Blogs » To venus and back » It’s like squeezing a square peg into a circle

Subscribe


 
It’s like squeezing a square peg into a circle
By adriana_acosta in To venus and back
February 9, 2011

On Tuesday night I caught myself speeding down 35 to get to Palacios. During the basketball halftime, Coach Michael Treybig was going to be presented with a UIL Sponsor Excellence Award and I as a reporter, had to be there. I had made it my mission to be there for that event and earlier that day, I had been rushing to get all my stories and interviews set for this issue.

The roads were narrow and the sun had set, making it a bit difficult to drive on a one way lane. I had also just finished interviewing the group that will have the Dance 4 the Cure in a few weeks. (See story in the front page of this issue.)

So you can imagine my feeling as I rushed down the road to get to my next assignment.

As I kept speeding and thinking about what I needed to do next, I came upon a driver that was going 10 miles slower than the speed limit and not letting me pass at all.

“Hurry up,” I thought to myself. Now I am no angry driver or have ever endangered anyone while driving. Yes, I have received a few speeding tickets, and warnings, but I have learned from them – promise!

So there I was, driving at 50 miles per hour with 20 minutes before the presentation was going to happen. As I felt the adrenaline, or maybe just the stress of the thought of not making it there on time, I slowed and though, “Why am I in such a hurry?”

Every week as I work on the newspaper, planning and writing the stories and making sure I have the latest and greatest information I find that I am always in a rush.

And more so these two coming weeks, I am currently planning, writing and working on three issues of the Matagorda Advocate and squeezing them in two weeks. No, I am not feeling daring, a workaholic yes, but not that daring. Remember that three year fellowship I got a few months ago? I am off to Florida for the Multimedia Executives Conference taking place in the beautiful Renaissance Vinoy at the end of the month.

I keep asking myself how in the world will I be able to accomplish this large task at hand – but hey, I’ve been in worse situations. How about being the only reporter/photographer/layout designer and editor of a weekly newspaper? Oh wait, never mind.

And so I realized that what I am experiencing right now, is what many other people experience everyday. We are crunching for time. We are tying to squeeze a square peg into a circle. There are times when I am at the office, looking at the layout and trying to decide what I will be doing the coming week and what I will be writing. There are other times when I wake up in the middle of the night, just having a nightmare about me picking up the newspaper on Thursday morning to see that the center piece photo is missing, or a headline is not there or I didn’t finish on time. Yes, the nightmares although sometimes funny, glad that they have not happened in real life. I pray to the newspaper gods that they send me good karma.

So what am I talking about?

Sometimes we just have to stop and tell ourselves that things are going to be OK. Although sometimes stressful, the end result will be a good one.