never forget the tone of his voice. I’ll never forget my fellow editors staring at me as I clung to my phone. I’ll never forget standing the middle of the newsroom, clutching my desk counter and delivering the worst news I’ve ever given. I'll never forget calling former editors and writers as I re-delivered that terrible message over and over again. I’ll never forget holding another editor tightly, watching tears run down her cheeks as I wondered, “We’ll never be able to replace Adam. How in the world will we ever make it without him?”

In the midst of intense sorrow and pain, God reminded me of His sovereignty and providence, whether in the form of text messages, scripture, hugs, phone calls or food dropped off at the office. Within an hour of telling my newsroom staff, I had friends text me saying, “I love you. I’m praying for you and the staff” and “I love you. I know it’s production night. Hang in there. Can I bring y’all dinner?” Though there were many scripture passages that spoke to me, especially during the first few weeks, I found one passage that I hadn’t really noticed before (and yes, I know the verses are out of order — I kind of took rearranging liberties):
“When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul … If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would have lived in the land of silence … But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.” (Psalm 94:18-19, 17, 22)

I won’t say that I know why God allowed everything to happen this semester. I’m not God — I’m human and will never understand His plans fully this side of heaven. I do rejoice in the fact that the Lord is gracious and compassionate and has brought healing and restoration — and He promises that He will continue to do so, never forsaking those that He loves.

I’m thankful that I have so many great memories of Adam. I’m thankful for how despite a hard situation, I bonded with my dear coworkers and Reflector family. I’m thankful for a great advisor who forgot about herself, going above and beyond the call of duty to check on us and watch over us. I’m incredibly thankful for Adam’s amazing family, who has been such an encouragement and inspiration to all of us. I hope that someday they will know how the Lord has used them to bring each of us much hope and healing. Above all, I’m thankful that I have a God who knows exactly what He’s doing and uses all things, even hard situations, to glorify Him. I can’t wait until the day when I can finally see and understand His plans and reasons for this last semester. Until that day, I’m going to wait patiently.

(Oh, I think I’m going to find a Radiohead bear sticker to put on my car. I know Adam would definitely approve.)

Wondering what to drink to stay awake during finals week?

Last semester, I volunteered to try energy drinks and write a column about it for The Reflector. As exam week has rolled around again, I thought I'd shamelessly promote myself ... I mean, provide advice and enlightenment to the masses. To save you the effort of clicking a link, I've reposted my column here (but you can also click here and go read it directly on The Reflector's site).

And, why yes, in case you're wondering, I'm currently drinking Mountain Dew Code Red (Diet) as I study for my Mythology and Writing for the Media exams.

Many energy drinks exist, but not all worth benefits
The Reflector, November 24, 2009

It's exam time, and that means several things: time to stop procrastinating, start looking at grades and get ready to become dependent upon caffeine and sugar-laced beverages instead of sleep.

To help readers in their studious endeavors, I volunteered to try multiple kinds of drinks and report on the taste, effectiveness and side effects.

However, I'm no expert in this, so I used Twitter to ask the Mississippi State community: "What kind of coffee concoctions, caffeinated sodas and energy drinks do you recommend?"

I received simple and complex responses, everything from "gas station black coffee" to "Well, you can't find this in Starkville anymore, but…"

I had every intention of trying all the beverages people suggested I try. I was fine until I started the energy drinks - I was willing to drink them, but apparently my stomach didn't like them.

So, here's my warning: If you haven't consumed energy drinks on a regular basis, please don't start during exam week. Your stomach may hate you, and being sick is the last thing you want to happen during exams.

Having said that, here's the list of drinks I tried, in order of least to most potent. This is how I thought the drinks affected me; it's not a scientifically-based list. See the graphic for those numbers:

1. Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino (bottled): Don't have time to wait for a drink or can't make up your mind? Grab a bottled frappuccino and go. It's really not any source for energy, but it tastes good and hey, drinking something cold helps keep you awake.

2. Diet Coke: Carbonation can help you wake up. For those of you who drink a cup of coffee or a coke a day, the minute amount of caffeine or sugar won't affect you - you might as well skip on down to No. 4 or 5.

