Published!

My mechanobiology feature finally got published. Six beautiful pages of my writing, in full color, and with gorgeous pictures of the professors. I've promised copies of the magazine to several family and friends. Some of them asked for autographs (heehee).

It really does look nice. I've gotten complimented on it by a lot of people in the department, some of whom I don't even know. A professor walked into the office the other day to compliment Bill on it, saying, "I really loved your biology articles, those were really something." And Bill just pointed to me and said, "Talk to the girl over there, she did all the work." Then the professor shook my hand graciously, introduced himself, and said he was incredibly impressed with the project, and that it was a fascinating read. I was so flabbergasted I could barely thank him.

Bill and I met with the head of the department to discuss my upcoming feature next semester, but before we even started talking about it he had to talk at length of how wonderful my articles were, how they really showed the depth and breadth of this department, and how we should possibly make a small brochure or pamphlet highlighting these articles on their own. (After I left the meeting, Bill said he apparently had asked, "Do you think she knew I was impressed? I really hope she did." Bill said, "I think she got the message.")

I'm really very proud. It took a lot of hard work, and I feel like I'm growing into my own space as a writer. It was a project that was entirely mine to shape and form as I pleased, and it turned out well. They've given me a similar project for next semester on professors who work with commercial or alternative energy. I'll start it when I come back to school, but I may do some preliminary research over break.

My one slip-up was revealed a few days ago when one of the professors emailed me. Apparently I hadn't incorporated the edits he sent me into the final article, which means it went to publishing without his input, and he wanted to know if I could incorporate them for the online version. With so many professor edits coming back at the same time, his must have slipped through the cracks. Embarrassed, I sent back my sincerest apologies, promising to fix the website version.

I'm just lucky none of the edits were dramatic. It was mostly fixing a few quotes, clarifying a few statements about his research, yadda yadda. Nothing was explicitly wrong, which was all that mattered. I assume we would have had to have posted an official correction if that were the case, and I don't even know how that works. I'm very lucky.

But now I have this collection of articles, this project, that I can use as part of a portfolio that I would present when applying for a job or somesuch. This is good to have for the future, a gallery of my work, an example of my skill. Bill recommended keeping some of my more involved works to use as examples of my writing, and to note when and where they were published. I think I might start doing that.

After all, doing this for a career still sounds as tempting as it always did.