We have a weekly rotation of about eight newsroom staff members writing “The View From Here.” It’s a column that runs in our Relate section every Wednesday with a photo of the columnist. The topic is whatever your heart desires, as long as you write 12-15 inches about it.

This week was my week. Since I am horrid at thinking of topics (and what I do think about I write here) and because I quite literally remembered about an hour before it was due last week, I decided to write about not going home for Christmas.

I wrote it quickly and barely gave it a second thought. In fact, because I took a sick day Monday, I actually forgot it was slated to run today. So when I was at a board meeting and one of the principals told me he loved my story, I was confused. “The one on Monday’s schools page?” I inquired, since it was about his school. “No, the one about Christmas away from home.”

Oh. That one.

At least a dozen people — at least! — at the board meeting alone came up to me and commented on it. From principals to board members to parents and city council members I’ve never even met before. Even my landlord commented on it when I saw him this evening. It was kind of funny.

I wrote the column, you know, about what it’s like to be away from home for my first Christmas, about all the traditions I’ll miss but how some of my friends here are in the same boat, and we’ll help each other through. I guess I never really thought about how universal it is to go through that. I was worried they’d all think I was being cliché. But apparently, a lot of people found it interesting.

Anyway, it was kind of cool (and annoying when I was trying to grab people after the meeting to get their input on the proposals and they wanted to talk about me!) to be recognized and to know so many people read my story. Even though I know they read my other stories, and several people did comment on other stories I’ve written recently, I think this was probably the one that the most people went out of their ways to comment on. Even the publisher said he almost felt sorry for me having to work Christmas. But I guess it’s something most people at some point get to experience.

My past Views have also gotten a lot of feedback. And I’ve heard numerous people in the community say they love the stories where reporters talk about their life because it makes us more human, more than just a name. I know some of the reporters don’t participate in the columns because “putting your opinion out there in any form can only compromise your coverage.” Pshaw, I say. I don’t write about things that have to do with my beat. Problem solved. Then again, my opinion is practically an open book. Or blog as the case may be.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s today’s “View From Here”:

Not everyone will be heading home this Christmas

By MERANDA WATLING
mwatling@journalandcourier.com

On Christmas morning, I will wake up and do something I’ve never done before on that day: I’ll go to work.

I won’t spend Christmas Eve with my family at one of my siblings homes, dining on my mom’s turkey and fighting over who gets to break the turkey wishbone while It’s a Wonderful Life is ignored in the background.

Come Christmas day, I won’t wake up entirely too early to tell my nephews to go back to bed or that they can open just one present before breakfast.

That afternoon, I won’t be there while my siblings and cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandma and grandpa pass gossip and gifts around my grandparent’s living room. I won’t taste a single one of my grandma’s oh-so-thin and perfectly iced sugar cookies this year, nor will I drink a Shirley Temple with my grandpa, the way he prepared them since I was a little girl.

But though I’ll miss the family traditions, I actually volunteered to work Christmas day. Newspapers don’t take holidays, so I knew I couldn’t swing both Christmas andThanksgiving off my first year on the job in this industry.

So I went home for Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. Our annual gathering at the family farm is a holiday tradition I cherish above all.

On Thanksgiving, every extended family member up through my great uncles who can make it home from out of town comes — rain, shine, blizzard, whatever.

This year wasn’t quite the same because I was driving straight to the farm — six hours to Akron, Ohio, from Lafayette after working the night before. But I made it home. The commute, coupled the fact that I hadn’t been home since summer made it even more special to see everyone.

I knew as I grew up, I wouldn’t make it home for every birthday and holiday or get to keep every tradition I hold dear in my memories.

I also know someday I will have my own family, and I’ll want to share these traditions with them. But more than that, I’ll make new ones.

Though there are a lot of things I won’t be doing this year, I’m trying to focus on those that I will. A gift exchange and Christmas cookies are in my future — just not with my family this year.

I’m not the only person I know spending Christmas away from home. So we’ve decided to band together.

We might not have a genuine dining table among us, and we may be novices at cooking real meals. But we’ll work it out and whip up a respectable Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. And even if the food sucks, celebrating with friends in the same boat will make up for it.

Watling is the education reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached at mwatling@journalandcourier.com.

I’m about to head into the hardest part of my job as an education reporter so far: winter break.

Now, at first, I thought summer break would be horrid. I was sure I’d never find stories, and I’d be constantly at a loss for things to cover when the schools were out. But it turns out, schools around here are hardly out, and some of the most important work of the year actually occurs over the summer. I did more enterprise over the summer than I could have hoped. It kind of rocked.

Somehow, I don’t think the two weeks stretch of winter break I’m heading into is going to have the same effect.

Today, we got e-mails from our local editor and the projects editor asking for some enterprise ideas. My ed is looking for ideas to see us through the end of the year, including that two week stretch. (We have a daily A1 enterprise list, so that every day at least one more in-depth local story is reported and planned to run out front.) The projects editor wanted ideas for long-term Sunday packages next year. I have a few ideas for projects. For my editor though? I have several ideas, but all of them sort of require people to be around to accomplish. :/ So I can see him through the next two weeks. After that, until at least New Years, I’m really thinking, well, I’m pretty well screwed.

The other reporters also were saying they have nothing coming up for their enterprise list, that “so and so is on vacation,” or “I have no meetings” (which sounds like heaven to me, but I digress). But really, nobody else’s beat entirely shuts down for two weeks.

