I worked today, from 10:30am ’til 3:30pm, and as much as I love my boss? I will be ever so glad when June comes along and I can look for a mindless, retail type job again. See, the video store was fantastic; it tested your people skills, but didn’t stretch the brain too far. Now that I’m back in classes AND working, I find that if I work in the morning, I’m exhausted by the time I get to class that evening.

It doesn’t help that my boss is unable to do things in a logical order, either. Or that he dictates half of a matter, switches to another file and then expects me to pick up where I left off. I mean, I can do that, and I do! It’s just exhausting, and more of a mental work-out than I need right before Journalism, of all things.

I will admit though, class tonight was really good. We were discussing how to turn a transcript into a profile piece, and the steps required to do that. We’re indexing transcripts at the moment, and learning how to pick out the good stuff from the bad. Also, we’re doing these things called Soundbites every week; two members of the class (pre-arranged) get up and interview each other about a chosen topic.

David is really good at making us see where things could have been tightened, or where a lead for a really excellent story was missed. Tonight Natalie was interviewing Rajit and vice-versa; both interviews were about music, and I thought they both did quite well, asking the right questions and answering generously.

That’s probably the scariest thing about interviewing someone: what if they won’t talk? It happens, according to David, and when it does you need to work that bit harder to get what you’re looking for. He seems to think that being really soft in the beginning and trying to gain their trust is a good idea, and that most people will respond if they’re given time to relax.

Oh, and some news was announced tonight. Natalie is dropping Journalism; she said that it just isn’t her thing, and she isn’t enjoying it. Fair enough, I suppose. If you’re not enjoying it, if you’re not ‘into’ the subject, then it’s better to drop it than to fail. She’s still doing Editing, so I’ll only see her on Fridays now.

I noticed some tension tonight, between two of the class members. We were talking about dealing with sensitive topics, and whether you were allowed to listen to people, even if the issue wasn’t something you could use. David seemed to think there was no harm in listening, so long as they were willing to share. Sara, one of the older women in class got quite uppity though, when Mel was all, “I’m nosy, though.”

Basically, Sara made a comment, something about ‘you can’t be a vampire’, and Mel said something along the lines of ‘I’m not saying I want to suck information out of people, but if they want to talk..’, and then Sara said something about ethical and moral issues, and how you have to be sensitive to people and treat them carefully’, and Mel was all ‘Yeah, I got that part thanks.’ Then I was like, ‘MEOW!’. Only in my head.

Sara is someone that I’m very careful to not cross paths with too often, because we have very different opinions about the refugee issue, and apparently about aboriginal affairs. So, I am quiet around her, because I’ve heard her speak about the refugees and she seems to be the type of woman to keep coming back to one point, that one thing that her argument is based upon, refusing to accept any other view.

I plan to keep on her good side; her exchange with Mel was a little too ‘high school’ for me.