3. Cap'n Crunch Latte from Strange Brew Coffeehouse: This wins the award for best coffee drink. There's a good balance of sweetness while maintaining a distinct coffee flavor. It didn't have much caffeine in it (I finished it off around 11 p.m. and was still able to sleep) and kept me in a much better mood as I studied for a test. Plus, Strange Brew gives you a freebie with your drink - a chocolate-covered espresso bean.

4. McDonald's Caramel Iced Coffee: If you like drinking syrup, this is your drink. I could hardly taste any coffee; in fact, it's kind of like melting a bunch of your grandmother's Werther's candy and pouring it over ice. If that's your thing, go for it. I had no sugar crash after drinking it; however, The Reflector assistant news editor April Windham reacted differently. In her words: "I got really hyper, then I got really tired, then I got hyper again! Then I jumped around and stood on top of a chair at the office, and then I got really tired and went to sleep." Yeah. Just know how you react to sugar before drinking this.

5. Mountain Dew Code Red: It's my favorite soft drink: gimme that high fructose corn syrup and that fake cherry flavor. Carbonation always wakes me up and for some reason, my body seems to think the drink's got a lot of caffeine in it. (It doesn't: a 12-ounce can contains 54 milligrams.)

6. Monster Energy Lo-Carb: I'll be honest: I couldn't even finish this one. I think I drank a third of it. I hated the taste and the aftertaste. Maybe the regular Monster is better, but I can't stomach that blue stuff again. I felt like it had the potential to give me lots of energy, but I couldn't drink it all to find out for sure. More power to all my friends who can drink several a day and function normally - more than one would kill me.

7. Starbucks Doubleshot Regular: What makes this tiny beverage so tasty? Espresso and cream. It's definitely strong, tastes like coffee and is slightly sweet. Don't shoot it, though; enjoy sipping on it (or chug half, wait a few minutes and chug the rest). There's also a light version of this drink with half the calories and a third of the total carbohydrates. Both have the same amount of caffeine (130 mg).

8. Chaser 5-hour Energy Shot: This is the only energy drink my mother and nursing student friends have recommended. Why? It doesn't have any sugar in it, is only 4 calories and contains B-vitamins, amino acids, nutrients and 138 milligrams of caffeine. Its Web site says the caffeine amount is equivalent to a normal cup of coffee, but in my opinion, these 5-hour shots work way better than coffee. Who knows, maybe Mom was right by making you take vitamins? Anyway, this is a drink you shoot and it comes in four flavors. There's also a caffeine-free version. Warning: Vitamin-laced shots like these have been known to cause upset stomachs, especially if you're not used to the ingredients. And don't drink more than two in 24 hours.

9. NOS Energy Drink: Good gracious. This was the biggest mistake I've made all semester. Kids, DON'T DRINK THIS. A 16-ounce can contains 54 grams of sugar and 260 milligrams of caffeine. It tasted great and smelled good. It didn't even seem to affect me right after I finished it; however, several hours later, I got a massive headache, my fingers started trembling and my stomach wanted to kill me. I did sleep that night, but I felt worse the next morning. My hands and legs shook the whole time I was in class and I felt nauseous. The massive headache came back and wouldn't go away. The label on the back of the can reads, "CAUTION: POWERFUL." If this is how NOS affects everyone, then that's the understatement of a lifetime.

Again, don't try energy drinks for the first time on exam week. Study hard, don't procrastinate, get some sleep, and remember: please drink responsibly.

Mini review

Scroll down to "April" in this post to see what this photo's all about. (And I'm sorry it's so tiny — Blogger keeps compressing it.)

I shouldn't be updating right now, but I just looked over my blog and realized I haven't posted since January. (YIKES! That's terrible, especially for a journalism student.) It is definitely an indication of how crazy this semester has been for me — I honestly did not anticipate this semester being crazy. I knew I would be busy looking for work and facing graduation, but since I only had four classes, I figured work would be my main time-consumer (and it certainly was, but there were lots of other things...). Here's a quick run-down of my semester, and I promise that more will be coming!

January:
-Started the last semester of my senior year at Mississippi State University with four classes: Elements of Persuasion, Writing for the Media (both of those are upper-level communication courses, which is all I need to graduate), Civil Liberties/Constitutional Law and Classical Mythology (which are two classes to keep me a full-time student). I quickly realize I'm not thrilled about my communication classes, and at least three classes are going to be much harder than I anticipated...so much for an easy last semester.
-Continued as Managing Editor at The Reflector. We had a huge staff changeover in December (our editor in chief resigned, sports and entertainment editors and several senior staff writers graduated). First month wasn't bad at all, once we all got used to new people in the office.
-Prepared to take my second LSAT.
-Turned in my paperwork to be considered for the RUF internship.

