My first digi cam pics!

My brand new digi cam (not the best but second best, which I can live with :-)) has arrived, and here are some of the inaugural pics. These ones are of my friend Emstenm my roommate Okia and little Wednoo. More pics to come :-)


Wednesday

My roommate Okia and Emsten at Jackson Diner, an Indian restaurant, in Jackson Heights, Queens

Emsten

Just looking at these pics and comparing them with the ones below made me realise how blessed I am. A true wake-up call.

Disturbing photos

I received a strong reprimand from Ficali the other day, because I had complained about her not updating her blog, and then I didn't update mine. "I've updated mine three times since then," she said. "And you haven't, even once."

In my defense, my mind has been churning out blog entries all week, but I just haven't been able to put get them down. For example, in my International Reporting class, we talked about disturbing pictures, and about whether they should be shown. Our professor showed us a few examples. I looked for some of them online, to see if I could put them on here, but these media people guard their pictures very closely. So, I will attempt to describe a few. There was the one of the US serviceman being dragged through the streets in Somalia, which was printed, and I think shown on TV as well, at the time. There was this one, of the charred bodies of two people (contractors, I think?) hanging from a bridge in Fallujah.

Another one was of the bodies of about eight to 10 Nepali civilian workers lined up face down on the ground in Fallujah; an Indian mother surrounded by her dead children, with her hands on her head, and raw emotion on her face, after the tsunami.


The picture to the left; another one of supporters of the African National Congress setting a man from the Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa on fire; and the one below, among others.

We also saw one photo of a suicide, of a female refugee in a Srebrenica refugee camp.

I found the last one, which I've looked high and low for a picture of - and couldn't find- the most disturbing. The woman in the picture has hung herself in a forest, and it has been shot from her right. When you first look at the photo, all you see is a beautiful, almost wistful, picture of a woman, facing off to the right of the photo, in a wood, sounded by vivid green foliage. It looks like a calm and peaceful photo, and it isn't until you look at her legs that you realise that there is nothing under them, that they are dangling. And then you realise what the picture is really of. There is something so personal, and so sad about it, that it feels like a terrible invasion of privacy to look at it.

For the most part, I'm a firm believer in the media showing and telling things as they are. Not at all in sensationalism, but if there are terrible things going on somewhere, pictures reveal the true horror and the sufferings of the people, much more effectively than words can, no matter how descriptive. I don't think it's the role of the press to sanitise these horrors, and to protect their readers, from what others are going through. For example, the tsunami was so remote to people in the US, because most of them don't know anyone from that part of the world, and many haven't even heard of the countries affected. Showing a grieving mother surrounded by her dead children be it in India as a result of the tsunami, or in Beslan, after the horrific school massacre, puts a face on these otherwise faceless tragedies, and reveals to people the extent of their impact.

The photos of the aftermaths of bombings and such manmade horrors serve a similar purpose. They are snapshots of what has happened, and show people the degree of suffering and depravity in that action. It is reality, and it needs to be shown.

But the photo of the suicide does not serve this purpose. In suicide, one cannot point out exactly why it happened. Even if someone commits suicide every week at that refugee camp - and that would certainly be worth a story - there are almost certainly other factors involved as well. Otherwise, why would there be still others who find their lives worth living, at least enough to not kill themselves. There was something that this woman was feeling that pushed her to the edge in that situation, that someone else was not going through, that gave them the will to live. And the way the photo was shot, she could have been anyone - as easily a wealthy woman from the suburbs of Los Angeles as someone in the refugee camps of Srebrenica. It doesn't support the story, and that was why I thought it shouldn't have been used.

It was a very sober couple of hours, but it made us examine ourselves and our priorities - sensationalism, protecting our readers back home, or showing the truth.

58 comments?!?!

How oh how oh how does This fish get 58 comments on her blog posts, while I get 2? (Thank you faithful Ficali and Nayma!) Of course, I guess it might have something to do with the fact that her life - and by extension, her blog - is tremendously more interesting than mine. But still. It's very unfair! My blog can only be so exciting when I'm a dirt poor grad student with a very limited social life. Sigh:-(

And the latest in my very exciting life: my four boxes have FINALLY arrived from London after three months - and I'm thinking. . . why did I ship this stuff? I could have just saved myself the pain of it all, and given myself the perfect excuse to go shopping - courtesy of Access Group, of course! But no. . . I HAD to ship them. It was quite nice though to finally get my jar of Jaffna chili powder (Ficali, don't kill me, it's a small jar, and I bet you can't get JAFFNA chili powder in New York!) and my sweaters and winter coats (I've refused to get any warm clothes because I knew I had mine in my boxes which I firmly believed with all my heart I would be reunited with one day). So, that's the low down on my exhilarating life. Jeez. . . no wonder no one reads my blog!

