Barbara Ortutay Ortutay was News editor in
2000-2001. Â
It’s funny to feel at a loss for words when so much of
your life is centered around them. It’s a good kind of loss,
though. I’ve written thousands and thousands of them over
these past five years, and, for once, it feels good to just sit
back and try to make sense of them. I’ve started to write
many different versions of this column, but scrapped them for one
reason or another. Sometimes, it was too much, other times, not
enough. I came to realize there are too many things I’ve
gotten out of being a part of all this to package into a neat
little story. There have been many best and worst days, moments of
truth and surreal 6 a.m. walks home. Times when I’d warm up
the same muffin throughout the day but forget to eat it. Drunk
heart-to-hearts no one remembers the next day but somehow you still
feel closer to one another as a result. “Fuck you”s
yelled way too loud.There were also some petty disagreements,
painful fights and stupid mistakes. Days when I couldn’t wait
to pick up The Bruin, days I couldn’t bear to. And, yes, days
when I just didn’t give a damn. A windowless office in
Kerckhoff Hall has been my home for most of my time at UCLA. Inside
it, I found meaning and purpose. Outside, I found love. Now, as
much as I thought I’d feel empty after it’s all done, I
leave here feeling full. It didn’t happen right away ““
the first quarter I was here, I wrote one horrid story about a
boring discussion panel. My editor thought I’d never come
back, and I might not have, who knows. I was too intimidated to
even type out my articles in the office ““ I just bought them
in on a floppy disk and got out of there as fast as I could. But
somehow, by spring quarter, I got sucked in, as so many others do.
It may have happened on the day I found myself locked inside Royce
Hall with a notebook and hundreds of loud, sweaty student
protesters, riot gear-clad LAPD officers standing outside and
helicopters circling above. My knees were shaking that whole day,
right up to when my editors hovered over my shoulder as I wrote the
story at 1 a.m. I think they wrote more of it than I did, and the
next morning when I saw my byline on the front page I
couldn’t help but think of how much work they had put into
it. Not until three years later, when as News editor I watched
writers run around just as I had that day, covering another
protest, did I come to understand that it hadn’t been
“my” story to begin with. It was also as an editor that
I came to appreciate the less flashy stories, as well as those
that, for better or for worse, never make it into the paper. My
life at UCLA became complete as a result of being a part of Student
Media for the past five years. Looking back, I feel that I
experienced life here to its fullest, as much as it may have hurt
or felt futile and frustrating at times. Had I decided not to stick
it out, I’d be leaving here empty-handed, whether I’d
realize it or not. In the upcoming years, I’ll probably write
many more stories to come, but because there is nothing like your
first, being part of the Daily Bruin will always be closest to my
heart. Though there are things I could have done differently and
things I wish I had, I leave with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside
my stomach. I think it’s called happiness.