February:
-Already feeling a little senioritis...and realizing it's way too early to be feeling that.
-Took my second LSAT, which was much easier than the first LSAT in December. Unfortunately, we had a lot of problems with our proctor (including being shorted on time in one section and being interrupted numerous times). I figured this might affect my score, so I went ahead and filed an irregularity report...which meant that LSAC delayed my score for three extra weeks. Not exactly what I was hoping for since I was already entering the law school game a little late.
-Had my world absolutely ripped from under me when I lost my good friend and coworker Adam. (I plan to devote a whole blog entry to this topic sometime soon, but I need a while to write it so that I do it justice.) Without going into detail, it was an extremely traumatic situation, and I was the one who had to break the news to our newsroom crew. I never want to see the looks that I saw on their faces that day ever again. It was truly one of the darkest days of my life, and just one of those times where no matter how I cried out to the Lord, I didn't know how anything good would come about through this situation. Although I'm still struggling with all of us and still miss Adam terribly, I am thankful for how it brought our newsroom together. I knew I worked with talented, funny, smart people, but when all of this happened, it really bonded us all together and we started to get past the surface with each other. I have the utmost respect for our crew and I'm glad we were all in it together.

March:
-Got my LSAT score back and went up five points, despite the crazy testing circumstances! Finished off my law school applications to UT Knoxville, Ole Miss and University of Memphis.
-Went before the RUF South committee to be interviewed for an RUF intern position. I passed, and waited anxiously for my assignment...
-Had a GREAT roadtrip across my homestate (by myself!) during spring break. Those of you who know me even just a little bit know that I'm terrible with directions. Mom gave me a Garmin unit for Christmas, and that little thing has empowered me! Love it. I won't be scared of getting lost anymore. I visited my sister and Belmont RUF in Nashville for a day, drove to Chattanooga to see dear friends from church (got to see Bryan College and then spent the night at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia), drove to Knoxville to visit the law school and hang out with friends from church and high school for two days.
-Started dating a boy...and yep, that's all I'm telling you for right now. :)
-Heard back from RUF — my internship assignment is MTSU! I don't think I could have been more excited. I wanted to go back to my home state and be close to Nashville, but I never dreamed they would actually place me there.

April:
-School is really in full swing and crazy. Oh boy.
-We had TWO apartment fires in a span of about two weeks, including one at my complex! My building wasn't affected (although it still smells like smoke), but several of my friends lost everything they owned. I just so happened to be on my way to church when I saw a cloud of smoke — like I told another newspaper editor, "I turned right back around, put my Bible down and grabbed my camera." You can read my fire story here and see the Facebook album of fire photos here. What a crazy day. I am so thankful that the Lord spared every life in those two buildings that day!
-I finished my job as Managing Editor at The Reflector. It's been a good four years there, but I am ready for a break from the newsroom. I've been in and out helping the new staff, and I've stayed on as a writer and spot photographer, but no more eidtor position. :)
-I've started raising support for my RUF internship! Be expecting to see a lot more posts about that very soon.
-School's killing me. I'm having a hard time focusing (two papers, one presentation, some reading, four exams and one honors thesis project away from graduating) — I graduate in 9 days! Please pray for perseverance.

Est frigidus!

That's Latin for "It is COLD!" and that pretty much describes how I've felt most of this month. Mississippi has its share of weird weather, so it's also been in the 60s and 70s here and there throughout the month, but it's dipped below freezing many nights here. The wind is simply biting — doesn't make for a fun walk back to the apartment, although it definitely makes me walk faster! We had our first snow/ice day the first week back at school, but haven't had classes canceled since the first week. Mississippi tends to miss out on most of the fun white stuff...

I have been incredibly busy this month, which is good because it keeps me from being lazy and bad because I wish there were more hours in a day. I've been swamped with work (new hires, training new staff, getting readjusted to working five out of seven days again, etc.), new classes, job applications, law school applications, LSAT preparation, and other things. On top of that, I was sick for over a week; thankfully, it was just a really bad cold/cough, because I thought I had strep.

