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Vacations

I'll be off the blog for the next few days as a I take a trip with my boyfriend and his family to Washington. Gee, every vacation I remember how difficult it is to take off time as a reporter. Trying to do the same amount of work in half the normal time allotted sure is difficult. At least I can usually find a story to cover and write about when I'm off on vacation - that seems to help a bit. I'll be doing that this time - when I get back I'll post a link to the story.
Anyone else have tips for vacationing reporters?
Published Wednesday, August 29, 2007 9:20 PM by SonyaSmith
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Comments

# re: Vacations

Thursday, August 30, 2007 4:45 PM by GenePark
That's funny you mention this Sonya, because I just recently came back from a rather long vacation (three weeks) and I started to feel rather lethargic myself. It's a bit of a system shock really, to go from uber stress to none at all.

To help pass the time, I actually ended up working on a story while I was on Guam too. The story didn't pan out much, but just the fact that I was sitting in a room, poring over documents, made me feel for a little bit that I was again an active member of society. :)

Honestly, I recommend turning off for a vacation completely anyway. We all have rough schedules and work. I was starting to get burned out before I left, because it had been almost two years since I last took a break. And even though I felt lazy and useless while I was on vacation, I suddenly got the urge again to go back to work.

And that was really the point of the vacation: To recharge and get ready to throw myself back into the fray. My vacation, however boring it may have been, was a success merely because I said to myself, "I think I'm ready to go back to work."

# re: Vacations

Friday, August 31, 2007 8:11 PM by ElysseJames
I agree with Gene. Vacation time is time to completely take off work and not think about the stress of writing, reading or otherwise interacting with news.
I make it a point on my vacations to not read the paper or watch TV news unless I have to. Of course, the day before I go back to work I have to read up on everything so I know what's going on, but it's worth ignoring the world and focusing on myself for a few days.
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