Just Beat It

The final presentation for Messner's class was today; I feel like it went okay. I'm concerned my latent "Pahk yah cah in the gahden" accent may have flared up a few too many times, but I'm sure that won't be a huge deal. Our slideshow should be up on Richmond.com soon, so I'll make sure to post a link.
Oh, and since I very rarely get to tart up for journalistic purposes, here's what I wore.

As much as I've bitched about it, I think I'm gonna miss Messner's class; it's stressed me out plenty, but in doing that, I understand that it's been great for me as far as doing The Dance. And of course, the people were great too.
In other news, Scott called me in at Style today, and told me he wants me to have some kind of regular feature where I spout off about local issues (he says he's liking my editorial writing, he just wants to give it more of a Richmond focus). It'll essentially be something like a Richmond version of this:

This is a pretty big deal for me, and I'm excited, especially since I'll have more time to follow local news with school just about done. And if there's a local issue you think should get more coverage, drop me a line. See you beautiful people around.

The Dance

I've got a lot of older stuff to dump on here, but I wanted to have a post explaining a term I'll be using a lot, "the Dance". If you're reading this, you probably know I have Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, which, among other things, hinders my ability to communicate with people. Heather, one of the first times we spoke at length, you asked how I reconciled that with wanting to pursue a career in journalism, a field that necessarily involves getting out and talking to people. Well, it can be pretty hard, needless to say. I really don't want to sound whiny, but it's a hell of a thing, running into the fray while this disorder I have is trying to pull me away from people, and I have to balance that unstoppable force and immovable object. "The Dance" is what I call the attempt to do both. I think I'm getting a little better- for a recent assignment, I had to do man-on-the-street interviews at Virginia Union University and I feel like I did way better than I have on that kind of thing in the past- but it's not going to be something I'm ever perfect at. Just wanted to let everyone know what the term meant, since I'll be using it a lot and discussing its effects a lot.