The Matrix’s mechanical “Mr. Anderson” drawl with which people used to greet me has regrettably worn thin, and now I’m simply known as Eric Anderson, English major instead of Chosen One, scribe on good days and scribbler on bad. I keep on the move – lived out of a backpack while voluntouring in Guatemala, working and surfing in L.A., then icing the summer with a golf trip in Florida. While I prefer to be in the air or far away, I stay grounded with snappy lit that flirts with Hemingway’s iceberg theory without being as understated and, well, boring. (For stellar crime novels and tornado-paced thrillers, check out marcussakey.com and michaelcrichton.com. I love meeting my heroes, so I’m actually working to bring Mr. Sakey to campus this year.) I keep up with reputable news sources both to do my "bloody bit" in a quest for global citizenship that will, fingers crossed, end in a Rhodes Scholarship, and also to see how my journalism measures up to that of the pros. I admire the Mr./Mrs. style of nytimes.com. Although pompous and unabashedly favorable towards the Big Apple (I hate the Yankees), the Times affords its writers refreshing stylistic freedom that was stripped from me at the Daily Illini. That job was even more mechanical than “Mr. Anderson,” but for some masochistic reason I still miss it.
My frequented websites reflect my motto: Read a lot, write a lot, travel a lot, run a lot (but don’t get lost in the maze of cornfields for 21 miles while training for the Chicago Marathon without a drop of water or, more terrifying, a phone, as I did earlier). And check email only once a day, a consistent goal I fail to adhere to and have since desensitized myself to the guilt attached to info-addiction.
