Thursday, August 19, 2010

Work, Part I: Paid

  Last week was busy, busy.
  I had an 1,800-word magazine story due on the business of fashion. I spent the better part of a week logging nearly full-time hours on interviews of academics and fashion industry insiders. Then another two full days to write and rewrite.
  It almost felt like work, work. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, even for a LOL who has grown accustomed to a relaxed pace of freelancing. I was doing what I like doing best -- writing. And this time, I was getting a decent wage, which made it worth the effort but also added to the pressure. By the end of the week, the tension had built. Down time was next to nil. I had to skip exercise classes, and clean clothes were sparse.  Back came the perils of journalism -- writer's block when faced with thinking of a lead, self-doubt over whether my editor would like the story and anxiety about meeting deadline. Why, I wondered, had I taken on the assignment?
  I think it's all part of the process. It wouldn't be the same rush if not for all the worries along the way. Those restless nights inevitably deliver a good start by morning, and somehow, deadline gets met (almost) always. Self-doubt is a little harder to overcome. But that, too, is usually vanquished.
  But the biggest payoff is more intangible. It comes with the filing of the story. It's a high, simple as that. As deadline approaches, the adrenaline pumps at full throttle, and I know I'm close to the finish line with a solid product. I imagine it is the same pleasure that a craftsman must get from a finely turned cabinet or a mechanic from a rebuilt engine. A job is done and done well, and now what's left is only the anticipation of seeing the story in print and hearing from readers.
I'm an editor, mid-80s. Gotta love those glasses!
  The feelings haven't changed much since the Fall of 1980, when I got my first assignment from the  Kentucky Kernel at the University of Kentucky. I was incredibly shy -- still am, in lots of ways. The thought of picking up the phone and dialing (this was the days of rotary phones) a complete stranger, and a professor at that, was nearly paralyzing.  I still remember the topic:  It was a feature on a restaurant run by home-ec students. With lots of urging from my mother, I made that first call to set up an interview, after picking up and putting down the handset a dozen times. In the end, I was more scared of disappointing Mom than flubbing my call. In the face-to-face interview, I stammered through a series of questions from a prepared list. The professor was kind and patient. Then I stayed up all-night banging out copy on a blue, electric typewriter. When I handed in the pages, I was queasy but also thrilled, as if I'd just climbed off a roller-coaster and survived. A couple of days later, the story ran on the front page of the Kernel, pretty much the way I had written it. The fee was around $5. That day, I asked for another assignment.
  It was the beginning of my love affair with journalism.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Howling Over these Exam Howlers

  I've had my share of verbal missteps. Ying yang for yin yang. Click for clique. And now that I'm blogging with no copy editors (not appreciated enough when my copy regularly passed through their hands), I'm sure I'll continue to make my share of blunders in print.
  Still, I laughed heartily at these examination howlers out of the UK, as picked up in a report on Inside High Education's Website. Here's a sample:

British Exam Howlers


One student has inadvertently invented a new name for the phenomenon: "Confusionism."
In fact, the third-year student had intended to refer to the system of philosophical and ethical teachings founded by the Chinese philosopher Confucius.
Proving that they are just as fallible as all those to have gone before them, students' comical cock-ups have been revealed in entries to Times Higher Education's "exam howlers" competition 2010.
Thank you to Michael Gold, senior lecturer in employment relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, for sending in the Confucianism error.
Many of this year's entries have a medical theme. John Lee, head of undergraduate studies in nursing and midwifery at the University of Dundee, was told that "Vagina Henderson" was one of the first modern nurses of the 20th century (her name, of course, was Virginia).
Along the same lines, Anthony Pinching, interim dean of medicine and associate dean of the Cornwall Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry Knowledge Spa, was informed by a student that HIV was discovered by Galileo (rather than Robert Gallo). And Mary Williams, senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Portsmouth, enjoyed a feature by a journalism student on "complimentary" medicine. "I quite liked the idea of picking up a pill and it saying nice things to you to make you feel better," Williams said. She also appreciated a fashion article that described the subject's sense of style as very "sheikh."
Also on a medical theme, a student who was asked to define otitis media - a medical condition known as "glue ear" -- informed Liz Morrish, principal lecturer in linguistics at Nottingham Trent University, that it was "a text specially designed for people who are otistic."