Oh, and one more development: I've changed my blog design, in case you haven't noticed. This is the hip new version! Thoughts? Like it? Go back to the old one? Abandon the blog altogether?

Masters' woes!!

I really want to do my master's project on the UN - specifically on the Millennium Development Goals, and the impacts of the edits that John Bolton made to the outcome document draft a week before the summit. All the hullaballoo about his edits died down as soon as the Summit was done last month, and I want to know why, and what the document that was approved means for developing countries. BUT. . . apparently, master's projects on topics like this aren't done at the J-School. I can kind of see why. . . because unless I were to take a trip to Africa, the story would seriously lack a human element. But I want to do it!

Or barring that, my other option is to try to figure why the press is so credulous when it comes to covering the UN. Apparently, if you have a UN pass, you can walk around quite freely. So, why does the press not take advantage of this to do a little digging, to find out what is really going on there? The press seemed to wake up while covering the Oil-for-Food scandal, but everything seems to have died down again after that. But then, even this is a vague topic, not a story idea, since I'm not starting out with any sort of premise - I can't very well start off saying that the press is credulous, because then no press person will talk to me.

And barring that, I have another topic that I will definitely pursue, at some point. This is looking at church planters - people who leave their home churches, and go out to start up new churches, either in a different neighbourhood, or a different city, state or even country. This would look at the challenges they face, where their funding and other resources come from, why they do it, and what happens at the end of it. When I tell my professors about this topic, their faces light up. And I think it would be a great story. But, while I can do this story on my own at any time, doing the UN story requires credentials, and I can get a UN press pass as long as I'm at Columbia. Hence, I want to do the UN story.

What do I do??!?!?

Updates on employment and ye olde dig cam!

Well, as of now, I'm still gainfully employed, so hopefully that will last. And the dig cam that Nev has been so very nice to get me (as a GIFT, right, Nev??!?!) is making its way to me RIGHT NOW!!!

More to follow. . . and, FYI, the fewer comments I have, the less incentive I have to write (hint, hint for you people who say you read my blog, but leave no trail! Not that my blog gives you reason to wake up in the morning, but still. . . would be nice to hear your thoughts :-()

Sickie!

Heard of poetic justice? Well, it exists. Like when you call in sick to work two days in a row (that too when you only work two days a week) and then, the following week, you really do get sick. What to do then? Do you crawl in to work sniffling and sneezing, or do you pick up the phone and call again, hoping that they assume you are just some chronically ill wheeze? Or do you walk the eight blocks to work, sniffling and sneezing, and then return, having proved that you really are sick?

I chose the middle option, since I decided to get out of bed 10 minutes after I was supposed to have finished traversing the eight blocks (two of them avenue blocks, and frigging LONG!)

"Hi Evelyn," I said. "It's Inihtar."
Evelyn's good at curt responses over the phone.
"Hi," came the reply. "How are you?" but in a tone that really meant, "What is it now? What kind of lame excuse are you going to come up with for not coming to work today?"
"Ummm, not good. . . again."
Silence on the other end. What to do now? I decided to plunge ahead.
"I've had a cold and headache for the past couple of days," I told her hastily. "But I know that Leann wanted me to work on a piece today. So can I come in in the afternoon and work on it? Then I can get some sleep in the morning, and maybe feel better."
Did I really need to give her my symptoms, and my plan of action for getting rid of them? Didn't that make it sound more suspicious? You know, overcompensating. Why on earth do I feel so guilty, darnit? I AM sick. . . this time, anyway!
"Yeah, ok."
"Ok. See you then." And I hung up.
I should have just emailed her. But then, somehow, I felt that if I could drag myself to my computer, it would have made me seem well enough to go in to work. But then I had to drag myself to the computer to get her number anyway! Oh, the dilemnas of taking a sickie.
I'm going to go back to bed now, and my next post will state if I am still employed.

Nev's getting me a brand new dig cam!

So Nev was bragging to me the other day about his new digital camera, and about what a great deal he'd gotten on it. And my whiny if-he-can-have-it-why-can't-I self took over. "I want one too!!"
His reply: a self-satisfied "Heh heh heh!"
"Hey, get me one," I told him.
He stopped laughing. "What?"
"Yeah, get me one, and have them ship it to me. I'll pay you back," I told him.
Pause. "You're sure you'll pay me back?"
"Of course. I've LOTS of money!"
Nev knew that me having lots of money didn't equate to me being able to spend lots of money on expensive digital cameras.
"Yeah, but are you sure you can afford it?" he asked.
"Of course!" I answered cheerfully. "Access Group(the oh-so-naive people who are financing my oh-so-expensive education at this oh-so-prestigious institution) can afford it."
"You do realise that the money you have is a loan. Right?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"And that you have to pay it back. Right?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"You really are planning on skipping the country when you done, aren't you?"
"Heh heh!"
Nev gave up on trying to drill some sense into me. "Ok, so what kind do you want?"
"THE VERY BEST!!"
I was wrong. Nev wasn't done yet. "Why do you need the best? Why don't you get something cheaper?"
Why indeed? The wheels in my head started turning furiously as I tried to come up with a reason for why I needed the very best.
"Well, when I do freelance work, it would be better if I can send them some pictures that are of good quality, so they can do things with them." Never mind the fact that I haven't done one freelance piece since I came here, or even made an attempt to sell the pieces I have written for classes. Or that the places where I can probably freelance my work are piddly little local papers anyway that don't care too much about the quality of pictures. But my heart desired the best digital camera, and what Inihtar's heart desires, Inihtar's heart gets (not really, but it's a nice thought!)
So now, Nev is getting me a digital camera, and Access Group is going to pay for it. Good ol' Access Group!

