Year 3, Quarter 3 and some questions about ethics

Last year at this time I was in France. I was on my second week with my host family, all of whom I loved dearly. I miss France terribly, but luckily I am so busy lately that I hardly have time to think about that.

I’ve been working more than I thought was possible– schoolwork, that is. I’m pretty much a despicable slacker when it comes to school, even when it involves my favorite subjects and things in which I have an invested interest. But in general, I have done pretty well with that major flaw– I have still accomplished a lot and learned a ton, made great friends and been able to continue relationships with teachers and mentors. However, I always wondered when all of that was going to catch up with me.

It’s not necessarily that it all caught up with me this quarter, but I certainly don’t have the freedoms that I did. I’m pursuing an ILC (Independent Learning Contract) this quarter with my advisor at the newspaper as subcontractor/sponsor. Her vast knowledge continually astounds me and I am really lucky to be working with her, especially since she is retiring after this quarter, which ends in June. But (and let me put this delicately…) this shit is fucking HARD. I haven’t worked so hard academically for such a sustained period of time in quite a while, maybe since high school, and I’m out of practice, to say the least.

My advisor has given me a certain amount of wiggle room in the past couple of weeks, but if I don’t figure out a time management system soon, there will be consequences and hell to pay. It doesn’t help, as I told her this morning, that I have a limited interest in information gathering and news journalism in general, and so far it’s difficult to get beyond the belief that I’m mainly just doing this contract for the benefit of my position at the newspaper. She maintains, however, that what I learn in this contract will carry through my entire life for the enrichment of my interaction with others and my own character building, and I believe her. I am going to stick it out and make the most of this experience.

The upshot of all this is that it seems like I’ve been doing a helluva lot of writing lately. I wrote a couple essays for…

oh wait, let me back up.

So I’ve applied to be the Editor in Chief of the Cooper Point Journal (the newspaper of the students of the Evergreen State College) for the 2011-2012 school year. I’m scared shitless.

That pretty much sums it up.

So I wrote a couple essays for that application, and I’ve written some papers about what I’ve been reading for my contract. I will post whatever I can here (if it doesn’t seem completely out of context).

Also, I would like your feedback on something, my dear, possibly fictional, readers: If or when I become the Editor in Chief, I will consider myself a journalist. Typically, journalists are advised to keep their own convictions and opinions under wraps, so that they don’t interfere with their ability to remain neutral with a story or an entire publication. The editor in chief needs to, in some ways, represent the integrity of their newspaper or publication, remaining neutral and impressionable on all fronts.

I have heard that journalists are required by the newspaper they work for to remove any and all political signs from his house or yard, remove bumper stickers, and not present any character-defining information or opinions online or in social networking media.

I have deleted a lot of information from my Facebook page and have considered deleting my Twitter account altogether. But the issue of my blog remains to be discussed. I can’t imagine not having this outlet, and I think it’s important for my creativity and my sanity for this blog to exist. But I haven’t thought much about how to keep it and still remain a credible editor. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated: should I delete the blog altogether? Should I keep it but make it private and only invite those I want to see my posts? I could make it private and encourage those who wish to see it to email me and I can invite them. Or should I just throw caution to the wind (because, let’s be honest, I don’t really express many opinions, let alone controversial ones, on this blog at all) and keep the thing?

And just out of curiosity, what do you all think of these unstated regulations of the impartiality of journalists? Are they legitimate? To what extent?

Adieu (should be French for “new beginning”)

I know this awesome girl who is going to France! She’s studying abroad for most of the trip, but for a couple weeks she’s just sort of hanging out.

For the first three weeks, she isn’t allowed to read, write, or speak any English, so she started a blog where she will only write in French, and the main purpose of it is solely to update the world about what exactly she is doing, not necessarily what she is thinking (because her rudimentary French just won’t allow for it!).

Anyway, the blog is called “Les Pièces Intimes” (sound familiar?). You can read her itinerary there and be in-the-know about what her plans are and whether or not they’re actually carried out.

If you can’t read French, just copy and paste the text into Google Translator. It has worked very well so far for me.

By the way… this girl is me :)

And I am SO excited to have this unique opportunity, and I am just astounded by how lucky I am that I get this great chance to learn so much new culture and language, and have so many meaningful experiences overseas!

I’m not sure what will become of this blog when I leave. I’m sure I will have tons to say, but I’m not taking my computer so it will be very difficult to type on my iTouch, even when I do have WiFi. Also, if I’m not allowed to write in English I don’t know how I’ll update in a way that is actually coherent in French.

