Marian explained

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Title: sharing.mp3

How I’m doing right now - that despite all trials I’m still standing tall… storm

31 Jan

I’ve had a tan line on my pointer finger since high school.

Senior year, Angela and I chose our class rings together. Junior year of college, cancer stole her away. That summer, I had to return to work right after her funeral.

I was dressed in black and miserable, so a coworker at the Los Angeles Times advised me to write about it.

“Why? When I cover fashion?” I retorted.

He repeated himself, saying I should treat the process like therapy. That night, streams of words poured out, like how I lost my chance to ask her to be my bridesmaid someday.

The next morning I emailed my essay to my editor, asking her to read it when she was free, thinking she probably would never get to it. But, before I knew it, she asked for photos, and wanted to print it. I’ve never gotten so many reader letters in my life. Even a month later, a man wrote to me, saying he was lining the bottom of a birdcage with the newspaper when he saw my story. He stopped and cried.

I’ve always wanted to help people, to touch their lives. But as a doctor, I could only heal them one at a time, like giving them a fish. But, as a journalist, I could potentially reach a lot of people at once, essentially teaching them how to fish.

I know that journalism as an industry has suffered. I’ve been a part of the ups and downs, yet there is no better feeling than knowing your story helped – whether it was legitimizing an Indie rock singer or educating the Asian American community that donating bone marrow saves lives and hurts as much as falling down on your rear end.

So, I’ve worked hard to evolve as journalism has, picking up audio, video, social media and even a business degree. I haven’t given up on my passion. I work from my heart, treat my coworkers like family and never give up.

And, I have a reminder on my finger on why I’m still here.

I’ve had a tan line on my pointer finger since high school.
Senior year, Angela and I chose our class rings together. Junior year of college, cancer stole her away. That summer, I had to return to work right after her funeral.
I was dressed in black and miserable, so a coworker at the Los Angeles Times advised me to write about it.
“Why? When I cover fashion?” I retorted.
He repeated himself, saying I should treat the process like therapy. That night, streams of words poured out, like how I lost my chance to ask her to be my bridesmaid someday.
The next morning I emailed my essay to my editor, asking her to read it when she was free, thinking she probably would never get to it. But, before I knew it, she asked for photos, and wanted to print it. I’ve never gotten so many reader letters in my life. Even a month later, a man wrote to me, saying he was lining the bottom of a birdcage with the newspaper when he saw my story. He stopped and cried.
I’ve always wanted to help people, to touch their lives. But as a doctor, I could only heal them one at a time, like giving them a fish. But, as a journalist, I could potentially reach a lot of people at once, essentially teaching them how to fish.
I know that journalism as an industry has suffered. I’ve been a part of the ups and downs, yet there is no better feeling than knowing your story helped – whether it was legitimizing an Indie rock singer or educating the Asian American community that donating bone marrow saves lives and hurts as much as falling down on your rear end.
So, I’ve worked hard to evolve as journalism has, picking up audio, video, social media and even a business degree. I haven’t given up on my passion. I work from my heart, treat my coworkers like family and never give up.

And, I have a reminder on my finger on why I’m still here.

His death hit me hard.

Like many, my iPhone is precious, so precious that if I lost it, I would be lost too.

I compiled this story on Storify of the enigmatic fellow.

Folks keep asking me if this announcement is a secret or public yet, so I’ll go on the record.

I am starting a new job Monday at Storify, a social media aggregator that makes the lives of reporters, bloggers, tweeters, geeks, etc. so much easier.

Here’s some examples of Storify - one can basically pull lines off of tweets, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Google and RSS feeds to create a separate story and embed it anywhere.

Amy Winehouse - Rest in peace
Knight Mozilla fellowship notes - a tech journalism learning lab
ASNE diversity summit - Day 1 of notes at the journalism summit applying diversity to news, tech and recruiting
ASNE diversity summit - Day 2 of notes

I’m super excited - will be working as community manager - so it’ll be half journalism and half business - basicallly applying my decade of experience at newspapers with my recent MBA.

So let me know if you have any questions!!!