If you look at my track record with the Daily Bruin – three years, three different job titles, never paid staff – you might reasonably call me the paper’s least committed contributor. I prefer to think of myself as the Daily Bruin’s most committed groupie.

The truth is, unlike many of my friends at The Bruin, who dream of continuing their current line of work after graduation, I’m not looking toward a future in copy editing, though I do love grammar, or illustrating – though I do love to draw – or as part of an editorial board. (Though I really, really love spouting my opinions.)

That doesn’t mean I didn’t attack each of these jobs with the passion Bruin staffers and readers deserve; I just have kind of a short attention span. Feel free to fault my fidelity to any particular section, but not my commitment to the Bruin as a whole.

In fact, my affair with The Bruin and its staff began even before I got up the guts to apply. As a lowly first-year, Lauren Raab’s cooking column turned me into a regular Bruin reader, and the impression she made on me was so strong that I decided to apply for copy editing pretty much just because it was her section. Unfortunately, the hiring staff realized I lacked more substantial qualifications and rejected me. Unfazed, I took a job at Kerckhoff Coffeehouse so I could at least be close to The Bruin. Sometimes harried Bruin staffers would stop by for a late-night caffeinated pick-me-up and I would look at them longingly and think “they are so cool!”

As a member of the Daily Bruin, I wish I could say I’ve learned better, but the truth is, after three years I still think the people who work here are terminally cool. I’m thrilled to have hung out with all these people. It happens I also did some pretty cool work.

So, while a lot of seniors are writing that The Bruin has been their home away from home or the portal into their journalistic future, for me The Bruin is something much more lighthearted.

For me, the Daily Bruin office has been the green room at a rock concert; somehow, three years ago I snuck backstage, and until security manages to find me and throw me out, I’m here with the band.