I'm compelled to write tonight, and if I should follow prior models of late-night blogging then I'm destined to write of only two things: the uncertainty of my future or the lack of male sustenance.

I'm not a kid anymore and I can't go home again, but the life I've weaved down here at school is starting to find form out of the twisted and erratic mass I've been muddling through these four years of college. I love my internship. Last year my internship, if you could call it such, consisted of me shoving letter after letter into envelope after envelope and using a glue stick to seal the stack of rectangular hell I would have to mail on my way home. I was so frustrated, so convinced that my life would be nothing more than a fluorescent-lit office and living for the weekends. Now I feel a bit differently. I'm interning at a news station and although I still feel a tad out of place and very much the rookie, I'm enjoying it so much. The first thing my supervisor told me was that I needed to be assertive. Ok, I thought. Just ask questions. However this was easier said than done. In the fast-paced environment of the newsroom, there's no one standing over my shoulder making sure that I have work to do and that I'm learning; I have to seek out all my own experiences. I feel annoying all the time but it's the only way to learn, and my persistent question-asking is finally getting me somewhere as evidenced in my ability to edit video. I came not knowing a thing about editing and about jump cuts and nat sound and scripts and a month into it I'm in the edit bay by myself editing away. My supervisor said he was impressed with me yesterday and that meant the world to me. This is a man who has won two Emmys for his journalistic endeavors, and he's telling me that he's impressed. When he said it I was glowing, embarrassed and speechless all at the same time. I didn't think anyone had noticed my efforts and I had started to think that my life was going nowhere. All it takes is hard work, I guess.

He said he liked my writing style. I neglected to tell him that years of pinging away at the keyboard in frustration on JournalScape was largely responsible for my linguistic savvy, and how most of these entries are about hating my job, hating my mother and hating society in general, but hey, it just goes to show that a lot of bitching can go a long way.

I feel as though I'm in a good place right now but I'm hesitant to say that because every time I think I've got it all figured out I stumble upon the proverbial wrench in my plans. My academic career is looking good but my personal life is reminiscent of satellite television during a lighting storm--I just never know what will happen. The boyfriend is now sorta kinda my ex--we don't really hang out, he doesn't sleep over and our communication has been reduced to occasional texts and e-mails. We've all but formally broken up, and I think we each see the writing on the wall; eventually our lines of communication will close for good and we'll merely be a part of each other's history. I'm not ready to come to terms with this inevitability just yet. Sometimes I think about him and I just start crying like a 30-something woman in need of raw cookie dough and a romantic comedy. Relationships are hard, and cleaning up after them is even harder. It hasn't been a strong pang of pain but rather a dull ache I feel every now and then. I know the likelihood of getting back together shrinks each day we don't talk or see each other, and I'll have to accept what I've known all along--that it was fun, it was good, we each got something out of it but now it's over and time to move on. These things happen...people break up, people get over it. Complicating matters is the fact that I've started to hang out with a new guy who is quite the opposite from the old boyfriend. I'm not ready to date again, but he is really helping to dig me out of my reluctance to move on. I haven't told the sort of boyfriend that I'm seeing someone else and I know I need to, but once I do, there's no turning back. When I tell him that there's someone else, I'll be the one who will effectively sever communication; we can't be friends if I'm with another person. But I don't know if this new person is worth disturbing the peace for.

Well that's it I guess. The same beautiful turbulence as always.