To read more, click on British Exam Howlers.



Friday, August 6, 2010

Is It Monday Yet?

  "Enjoy the weekend!" says my aerobics instructor.
House of Doolittle 14 Month Academic Planner July 2010 to August 2011 8 x 11 Inches (HOD26302)  The farewell startled me. I had to think for a moment about what day of the week it was. Yes, it was Thursday, and the weekend was fast approaching. Now that I'm a LOL, the days of the week and weekend blur. No longer do I have the demarcation, as harshly drawn as the 38th Parallel, of work week and weekend. Hump Day means nothing more than yoga class. TGIF? Ho-hum.
   I do not hunger for the weekend and its restoration. Neither do I dread Mondays and the onslaught of work it used to bring. Sure I get more time with the family and Bossband on Saturday and Sunday. And that's always enjoyable. But it's also hectic in a way that the rest of the week is not.
   In the world of LsOL, there is a calmness to Monday through Friday that I rather enjoy and, dare I say, anticipate. It's the time to go to the gym, read the newspaper out on the deck, Kindle, write a little in peace and quiet, and shop, of course. It has its own rhythm and pace, especially during these mostly lazy summer days.
  So, yes, I will enjoy the weekend. But I'm looking forward to Monday.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Family Feud: U.S. Parents More Likely to Have Conflict with Adult Children than European Parents

Food for Thought: 
 Tolstoy wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and a new study in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family finds significant national differences in the degree of conflict between older parents and their adult children, according to a Newswise report.
“Given that family life has its basis in the tension between the desire for autonomy and the need for interdependence, it is not surprising that intergenerational relations—throughout the family life cycle—are among the most ambivalent of social relationships,” said Merril Silverstein, University of Southern California professor of gerontology and sociology, and lead author of the study.
Eldercare for DummiesPrior research has shown that quality of life for older persons, including both mental health and physical health, depends heavily on how well older parents get along with their adult children.
To identify the social policies that might influence these relationships, Silverstein and co-authors looked at six developed countries with a range of welfare regimes and various family cultures: England, Germany, Israel, Norway, Spain and the United States.
They found that affection and conflict exist simultaneously in all countries examined, but significant differences exist in how the emotions are likely to interact.
“The simultaneous presence of affection and conflict in intergenerational relationships reflects emotional complexities that are intuitively obvious to anyone who is part of a family,” Silverstein said. Among the findings:
* Parents in the United States and Israel were far more likely than parents in England and Germany to have negative feelings toward their adult children, according to the study.
* However, negative emotions in Israel accompanied strong positive emotions more often than elsewhere, indicating emotional intensity and ambivalence.
* While German parents were unlikely to have negative feelings towards their adult children, they lacked positive feelings as well, indicating overall detachment.
* In the United States, “disharmonious” relationships—defined as the presence of strong negative emotions without strong positive emotions—were more than twice as likely than anywhere else studied.
* Older parents with difficulty climbing stairs were more likely to have a disharmonious relationship with their adult children.
A plurality of respondents in every country surveyed had affectionate relationships relatively free of conflict with their adult children. In England, 75 percent of parents had “amicable” relationships with their children, compared to about half in the United States (51 percent) and Germany (49 percent).
“Parents in poorer functional health tended more to have detached and disharmonious relationships with their children, and those who received help from children tended more to have ambivalent relationships with them,” Silverstein explained. “Together, the finding suggest that frailty and dependence on children introduce elements of friction and strain into intergenerational relationships.”
The study used data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG), concentrated in Southern California, and a multinational study of intergenerational relationships funded by the European Commission, OASIS. The final sample, across the six nations, was 2,698.
Vern Bengtson, AARP Chair of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology, also contributed to the study.
Source: Newswise and Silverstein et al., “Older Parent-Child Relationships in Six Developed Nations: Comparisons at the Intersection of Affection and Conflict.” Journal of Marriage and Family: August 2010.