I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was actually many days ago. It's so science, really, because I mainly recall the smell of mustard on my hands because a bunch of us had gotten sandwiches at Jason's Deli, and you know the whole thing about smell and memory. We had hurried back from lunch because we were running late – we had yet another Chronicle special issue in the works, which meant a grueling afternoon of fact-checking. On this particular day, our mandate was to call each restaurant in town, verifying its address and whether there really was a "the" in its name or if people just said it with one. As we pulled into the parking lot, we could see Louis and Nick standing by the recycle bin, glowering.

"Look," said Jess. "They're glowering."

Jeff started to panic. "If I get fired from an unpaid internship, my parents are definitely kicking me out."

"Pop your collar," said Shelley from the driver's seat. "If they fire us, we'll start our own paper. It'll be the gankest paper in Austin."

As it turned out, they weren't glowering at us at all. They were glowering at someone else who'd spilled their Pei Wei all over the hallway and gotten ginger sauce all over the broom and left little lone rices all over the floor that kept sticking to everyone's flip-flops. But Shelley's words proved prophetic nonetheless. Though glowering at someone else, Louis and Nick were, in fact, waiting for us. They sat us all down in the conference room.

"Okay," said Louis. "We're starting a new supplement, and we're going to be relying on you to provide its direction and content. You'll be its voice as well as its audience."

"You're putting proofreaders and interns in charge of an entire paper?" I asked.

"Pretty much," said Nick, "along with a few freelancers. And it will bring you glory and paychecks." That's more or less what he said, anyway. Though I'm not sure he meant it.

We've come a long way since that day, and it hasn't been easy. We had to start from scratch. We had to think up content and news and words and schedules. We had to learn to work well in groups and keep our hands and feet to ourselves. We had to find interns. We had to grow up.

So here we are, y'all. The very first issue of AC. It's dunzo. And my hands don't smell like mustard anymore. They smell like newsprint.