First press briefing!

I went to my first press briefing today as a bonafide member of the New York press corps. It was a relatively laidback event, and not even something we would do a story on. I knew what it was about, but I took it pretty lightly, and sauntered over to the place which was just a few blocks from where I work.

I reached there and made it up to the room where the briefing was. Standing in the elevator, I realized there was another reporter in the elevator with me. As we introduced ourselves and said which magazines we were from, a wave of panic hit me. "OMG," I thought. "That magazine has sent a real reporter, and my magazine sent ME? The Rock should have come! What was he thinking!?!?!?"

I calmed down somewhat, but as each real reporter walked in, I sank just a little more in my chair. Then another wave of panic. "OMG, I have to ask questions at the end. I have to establish that I'm a serious journalist. The whole reputation of my magazine is at stake here. If I don't ask questions, they'll all think of my magazine as the one that sent that stupid intern who didn't know anything and didn't ask any questions."

I was convinced that I wouldn't even be able to follow the presentation, and in an attempt to avert such tragedy, I kept my eyes glued to the presenter, taking them off only to jot down notes, as if by boring my eyes into her, I could absorb what she was thinking and saying by sheer osmosis, if by nothing else. She finished her presentation, and I realized that I had understood most of what she'd been talking about -- maybe not to confidently write a story about it, if I had to, but in my mind her message was clear. I didn't ask questions, but neither did some of the other reporters there, so I felt a load lift -- if I wasn't the only one that didn't ask questions, then they wouldn't remember just me, I convinced myself.

Then came the dreaded socializing. I was tempted to just leave under the pretext of moving apartments in a couple of days and needed to pack, but forced myself to stay, telling myself sternly that I needed to make contacts. And I was hungry. So I helped myself to some food and drink and moved out onto the rooftop.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find the whole small talk thing much easier than I did about two years ago when I endured multiple excruciating social events, sometimes for days when I was covering conferences, feeling like a complete wallflower and wishing almost without exception that I could disappear. I am still not very good in group situations, but I realized that I wasn't questioning myself a dozen times before making a simple comment or contributing to the general flow of the conversation. I even stayed longer than I'd intended to!

So, my first press briefing went pretty well. And I realized that, while in moments of panic, I might question my decision to leave a mediocre job in London, where I was, nevertheless, happy and move to New York, doing so did give me opportunities I'd never have had -- because now, I am a very tiny fish in a huge pond, nay, in an ocean, but better that than to be a big fish, even the ONLY fish, in a tiny pond. Because a big fish in a tiny pond isn't going anywhere unless it leaves the pond, but a tiny fish in an ocean has plenty of room to grow.

Anonymity. . .

It's absolutely shocking what a little anonymity can do to people. It brings out the little devils inside them full force and unleashes them in all their fury. And the result. . . people turn nasty and horrible and racist and nationalist, just because they cannot be held to account for what they say.

Part of the scut work of my otherwise fabulous internship -- actually, I don't mind it so much, since it gives me some insight into humanity and also allows me to get an idea of what our stories are without reading each one everyday -- is to go through the magazine's web site and approve (or not, as the case may be) readers' comments in response to the stories we publish online. And boy can people be nasty. Because we don't ask them to give us their real identities or email addresses before they can appear on the site, people are absolutely horrible. Some swear, some call each other names, some call the people of certain countries incompetent, lazy, and worse names.

When I see these venomous comments, I just sigh and shake my head and think, "This could very well be some corporate executive sitting in a plush corner office somewhere, spouting poison, just because it can't come back to him." And how awful is that? If you have a point of view, fine. Say it. But why hide behind the anonymity of the internet to let loose all your pent up anger and hatred? Why do you have so much hatred in the first place?

It reminds me of another incident. I had a friend, an Uzbek journalist, who was in my master's program. She was covering the Andijan massacre last May before coming here, and was shot at. She survived because she had a book in her pocket that stopped the bullet from hitting her (I know, sounds like a movie, but absolutely true). She has been banned from entering Uzbekistan, because of her courageous reporting of the massacre, and she wrote an article criticizing the government and the massacre that was posted on a site. The article was, in turn, picked up by a pro-government forum -- and she was critisized and abused by many on the forum for her views. They are absolutely entitled to their views. But these are people who would probably not have been able to even have an intelligent discussion about the massacre with her. But, they had no problem spewing filth on her, safely hiding beyond the anonymity afforded by the internet. Anyone who supported her were also subjected to the same verbal abuse.

I sit in front of my computer, at work reporting a story, and wonder many times how we survived before the Internet came about. But sometimes, I wonder how the world manages to survive and function with it.

It's my genes' fault!

Today's New York Times had an article titled "That Wild Streak? Maybe It Runs in the Family". It was about. . . you guessed it. If you have urges to go climb mountains. . . or to smoke cigarettes. . . or throw yourself off a cliff, it's because of your genes.

As I read it, I found myself shaking my head. Because, while I'm sure there's some truth to it, it just seemed to me a way of science giving us naturally lazy humans an excuse to continue our bad habits guilt-free. If I'm overweight, it's because of my genes, and so I don't need to feel bad about it. If I drink too much, it's my parents' fault. If I can't quit smoking, it's because my parents, and their parents, and their parents, were smokers too.