As of today, I have officially applied to be considered for the RUF internship program. I am really excited about this opportunity and would love for y'all to pray for me about it. I am still applying to law schools and looking for jobs, but this is another possibility. For those of you not familiar with the program, if accepted as an intern, I would be working alongside an RUF campus minister for 1-2 years, meeting with students and assisting the campus minister, but also receiving a lot of personal Bible study/mentoring from the campus minister. I would also have to raise a significant amount of support, but if that's where God wants me, I'm confident that He will provide.

I'm enjoying my classes this semester (for the most part), but I'm really ready to move on in life. I feel like I've already got a budding case of senioritis, so please pray that God will remind me to be faithful and studious in all areas!

Work at The Reflector has gone well this semester. We had four new people become editors, so I was initially worried about the transition. Things have gone smoothly and we are all getting along really well. I know that seems like a silly statement, but we all spend so much time together in that tiny room that arguments can begin and tempers can quickly get out of hand. Thankfully, pretty much everyone is laid-back and seems to really be enjoying what they're doing. I am so thankful for each one of them and am privileged to get to work with such a good group of people.

I take the LSAT again a week from today. I'm nervous and not thrilled with the lack of time that I've had to prepare for it again, but again, God is faithful and will show me if this is what I'm supposed to do.

All of this is very exciting and yet stressful. It's exciting to be thinking about graduating, but a little scary not knowing where I'll be once I finish in May. I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type person and would love to have a set plan right now...but this is a good time for growing and trusting in the Lord for all those plans.

The Christmas update

Well, Christmas flew by again this year...but it was great — got to spend lots of time with family and friends. I was initially discouraged about getting laid off at both of my seasonal jobs, but I managed to work a weekend with a caterer (I've worked there since 8th grade and love it - probably the best job I've had) and pulled a couple of babysitting jobs. It's been nice not be so scheduled (even though I love living on a schedule) and to have my nights free to hang out with friends. This year was the first time in four years that I haven't worked on Christmas Eve!

I got my LSAT score back yesterday and did pretty poorly. I didn't have much time to prepare, but this was the lowest I've ever scored (compared to all the practice tests I've taken). I went ahead and signed up for the February test and hope to devote about three hours a day to studying. I've essentially finished my personal statements, resume and essays, but I've got to get my score up to have a decent shot at getting accepted anywhere. I logged on this morning and started reading about how there was a significant curve on the December LSAT (because it was hard) — encouraging and yet very discouraging at the same time. The Lord is faithful and I'm sure He will make His way evident soon...it's just hard because I graduate May 1 and would love to know where He wants me.

My last semester of undergrad begins January 6! That's terribly exciting and scary. I'm happy about being finished with my studies and my job, but I'm nervous about what post-graduation will bring. I'm looking forward to a final semester with only four classes, lots of library/LSAT time, a semi-new staff at the newspaper office, RUF activities and lots more!

What NOT to drink to keep you awake

Want to know what you should and shouldn't drink to keep you awake during finals week but don't have time to try everything? Let me help you out. :)

I got to write an opinion/entertainment piece for the last issue of The Reflector and chose to write about energy drinks. I didn't get to try everything that readers and friends suggested, but I tried a pretty good variety of things in about a week's time. Check it out here and let me know what you think. Happy studying!

Last full day in Austin

No alliteration tonight, folks. Sorry! Tonight’s blog post will be shorter. (I know y’all are all very thankful for that.)

April and I slept in a little bit today and it was pretty splendid. When we went to grab breakfast, April saw a girl wearing DG letters (April’s sorority), so she went to introduce herself. We ended up sitting with her for about 30 minutes and had some great discussions about what our papers were doing. She attends a smaller private school in Iowa, so it was interesting to compare that to our large public land-grant institution.

For once, April and I also attended all of the same sessions today. We hadn’t done this throughout the week (except for the big design seminar with several hundred people in it) because we wanted to cover a large variety of topics. We started out with a legal session, which was led by the University of Alabama’s adviser and Student Press Law Center’s (SPLC) executive director Frank LoMonte. The Reflector has recently been in contact with SPLC and they’ve been very helpful, so it was great to meet the executive director today.

We also attended a session about writing for the Internet. We’ve heard from many people over the week that you shouldn’t just paste your stories from your paper directly onto the Internet. The leader did mention this in his session, but it wasn’t as helpful as we had hoped.

