Talking has never come easy for me, so as sports editor this year, the most difficult part from going from city news has been having to talk with a lot more writers.

ÿÿÿ I’ve always considered myself anti-social.ÿ I’ve never had very many friends, and it has never bothered me. But something started changing three semesters ago.ÿ There was no defining moment, where a man in a shiny black leather jacket asks me to choose a pill, red or blue.

The changes were subtle. I began questioning the time I would spend in the library reading magazines. I actually began seeking conversation in the classroom instead of sitting around waiting for class to start.

I now enjoy sitting around listening to a good conversation, even though sometimes I don’t have anything to say. I’ve changed.ÿ The newspaper has changed me.ÿ

ÿÿÿ Being sports editor has been a surreal experience.ÿ For at least two days during production I know that my blood pressure is going to skyrocket, but I enjoy designing pages and editing stories, as well as knowing that I’m the only person to blame if the sports pages don’t look the way they should.

It hasn’t been easy.ÿ Knowing that you need to tell a writer that you plan to cut their article in half because the baseball team just won against Harbor is nerve racking.

Having to explain to writers why you made changes to their stories they might have thought was perfect isn’t fun.ÿ Forced into a conundrum of explaining to beat writers how your mistake has left their articles worse than how they started is agonizing.ÿ

Talking isn’t easy for me; having to tell others bad news makes it harder, but I believe things happen for a reason.

ÿÿÿ As a writer on the newspaper, one knows when conversations are going to happen. As a reporter, you set up times for interviews and make enough time to write an adequate number of questions.

As an editor, the people come out of nowhere. Beat writers hide amid a sea of people and seem to jump out at the least convenient times, with problems that threaten the status of an entire page. Telephone calls at 9 p.m. bring forth predicaments that leave my head spinning. However, give me the option of being an editor opposed to a writer, and I’ll take on the responsibilities any day.ÿ

I look at this as a challenge and in an odd turn of events, I actually like having a reason to talk to people.ÿ

The hurdle, the gigantic 100-foot hurdle, which seemed to stand so ominously in my path in becoming a journalist in Journalism 11 two semesters ago seems to have shrunk.ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ

ÿÿÿ I don’t expect those reading this to necessarily understand.ÿ I would think that each individual probably has certain issues that pry at their minds, but wouldn’t necessarily expect others to understand.ÿ Issues so unique to ourselves, so as to be out of the realm of understanding of those around us.

Considering myself to be once anti-social, as a third grader watching classmates playing soccer from the outskirts of the field to the senior in high school who would spend snack time hanging out in the library reading the sports section, I’ve changed.ÿ

I don’t think of myself as a loner anymore, nor am I very far removed from where I started, but I know had someone told me three years ago that one day I would be sports editor of a college newspaper, majoring in journalism, I would have laughed.

These last three semesters have brought forth a lot of changes in me. I wonder what the next three years will bring.