I never wanted to join the Managing Board. I never understood why anyone would give up so much of her life to get what seemed like so little in return. It meant sacrificing all parts of my life to the firm grip of The Cavalier Daily. So, here I am at the end of my term wondering the same thing now that I did when I started: What's the point?
I jumped at the opportunity to have my own office with a fancy $10 nameplate on the door to prove it. Besides, with my knowledge, I could take down the whole organization's basic functionality via its website and servers. Honestly, making the decision was easy.
I would love to say that it was that easy of a decision. In reality, all I could think of was the 40-hour work weeks and sleepless nights. During the job there were plenty of times I would have given vital organs to be anywhere other than a dank basement all day.
And yet I never even came close to walking away.
It's counterintuitive. Why would anyone risk sacrificing personal health, relationships, academic standing or a social life for a newspaper? Because being on that newspaper was the most rewarding experience I've had in my time at the University. It's hard to justify, but for me, it comes down to two moments.
The first happened early this school year. We were getting ready to put out our first major special issue, Gridiron. It was an issue entirely devoted to the upcoming football season. To me that meant it should have been an early night which would end after sending 20+ pages individually to our printer company.
It was a chaotic night. We finished late - three hours past our deadline, which killed my dreams for an early night. But in the midst of brooding I accidentally sent two of the same layouts as two different pages, so that pages 24 and 25 had the same thing on them. The worst part was, I didn't realize it until I left Newcomb, which was closed for the evening.
Naturally, I panicked. In the next few hours I managed to try to open every door while running through the rain. When that failed I called University Police and had them help me break into the building. I felt like an overdramatic lunatic, but rest assured I fixed the pages and the paper printed perfectly the next day.
The second incident was when the Managing Board was brought up on University Judiciary Committee charges by the Honor Committee chair after writing an editorial piece concerning plagiarism at the paper.
At first-year orientation they practically beat the honor code into your head. I never even thought that I would actually be in that situation during my four years here. To say we were surprised is a given. To say we were confused is an understatement.
I won't go over in detail what happened next. I would say that the situation was unfortunate and that all parties handled the matter with a level head and in the best interest of their organizations, and that ultimately the outcome came out exactly the way we wanted it to be. I would say that, but lying is an honor offense.
Ultimately, what I learned from that debacle was that if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. I'm grateful that I had my Managing Board to fall back on. It wasn't always easy deciding what the best course of action was, but we did it together.
In either situation it would have been easier to walk away, but I never did. It wasn't all fun and games. In fact, it was the hardest thing I have ever done, but I would do it again if I had the chance.
The Cavalier Daily gave me the opportunity to write columns, design layouts and make cute panda public service announcements. I'll carry the memories - of late night runs to IHOP, being woken up by the blaring sounds of The Lion King's opening number, the Kansas toilet seat, the mean notes on the graphics page, tableau Wednesday, beach week, punching people at final roll and every ride in the mystery wheelchair - with me forever.
Maybe I never wanted to join the Managing Board, but I did. And maybe I'll never really know if I gave enough back to an organization which gave me so much, but I'll keep trying. I thought I needed to do it to understand what the point was, but I think that I always knew.
The Cavalier Daily is home, and home is where the heart is.
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