Our last session of the day was “100+ Story Ideas,” led by Lori Brooks from the University of Oklahoma. It was really helpful, entertaining and fast-paced. She was quick to give direction but also asked for student input. This was definitely one of my favorite sessions and I can’t wait to try some of story ideas.

We did some sightseeing today with a couple of new friends! (Wow, that sounds cheesy.) We visited the state capitol, the University of Texas campus (where I spotted the Jumbotron that’s bigger than MSU’s) and the Congress Avenue Bridge. We headed to the bridge around 6:15 and stayed there for over an hour to watch the world’s largest population of urban bats (1.5 million) leave for the night. It was pretty amazing. Sadly it was dark, so the photos didn’t turn out great, but that’s OK.


We met this guy on the bridge while waiting for the bats. He was walking on stilts!

Since it’s Halloween, we ventured into Austin’s Sixth Street (entertainment district) and watched the madness — Halloween costumes everywhere! It was kind of amazing, scary, weird and entertaining all at once. We can still hear people yelling outside, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing lots of them coming in around four or five a.m.!

Time to call it a night. It’s been a great conference, but I think we’re ready to head back “home” tomorrow. (Pray we get home on time - I haven't been able to check in online tonight, which makes me sad...) Oh, be sure to view April's blog here.

Another round of amazing Austin adventures!

All right, to start things off, I want all of y’all to visit April’s blog right here. She read me the first paragraph of her post tonight, and I think it’s funny — therefore, y’all should all read it. (Plus we went to different sessions, so our posts will be pretty different.)

And now for a wrap-up on the National College Media Convention sessions I attended today. Again, I apologize for the length.

1. Keep Going When the Going Is Really Tough:
I also only know one of the speakers’ names, so I’m not going to post them. This was basically a session on how to market yourself and what you can do with your journalism degree. I was disappointed with the lack of variety with this session. It turned out that all three people leading it had journalism (or communication-related) degrees or experience, and all three were currently teaching at the same university. They all had outside careers and different interests, but all three were teachers. I really would have liked to see three people in different careers on this panel, not three teachers.

2. Convention General Session: Steve Outing
Outing’s message was titled, “Why Now is the Best Time Ever to Go Into Journalism.” When he announced this, I was immediately intrigued — why? Because (almost) everyone else has been telling us, “Get out of journalism! You won’t have a job when you graduate!” (The other people that haven’t told me that just keep saying, “Well, if you love it and you’re passionate about it, then surely you’ll find a job! And you’ll make money!” In my humble opinion, loving what you do, having passion and even being good at something doesn’t guarantee you a job or money. But hey, what do I know? I’m only a 22-year-old college student.)
He talked about how interesting today’s media is compared to the media of the 70s and 80s. It was basically a brief history lesson. He talked briefly about niche journalists and freelance options. (Question about niche journalists that I posed to my peers via Twitter: In today’s day and age with fierce competition, do you think niche journalism limits you?) April and I had to leave early to make it to our critique appointment, so I didn’t get a good feel for the overage message.

3. Individual Newspaper Critique
April and I sat down with Cheri Shipman from Texas A&M for a 35-minute critique. Shipman was very helpful and very complementary, while also being quick to ask us questions about why do certain things with the paper. She made good suggestions and posed some good questions. I won’t bore y’all with the details here, but heads up Reflector staff — we’re bringing back new ideas!

4. The Art and Science of Editorial Writing: Arnold Garcia, opinion page editor at the Austin American-Statesman
Garcia reminder me of one huge thing: Our opinion pieces at The Reflector are too long. Again, heads up, Reflector staff; I’m planning to crack down on the epic narratives that we sometimes receive from out writers! (He said articles usually shouldn’t be more than 400-500 words.)
He also posed a good point, saying, “Now you’ve [an opinion writer] told me whose fault it [whatever issue you write about] is — tell me how to fix it.”
5. Battling the Tranquility University Syndrome – Covering “Bad News” on Campus: Shawn Murphy, SUNY Plattsburg
Murphy expressed something that I’ve wanted to tell people at my great university (seriously, I do think it’s great — that’s no sarcasm) many, many, many times: The Reflector is not my paper and it is not a PR vehicle for the university. As an adviser, he also talked about how many people think the adviser runs the newspaper and the university puts pressure on him or her to edit/censor content. (Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is true for The Reflector, nor I am accusing my university of using The Reflector as a PR vehicle. To this day, I still have dear friends who call me and ask, “Hey, my club is doing ______. Can you get us in the paper?” or “Hey, I’ll give you a quote for the paper — just tell me what you want me to say!”)
Murphy had some AMAZING stories. The kinds of things his staff has covered are stories most college newspapers only dream about covering. He was also dismissed (unofficially — it’s a long story) from one of his jobs because he “let” something run in the student newspaper. Really interesting stuff.

