This is what I want to do.

Holy shit. I can't sum it up better than that. Really. Reporting breaking news is the best rush I've ever had.

I just got back from a total of about seven, maybe even eight, hours or reporting this huge protest on campus. There were news choppers and associated press reporters and cameras everywhere, and me and my fellow campus reporters darting around trying to get everything that was happening. It was nerve-wracking and scary and exhausting and the absolute most exciting thing I've probably ever been directly involved with. I learned so much today. I feel like I'm already a seasoned reporter, even though I know I have way more stuff to learn.

Even though protests here are by no means unusual - in fact they're pretty much a daily, or at least weekly, thing to some extent - this one was bigger than most. I was literally coming out of class in one of the main buildings on campus when it started. Seven students protesting budget cuts tied themselves together on the fourth story ledge of this building, and refused to come down until their demands were met. I saw my editor talking to an older reporter, went over and asked what I could do, and that was it. They were depending on me for updates and quotes from the scene for the rest of the day.

Demonstrators on the ground bellow held a rally the entire time, chanting about the fee hikes at the university and comparing us to Egypt and Wisconsin(a little melodramatic maybe but hey, they're passionate about this stuff). Riot police showed up to close the doors of the building, and a bunch of people got pepper sprayed and hit with batons. I got to talk to a bunch of those people, including one of the protesters who was chained up on the ledge after they came down later when the administration agreed to meet most of their demands.

It was just incredible. Calling my editors up every few minutes with updates, talking to such passionate people, getting advice and directions from older reporters, seeing my name on the byline for the coverage, and just being there in general. If there was ever a time when I doubted whether or not I wanted to go into journalism, today pretty much put an end to that. I'm sure there'll be times in the future when I'm covering something difficult or super boring when I start to get discouraged, but hopefully thinking back to today will help me get past it and remember what it's like to be a reporter on the front lines of breaking news that truly matters.

"Those who do... DO IT BECAUSE IT WAS TAUGHT TO THEM."

Now that I'm trying to keep up with current events more, I'm remembering how angry most of this stuff tends to get me. Like the argument that seems to be going around amongst pundits lately that teachers are greedy and overpaid considering the little work they do, thus we should be cutting their benefits and pensions rather than those of the appallingly rich, say, hedge fund managers or corporate CEOs.

Now I'm not saying I haven't had lazy teachers, or bad teachers, or teachers who just seemed to be coasting through to the end of the day for the sake of a paycheck. But that doesn't mean those outliers can detract from the ones who matter. Like the 4th grade teacher who encouraged my creative writing. Or the 8th grade teacher who enthralled me and generations of other students with his demonstrations in science class. Or the 9th grade teacher who sparked my passion for Shakespeare. Or the 7th grade teacher who made helped me learn how to express my opinions and ideas confidently, whatever they were. Or the 2nd grade teacher who would still send me notes throughout high school, congratulating me on an article I'd recently had in the local newspaper.

I'm sincerely sorry for those people who think teachers aren't worth the considerably meager in comparison pay they receive, because they must not have had the kind of teachers I did. And that's really sad.

Here's a video one of those teachers recently posted on facebook, and for so many teachers out there, it's the absolute truth.

You could argue that I'm biased. My mother was a teacher for a time and still works with young children and reading. I also have two older siblings who are teachers, so I hear about what they go through. But I also just graduated from a public high school in the past year, so I know the bullshit teachers have to wade through just to do their damn jobs from first-hand experience. I'm often annoyed when I hear older generations talking about how disrespectful my generation is, because they're lumping me and my friends into that group, but the truth is that for a significant portion, they're right. It's a tough fucking job to deal with some of us day-in and day-out. But it's one of the most important things you can possibly do. And that day doesn't "end at 2:30pm" for most of them, as I heard one pundit saying. They have tests and papers to grade, lessons to prepare in order to get their students to meet government standards, and of course the baggage of administrative stress going on in schools all over the country. And then there's the teachers who bring home their student's problems to, struggling to figure out how they can help them in the classroom when the real issues facing a particular student may really be at home. 

This may all end up sounding a little over-dramatic, but these kinds of attacks on teachers just makes me realize how unbelievably backward our country is when we consider cutting their benefits and pensions... 

...but GOD FORBID we raise taxes on the rich.