NOTE: If the nice people of Access Group are reading this: I have no intention of moving to the Amazon Rainforest and not paying back my loan when I'm done here. So, please give me money for my second degree here when I'm done at the J-school, and I promise I'll marry a rich man who'll pay every penny back. Thank you!

George. . . yummy as ever! And smart to boot!

I went to the screening of George Clooney's new movie today. Now, this is not your typical Cloon-man flick, with casinos and romance and adventure and all the rest. This is a documentary - and, what's more, a black and white one - on Edward Murrows, a CBS broadcast journalist, who contributed to the downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, known for his aggressive actions against those, particularly in the US army, that he suspected of being allied with Communists.

Clooney, who directed the film, played the character of Fred Friendly, a producer at CBS, who later became president of the company, and was also a broadcast professor at Columbia University. Although I was a wee bit wary when I heard it was black and white, I was very impressed with the movie. It was worth the half hour wait for tickets, and then to get in (of course, this had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the fact that George Clooney was part of the panel that was discussing the film afterwards!)

Anyway, the movie portrayed the dilemnas of the staff at CBS in running the episodes about McCarthy on Murrow's show, See it Now; the nervous tension with which they awaited the reviews and responses to the shows (they had both positive and negative ones); and the justification of their efforts when McCarthy was questioned and then officially censured for his aggressive efforts to label people communists, often without evidence.

The panel after the movie consisted of Clooney, and three others, including a historian, a broadcast journalist, and one of the other writers of the film (too lazy to look up their names). I was very impressed with George Clooney, who had a very good grasp of both politics and journalism, and very informed opinions, and was able to answer questions eloquently and clearly. In fact, he was probably as interesting as the historian, who was the only other worthwhile speaker on the panel, unfortunately. He was also funny and cheerful, and kept the conversation going easily.

What was also cool was that two characters in the movie, Joe and Shirley something, who both worked at CBS, and were secretly married (because CBS had a policy against hiring married couples) were both in the audience, and Clooney was as surprised as the rest of the audience when they spoke up.

Despite the title of this post, I'm not really that big a fan of George Clooney's. But I was sufficiently impressed with his performance tonight, and was star-struck enough that I just might turn into one!

Irresponsible shop assistants!

I've been very conscientious about not wasting plastic bags, ever since I went food shopping with Ficali once and she berated me for taking a bag for an onion, instead of leaving it by itself in the shopping basket. Ever since then, I have been very careful about wasting bags, bemoaning the carefree way in which sales people at my local grocery store use two or three bags for a few items without a second thought.

I went grocery shopping today, and after paying for the items I'd purchased, I realised that I'd forgotten a couple of things. I went back into the store, picked up the two tomatoes and onions I'd forgotten, and got back in line to pay for them. When it was my turn, the sales person quickly scanned and put them into the a plastic bag. "Oh, I don't need a bag," I told her. She gave me a dirty look, since my statement necessitated the backbreaking task of removing my two tomatoes and two onions from the plastic bag. She then promptly proceeded to ball up the bag and throw it into the GARBAGE!!!

"What?" I thought. "I might as well have taken the bag! At least Okia could have used it for Wednesday's doodoo!"

So much for my efforts to be environment friendly. Now, that bag will probably end up in some landfill and sit there for 500 years.

Eeek! There's another journo! Hide!

"You know the person from whom you duck into the men's or women's room when you see them coming? They're somewhere writing a lot of journalism."

This was a comment made by Bruce D'Silva, the writing coach at the Associated Press, who came to talk at one of my classes today. Yikes! I thought. He's talking about me!

But, what he said made sense. Because if we talk like newspapers do, people would be ducking into loos all the time to avoid having to listen to our boring, stilted way of talking.

