Year One in the archives

Today marks the one-year mark for me at the Regina Leader-Post. I know one or two of you (hi, mom!) have been checking sporadically in the past year for updates, but I assure you that you didn't miss any.

This year has been an incredible one for me. Working in Regina has been what I needed on so many levels. It's been trying, too. I've survived -45C winter days, Riders fans, trucks driving poorly, grass fire week, floods outside and floods in my apartment. I've made friends, met my boyfriend Jon, and lost a colleague who I wish I had much more time to know (Andrew Matte was the first person to Twitter-welcome me to the paper. He warned me that there may be snow on the ground when I arrived in August). I like to think I won over most of my colleagues by baking two dozen cupcakes about a week into the job, and it seems that most of them still like me since then.

All that aside, there are a few reasons I haven't updated this site for over a year now. Life is busy, finding time is hard, all that stuff. But also, because my role at this paper is so very fluid. I do "website stuff", and I take less photos now than I ever did in school or at my job in Nova Scotia. But that's ok. Instead I write and shoot video to the best of our small daily's abilities. The newspaper business is, as we know, sort of in a weird state. So things change, and we change, and sometimes the answer is to shoot something as best as we can. At the end of the day, I am so glad to have a video background, and so glad to have a job in news.

So here are a few, small highlights from the past 12 months.

Janet Dvernichuk, with a photograph of her son Josh, who passed away in a collision on Highway 39 near Estevan. Janet is a vocal advocate for twinning the road. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

A boy rides his bicycle atop a dirt mound in west Regina on August 25, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Salma Bibi (back), a student at Regina Public Schools Adult Campus and a recent immigrant from Afghanistan plays with her daughters Arezo and Hediya at the Kids First daycare centre in Regina on Oct. 17, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Fans cheer on the Saskatchewan Roughriders at the 101st Grey Cup in Regina on Nov. 24, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post) 

Rex Roberts of Regina's High Impact Wrestling poses for a photo Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Andrew Hamilton holds a handful of dead honey bees that left their colonies during winter on his 60-hive honey operation a few miles north of Regina on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014. At under 100 colonies, Hamilton will not qualify for bee mortality insurance under a new pilot program, but hopes it will help commercial beekeepers who struggle with winter losses. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Students practice their Japanese characters for a feature on language schools, often held evenings or weekends, exploding in numbers in Regina in 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Julian Wotherspoon, 27, gave birth to her first son Oliver Hein (right), now three years old, in a Regina hospital. Her second son Sullivan was born in July at home with the help of a midwife. Photo taken August 26, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Hamilton Tiger-Cats players Henry Burris, Luke Tasker, and Andy Fantuz celebrate a play at the 101st Grey Cup in Regina on Nov. 24, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Saskatchewan Roughriders Graig Newman and Tyron Brackenridge congratulate each other at the end on the 101st Grey Cup in Regina on Nov. 24, 2013. (Rachel Psutka/Leader-Post)

Next year by this time I expect I will be beaming my videos to you in hologram form. On to Year Two.