Newspaper keeps me from dying of boredom

Okay, so I'm writing a newspaper article about the inauguration.

This journalist from our local newspaper came in to give us writing tips and look over our articles. My teacher made me show him my inauguration article.

Turns out he knows my uncle, and they don't like each other. Great, I thought. Because the process of having a professional read and correct your writing while you're sitting there isn't awkward enough without the guy having a prejudice against your family.

Well, he accused me of plagiarising my article.

He said, "This is really good news writing. Almost too good." He raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you sure you didn't copy this from other news articles?"

Which, since I'm afraid of accidentally plagiarizing (like reading something, have a phrase stick in my head, then use it a few days later thinking I came up with it.) or using common phrases that people could think I stole from other people, I definitely got nervous. He mentioned the plagiarism thing a few times while he read my article.

After that, he goes, "You look nervous." I was thinking, well yeah, you just told me you're enemies with my uncle and you think I plagiarized my article. Why wouldn't I be nervous?

I was telling it to my friend after I sat back at my computer and she said, "Maybe he thought you were nervous because he caught you." I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT.

He told my teacher! He said, "Hers was good, maybe too good." I went to my teacher first and asked her if he said anything bad about me and that he thinks I plagiarized it (since she knows I wouldn't). She told me what he said, and she said don't worry about it, I know if I did or not.

I googled some sentences to check and seriously reworded a few phrases just to be sure.

I can't find any upperclassmen who went to the inauguration. I asked around the room (yeah, you know what it took my to get brave enough to talk to the editors?) and the only person they know who went is Ex-Ms. Editor Almighty.

After I asked, one girl said "You want Obama's cell phone number? You can call him and ask." To which she burst into laughter at her own joke. I was like, what are you, high?

The features editor told me it's okay to interview her since she's the ex-editor-in-chief and isn't coming back. But, first of all, how cheap is that? To interview your editor in chief, even if she isn't on the staff anymore? I know a bunch of other people who went, but I have two Sophomore boys, one Freshman boy, and an Assistant Principal. The only reason I need Ms. Almighty is to satisfy the "gender, grade, race diversity" quota.

Second of all, I DON'T WANT TO INTERVIEW HER! I WILL CRY! Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but she's scary. And everyone was suggesting I ask the other editor-in-chief for her cell number and do a phone interview.

!

I'm, uh, not going to. I don't think my teacher would let me use her quotes anyway. Wishful thinking.

Oh, and my last interview today didn't come until five minutes before the end of class, so I spent almost an hour after school adding his quotes. He was helpful. I was afraid his Spanish teacher wouldn't let him out. I feel bad about asking teachers to let their students out of class just for interviews, but I don't know what these kids look like, so I can't go find them at lunch or something. All I have to go on are the names other people tell me.

Terminado,
Juliana