But I will probably cheat and update as much as I possibly can, and when I can’t update on my actual blog I will [hopefully] save up handwritten tidbits and post them all later.

I leave my computer tomorrow night (Tuesday), so I think for now I must bid you all adieu, unless I find the time between stages of packing to type up more Flashes from this past quarter.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope to be able to tell you as much as possible as I learn and experience everything I can!

Namaste, peace, and harmony.

Put a smile in your voice.

Have you ever seen someone looking around, arranged your face into a pleasant half-smile (just in case they look at you, you want to look friendly) and looked away, then looked back at them and they’re smiling because they saw your smile and it was contagious? It’s a really good feeling :) And it takes almost no energy at all–just a little presence of mind. Try it!

By the way, I have very little patience with myself when I hold off on blogging for the “right time” or until I have a good idea, or until I can elaborate on a thought. So I think I’m just going to treat it like it’s a Twitter account with a more lengthy character limit and write thoughts as they come up. Especially because most of the time I’m sitting in the most boring and annoying class in the world. Leave me comments!

New Directions

The downside of introducing your blog to lots of people who know you is that then it’s very awkward to actually blog about them.

So in other news…

I changed my desktop background. Boring, no? But it’s a gorgeous picture I took at the Grand Canyon, and it reminds me of the amazing trip my mom and I took last year. Good times.

Went to Caleb’s again today–we sorted and resorted bottles of soda. No, really. It was tons of fun. But of course, if I were with Caleb I’d probably think watching the stock market change was fun, so that’s not saying much. Church tomorrow, and I’ll probably blog about that.

Besides my simple goal of blogging every day, I’d like to develop some trends. Sundays and Tuesdays can be faith days, and if I go to church or something like that I’ll talk about the experience. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are music days. Thursdays are random, things-on-the-street days, and maybe movie reviews, and Saturdays can be fiction days.

Ahhh this is so exciting! I feel like I need to catch up for every week I’ve been blogging and not done this. wow.

Also, I have a few resolutions that are not to be mentioned outside of cyberspace, just in case:

1. Get up earlier. Wake up at 9 and stay awake, even if I do just read in bed.

2. DO more. Get out. See stuff. Maybe take pictures of it or write about it to prove that I’ve gained new insight. ha.

3. Read more. This includes others’ blogs, the magazines I have piling up, and my ever-expanding book list. But mostly the books, I think.

4. Say “yes” more. It may be just because I just finished “Yes Man,” but I want to feel better about trying new things. I thought about shooting a bb gun today at nothing in particular at Caleb’s, but I’ve never held a gun and I’m not sure I want to. And… I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it if it’s just target practice, right?

5. Listen to more new music, and review it.

6. Pick one thing each day to love in my life.

7. Pick one thing each day to think about. (This sounds really dumb, but I like the idea. Some problem to solve, or something to pray about. It can’t hurt.)

8. Pick one thing each day to better something/someone other than myself.

9. Do one thing each day of which I’m proud. It has to be something that I didn’t accomplish on the computer (unless it’s a set of articles or something).

10. Blog about something that has potential to influence others or be meaningful to someone.

I think this is about the time of year where people really do start to slip on New Year’s Resolutions, so maybe it’s time to revamp. What are your resolutions? Are they ones you’ve tried before? Why are they important to you?

not just another wordpress blog.

I only just realized that at the top of my blog page, it says “Just another WordPress blog”… or something similar. Excuse me? I’d like to try really hard at this blog thing, since I can’t seem to keep a regular journal going at all, and because I really need to find some work and I’ve heard blogging can be a great outlet for that. It’s lamentable to have to admit, but the world (and especially the internet and cyberspace) is becoming such that if you don’t give someone money, they don’t consider you worth their time or energy… either to reply to or just to acknowledge. It goes without saying that that’s just not very fair.

Sure, there are tons of blogs. Hundreds. Thousands. But bloggers deserve more than that. Blogging takes some time for us, just for communicating and sometimes educating the general public. Of course, it’s hell for us, too, because obviously some of us don’t get the blog traffic that others do (and don’t deserve.)

I won’t go into a “good writing vs bad writing” argument (after all, who will argue with me…?) but that’s really what it boils down to. Some of us who deserve the press really don’t get it at all, while others are miles ahead only because they know how to post links in blog entries. I’m sorry, but BIG DEAL. Blogs make us vulnerable; obviously, anything that enters our minds may be on display. And cyberspace is a huge, cold world, if you hadn’t already figured that out.

Anyway, none of our pages should be “just another wordpress blog.” A blog shows just about as much individuality as one can display online at all. So show some respect, please.