I asked for some pointers on where I should be looking for these ideas/what I should aim for. One thing to look into is maintenance, what are they doing over break? I know at my school, we always came back to a brightly polished gym floor. I’m also going to talk to some of the technology people, because I remember over spring break they discarded/replaced a ton of “obsolete” computers.

Other than that, I remember graduation rates came out the week I was hired but before I started here. I believe it was either the very end of December or very beginning of January. So that’s a given, and I’m trying to pre-report as much of that as I can swing. And ISTEP results (our standardized tests) are due out in the coming weeks, so possibly something there. But both of those still require people who are hard enough to track down when they aren’t gallivanting (and rightfully so) around on vacation. So there’s that.

I do have a few other non-education stories I’ve been saving. Normally, I’d just forward them on to the features reporter or my editor to assign out. But I figure since I don’t have a ton of education stuff to keep me busy, I can maybe do a few things off my beat for fun.

I also need to check and make sure I don’t have a schools page those weeks. Somehow, I don’t think they’ve thought that through. But I did. And it’ll never happen.

But really, what does an education reporter do over winter break?! Any tips or suggestions?

“Change. We don’t like it, we fear it, but we can’t stop it from coming. We either adapt to change or we get left behind. And it hurts to grow; anybody who tells you it doesn’t is lying. But heres the truth: The more things change, the more they stay the same. And sometimes, oh, sometimes, change is good. Sometimes, change is everything.”
— from Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy

(Yes, I did just quote a TV character. But come on, it’s a great show, and this is sound advice. Besides, I’ve quoted a muppet before.)

I am the type of person to work through anything.

My sophomore year of college, it got to the point where I couldn’t even hear customers orders at the bowling alley before I went in to the doctor — and then, only after I was out of class and done with the Stater for the semester. By that point, I had two ear infections, an upper respiratory infection and a fever of 102.

When I was at an assignment this spring and got a call saying my grandma was in the hospital and doctors were saying she’d be lucky to live through the next day, I came back to the office and wrote the lead story for the next day’s paper before calling my editor to tell him I wasn’t sure if I’d be back for work the next day because I was driving up that night to see my grandma.

Last Thursday, when I felt like I was going to pass out, as if the blood had rushed from my body and the world spun when I opened my eyes or I felt like I was spinning when I shut them, even with a fever that made me lethargic the whole afternoon, I plodded through to file the A1 centerpiece for the next day. And knowing I had to finish all my Schools Page copy and local centerpiece for Monday, I went into work feeling like crap Friday.

Rather than go see my friend’s final performance with his band Friday night, I passed out around 9 p.m. and slept until almost 9 a.m. The sleep made me feel better for most of the day. I did get downtown for a bit and out to see a play, though not up to seeing another co-worker’s band that night. I thought perhaps I’d just been sick from stress or something on Thursday and Friday, which has happened to me before.

But then since I woke up this morning and felt maybe 55-60 percent, I’m reconsidering. I’ve been achy all day and I definitely have a fever right now. I could just sleep through next weekend and still be tired. So, I’m wondering if I haven’t picked up some type of virus that is making me just exhausted. I’m paranoid about getting sick, but with all the hands I shake and kids I’m around it’s kind of inevitable.

I am going to try to get to bed early (very soon) and sleep it off because I have to go to work tomorrow. But if I feel like I do now tomorrow, I’m in for one really long, unhappy day. Which sucks. Because what if it’s not just stress or lack of sleep catching up? What if it is a virus, and I could get someone else sick? Or what if it is just everything catching up, and I just continue falling behind — does this serve anyone?

I was talking to one of my friends tonight about it, and she suggested I take a sick day to recover. She said it’d be in everyone’s best interest. But I don’t even know how to do that because I never have. And I suspect my editor would be pretty upset for me to not be in there to finish my story supposed to run Tuesday on A1. And I don’t have all the interviews done so I could even write it here. Ugh. So I have to go to work.

My friend made the point that I should worry less about upsetting my editor for a day and more about my health. Her line, “The company doesn’t really care about me,” sounds like something Barb would say, and I know it’s true. But I feel bad letting anyone down. Plus, we’re down a reporter until we fill the county slot anyway. Plus, I’m not like vomiting or at the hospital. I don’t even think I’ll go to the doctor unless I continue to feel this crappy all week, and even then not likely. (I haven’t actually gotten a doctor in Lafayette. I haven’t needed to yet, and don’t know how to go about doing it since prior to my move, I’ve had the same family doctor since I was born. I figure I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.)

I don’t know. Part of me thinks she is right. I need to recoup and get back to 100 percent, or at least close. Otherwise I’ll be at 60 percent for a long time, and the total return will be less overall than if I missed one day. But on the other hand, we’re down a reporter and I do have a story for A1 Tuesday, and calling in sick would be a poor welcome back from vacation present to my boss. :/

Shrug. I don’t know when sick is sick enough, because I always just work to the point of no return. And this is exactly the time of year every year where I hit that point. It’s almost uncanny how predictable it is that I will be overwhelmed and sick the two or so weeks around Thanksgiving. But I usually push myself to see the semester through and then fall in a heap of exhaustion after the final exam and recoup for a few weeks. No such luck this year. There is no final/end in sight. I just have to chug along. Which is the only reason I’m even considering a sick day at all, because either now when I’m at 60 or then, when I hit maybe 25 percent and after many many more subpar days, will I have to take the time to recoup. It’s probably unavoidable. Ugh. Being a grown up sucks.