Personal vs. professional

February 18th, 2008 at 09:04am Collin Quick

I didn’t sleep well at all this weekend. While I may have been 60 some miles from NIU and Cole Hall, I was up to my elbows in everything NIU related.

Since Thursday, we turned our newsroom into a 24/7 coverage post. We sent reporters, photographers and videographers out to DeKalb to cover every inch of the town and campus.

We even put them up in the Super 8 motel on Lincoln Highway, several hundred feet from the Travelodge where the shooter spent his last days alive.

I’ve talked to several friends since the shooting; all are well physically, but emotionally, they are drained. Phone calls are filled with long pauses, one-word answers and the occasional breakdown.

When we first heard about the shootings, I grabbed my cell phone and started calling anyone I knew who was still enrolled. I did this for two reasons: 1) to make sure the people I knew and cared about were OK, and 2) to see if anyone would talk to someone in the newsroom.

I figured when I left the newsroom, the NIU talk would cease. Though it’s kind of hard for that to happen when my roommate is a fellow NIU grad. Couple with the fact that my Saturday night game night started out with theories about the gunman, there was no escape from anything NIU this weekend.

This next week will be a trying time for students, families and friends. Sunday will bring a packed house the Convocation Center for a memorial before classes start up on Feb. 25.

For the rest of the spring semester, I don’t know if the word “normal” will be in the vocabulary of anyone at NIU.

Entry Filed under: Collin Quick