6. Writing the Bad Habits Out of Your Eager but Inexperienced Staff: Tom Pierce
This was my last session for the day, and it followed a much-needed but too short nap. Pierce addressed two aspects: mistakes while interviewing and mistakes in writing. It was encouraging to hear other students asking questions and voicing problems that I’ve seen in while working for the paper. The session was standing room only — I sat on the floor next to an opinion editor from Loyola University in Chicago and another girl from Duke.

7. Okay, I lied in that last bullet. I really did another session … at 11 p.m.! April and I had our paper critiqued again by the lovely adviser from the University of Alabama. It was really good to have another SEC adviser looking at our paper because she had a good idea for what we cover/should cover, etc. She talked to us for over an hour and looked at three issues of the paper. Thank you!

April and I enjoyed dinner at Rio Grande, which is where a season of “Real World” was filmed. (Obviously it’s been turned into a restaurant since they used it for the show.) Tomorrow, we get out early (around 2:30 or so), so we’re excited about seeing some of Austin’s sites. I want some photographs … cool angles, you know? ;) (shout out to Kyle and Lawrence)

OK, it’s way past bedtime. Expect a video tomorrow on April’s blog — we’re filming one tonight, but we don’t have Internet in our room and we’re definitely not coming back downstairs to the lobby to upload it when we could be sleeping.

Keep following our Twitter updates (@AubraWhitten and @AprilWindham). Search for the hashtag #ncmc09 to see what everyone's saying during the conference. Good night!

Amazing adventures in Austin

Wow, I lose major journalism points for the cheesy title, but whatever.

The Reflector assistant news editor and I are at the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas. Basically, it's a big conference for collegiate journalists and advisers. We've had a great time, met people from all over the United States (so far, no one else from Mississippi), attended some great sessions, seen cool buildings and also enjoyed some nice cuisine. Let's just say Austin is definitely not Starkville — tonight we walked four blocks and bam, Spaghetti Warehouse! We're also staying on the 11th floor of a 20+ story Hilton Hotel. I think the tallest building in Starkville is maybe 10 floors — anyone know how tall Suttle Hall is?

April and I missed a production night today (oh don't worry, I was the dork in the Atlanta airport reading stories, marking them up in Word then e-mailing them back to section editors). It was weird not being in the newsroom, but the staff managed without us, the paper was sent and from what I've heard, the Henry Meyer Student Media Center is still standing.

A couple of random observations:
1. I've never seen so many Macs or iPhones in one place at one time (yeah, even at the Apple Store). It makes me really happy.
2. I love that everyone here greets you, smiles, asks your position at your paper and where you're from — we've all got journalism in common.
3. The Hilton is silly because it charges $6 an hour for Internet in your room. (There's free Internet in the main lobby, but not on the conference floors or in the conference building next door.)
4. The Hilton might just be worth every penny because it provides complementary printing. (And I really needed it today, considering I forgot to print my resumes back in Starkville.)
5. As nice as the Hilton is, I've already seen two cockroaches three times in less than 24 hours. One of them is in our room. I tried to kill him, but alas, he escaped. (Let the record stand that I did injure him and I haven't seen him since 6:45 this morning.) We've named him our honorary third roommate, but I wish he would leave.
6. My hair likes Austin. It rained today and was super windy, yet my hair didn't get frizzy. Amazing.
7. Everyone here has a massive coffee addiction (the line at the hotel coffee shop this morning proved it) and I love it.
8. I LOVE the newspaper nerdiness and journalism jokes that keep popping up.
9. I know I'm probably annoying non-journalism people with my Twitter right now. I apologize. It will only last two more days, I promise.
10. This has nothing to do with the convention, but y'all, my arm is STILL sore from my flu shot last Friday!

