two months into tabloid writing

This whole week has been a quiet one spent working on one assignment that is due next tuesday. Perhaps I am just a very slow worker. Yet on the whole I have been unbelievably lucky. I manage to track down all three targets and have nice and long conversations with them, even if they have just undergone 12 hours of gruelling work. They answered amicably to all the questions I ask, even really personal and somewhat embarrassing ones. Thanks to them, I will not have to tell my boss that I have failed the mission. Besides, in comparison with my friend at zb, I have received a great amount of coaching from very nice people. My friend is left on her own after following expert reporters for a week. After two months, I still collaborate with the experts on stories and can ask them if anything crops up.
On the other hand, I cannot believe I spent nearly 3 hours on Coyote, typing something like 30cm worth. It partly has to do with my bad handwriting in my notebook and partly how the story refuses to stick together as a coherent whole. Perhaps I am becoming very nit-picky with this particular piece since I have so much time to get it done.
I think I am addicted to my job. Even though I really will not like to be on the other end of the line, being harrassed by someone you never knew existed. At times, it feels like I am initiated into other people's lives. At other times, I am an intruder, rudely prying into secrets and precious information.
My apologies to good friends who have constantly received work-related smses and calls from me. Admittedly, I do ask extremely odd questions sometimes, but tabloid reporters do not have much choice with regard to this. Sorry for bugging you, I know you too have your work-related difficulties.
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It is odd how we want freedom, but have a very large degree of self-control, such that we do not use our freedom to its legitimate limits. We fear sanction, for its unknown potential to cause grievous harm. It is amusing how my uncle warned me against writing anything that may be even slightly anti-establishment in the most indirect way, because "it is an election year". We are not about to write a piece the equivalent of the cartoons published by the Danish paper that insulted the Islamic faith. My parents were shocked that the paper published a piece on lift upgrading in opposition wards. People want media freedom, but they do not know what to do with it. This is similar to the campaign for free speech and a speaker's corner, which is now derelict, sparsely populated and has unobtrusively merged back into the broader landscape of Chinatown. We want the space to express an individuality that has never existed.