It’s freshman year, and I’m walking along University Avenue, worrying that I’m too sweaty to go into the Alligator’s open house. My resume is in a purple folder stuffed with clips from my high school newspaper. I don’t know what AP Style is.
Fast forward. It’s finals week 2011, and I’m standing outside Library West in the dark on the phone with Clare Lennon. She’s asking if I want to be a staff writer. The December air is cold, but I feel warm.
Suddenly, it’s the day after my second obituary was published, the one I cried while writing, and the widow is calling me. I pick up, and she tells me she loved the story so much she saved 30 copies.
Then it’s the middle of the night, and Christian Aguilar’s body has just been found. Without hesitation, I call Chris Alcantara and open Google Docs. The article is online 10 minutes later, even though I’m still in pajamas.
Soon after, it’s the day of the 40-degree Tiffany Sessions press conference, and my co-workers are pitching the insane idea of writing a 2,500-word feature story in three hours. I’m so exhausted and so excited I’m agreeing.
Time flies when you’re having fun, and I’ve had a blast at The Independent Florida Alligator. I’ve written 164 stories about other people, but here’s mine — in pieces, like you’re flipping through the pages of a newspaper trying to find what to read.
My Alligator story includes tough times, like when Unite Party trashed our papers and when I spelled “students” wrong on the front page.
But it also has great times, like when I stacked 18 tacos from Tijuana Flats in my Sable for the staff’s dinner.
Or the three times I set fires in the office — one on purpose, two accidental.
Or when Bernie Machen kicked me. (On purpose. It was playful. I think.)
At the Alligator, I’ve laughed and cried and yelled and worked 60-hour weeks and answered questions and napped on my office couch and called sources and drank Icees and rapped and gotten my hair fishtailed and wrote my heart out.
It’s unusual to be editor-in-chief for two semesters, but my time in the newsroom — with its weird bamboo walls, broken chairs and inappropriate Wall of Shame — has been the best part of my story so far. Not to mention the characters: dozens of extremely talented journalists I get to call friends.
So, it’s a few hours from now, and I’m passing the pages in the final issue. I’m nervous, as always, about how they’ll turn out, but deep down I know they’re fine. I’m turning out the lights in the newsroom, packing up and walking out of work at 1105 W. University Ave. one last time.
And here’s the kicker: I’m ready for my next chapter.
[Julia Glum is a graduating UF journalism senior and the editor-in-chief of the Alligator. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 4/23/2014 under the headline "Sweat, tears and tacos: The editor’s story"]
