|
Stephanie Duarte
Arts Editor
I hate writing columns, and I love to be challenged. Thus, I requested this position as arts editor this semester, my final semester at ULV.
Why arts? I love the arts – every kind. From paintings to plays. I’m no expert by any means, but the arts to me present a kind of relationship and outlet that we can’t get anywhere else. The arts express our humanity.
The other part of this editing position is writing columns like these. I hate writing columns. Some editors can write them swiftly with grace and wit. For me, it’s like pulling teeth.
Why? Because I think for the majority of my life, I’ve never desired to have strong opinions on hardly anything. I’ve always been the middleman, the peace-maker, the friend for support, the girl without the drama.
It takes a effort for me to develop opinions of my own and drive my point to the ground like it’s the absolute truth. But isn’t that what these columns are about? Why else would you read them? You want to know what I think.
It’s my own insecurities. I like my writing to make sense. I take pride in my work and ideally, I like to edit, edit, edit until our layout assistant is taking the files to the printing press.
Hence, the thought of publishing my thoughts and ideas in a newspaper terrifies me. I’d much rather report on an event, share the thoughts of others – those people with stories that need to be told. It’s the reason why I love journalism. I have the power to communicate stories that the reader couldn’t possibly know about because the reader just can’t be everywhere at once. It’s a noble profession and I applaud those who actually want to make a living out of it.
Writing columns this semester will hopefully help me knock out my fear of committing to my opinons. I had a good start with working for LA Opera this summer. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about opera-goers, it’s that they have an opinion about everything (and they will tell you so)!
I don’t think I’m alone when I admit that for the majority of my life, I’ve pretty much accepted what I’ve been told.
In grammar and high school, the goal was good grades. How do you get good grades? Do what you’re told. Do your work and you won’t have any problems. Who said anything about learning?
Well I think one of my interviewees for my article this week said it best:
“This is the age when you’re dismantling everything you’ve learned and trying to put it back together in your own way.”
So as I dismantle my life and try to put it back together, I hope you will join me. Really, with everything going on in my life right now, this is the perfect time to embark on such an operation.
I’m graduating in May and then the career world will have to deal with me. My point here is that I’m no expert on anything – but who is?
Or, as Nicholas Murray Butler so succinctly put it, “An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.”
I promise to be no expert on any topic. My opinions will by my opinions. My hope is that they will be somewhat educated and that, at the least, every column I write will have a point – something that might make you think a little bit differently.
Stephanie Duarte, a senior communications major, is arts editor of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at duartes@ulv.edu.
|
