Category Archives: Tartan

Meme: The Tartan

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The year is a third over, which means life has been updated both with new photo stats and with new main life updates. Yay.

Continuing Jess’ meme topics for me, we have The Tartan, CMU’s student newspaper.

The Tartan is one of those things I wish I had done in undergrad, because it’s just *fun*. I had previously tried joining their photo staff during an activities fair my freshman year, but no one ever emailed me or anything, so I joined The Thistle (yearbook) instead.

After I moved back to Pittsburgh, it came time to put together the Orientation issue of The Tartan. Not having much to do on weekends, I tagged along with Greg to help lay out the pages. We pulled some crazy hours (finishing and sending pages to the printer as the sun was rising), but got it done, and I was kind of hooked.

After that, with permission from the editor-in-chief and publisher, I joined the staff mostly to do layout. At some point, I got copy certified and started doing copy editing as well. And at some point I submitted some photos (because they needed last-minute ones and I happened to have some on me), so I kind of joined photo staff as well. I wrote one opinion piece last Carnival on the new hardhat requirement, so I guess the only thing I haven’t done for the paper is ads-related things. And apparently, they like me, because they gave me the title of senior staff.

I think the best part of The Tartan is the people. It’s not a social organization, because everyone is there to get things done and everyone has a job to do, but sometimes it feels like it’s as much about being around awesome people as actually producing a paper. And you pick up a lot of good skills too. (And, if you’re still in school, it’s excellent stuff to put on your resume.)

Not really sure what else to say about it.

Life

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life has gotten updates (both in stats and life proper). Yay life.

Lots of other awesomeness (and not so awesomeness) have been happening. Photos are on photos. It’s late and I’m tired, so maybe I’ll write about more things later.

I’ll leave you with another gif.

Whee

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Life has gotten much better since my last update. Work has calmed down, and I’m generally feeling more on top of my bugs and tasks. This is nice.

This past week was Tartan for the first time in a month (San Francisco trip, sick weekend, then two weekends without production), and it was nice… like going home again or something. It’s also been an interesting week for the Tartan. The Fence was vandalized this week, so we put together an article about the attack and a followup article about the campus reaction. As such, I’ve been taking photos of the unhappiness. It’s interesting to see the campus come together in a way that it never really does (and to see the haters hatin’, as they are wont to do).


People Wars has been going well. After some playtesting with Tim, Gabe, Krieger, and Kellie, some revamping, and some more playtesting with Kellie, Glisson, tbroman, and tvaughan, I feel fairly comfortable with where the game is at at this point, so I’ll probably release at some point in the near future.

Tonight I felt like splurging on food (as I often do), but I took the unusual step of actually doing so. It was actually a very nice experience that I would like to repeat… a bottle of wine (I’ve never had wine poured for me at a restaurant before!), an awesome slab of salmon, dessert, and very nice company (and conversation). It’s probably the first time I haven’t felt guilty about spending $50 on a meal, and I feel like it’s something I should allow myself more often. Good food is awesome.

In related news, I have gone vegetarian (lacto-ovo, or whatever it is, since I like cheese and eggs too much to give those up) and am seeing how long I can stick to it. I’ve never really been a fan of meat (I generally find it greasy), and ever since I’ve moved here, I’ve been making efforts to avoid it where possible. Seemed like a reasonable next step.