Listomaniac

One of my favorite blogs, Stereogum, uses the term "Listomania" to organize music they like that week--the term has also come to mean "annoying behavior at a music festival" (via Urbandictionary), but I like to think of the term as follows:

Listomania (n): The state of being consumed by lists.

The past few weeks, I have been what I would call a Listomaniac.  Aside from keeping all of my assignments, meetings, and dates organized by day in my paper notebook, I tend to break my days down into hourly regiments. For example, today looks like:

9:40 am - 1 pm: Class
2 pm - Meeting with Anna Gonzalez (canceled)
2-3 pm - Blood ch. 5, 6
3-4 pm - Gym
4:30 pm - FSU Coordinators Meeting
5 pm - Student Media Board meeting

And so on...

On busy days especially, it is helpful to break my day down like this just so I can see everything that I have to do; it is organized linearly so it is really easy to see what should come before and after. In stressful situations, it all comes down to planning for me. And to make this week before spring break go as smoothly as possible, I've been breaking things down quite a bit.

This past weekend, though, a new element was introduced into my obsession with keeping things organized. I downloaded a beautiful little app called "Wunderlist."

Given caption: "Wunderlist is here to help you get things done. Whether you're planning an overseas adventure, sharing a shopping list with a loved one or simply keeping track of your daily to-dos."

 Wunderlist is great because it takes all of my scraps of paper that have lists on them and puts them in the center of my universe--my smart phone. Normally, I am a huge proponent of everything paper, but it's nice to have something in my pocket reminding me what I need to do all of the time.

And the interface itself is pretty easy to use. You have a page that displays all of your lists, and then from there you can explore what you have to do based on how you categorize them. I've got lists for School, my "Private" life, The Pioneer Log, a Shopping list... etc.

They include some lists for you--I haven't had time to update "Movies to Watch."

Here's what my "Week" looks like (be assured there is much, much more):

Below, you'll see an example of a list within a list (a meta list?). My Mom is coming next week, so I've got to clean my house. As you can imagine, there's tons to do, so I've created a sublist with different tasks that I need to complete in order to "check off" "Clean the house!"

Sublist feature.

I don't take my Moleskine planner with my everywhere I go--but I do take my phone. And I've noticed with Wunderlist that it's harder for me to procrastinate. I wake up, check my phone, and see what I have to do. It is in my face and I can't ignore it! You can also set reminders and due dates, at which point your phone will "ding" and an icon will appear in the top left that let's you know you've got something due.

I'm still tooling around with the app, but I'm excited about the potential for me. I am currently working on a list of places I want to go in Seattle, which I'm going to send to my Mom before she gets here. I hope to make lists for specific classes instead of just a master, "School" list. Wunderlist also has an online feature, a browser extension, and an app you can download to your computer itself, all of which will sync to the app on your phone.

As someone who needs constant reminder of what I need to do, this app is perfect for me. While I do enjoy writing my assignments down and having written record of them, it is extremely helpful to have a reminder everywhere I go.

And I know what you're thinking--that this seems insane and that I should probably slow down and take time for myself but I do a lot. Keeping my activities organized is imperative for me to complete them in a quality and efficient way.  Which isn't strong suit...

Not quite the picture of efficiency.

While this app seems very inward, I think that it has the potential to foster community. The ability to share lists is awesome, and as I get deeper into the app, I may even try to convince people I work with to consider getting it so that we can share! I will slowly turn everyone I know into a Listmaniac--watch out y'all.

Student media swag

Being the Editor-in-Chief of The Pioneer Log has taught me a few things. First, that it takes a lot of tooth pulling to get people to actually read the newspaper. Second, that people love to look at the newspaper. And third, that Lewis & Clark is a great place filled with intellectual and talented people. As EIC, I have way too many responsibilities, and most of the time I end up writing the leftover articles that no one wants to write. I love writing, but it can get old to write about boring not-terribly-exciting stuff all the time.

Which is why I like to participate in all sorts of student media, specifically, Synergia. Synergia is Lewis & Clark's Literary Magazine for Gender and Sex Expression. I worked on the literary magazine in high school and I've always had a passion for judging people's art. And literary magazines are really fun because you don't have to write anything!

