Our secret weapon? Responsibility.

It's been interesting watching this economic mess unfold.

I feel like I'm sort of on the outside looking in. I haven't yet run out of gas trying to find a gas station that still has fuel in its tanks. I still get a paycheck every two weeks. I still go to the grocery store once a week and spend roughly the same amount of money. I'm living my normal life, and I think I'm in denial.

I realized I have to start making adjustments because things certainly aren't normal. Five gallons of gas cost me $24 today. Gas stations and convenience stores are devoid of any activity, like those abandoned 1940s gas stations that you find on old highways in Florida. In fact, the entire country feels like it's a little devoid of activity right now. At least for me, it's like we're all holding our breaths, just waiting to see what's going to happen. Maybe if we sit tight for a while - take a rain check on that camping trip, postpone buying that new lawn mower for another week or two - maybe then things will settle out and we can get back to normal.

Things aren't going to get back to normal.

We've got to stop waiting for someone else to step up, and we've got to start being responsible. We have to learn to say no to things we don't need. We have to respect each other. And we have to respect this country.

Ah, so that's why I do what I do

Happy First Day of Fall! It's officially my favorite season.

So I haven't posted in a while. I don't know how my head is still attached after last week and looking into this week. I've had three tests and I have a total of six performances this week between the two choirs that I sing with. (Side note: Ending sentences with prepositions is a pet peeve of mine, but I didn't see any way around that one.) I'm also serving as a "citizen journalist" for a health care forum Thursday that's part of the National Issues Forums. Quite a busy schedule.

However, today I remembered why I love being a journalist.

In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, our paper is embarking on a Think Pink campaign. We're going to print a special section every Sunday on pink paper (trust me, it looks better than it sounds!), feature profiles of local women's struggles with breast cancer, and include some statistics and advice about how often women should get mammograms, perform self-checks, etc. It's a big deal.

I've been put in charge of the local profiles, so I've spent the past two weeks struggling to get a hold of somebody, anybody, at the local hospitals. Finally last Friday I got two leads, and I had my first interview today. It feels good to be getting somewhere.

The interview was like none I've ever done. My experience has been with small community papers where an interview means asking questions about the exact measurements of the YMCA's longest ice cream sundae or the rezoning of a controversial chicken plant. (And yes, those are based on real events.) All of a sudden, I'm talking to a woman about the hardest thing she's ever been through - the turning point in her life - and I still have to get the answers to the deep, personal questions that I've typed up on Microsoft Word without sounding impersonal. How do you find the perfect balance?

It's all about the approach. First off, I let her know exactly what I was doing and how I would be using her information. I see it as a way of reassuring her that I'm professional and trustworthy. I also set the speed of my interview a little slower and more relaxed. If you blaze through the questions like a robot, she's not going feel like expounding on anything and her true feelings and persona won't break through.

It's all about the tone. Maintain sentimentality without condescending or pitying. This is a woman whose life has been turned upside down by what she's been through, but she's also a woman of strength and courage. Treat her like the heroine that she is.

It's all about the story. Every woman's experience is different, and every woman's experience is incredible. Take in every detail and every side note, even if the conversation strays from your initial questions. Though you may not be able to publish the complete story, you can't do this woman's story justice without having all of the facts.

Ultimately, it's all about hope. Millions of women worldwide have been diagnosed with breast cancer and must battle the second-leading killer of women with only courage and friends and family beside them. It's scary. But it's also preventable and if you catch it early enough, you can beat it.

That's why I love what I do. I get to share the stories of women who have been through this, and can give better advice than maybe even their doctors can, with the public. Readers could include women who may have just been diagnosed, women who are nervous about getting their first mammogram, or women who may one day have to struggle with the disease. I can provide hope for all of them by allowing one woman's voice to be heard.

At the end of the day, I don't think I could ask for a better job.

The downside of instant gratification

I have at least five things running through my head at the same time right now, and I love it!

