This is a fictional account of one woman's journey.
Chinnie Wao was a fourth year at a public university. She joined clubs and went to frat parties on Polo Road her first year, but she felt empty inside. There was a hole that she just needed something to fill, to incite in her a passion never before felt. One day, Chinnie Wao picked up an issue of the university's daily publication, The Pavalier Waily.
The Pavalier Waily wanted Life columnists! Chinnie Wao felt a flutter of longing and desire, previously unmatched but for those few nights spent on Make-Out Mount. The pages of the newspaper called to her. This was her chance.
Chinnie Wao raced home to Beige, one of the dorms on the university's campus, quickly wrote her samples and sent them in. She spent the next week checking her e-mail and breathlessly waiting for a response. Finally, it came. Congrats! You are a Life columnist.
At first, the Pavalier Waily seemed like the greatest paper in the world to write for. It was a daily publication that the whole school read. Chinnie Wao even got her own e-mail address and Web page! Every fairy tale has its evil and demonic villain, however, who has a harmless beginning.
The first obstacle in Chinnie Wao's path was a column that some of the Pavalier Waily staff had issue with. Chinnie Wao used the word "drug" in a statement that associated "drugs" with fashion. Forced to edit her column, Chinnie Wao was at first understanding. Clearly her use of the "drug" was going to bring down the quality of a publication that had misspellings in headlines. Also, the word "drug" suggested a link with a type of people the Pavalier Waily did not want to associate with, hence their underrepresented presence on the staff. Chinnie Wao understood.
On the same day her column was published, however, there appeared an editorial cartoon of some questionable content. In the cartoon, a religious icon was depicted snorting crack off of a hooker.
Chinnie Wao, frustrated, decided she would change the format of her columns. She would write to entertain and to mock the ridiculousness of others. Most of the time, her column would mimic a dialogue, perhaps an exchange of e-mails or letters or even a list of bulleted points. Sometimes, people misunderstood her columns and thought they were serious.
"My only goal in life is to have babies and breast feed them until they've sucked the life out of me. Then, I've successfully fulfilled my reason for living."
Feminists would send vicious criticism. "How dare you oppress women! You're writing is an affront to women everywhere!" This was fine, because Chinnie Wao's columns were never as much an affront to society as were the spelling and grammar in her hate mail.
Her mockery of Dick Button(s) elicited a touching (re: hilarious) and enlightening (re: Dick Buttons is actually Dick Button) e-mail from the NBC producer in charge of the network's Olympic Figure Skating coverage. Google "Dick Buttons."
Recently, Chinnie Wao's new editor, Turb, voiced his disapproval of columns that did not follow a specific paragraph format. Columns needed to have a thesis and they should not have line breaks. Also, columns should not be a "soapbox" from which columnists "explore their own vanity at the expense of being trite, arcane and generally irrelevant." Turb also suggested "a drastic reduction in the amount of first-person references in the columns."
Chinnie Wao, as one Life columnist to another, I can only say, "Shame on you." Listen to your editors! After all, they are bound to be the most qualified to run a paper and they clearly have the paper's best interest at heart. They, like the Chinese government, also have the right to pull writing they don't like. Chinnie Wao, maybe you should just start writing in paragraphs and using a thesis. Best of luck to you and your time at the Pavalier Waily!
Winnie's column runs bi-weekly on Mondays. She can be reached at winnie@cavalierdaily.com.
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