Mondays.

That day when you're supposed to be transcribing interviews, and you leave your headphones at home.

Sigh. Hooray for Mondays.

Oh, well. I've been moderately productive today without them. It means I can't work on my biggest upcoming article, but it's not exactly time-sensitive (and I already have half a draft), so I think I'll be all right. I've edited two of my pieces and sent them for approval, and also sent a finished article to the head of the undergrad department for review. That should be published soon.

I've also got a few interviews up and coming. I'm getting much, much better at interviewing. I had two interviews Friday for my big IPT article: one with the VP of IPT (a very nice student, who had a lot to say), and one of their faculty advisors, who was a charmingly quiet older man with a British accent who had amusing stories and anecdotes about IPT's naive beginnings. I think this article will turn out very well.

Of course, I'm not transcribing the interviews now like I should be. That'll have to wait until tomorrow.

I have an interview with a student, sometime this week or next, who won the Knights of St. Patrick award. (Or....who has become a Knight of St. Patrick? I'll have to be sure to figure that one out...) I already met with him last semester to arrange for his award application for another distinction--which, by the way, he won! Bill emailed me, very excited that a MechSE student had won, and thanked me for my work on that. Most of my work on the award applications was done over my winter break--and while I was on vacation in Maine.

I feel like I could write an amateur's guide to interviews sometime in the near future. When I have the time, I'll put it together. I've learned quite a lot through failure, it seems, judging by how well my present interviews have gone compared to the ones I've held in the past. It's very much an art, and not nearly as simple as one might think. At least, not in the case of interviewing for journalism purposes.

I'm also writing this from a small table in the corner of the office. They hired someone new recently, and she took the front desk while Becky took my cubicle. I'm being told it's temporary. I don't really mind. I don't need much space. The new girl seems a little gloomy, though. Becky always said hi whenever I walked in the door. The new girl at the front desk doesn't even look up for me to say hello.

Becky has apologized to me several times for making me move to a small table. I laugh and tell her it's all right. I almost like it, except for the small lack of privacy.

I'll tell you how the interviews go later this week. And...there might be more complaining about transcriptions. In fact, there probably will be.