Tomorrow, Synergia will be released to the public. My co-editor and I have been working hard all year to collect content, lay out the book, and rush to get it ready by the Gender Studies Symposium. Tomorrow morning, our little publication will be in the hands of 200 lucky people--and that is a great feeling.

Cover art by Aaron Williard ('13)

For those who have never worked on putting together a magazine before, there's a lot of work involved. I'll give you the condensed version:

1. Beg for content. There's no magazine without content. It can be really hard to get your intelligent and talented peers to cough up their work for your publication. What people don't realize is that being published is a huge deal! This is some résumé material, ladies and gentlemen. We made posters, sent out blast emails through the Feminist Student Union listserv, Gender Studies listserv, Opporunities and Announcements, etc. And of course, begged our friends--who, lucky for us, are artist types.
2. Wield the red pen. Creative writing pieces don't normally need much editing, and neither do academic essays, but occasionally there is a misplaced period. Editing, for me, is tons of fun. It is a bit of a power trip. The worst part about editing anything though, is that sometimes you just have to reject people. My co-editor and I chose the most passive form of rejection, which is just to let the poor souls who didn't make the cut find out when the magazine comes out. Sorry!
3. Design, design, design. Laying out the book is the most laborious and time consuming process, but it is also really exciting. You get to pick where the pictures go, what pieces of writing match up best with what pieces of art, how big the titles should be, and what fonts to use. We used Adobe Creative Suite 6, utilizing Photoshop and InDesign. These programs are really cool and what's even better is that we have access to them FOR FREE (I highly recommend going to Powell's and buying Adobe CS for dummies. Teach yourself something)!
4. Send it away. Over the course of three weeks, the book is processed and edited by the printers. You receive drafts back (what's called the "proof") and accept them, and make stupid little changes that you didn't notice before, like moving titles up a quarter of an inch and other tedious awful nonsense.
5. Distribute! Finally, after weeks of compiling, composing, and orchestrating, the book is ready. I feel like a proud parent whose baby is finally going to prom... or something... I don't really know. Either way, our book looks badass and I can't wait to hand it out tomorrow.

I didn't mention everything. For example, you get to look through volumes and volumes of paper samples in search of the perfect card stock. We had to have a meeting with the printer about getting our title hammered with gold foil. There was a miscommunication about our printing date and it is really a miracle that this thing was produced in time. All in all, it is something that I'm proud of.

And even though it is work, it's a nice break from the fast-paced world of journalism. For the PioLog, I produce something every single week. I know that I should feel good about this. But I don't know, there is something so much more satisfying about sitting with something for a few months, making it absolutely perfect, and having it be a special occasion.

Pick up Synergia tomorrow at any of the information tables for the Symposium. If you can't find a copy, leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I'll hook you up. And really, it's never too early to submit your work for next year! Email synergia@lclark.edu for more information.

Happy reading!

Here's why I love college journalism

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the Associated Collegiate Press Midwinter National College Journalism Conference in San Francisco, California. It was a somewhat stressful experience in that my co-editor and I were responsible for wrangling ten rowdy newspaper editors through the airport, onto the airplane, etc., but it was great. The whole staff learned a lot and are eager to implement changes.

The focus of the conference was "Media+," a theme that emphasizes social media and multimedia reporting in edition to print or digital reporting. Since The Pioneer Log is a print-first publication, I felt we had a lot to learn. While we do have a website and utilize Facebook and Twitter, our focus is mainly on our publication.

I am very proud of the front page of our March 1st issue!

While I do want to improve our online presence, we are still ironing out the kinks in our re-designed paper. A good suggestion we got from the conference to easily enhance our social media presence is to live tweet events. I think that this will work really well for sporting events, and maybe even next week's Gender Studies Symposium! As for Facebook, our Opinion section has started what they call "The Rhetorical Rampage" in which two people argue against each other on some topic. Readers are then encouraged to vote on Facebook for who won the debate.

Overall, the conference was a great opportunity for us to bond and learn about our craft. Since Lewis & Clark doesn't have any journalism classes, we really need conferences like this!

And it was amazing to see so many people just like me working hard at their newspapers. Even though "print is dead" and "anyone can be a journalist," there are many of us who are dedicated to learning everything we can about the field. It was inspiring to be around so many writers and editors. I love college journalism because none of us are jaded yet.

I hope that you notice changes to our paper, and give us feedback! We are your student newspaper!