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I know it's been coming. I've been a marked man for four years since the humid summer day I stepped foot on a few acres of city streets in the heart of our nation's capital. I've had plenty of time to prepare for this, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
The fact remains that in a few weeks, I will no longer be with you all.
But don't worry. I don't want a memorial service or a statue in my honor. After all, I am going on to a better place - a place where I will actually receive money for doing what I do, instead of having to pay for it.
Plus, no memorial or recognition could compare to what The Hatchet has bestowed on me during my college career. The paper and its staff gave me the ultimate honor by letting me work out of an old brick townhouse at 2140 G St., for four years with some of the best people I've ever met. In the end, you couldn't give me anything better to mark my time here at GW.
Perhaps explosive nostalgia is kicking in right now, because it certainly wasn't fun all the time. I started at the bottom, in this case as a news reporter, with high hopes that were quickly crushed by a harsh and demanding editor. The work was tough and the words I actually wrote rarely survived the meat grinder we call editing.
But damn, was it interesting. I remember my first reporting assignment, where I interviewed some pretty insane protestors at a small demonstration in front of the White House. Nothing says 'welcome to journalism' more than the extended mangled stump of a grizzled-looking hippy waiting for you to shake his deformed hand.
I suppose I've loved it so much because journalism is all about people. GW is largely a school for this realm - politics, history, languages, media and all of GW's other strong points rely mostly on individual interacting with individual. And at this multifaceted buffet of human interaction, The Hatchet is probably the best place to sample it all.
Soon I was proudly calling my parents to tell them of the latest major event I covered or the newest big-name personality that I interviewed. And of course there will always be a soft spot in my heart for the first job I actually attained on my own merit - campus news editor at the best damn college paper in the country.