He gave a classic example: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's a great lede, he told us. It's succinct, it reads easily and it tells the story. Then he told us something else: If journos had written the Bible, Christianity would never have caught on. Here's what this sentence, written by a journalist, would have sounded like, (this is, in essence, what he said, but I didn't write it down, so I'm adding a few of my own words): In a surprising development yesterday, sources close to God, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that he had, over a period of six days, brought into being the heavens, an expanse of sky, planets, stars and clouds, which also includes his residence, 777, God's Drive, Heavenlyville, Heaven, as well as the earth, located approximately 100 trillion miles below.

Ok, it would probably not be as bad as this (and is there an estimate of how far the earth is from the heavens?) - in fact, if it is this bad, then that journo has no business being in the business! - but you get my gist.

I have to agree with D'Silva! The way we, as journalists, are conditioned to write, is not the most readable, most interesting way we could express ourselves. In fact, we have a knack for taking the fun out of most stories. Things are getting better, but old habits die hard, and this one seems to be hanging on. We have gotten so used to writing in this stilted, confusing way, that simplicity and elegance seem almost impossible, even undesirable!

I will voluntarily throw myself at the front of the line under the big sign that says "guilty". But then, that's what I'm here for - right? - accumulating giganimous amounts of debt in the hope my writing will, at some point, undergo a huge trasnformation and get closer to the Bible writer's style of writing than the journo's!

Of meetings and misery

Ok, ok, I know I haven't posted for a long time. I actually did put something up, something mean and nasty, and I felt so bad I snuck back in and deleted it before anyone (I hope, what with all the time zones and all, it's hard to say) saw it. So if you did see it, please. . . shhh!

Anyway, the reason I haven't posted is because I've been a bit down in the dumps lately. Just missing good ol' Londres :-( and feeling sorry for myself. Nothing like a full-fledged feeling sorry for self to provide a change of scene. I'm getting better now:-)

Well, I've had a couple of guests lately, which is always exciting! One of my best friends from Kodai, Emsten, is down in NYC for a month, and she's staying with me - she says till Thursday, but I hope to convince her to stay longer. It's so nice to have someone who knows you, and whom you know from way back when you were a different you in some ways, but also the same in many others - who knows all your old (and maybe still) dorky ways, your old crushes and heartaches, and with whom you can share nostalgic moments. And, even if you are not getting nostalgic together, there's something about being able to reconnect in the same way you used to, and to feel the familiarity that is not always easy with newer friends. I'm blessed that I already have Ficali, Nayma and Ilajna here, but it's good to add to the list!

So, we've been hanging out together at home, trying neighbourhood restaurants, going shopping and of course, playing with little Wednesday, who has taken quite a fancy to her (like when she decides to take a nap, he climbs on the bed, and goes to sleep next to her - and he adores her toes - he goes crazy when he sees them, jumping on her feet, and nibbling manically at them). And on the whole, having a pretty nice, relaxed time (for me, and I hope for her).

And today, I saw my cousin who I haven't seen since 1992, and is in town for a couple of days. It was only a few hours, but it was still good to catch up with him, listen to stories about his two daughters, whom I've never met, and to listen to his excited plans for me when I go visit him and his family in Africa.

And today also, I saw an old flame online on MSN, sent a message just for the heck of it, and was surprised and delighted to hear back (seeing that he spent most of my last days in London trying to keep me away, with good reason!)

And, I had a really good interview today. It was with a girl from Bolivia who has converted to Islam. I've been panicking about this story, because it wasn't panning out according to my plans, but, after my interview, I feel like I have a bit more to go on, even though the premise of the story is changing. But at least I have an interesting story to tell, which is more than I hoped for :-)

So, despite my downness, it's been a good few days. And I have been praying that things would start to look up, and they have, so. . . yaay Jesus!

And I've made a resolution - I'm going to drop some of the extra stuff I've taken on, and focus on my classes. Like I told Emsten - I'm getting old. It's time I realised that I can't handle all the extra stuff that I once could!

Rejection is no fun

Why is it that rejection hurts so much, even when the object of your desire didn't mean all that much to begin with? Why do you feel so bad when you don't get that job you weren't all that keen on anyway? Or when that person you've known for less than a week and have the tiniest of crushes on decides that he/she don't want you?

Is it because it's a blow to your self-esteem that you were unable to get even something or someone you didn't even want all that badly? Or is it the realisation that the something or someone that didn't seem at all essential has suddenly become all-important in the brief interval between the almost-attainable phase and the slap-in-the-face rejection phase?

You do get over it quickly, for, in the larger scheme of things, the small rejections don't affect you all that much. But, while the sting of the rejection lasts, it makes you - ok, why am I hiding behind the second person? - me really question myself, and shines a glaring light on all my inadequacies, laying bare and magnifying every thing wrong with me. Was this why I didn't get it? I thought this might be a reason for him not to like me - now, I know it is.

PS:
Nev will probably tell me off for this post, and I should probably not publish this, but oh well. . .