Juliet Park: Learning to swim against the tides of perfection

When I was 4, I remember sliding on my swim fins and jumping into the shimmery pool, pretending that I was a mermaid. Admittedly, it was a small plastic kiddie pool, but ever since then, there has always been something so fascinating about the water and its warm touch.

When I was around that age, I also remember swimming in the bathtub with my snorkels still attached to my mouth and falling asleep. I awoke to my horrified parents – who thought that I had drowned – lifting me out of the tub and performing CPR on me.

Fifteen summers later, I happened upon a Daily Bruin application for copy editing, and I eagerly dived at the opportunity. In many ways, my beginning years at the Daily Bruin as a copy editor were much like my younger years as a swimmer.

I always was, and still am, fascinated by the way that all the writers’ and editors’ hard work is turned into a shiny, tangible student newspaper the next day. I can also recall the numerous times I’ve dozed off during the middle of a grueling shift on the comfortable green chaise by the A&E section after pulling several all-nighters.

As I joined a swim team in my later years, I loved the daily routine of swimming laps around the pool. Everything I did was systematized, from mentally keeping track of time to calculating the precise movements that it would take to execute a perfect flip turn.

Correspondingly, as I became a slot editor, I appreciated the same predictability and organization that my job provided me. I was able to determine how I should distribute my time to each duty of checking stories for factual errors, inaccurate headlines and misplaced ads in order to meet deadline – and partly so that I could sneak in an hour of swimming before bed.

But my shifts didn’t always go as perfectly planned – stories were sometimes unexpectedly cut or added, some games ran longer than scheduled or a breaking news post would throw me off track. While it was difficult getting used to the unpredictability of my schedule at first, it was precisely these types of days that made me realize that sticking to routines and going with the tides of perfection wasn’t always the best game plan.

The days I’ll treasure most are the ones I stayed with fellow editors making spontaneous runs to In-N-Out or 800 Degrees Pizza and bonding in the office until 3 or 4 a.m. as we waited for the printer to pick up our phone calls. The moments I’ll remember most are the ones we spent helping each other and working together way past the time that should be deemed healthy for college students to stay in a windowless room underneath a sea of dusty piled papers.

The mere three years I’ve spent at the Daily Bruin have given me so much more than the 18 years I’ve spent swimming: a true sense of camaraderie, and a true sense of belonging somewhere that’s not underwater. Working at the Daily Bruin has helped me break out of my protective bubble and taught me that sometimes you have to embrace uncertainty and unpredictability and swim in deeper and darker waters to find bigger and better treasures.

As the new wave of editors and writers comes on board to experience the ebb and flow of the Daily Bruin office, I have one thing left to say: Just enjoy the ride.

Park was a slot editor from 2014-2015, Copy staffer from 2013-2014 and a Copy editor from 2012-2013.