Gleneden Beach

February 28, 2010 - 12:13 PM

It is Sunday, and I am sitting in an armchair facing the Pacific Ocean, which is breaking in huge waves over a reddish-gray beach under a bluish gray sky. It is not raining, so this is perfect weather for Oregonians seeking a weekend hideaway.

I am staying at the Worldmark at Gleneden beach, where I have never stayed, but where my boyfriend Collin and his mother have been coming since he was small.

My dad and his girlfriend were invited for this getaway with Collin and Anne, and we have spent the last three days together, playing Yahtzee, going to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, shopping, cooking, swimming, hot tubbing, watching movies, and relaxing.

This last week I have spent anywhere between 2 to 8 hours a day on Flux magazine, which I am honored to have been selected as the Editor in Chief of this spring. But to prepare for this upcoming term, the Faculty Advisor Michael Werner and I have been conducting interviews, holding meetings, making plans, and exhausting ourselves over this magazine that we expect will be a fantastic issue!

I love working on this magazine. I love being Editor in Chief. This opportunity has shown me how much I have really learned about journalism both as an art as well as a business over the course of my undergraduate studies. It also, if I can say so humbly, has given me an opportunity to do something that I am really good at.

This week, I haven't wanted to fall asleep at night because I could be working on Flux, but I go to sleep because I know that I can't wait to get up in the morning and continue to work on it, and I should be as well-rested as I can for the job.

Now, I have a bit of a cold, a perpetual headache, and tense nerves. It surprised me to find when I arrived in Gleneden that I genuinely needed a bit of a break.

It was so wonderful to spend time with people whom I love dearly-just to talk and hear what they have to say, let them make me laugh, and fall in line as someone's kid instead of being the mother of my apartment, the go-to best friend and the Editor in Chief of a magazine. I got to relinquish some of the responsibilities that I have become accustomed to, and actually quite fond of, but this trip allowed me to relax a little bit, which is obviously what it was intended to do.