pulling the pwug

So, I've just had the best and worst days of my "writing" life, ever. Back to back.

Tuesday:

There was a great unpublished piece somebody wrote for The Fed's Spec Parody that completely aped her style. "I love my floor...blah blah blah...JJ's...blah blah blah...blah blah...Facebook." It was wonderful.

Her "Imbibing New York" column had me in stitches at its pretentiousness. The first paragraph alone was brilliantly awful. She starts off with "We’re three months from finishing this initiation into the college realm," which belongs in the Overwriting Hall of Fame, and then ends by declaring herself in the minority and then immediately asking if she really is in the minority. I love it.

But she still sucks.

or

Hell, optimism and enthusiasm are great qualities to have, but she's writing newspaper columns, not teaching grade schoolers. And the simple fact of the matter is that (as so many seem to agree) her writing is irritating and pompous.

(You can be somebody's friend while still thinking they're a shitty writer, you know)

A bunch of great people wrote to me to tell me how they admired how well I'd taken all the crap, but I don't think I took it really well? Especially the "grade schoolers" part. Let's just say...I actually had nightmares. Hmm. Oh well. Walking to class on Wednesday, I felt like the girl who everyone knows the awful gossip about as she walks through the crowd. I wore extra eye-liner just in case too many people stared and knew how I (and my writing?) had been massacred on a dumb message board the day before.



Wednesday:

Scholarship Contest Winner, Finalists for 2006 Announced

The 2006 winner of the ninth annual College Columnist Scholarship Contest of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists was announced Wednesday, April 26.

In first place was Fernanda Diaz, a first-year-student at Columbia, said Russell Frank, chair of the NSNC Education Committee.

Second place went to Mike Devlin of New York University.

The total number of entries came to 120, which was up from 40 last year, said Frank, who is a communications professor at Pennsylvania State University.

The NSNCEF annually awards a $1,000 scholarship to an outstanding general-interest columnist for a college newspaper. The recipient also will be the guest of the NSNC at its 2006 convention in Boston on June 29 to July 2.

The scholarship was awarded based on applicants' clips. The contest was open to undergraduates (including seniors) who write by-lined general interest or editorial page and op-ed page columns.

!!!!!!!!!