Leaving with my laptop

As I sit in front of my laptop right now, the screen is flickering. I had a terrible scare a few weeks ago when the screen went completely out, and I couldn’t get it to come back.

The worst of it was in the press box at Texas Stadium when it blacked out in the middle of a Cowboys game I was supposed to be covering. It was more than a little scary.

But it’s OK now. I figured out you just have to turn it upside down and shake it before you turn it on. Then it’s fine. And I’m totally serious. If you don’t do it, the thing won’t work.

My laptop is obviously getting a little older – it’s a sign of the times. I’ve had it for three and a half years, since I arrived at SMU in 2001.

My dad said it had to last me through college, all the way until graduation. And it has – just barely, but it has. My laptop is leaving with me in exactly 24 days on Dec. 11, the day I graduate from college.

When Dad said my computer had to last, graduation seemed so far away.

Now it’s so close I can already feel the excitement mixed with sadness settling in the pit of my stomach.

So many things are pressing on my heart from all sides – from the good to the bad to the down-right frightening.

Good are all of the memories I’ll take from this place. I know that sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. The people in the journalism department have become family to me.

We wake up early together and we stay late together. We gripe about the lack of jobs in the field and how most are low-paying, but would never change our minds because we believe we can make an impact, somewhere, to someone. And it’s worth it.

And the teachers here have done their jobs.

Professor Carolyn Barta has been the stability for me. She taught my first newswriting class, and it was then I realized journalism was what I had to do. There were no other options after I took the very first college class I loved.

Dr. Craig Flournoy added pressure and always a bit of sick humor to the mix. He pressed me to do things I didn’t think I could do, and I’ve gained confidence because of it. We turned out real stories in his classes. I want to be an editor, and according to him, all editors go to hell. All except a few really good ones. Because of Flournoy, I hope I can be one of those few.

And Dr. Camille Kraeplin — she brought the tough questions. She taught me to look at media with a more critical eye. To locate and eliminate bias, unfairness and ethical degradation as best I can. Because of Kraeplin, I hope my work will be more honorable.

These people and things along with so many others are what I’ll miss – the good things I’m taking away.

But as I think of the good things I’m leaving, I am, of course, sad. I am sad that I’ll never experience another 5 a.m. night at The Daily Campus the way we did when President George Bush held his last rally of the 2004 election at SMU. I’m sad I’ll never see another SMU football game through the eyes of a student. I’m sad I’ll never again start a fresh semester of classes in the halls of Umphrey Lee.

And while I’m happy and sad, I’m also scared. I literally have a spreadsheet of editors at local publications and how many times I’ve contacted them, whether I’ve sent them my portfolio and whether I’ve been granted an interview.

It’s all frighteningly uncertain.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know who I’ll be with. I don’t know what I’ll be writing. I don’t know anything.

I want so badly to be off of my parents’ dependents list, but then I’ll have to pay car insurance. Car insurance? I don’t even know how much car insurance is. Car insurance, taxes, health insurance, rent, car payments, savings accounts – there’s so much to handle that maybe I will stay home with Mom and Dad for the next oh, say two years.

Graduation does this to you. Take it from me.

But it’s only for a little while. When I stop to think, I realize change is what made me who I am today.

If I had never left my hometown and my high school friends to come to SMU, I never would have discovered my passion for journalism or the countless other people and things I’ve encountered here.

If I never leave SMU for the real world and a real-world job, I will never know how these three and a half years will help me make that difference I’ve been yearning for ever since I took Barta’s newswriting class.

So, with that, I’m taking my laptop and I’m leaving. I’ll walk across the stage of McFarlin Auditorium on Dec. 11 with happiness, sadness and fear pressing me from all sides.

But I’ll take the walk. And my laptop and I will be on to make that difference.

Happy Graduation.

Sarah Piland is a senior journalism major, graduating this December. She may reached at [email protected].