Anyway, here are the sessions I attended today with some brief highlights:
1. Get Out of (Libel) Jail Free Card: Doug Pierce, attorney at King and Ballow in Nashville, TN
Pierce talked about different privileges reporters have and how that affects their legal covering. He used an interesting quote from the Louisana Court of Appeals: "Talebearers are just as bad as talemakers." (1952) Basically, it means you can't quote someone libeling/defaming someone else and always expect to get away with it — you're the talebearer and you're still partially responsible. Someone in the session brought up the Web site Smoking Gun (which I wasn't familiar with until today; it's a site that has police reports, mugshots, etc.) and we talked about the legal ramifications of getting information from that site instead of the actual officials. I spoke to him after the session about possibly attending paralegal school and he was helpful, telling me that it's a good thing I have (or will have) a four-year degree prior to a paralegal career.
2. Ethics and Practice of Trauma Journalism (Dart Center): Kelly Furnus, VA Tech newspaper adviser, Donna DeCesare and Rachele Kanigel
This session was INCREDIBLY helpful. If you're a journalist and aren't familiar with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, check it out. It was a short panel discussion and then students attending the session got to ask questions to the panel about how to cover things. It was really encouraging to hear from peers about their struggles to report really hard things, everything from women being abused to a professor randomly pulling out a gun and shooting three students on campus. I say it was encouraging because it was good to hear that our newspaper isn't alone in having to cover hard things. (Like I've said before, death stories are some of my least favorite, but they're also a good way to help give families and friends closure about that person.) It was very helpful and interesting to hear Kelly Furnus speak about how he and his staff handled the VA Tech shooting back in 2007, and he was helpful in answering my question (how to handle requests from other news outlets to cover tragic stories for them; The Reflector was recently asked by a major news outlet to find out more info on a missing MSU student so that the outlet could run our story. We didn't have any more information, yet they kept asking us about it.)
3. Opening a Shut Case: Chuck Baldwin, University of South Dakota, and Mark Witherspoon, Iowa State
Here, we talked a lot about our state rules for open records, issues we've had with campus police, how to gather information, what to tell your crime beat reporter, etc. It was really interesting to hear what other students have gone through; again, it's nice to know a lot of us have the same issues while reporting! Again, I got to ask them questions and got solid answers, so that was great. Two quotes from Mark Witherspoon:
Addressing the issue of some reporters not being assertive/not pushing hard enough for information: "If they [public officials] don't give it [public records] to you, you need to get pissed."
When asked how to respond to your school administration when they say you're not allowed to have information that you're legally allowed to have: "Bring in the law and ask your officials, 'Are you going to break the law?'"
4. Chicken Salad II: Michael K (sorry, I don't have his last name in front of me)
First of all, this was a rocking design seminar. This guy was hilarious. I took some photos of his redesigns, so I'll post those shortly. Here are some quotes:
"Don't use clip art — when you search for it, that's wasting 10 minutes of your life away that you can never get back."
"Put the turds [lists, etc.] in a graphic — people love to look at graphics."
"If you've hit puberty, you're too old for clip art."
"Editors who can't write a decent headline should be waterboarded at Guantanamo."
"All people are created equal. All people in photographs are not."
"Graphic designers: you've got to train your word people [editors] like you train a puppy. When your puppy take a dump on your carpet, you take his little head within 30 seconds and push into that pile of poop. If you don't do it within 30 seconds, the puppy's going to wonder, 'Why is he pushing my head into someone else's feces?' He won't remember. When they [editors] tell you, 'It's [your graphic] stupid,' take their heads and shove it into the pile of feces that is that crappy assignment."
"I call this a John Doe going to take a dump lead: some guy I don't know doing something everyone does every day."
"The headline should be 'boom!' the deck should be simple."
"Your college journalism career is like your juvenile record: eventually, it gets wiped clean."

Also, check out April's blog right here — she's been updating, too!

Alright, it's way past time for bed. (They just dimmed the lights in the lobby.) Photos will be coming tomorrow via Facebook. Stay tuned to Twitter for lots of updates!

So what did I do all summer?

So what was Aubra Whitten up to all summer? And why in the world didn't she blog all summer? You know, I'm so glad you asked...

