with just under two weeks left of my internship in london, i feel as if i've given my two weeks notice and have allowed my brain to drift into the realm of what comes next. and what comes next is so, so very appealing: a week of doing virtually nothing (besides becoming reacquianted with my boyfriend after a six-week separation, if you catch my drift -- wink, wink) at a sleepy town in northeast england, courtesy of my parents' timeshare; then comes some traveling through europe for three weeks with eurail passes and a "europe on a shoestring" guide; and then the final week with pablo's parents at their getaway in the south of portugal. ah. it's all very jet set. you can understand why my mind is wandering.

anyhow, bossman al returned from his vacay yesterday and finally edited my first BIG story. we sat down together and went through it line by line. it was an interesting experience, certainly beneficial and somewhat disheartening. plenty of it was rewritten. i know that this shouldn't surprise or upset me much -- it's a normal part of newsroom procedures, especially with new writers and old editors. i guess i just wanted to be on the mark, to nail it right away. all the biggies were ok: structure, transitions and soundbytes were largely left intact. it's in the nuances, the often overlooked subtleties of language that work their covert magic. anyone who takes care in his own writing knows where the hell i'm coming from. when all was said and done, it didn't resemble my writing, and i prefer that anything with my name attached sound like it came from me. we split some hairs and i tried to pick my battles carefully, and sometimes my view won out, though most of the time it didn't.

i guess what disturbs me most is how his rewrite slanted the story toward the american position. this sounds really stupid considering that i'm working for the VOA, the voice of fucking america, and i don't know what made me think that my left-of-center leanings would win out over his obligation to the US government, but it irked me all the same. it's not that bad, it's not nearly as pro-american as foxnews; it's more like cnn. and in fairness, he did leave in soundbytes that were extremely critical of the current administration. i shouldn't be complaining. i like my internship and my boss. and i know that someday i'll be able to do all the slanting i want when i'm the bigshot at some media organization (though this blog is probably the closest i'll ever get to enjoying that kind of freedom). besides, most of the people on my program aren't even doing any writing or reporting. hopefully, the editing of my next story will run more smoothly, but given the topic, i doubt it. and what would that topic be? if all works in my favor, it will deal with an issue very near and dear to my heart: homosexuality.

i'll put a link up to my first story in the next day or two. i just need to wait until my boss lays down the voice track (i still haven't received clearance for my own voice to be broadcast!), then i'll do the technical edit, and bang: the thing will be broadcast on shortwave radios all over the world to hungry, third-world dwellers who don't understand a lick of english.