Typhoon Jangmi and the Campus Reporter

Saturday, 1:30pm- It's raining and cloudy again. Another typhoon is on its way. I don't let that stop me, though, and after a bit of walking around the red-brick buildings of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), I find the room I'm looking for.
No, this isn't a remedial Chinese class.

Last week, at the NTNU International students' welcome party, I had the pleasure of meeting (and being interviewed by) Jocy, a campus reporter at the school's newspaper, the Campus Reporter. Since I'm interested in exploring journalism as a career, I decided to ask her if there were any opportunities for writing articles at the school.
Jocy, a young college student who speaks excellent English, gave me more than I bargained for.
"Actually we are hiring right now. You should apply!"

A week later, I'm entering a classroom full of Taiwanese college students. Jocy invites me to sit down at the back of the class. This is the 'boot camp' for new campus reporters for, you guessed it, the Campus Reporter. They are giving speeches on how to find stories, how to ask questions, how to write articles. Only problem is, it's all in Chinese.
Occasionally, some students look back and are surprised to find a waiguoren sitting among them. I try to follow the speaker, Ms. Lin, but it's usually way too hard for me and I have to resort to asking Jocy to explain.
Six hours later, after a few short breaks (including a 30-minute bento box break for dinner) and some light conversation, we have to do the first writing exercise: describe today's boot camp. I now know why they called it a boot camp and briefly consider using the word "boring" in my description. But good sense prevails, and I write something along the lines of what I used to write in my former job as a translator for a news company.

"On 27 September 2008, 32 potential campus reporters met for the orientation meeting for the school newspaper."

I continued, listing the things that, as far as I knew, we did that day.
I went to the back of the line, waiting to see what the teacher's response would be (she had gone to a US university, so I figured speaking to her wouldn't be a problem).

When I got there, she asked me to read the thing. After reading half of it she stopped me.
"Too long. And try to write a better lead sentence. Talk about the atmosphere."
Atmosphere? WTF was she talking about?
I went back to my desk and started again. Jocy looked at me.
"Well? What did she say?"
"She said I need to write about atmosphere."
"That's the same thing she said to me!"
I tried to think of something that I had missed the first time. What could I possible write about that I had missed the first time around?
Then it hit me. My style was too dry, too factual. I shouldn't write like for a business newspaper. I needed to get the reader interested.

"'How do you make a compromise between creativity and objective reporting?' was on of the many questions addressed at the orientation meeting for new student reporters of the Campus Reporter."

I came back with a checkmark (which had freaked me out for a second- was this like Japan, where a checkmark means it's bad?) and- relief- the word 'good' written on my paper.
Another hour of talking and you can imagine I was itching to get out of there. I felt like we were having so much training we were going to become world-class reporters right then.
So after 7 hours of someone talking Chinese at me, you can imagine how happy I was to go home.

On the way back, I bought a bunch of supplies to prepare for the typhoon. Important stuff, like water, instant noodles, coffee, chocolate, beer. I've been reading up on typhoons and it seems the last one was small compared to what this one will be like. I can see that, considering it hasn't even hit land yet and there have already been huge downpours and window-rattling wind. After looking at some forums about it, I feel more ready for a typhoon than I've ever been.

And, tomorrow we don't have school!