Editors and Siblings

I was asked by the engineering co-op office to write an article for their Hire Geer newsletter that details something interesting about Supermileage. They suggested that I summerize what I'd like to convey in once concise sentance and choose a subset of the audience who would read it. So, I decided to do a personal account and snippet of my time with the Supermileage Team with emphasis on exploring what I gained from the experience, in hopes that other students would join our team. Since it was a personal account, I decided to have some fun with it. In the end, I actually rather enjoyed the narrative exercise. In contrast to standard engineering texts and even newsprint, I used many compound sentences. Why? Because that's what I enjoy writing. I was also a little loose with the grammar.

I got an edited version back tonight. The editor mentioned that it had to be heavily modified to maintain the flow necessary for a newsletter. She wasn't kidding. I could not even recognize my voice in it. Were it published, I would be embarrased to have people read it, thinking I wrote it to describe my experience. I don't mean to offend her capabilities as she was simply doing her job, but it was akin to something produced by a gradeschooler. Heh... and when they asked for the article, they stated that they know engineers aren't the best for being able to write fluently and that they would tidy up any spelling and grammar mistakes we made. Sheesh.

In happier news, my sister came back from China today. She had a great time and it's good to know/feel that she's grown from the entire experience. That said, I'm absolutely green with envy of her and a good handful of friends who have been able to travel this summer. Hmm... I was going to describe some of her escapades but I don't feel right blogging vicariously through her. She did make this composite video of her and the people she met and it's actually really entertaining... but maybe that's more cause her and I have a similar sense of humour and we know each other (may not be exclusively one or the other cause my parents definitely didn't laugh). Anyway, the most shocking thing that happened was - and I hope my parents don't ever read my blog since my sis doesn't want them to know and get freaked - her drink got spiked with a date rape drug. Despite her cautiousness and warnings of this place that had a tad of a reputation for the roofie-coladas, she passed out part way through the night. It's really good she was out with friends O.o