Faced with the prospect of having only five classes for the first semester of my senior year and thus being unable to get into college and inevitably dying as a crackwhore in a gutter, I took the "TA Wanted" sign on Mr. Kandell’s door to be a sign from God. I’m not religious, mind you, but I’m a fair-weather Jew and will believe in a higher power whenever it suits my purposes. So it goes.

Anyway, since Mr. Kandell is both the journalism advisor for Voice and my biggest fan, I figured I’d give it a shot. It turned out that a friend of mine had already gotten a position as Mr. Kandell’s sixth period teaching assistant (TA), but the wise and merciful Kandyman granted me the honor of being his seventh period TA. Yes, life was good.

I started off mostly correcting English quizzes, and later focused on computing and cataloging grades — you know, the usual "rhymes with ‘snitch’" work. By the time second semester rolled around, I was hell on wheels with the calculator I used for simple addition.

Actually, that’s a lie. I was already hell on wheels with simple addition and subtraction. I was using the calculator because I was lazy. Come to think of it, I don’t remember exactly what I learned, but I was getting credit and hanging with Verde, and it’s hard to beat the superior feeling I get whenever I’m droning along with my TA work while they freak out over production (gotta love online publications).

In recent months, I have also begun doing primary editing Beginning Journalism articles for Mr. Kandell. And let me tell you what, some people just cannot write for "rhymes with ‘lit.’" As an editor-in-chief for The Paly Voice, I’m used to editing. (Ironically, as time passed and my considerable talents developed exponentially, now that I am finally an experienced and competent editor, I’m weeks from being booted from the job.) This week, I had the dubious pleasure of reading an entire class worth of columns — but not editing them, thankfully. No, Mr. Kandell had assigned me to pick the best column or few to post on the Voice.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, for the most part, the BegJourn kids had written some entertaining pieces. To be fair, the quality of work has improved immensely since the beginning of the semester-long class, when I couldn’t get through more than a few sentences of the average article without a long, self-pitying wince (much to Mr. Kandell’s amusement). Given the chance to write in a less restrictive style than most journalism, many of the students responded with genuinely interesting columns, although some of these, while well written, were more features than columns. But I’m willing to deal with that.

Interestingly, here at the Voice, columns are usually not held in very high regard. This is mainly because most opinion pieces get written at the end of the quarter by reporters scrambling to meet their word quota. Consequently, Mr. Kandell has lowered the ‘word value’ of blogs to 50%. Columns are still a last refuge of the words-impaired (which doesn’t imply that these people are lacking things to say; indeed, their constant in-class chattering attests to their ample sentence-producing power), but we’ve been lucky enough to get some highly insightful additions to the oft-ignored-by-Voiceers Op/Ed page.

Therefore, as the 2006-2007 Voice eds-in-chief slowly assume power in these last few weeks of school and my responsibilities dwindle, I have decided to join the masses for a last hurrah. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of anything to say, so you’ll have to bear with my as I boost my word count. Thanks for the support.

In the spirit of free-form writing, I’ve had a few fun ideas for columns, etc. over the past few months, but I’m lousy at finishing pieces once I’ve gotten past the initial paragraph of inspiration. Just between you and me, I was wondering about how I could finish this column, but I’ve decided to end abruptly with random topical musings.

Welcome to the bike cage

What’s big, red, unexpected and definitely not attractive? No, it’s not the juicy cyst resting upon the tip of your nose on prom night. I’m talking about the monstrosity of a bike cage recently installed behind the big gym.

Say hello to my little ‘space

Despite what my MySpace profile says, I am no minor — indeed, I am a major (although not in the militaristic sense, since I am also a dirty peacenik Democratic vegetarian). Yes, this virtual 14-year-old is actually a high school senior who is not particularly fond of the idea that Paly administrators scan students’ MySpace profiles for incriminating materials.

For the uninitiated, setting one’s age on MySpace to 14 makes your profile private; i.e., inaccessible to non-friends except for a brief, frustrating page with very basic information and the option to friend the shuttered soul. Thus, unless you are logged in and a MySpace friend of mine, all you would see on my page is the default picture of me looking like a sexy beast in my prom dress. And that’s always fun.

Blogilicious

I find it more rewarding to write for journalism than, say, English class, since people other than my teacher and his/her TA end up reading the content — even if it’s about Spirit Week events. I suppose this is the idea behind blogging, since you can share your deepest (or shallowest) thoughts in literary form with both friends and random ‘net lurkers. Then again, writing for a reputable publication like the Voice is much better than chronicling my adventures in psychology class, since few people read most blogs, and almost none of them particularly care.

In conclusion, this column is inconclusive, and I’m tired of finding synonyms for words like ‘piece’ and ‘column,’ not to mention ‘article.’ And while I have greatly enjoyed the chance to let you fine ladies and gents of the Acadamy into the surprisingly ordered workings of my inner journalistic mind, goodbyes are inevitable and so I take my leave of you. Peace, love, and chocolate.