God fuckin' dammit. I am having the damnedest time responding to comments. Is anyone else having this issue?

Anyways, I wanted to thank everyone who congratulated me on the tentative news. Of course, it figures that the second you share something with a group of people, that something changes. I'm still in the running to become editor-in-chief; however, I now have competition in the form of someone who I admire tremendously. The staff photographer decided she would like to go for the position as well, which sucks, because I would like to hate my competition, and she is so good (not to mention sweet and talented) that it is impossible for me to want her to do anything but the best she can.

So now there are two of us, and our interviews are on Monday. I'm trying not to be nervous, trying to reassure myself that I still have the edge. Check it:

-I'm a writer; she's a photographer.
-I've owned businesses and worked in the high-tech industry for the better part of a decade, so I've got business acumen and management skills.
-I've got mad interweb skillz out the ying-yang and know all about convergence - blogs, Web 2.0, podcasting, social bookmarking, etc.

Blargh. I really want this spot and I will cry if I don't get it.

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Anyways, as to my absence - it's because I've been so insanely fucking busy that I barely have time to do anything for myself. It's all good, though, because I'm doing stuff I love, and that really makes all of the difference. I get to report on some really great stories, like the following:

- The campus' recent production of The Vagina Monologues (we had to have an editorial meeting over the use of the words 'fucking' and 'cunt' in my story; ultimately they lost out to asterisks, which I am sort of sad about)
- A Neighborhood and Business Summit on Homelessness at my school, where I interviewed private citizens, homeless advocates and one homeless guy (I tried to chase down the Deputy Mayor, who organized the whole thing, but he was nowhere to be found immediately after the meeting)
- A showing of the documentary "Flock of Dodos", about the evolution/intelligent design debate
- Whether or not the school will have a student union in the next few years
- The shortage of school nurses in our county and the impact that has on school administrations (I interviewed one administrative staff who told me they had all be trained to give valium enemas to students - ick)

I also did a feature about the battles between grandparents who are raising their grandchildren and, well, EVERYONE, and am currently prepping for a feature about the Oceanography Camp for Girls offered by the College of Marine Science.

I'm also currently working on a story about the availability of the HPV vaccine for low-income girls in Pinellas County, and I just pitched a story idea about Crafting Out Loud, a Tampa Bay "urban craft fair". In two weeks I will be accompanying the grandmas I reported on earlier on a road trip to Tallahassee, where they spend a day lobbying the state government for more rights and benefits.

Plus, I'm hoping that I can serve as a member of the media advisory board for the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless. If anything, that will give me a springboard into what I hope will ultimately become my honors thesis - a long-form piece of narrative journalism about homelessness in St. Petersburg.

See? I'm busy busy busy, but it's all such neat stuff that it's hard to complain.

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Speaking of trouble in Pinellas County, has anyone else been following the case of Steve/Susan Stanton, the Largo City Manager who was fired when he announced that he was in the process of transitioning to a woman. (I hope I have my pronouns right, although I don't know in this instance.) Anyways, I watched the city commission meeting on Bay News 9, when they made the decision to fire him. It was so horrible and so upsetting and I have thought about little else in the past few days.