Not QUITE the USA Today, but Close

Remember the part of Runaway Bride when Maggie (Julia Roberts) ran out onto the lawn in that oversized button down shirt and work boots? The newspaper boy had just tossed the USA Today on the lawn and she wanted to see if there was a response to her letter to the editor. She ripped open the paper and plopped down in the yard to read. Remember that?

Well I did my own version of that today. I am clearly not Julia Roberts, and I haven't run from even one husband, let alone three. But today when the Sojourn (campus newspaper) was delivered to the office, I ripped a copy straight out of the rubber-banded bundle and ran back to my office to scour it. About a week ago, someone from the Sojourn office had called up here to find out how to spell my name. I've been panicking ever since. Was it someone complaining about my overuse of exclamation points? Had I offended someone? (Why am I such a pessimist?)

It took two run-throughs of the paper, but I found it. Right there on the Opinion page. Nick Rambo, managing editor (and fiance of our office's former student worker...which is probably how I ended up in his editorial at all) said the following:

"This past Wednesday, my fiance and I made a date out of an exit meeting. We thought it would be a creative way to spend time together amidst the chaos of her final days of student teaching and my completion of the mandatory senior project. At some point in the course of the 20-minute routine, I fumbled through my pockets looking for a razor blade.

"For those of you unfamiliar, an exit meeting is where someone from IWU's Financial Aid department, in my case, the lovely Rebecca Freelan, tells you how much you owe the people who lent you money for college and how they'll hunt you down and sell your arms to science if you don't pay them back. My total hovered around the $20 thousand dollar mark. Stephanie, my fiance, owed a mere $17 thousand - as soon as we left I went out and bought a $1 lotto ticket hoping to hit it big. No luck.

"The exit meeting was depressing for two reasons. 1) It hammered home the idea that for the next 5-10 years, I will be a financial P.O.W. 2) It brought into focus the realization that my time here is all but over."

As were my 15 minutes of fame. The rest of his article was about the IWU World Changer Mentality.

But back to my correlation to Runaway Bride. While there were not as many"gross misrepresentations" and "factual errors," I would like to point out that I tried my hardest to keep those exit meetings as chipper as I possibly could. I don't like people fumbling for razor blades on my watch. And I am PRETTY sure I never said anyone would make them sell their arms to science - though I do remember saying lenders could collect on student loans even if the borrower was 150 years old and in a nursing home. And I tried not to make it depressing. In fact, the session he came to was one of the livelier ones.

My name...almost spelled right.

But the "lovely" I'll take. :) Thanks, Nick, for giving me a spot in the Sojourn. I'll give the article a place of honor in the scrapbook. I may never again be in an editorial. And truly - that may be the best way to keep things.