Packing my bags

I'm giving notice today before I leave work. I told them Monday it would be happening soon, but I thought we had a couple weeks before everything fell into place. Not so.

After Labor Day, I begin teaching at Bedrock High School.

I've spent the last couple of hours backing up as many of my stories as I could find. The number came to 105 (or so, depending on how you count). I found some really terrific stuff I had forgotten all about and some totally forgettable stuff as well.

I've looked at the last year as something as a creative quagmire since I haven't even finished reworking my book proposal as requested by the publisher, but now, looking at this body of work, I'm rethinking that. I really did a goodly amount of stuff. Even if it was all timely and now dead>.

The 105 is a very small percentage of the stories I actually worked on while at the News, but they represent the ones I felt I had a significant hand in creating.

I recommend a year stint as a reporter to anyone (althugh, really, I wasn't a reporter that whole time). I learned a lot of stuff I would have remained clueless about otherwise, stepped into some bizarre controversies, and won the respect of people whose respect really means something.

And now, if I've learned anything as a journalist, it must be this.