everyone was a type a personality there, or at least you would think it to walk into the office, dominated by blowhards and hardasses the way it was. and i most assuredly was not. am not. i and the other normals spent most of our time cowering behind partitions, i think. and eventually i left for other student media departments that were more laid back. but looking at the ol' paper's alumni site, all the fear and suffocation comes rushing back, and i cringe clicking on the links to people's names, names of the asshole i hated and names of other semi-assholes i also hated, all of them for their arrogance. you would think they were the first on the scene with a reporter's notepad at god's creation of the world. well anyways, their lives aren't so great. some of them are lawyers, some working in politician's offices, one is a mid-level manager, and another is going to school to become an event planner, which is sort of odd. and i find that i don't really care. even the ones that are discernibly doing better than me don't bother me, because, i think, i'm finally happy with my laid-back, non-confrontational self. i'm happy with where i am in my career, and i'm happy now that i have a plan (developed recently) for where i'm going. academia. grad school. it's what i plan to do. i'll get a ph.d., and see what happens next. and so long as i have enough money for a car and the occasional trip to europe, i think it'll be enough. and mr. asshole? i found out tonight that he lives not far from my apartment in west l.a., on a block too shabby for me to ever have rented on.