Editorial blues

I'm about two-thirds of the way through editing a friend's application essay for one of those undergrad summer research programs. This is a very bright (and much more hardworking than me) kid who's been doing research since like her freshman year or something; she might even be going to Antarctica next winter (!); one of my sister's best friends. Two more essays to look at after this, for a feminist webzine that another friend and some other young Malaysian women are starting up, aimed at our demographic.

I got these essays in my inbox several days ago, but I'm only going over them now. Know why? I don't like editing *sigh*. I have much more sympathy now for the teachers we used to whine about in school when they didn't return our exam papers on time. It's not that I don't enjoy reading my friends' writing. Just that having to gramatically fine-tooth comb* a piece of writing, pick apart the organization, fuss about the style, and above all make negative comments on it is highly tedious and makes me feel like I'm being a mean person. No matter how many times a person says "Go ahead and kutuk my writing as much as you like, I need to know my faults," you know that it's still going to hurt them when you do, from the subjective experience of being on the receiving end. (NB: You guys know who you are; by no means am I saying I'm mad at you or "don't send me any more stuff". You people and your projects are close to my heart, so I want to help as much as possible.)

This is something that I haven't given much thought to before, but helping other people work with language, in addition to becoming a writer myself, is a vocation. In secondary school I'd frequently get requests of "Hwa, can you correct my composition?" and it got wearing, especially when I discovered that some of the girls asking for help were bitches who called me a weirdo behind my back (not that I'm not both a weirdo and a bitch, but I abhor backstabbing). Nevertheless, the ability to explain, clarify, and teach still provided a great deal of satisfaction, especially since by upper secondary I'd outgrown the childish idea that having the luck of having been born into a literate family made me intrinsincally superior. If you live in a little village and win the lottery, you can't not share it (see Waking Ned Devine, btw; it's a great movie).

Infectious disease research intern by day, amateur editor, writer, and artist by night...I'm turning into a real Renaissance man =P Or maybe just turning into a insane bundle of ambition going nowhere.

*this phrase is "fine-tooth comb", in the sense of one of those wooden combs for removing kutu, not "fine tooth-comb", for heaven's sake. what sort of siao eh lang would try to comb their teeth?