I love being busy. Probably the most horrible thing in the world is having nothing to do. Now don't get me wrong - I do like to relax every once in a while, maybe sleep in a little bit. But I can't do it for more than a day because then I get bored. And when I get bored, it's a very bad thing.

One of the things I've got stewing in my head is an op-ed piece about some credit card cloning that's been going on in the area. Consumer education is kind of a pet project for me so I was really excited about the assignment. On top of that, I specialize in consumer fraud, especially identity theft, so I'm all over this. Turns out some grad student copied credit card numbers that he stole from a local liquor store onto dozens of gift cards and used them to buy merchandise that he'd turn around and sell for a profit. These guys seriously need to rethink their careers and use their supreme intelligence for good rather than evil.

Well, I found out last weekend that someone bought $200 worth of stuff at Wal-Mart in Clearwater, Fla., with my credit card. I wasn't too happy about that. And then I thought about it - with all of my expertise in identity theft and credit card fraud, am I really practicing what I preach?

The answer is, unfortunately, no. I use my debit card at the gas station all the time because it's easier than paying cash. I don't own a shredder, so documents with my identity all over them are just floating around out there for anyone to pick up. I hand my credit card to a waiter in full confidence that he won't clone my card before he gives it back to me. I'm a disaster waiting to happen. And I'm just like every other American, except maybe worse since I know better.

So here's a question for you.

What do you value more - safety or convenience?

Online-only vs. print pub - who will emerge victorious?

I was very, very amused with all of the Large Hadron Collider paranoia today. Maybe it's the geek in me, but when I heard that Earth might get sucked into oblivion by teeny tiny black holes, I got pretty excited. And I have to admit, a small part of me was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see a black hole today.

GateHouse, a company that's pretty much flown below the radar in media news, has gone and done something rather rash. While they don't have a print product in Batavia, NY, they've launched an online-only news site that will directly compete with The Daily News, Batavia's print newspaper. Just looking at The Daily News' online presence makes me shudder.

I think it's a genius idea. This is the beauty of the Internet in action. No longer do you have to have mile-deep pockets in order to launch your own news/information product. The Batavian can give The Daily News a run for its money without having to incur the costs of a printing press or ink or distribution - just the cash that it takes to hire a tech guy and a couple reporters. Then, once The Batavian establishes its presence and starts to give the residents of Batavia what they want (not what The Daily News thinks they want), it can expand its operation and really go for the gold. I wish I could be up there to see it in action.

So who will win? Firmly-established print product or brand new online-only publication? I'm betting on The Batavian. Go get 'em, tiger!

Pay it forward

My latest endeavor is to explore every possible angle of this industry in order to be the best journalist/manager I can be. I want to know everything. (Well, okay, not everything...)

I suppose I have a little bit of a head start. I can cover small town community news in multiple forms. I can whip up an article outlining the main points of a local government meeting. I can type up birth and wedding announcements and compile obituary information.

But I want to sell ads. I want to plan and organize a marketing event. I want to write an editorial. I want to shoot audio and video and post it online. I want to blog on my paper's website and acquire a following. I want to write advertorial pieces for a special section. I want responsibility. I want to be put to work.

And I think I've scored an internship where I can accomplish about 90 percent of those goals.

My first day was Wednesday. Since then, I've been given the task of writing profiles about breast cancer survivors for our big Think Pink campaign that we're going to be kicking off in October (which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month). I've been extended an offer to write an editorial or two while our opinions editor is on vacation. I've been given sole responsibility for providing content for our holiday section in November. I said hello to the CEO. I went on four sales calls with the marketing director. I have my own company desk, e-mail and phone number. I'm on cloud nine.

The people within this industry continue to amaze me. I've had multiple journalists go out on a limb for me when it wasn't necessarily in their best interests. When I applied for my first internship as a reporter, my boss hired me with no experience at all - no high school publications, no college newspaper. Nothing. And the best journalism professor I had in college extended me an internship opportunity after reading my first research paper he'd assigned in class. These journalists had no evidence of work ethic or compatibility or lifelong goals. I'd like to think that they must've seen something in me, maybe a spark of some sort. But they really did take a leap of faith, and now they've done it again.

