Contrasts as consequences

To start Sunday off right, I went to the White House Gardens tour. Happening only twice a year, this is a special event. Getting up early in the hopes of avoiding what I thought would be long lines for tickets, I was pleasantly, and quizzically surprised at how easily people were able to get tickets to walk around, essentially, the backyard of the White House. In order to get an official tour—which is not even that extensive—one would need to apply at least two months in advance, wait in long lines, and have a government issued ID. But for our tour, one need only to pick up a ticket that they were handing out on the street, rip off the stub, and walk through a metal detector—no ID or prior check in.

.

Once allowed in, you’re free to see the backyard swing set, the putting green, the fountain up-close, the gardens, the Children’s Gardens, and the outside of the Oval Office. As I was taking pictures of the Oval Office and of the yard space where a soccer ball had been left from some previously played game (and where Bo had, apparently, been running around only an hour earlier), I was awestruck. Awestruck of the historical decisions that had been made here. Awestruck of the ordinariness of the people who had lived here. Awestruck that I, and 12,000 others, could get this close.

.

After the White House, we walked over to the Old Post Office, to relax, look at the city’s historic monuments from an aerial perspective, and realize that the city is a lot closer and condensed than riding the metro everywhere grants it.

.

On to Monday. In a complete change of pace, I had a paper due in Monday night’s class and to top it off, we had a 130-page document for the secretary come in that needed to be expedited. What this translated into was a really busy, multi-tasking Monday.

.

While my lack of paper writing was my own fault, and I was the one who had to deal with the procrastination, the life of an editor is much less in control. We, as editors, were obviously not in control of when we first received the document. Yet, we were the ones that were under the pressure to make the deadline. This can be frustrating when you’re dealing with more than one office that has classified a document as “high priority.”

.

The frustration of this particular priority caused me to reflect a bit on my internship. While on the one hand I am really coming to appreciate what I am learning, how I will be able to incorporate it into my work back at Luther and The Gadfly, and how, through editing, I have developed a keener eye for the strengths/weaknesses of arguments and for clear/unclear writing, it lacks the inspiring creative process that excites me. I would much rather be the one writing the original documents than the one polishing them. And with this experience, my creative writing in the future will be polished to the point where I won’t need an editor.