In May:
-I finished up my junior year as a communication/journalism major at MSU. I finished all my requirements for my English minor, so I'll only be taking a couple of core classes and communication classes in my final year! I think I'm really going to miss English, but not the work load/reading load.
-The day after finishing my junior year, I flew across the world to Seoul, South Korea! I spent two weeks there and in Tokyo, Japan, and had a wonderful experience. If you ever get the opportunity, please go visit both places (I'm especially partial to South Korea!). I did briefly blog about both places and I took tons of photos...if you have Facebook, you can check them out there. If not, just ask me about them. I'll be more than happy to go on and on about how wonderful the trip was!
-I started work in Starkville as a student worker for the Office of Academic Outreach and Continuing Education! (More details on that later.) This was the beginning of my first summer away from home.
-I gained another cousin when my cousin Rebecca married her husband Josh! Beautiful wedding and reception - love both of them.

In June:
-Managed to spend only two weekends in Mississippi (the rest were spent in Memphis and Philadelphia - the one in Mississippi, not the other one...for those of y'all not from Mississippi!) Went home for Pash's birthday, and visited new places in Mississippi with Tim and his family.
-Started my second student worker job as a writer and photographer for Vision, the magazine for the College of Arts & Sciences.
-Continued working my first student worker job, doing a little bit of everything - WalMart runs, errands around campus, helping with engineering conferences, filing papers, writing promotional pieces, working in Excel and Word, doing research and brainstorming for the office, filling in the for the secretary...almost every day was something different! I was hired to work as an assistant for all the childrens' camps, and those were a lot of fun. We had two weeks of art camp and one week of international camp, where I got to work with college students in the ESL program as well as Starkville kids. It was great to spend all day with them!
-Sorted through interviews and applications at The Reflector (the campus newspaper)

In July:
-Again, managed to only spend one or two weekends in Mississippi (the rest were in Memphis and Vicksburg).
-Continued working at Memorial Hall doing office work and kids camps. We did two computer camps and one dance camp. Needless to say, dance camp wore me out every day...but the girls were precious!
-Thanked the Lord for graciously giving me a free parking pass for campus (I had been walking to work every day) - Mississippi is HOT all the time, but especially in July!
-Continued working as a writer/photographer for Vision Magazine
-Enjoyed getting to know Brian Sorgenfrei, RUF's new campus minister at State. He and his wife Liza (and baby Shelby) are a great blessing from the Lord, and I look forward to getting to know them better this year. Please pray for RUF's ministry on campus; pray that the gospel would go forth and that students would come to know Christ.

In August:
-Finished working at Memorial Hall. It was a great job with wonderful coworkers and bosses!
-Finished working as a writer/photographer for Vision. It too was a great job and gave me wonderful experience! I got to write about a big variety of things-physicists helping the US Army, an undergrad doing an internship with the National Weather Service, two faculty members working to help our departments and campus as a whole be more green, and looked at some of the research and field work going on in the newly-formed anthropology department!
-Got to go home for two weeks and visit with my family and friends. It was a great summer, but it was very strange being away from home the majority of the time!
-Headed back to Starkville, started my senior year (my, oh my, I'm an old woman).
-Started back to work at The Reflector (Mississippi State's student-run, independent newspaper) as the managing editor. We've published four issues to date, and you can read us online at www.reflector-online.com or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/reflectoronline. And nope, I'm not ashamed of that shameless plug right there...I would love more readers. :) It's been a very challenging and stressful job, but I knew that going into it. Please do be praying for myself and the rest of the staff.
-Have been able to hang out with new friends that I met in Korea! About 61 Korean students are here for 9 months at State - please pray they would meet American friends and enjoy their time here. I have loved having them here.

So, what's on tap for this semester? One, I'm going to start blogging more. (Really. I mean it. Hold me to it, okay?) I have a teacher that recently warned us that she's going to require us to blog and answer questions via a class blog, so I figured I might as well get back into it. Two, I am prayerfully considering where the Lord wants me this time next year. I'm taking the GRE this semester (have my practice test on Saturday!), but I still have no idea what I'm doing. I'm burned out on journalism and the market is awful for journalists, so I'm considering quite a few things (including paralegal school, getting my MBA, getting an English/TESOL master's degree, getting a master's in education so I could teach English or journalism). I'm leaning toward the MBA idea, but I'm not positive. Please pray that the Lord would direct me!