It's journalists like these guys (and gals) that make me proud to be part of this industry. And it's encouraging to know that there are other journalists investing in other young people like me all over the country. I am eternally grateful to them for the opportunities they've given me, and it is my hope that I can turn around and extend those opportunities for others somewhere down the road.

New gadgets!

I'm channeling my inner nerd right now. I seriously can't wait to get home and download Chrome, Google's new web browser. Lately I've been getting tired of Firefox, so it'll be nice to try something new. I hope it lives up to my expectations! However, it'll be interesting to see what critics have to say about its Incognito Mode.

I also discovered Hulu. I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet. It's definitely upscale YouTube, but there's not that much content right now. I'm assuming it'll grow and hopefully at a pretty decent pace. I'll be honest - I was looking for old school X-Files episodes and was severely disappointed when I couldn't find any...

Also, I find that it's easier to study for my Aztec class when I'm listening to Ilyas Ahmed.

I've got a lot of work to do....

I just spent the better part of the last two hours Twitterizing and RSS-ing myself. And yes, I just turned those into verbs. If Google can do it, then by golly, so can I....

I also spent the better part of the last two hours realizing how completely and utterly unmarketable and far behind I am in the journalism world. Seriously, I'm going to be putting on my journalist cap in eight months, and I don't know squat.

Twitter wasn't a word in my personal dictionary until March of this year when my API conference in D.C. was "twittered" by Steve Buttry. I sat next to the online developer for the Houston Chronicle who introduced me to Google Reader and RSS feeds. But I had no idea what they were. I had no idea how to use them. (I honestly still don't, but now at least I'm learning!) I've had four internships at this point with four great newspapers and I'll have had a fifth by the time I graduate, but yet I'm still unprepared to enter the industry with guns blazing. How did this happen? Why am I just now getting my hands dirty in the online community?

A few possibilities:

1. My J-school professors are all curmudgeons. Well, not all of them. I've had two amazing professors who encouraged blogging and the importance of online journalism, and both helped me score ridiculously beneficial internships, including the one that I wrote about this summer.

However, the rest of my professors were way behind and a waste of my time (and lots of money!). Instead of requiring us to write as much as we could, expanding our basic journalistic skills, letting us extensively explore examples of important cases that have affected media and accentuating the ever-growing importance of digital media in the industry, professors kept us busy with true/false tests, assignments that gave us no sense of accomplishment and pica sticks.

The peak of my frustration arrived when, in response to a paper in which I emphasized the importance of knowing and catering to your audience, no matter who they are, my professor told me I was wrong. WRONG. "We cover what's newsworthy. Audience doesn't and shouldn't matter. News is news - there's nothing you can do to change that." Maybe I'm too forward-thinking, but I believe that the "news" has become information and vice versa. Our job as journalists is to inform - through whatever medium necessary, with whatever resources we can get our hands on, and by personalizing everything - so that an individual can get what he needs when he needs it. That's our job. And in this innovative environment, the absolute worst thing that you can tell a journalist is that she's wrong.

2. Things are still evolving. It's hard for newspapers to know which ideas are gold and which aren't. It's hard to advocate for something when you don't know its outcome. We can't predict the future. Journalists are afraid to pass along information and publicize ideas because the risk of failure is high. But we can't play the game without the pieces. It's important to give us (young journalists) as much information as possible so that we can sort through it and determine what's important. Think of the future of journalism as a garden and we're the gardeners. We have to know every type of weed as well as every type of crop so that when the time comes to weed our garden, we'll know what stays and what goes.

3. I'm scared, too. I have no experience in the digital world. I've never been a techie by any means. I know enough HTML to get by and I have a blog, but there's so much out there that I haven't learned. And I have to learn it fast. And since I have to teach myself, it's all up to me and the effort I'm willing to put into my own education. Up until now, I haven't really had the motivation and courage that I'll need to take on a task like this. But now? Now, I'm more determined than ever.