By Dave and his Whirlpool

My housemate began some writing of sorts for a local magazine the other day. The magazine, called Whingeing Pom, is produced here in Perth for English ex-pats.

Desh, being a chef (and being English) was asked to contribute a couple of traditional English recipse for the food section.
Anyway, he received a copy of it the other day. It was his first published work and the look on his face when he opened up the magazine and saw his name in print was akin to the look a child gets when they open that first Christmas present and it's exactly what they wanted.

It reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw my name in print. I remember the day disticntly - our uni class had an exhibition to the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and one of the lecturers had grabbed a bundle of our first edition of the uni paper to hand out when we left the building.

The story itself was unremarkable, but the swell of pride I got when I saw my name in front of me in a published newspaper was pretty cool.
Seeing Desh the other day made me wonder why we feel that way when we see our name in print. Sure, the novelty has worn off a little after seeing it in the paper every week for a period of years, but it's still pretty cool. Why? Lots of people do much better work around the world with less recognition than that. It's not like I'm changing the world in a drastic way.
I put it down to it having something to do with the idea that I'm leaving my mark in the world.
I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing but I know that seeing your name in a newspaper at the top of a good story feeds the ego pretty well...