It might not even stop with those aspects that could be affected by genes. The excuse-making could spill over to every part of our lives -- I can't get a good job because of my genes, I make other people's lives miserable because of my genes, I don't wash the dishes or clean my apartment because it's in my genes.

There's a flip side to this as well -- we start to think that we can't take credit for our success -- because we were genetically programmed to succeed, our achievements have nothing to do with our own efforts or accomplishments.

What a sad world it would be if these tests were commercially available -- the lazy ones blaming their DNA for their failings and the hard working ones letting their genes take the credit for their hard work.


Note: This post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek -- because I do realize that, for some people, no matter how hard they work towards a certain goal, e.g. quit smoking, it's much more difficult than for others, because of their genetic make-up.

The September song. . . or just plain knuckles?

I was reading This Fish's post today, in which she writes that she has to sing the September days song to remember how many days each month has. And I realized that my way of figuring out how many days each month has is slightly different. And I'm not sure if it's something that most people are familiar with -- or if it's just a quirky thing that we do in my village or in Sri Lanka or South Asia.

I make a fist with my hand, and assign the bone of my index finger to January. Then the pit beside the bone is February. Then back up to the bone of the middle finger. That's March. . . and so on. When you get to the bone of the little finger, you return to the index finger and continue. All the months for the raised bones have 31 days, and all the months in the pits have 30 days (except for February, of course, but if you need a method to figure that out, you've got other problems). Anyway, you do it this way, and lo and behold, you get 31 days for both July and August, the only two consecutive months that have 31 days. Because of this, when I was little, I used to think that people who decided the days and months and all did it using their knuckles, and that's why they let July and August have 31 days -- because when you get to the last raised bone, you have to come back to the first raised one! It just made sense.

PS: I am annoyed -- I just called Nev to see if this is actually quite a common practice and I'm making a hoopla about something that everybody knows about. I asked him how he figures out how many days there are in each month, and he said he uses the September song. Then I asked him if he knew the other way, and he vehemently said no.

So I started trying to explain it to him, but every time I started talking, he'd interrupt me with a very abrupt "I don't know what you're talking about," the way he does when he thinks I'm being a "FOB" (that's "fresh off the boat" to anyone who doesn't know desi-talk, as in people who aren't cool or westernized enough).

Finally, exasperated, I said, "Well, that's why I'm trying to explain it to you."

To which, he replied, "Well, I know what it is."

"Then why did you keep saying that you didn't know what I was talking about?" I retorted.

"Well, I know what it is, but I use the September song," he said.

I hung up.

Time to go "home"

I hate my apartment -- yes, that would be the apartment I moved into 10 days ago . . . there, I've said it, and now, it's official. I feel bad about it, and have been trying to quash my feelings of angst and irritability, but they've welled over now, and now have a life of their own. I feel sufficiently guilty about it -- I know I should be grateful to have a roof over my head, that I managed to find a place to move into when Columbia unceremoniously kicked us out on May 31. But, but, but. . . that doesn't seem to make me feel any less impatient about wanting to find my own place, come hell or high water.

I think that is the problem -- I'm going through a nesting phase. I look for my own apartment and furniture almost everyday. I picture what my apartment is going to look like, what furniture it will have, what kinds of lamps, what paintings on the walls. And living in an old, tiny, stinky, grimy apartment in a somewhat seedy neighborhood isn't helping my intense need to have a "home," not just an apartment. I've gone through most of life, living in temporary housing, and I can't take another month and a half of it. And sitting down in front of the TV after a long day at work, only to have my extremely vociferous roommate sermonize to me about wrestling and boxing and statistics and math, and our other roommate whom he can't stand, in the middle of ordering me to get paper towels and soap has pushed me over the edge.

My solution: to obsessively trawl through Craigslist, trying to find some innocent soul to take over my sublet, and to find an apartment that I can move into as soon as I find someone to take over. To that end, I went to see one apartment today. Unfortunately, it didn't fit in with my dreams of my ideal apartment. Three more viewings have been set up over the course of the coming week, along with several emails sent to potential subletters.

Now to sit back and wait -- the most painful part of all.

On the job. . .

We have all established by now that if I handle any life-changing event the way most normal people would -- with careful preparation -- then something is not right. So it is not at all surprising -- in fact, expected -- that I showed up to my first day at my much cherised and hard-won internship without my work authorization document.

Well, the truth is that it hadn't arrived, although the government agency's web site stated very positively that my application had been approved. In any case, I was starting on June 5, so off I went to my first day, armed with the print out stating that I had been approved and my passport -- but no authorization document, none the less. I needn't have worried. Because everyhing was fine. They didn't even ask me for it until the second day. When they did ask, I managed to convince them that I would get it any day now and avert any uncomfortable escortage to the door.

But anyway, I have been at my internship for three days now. And in that time, I have gone to meetings galore -- meetings about the front of the magazine, the back of the magazine, the middle of the magazine, the international section, art meetings, photo meetings. I have two wonderful editors, who bend over backwards to include me in everything -- even unexpectedly introducing me to the editor-in-chief, which left me a tad speechless -- I'm sure I made a great first impression with that.

When I am not accompanying my editors to meetings, I've been editing some columns and readers' comments and looking at stories in various stages of production to see how they change throughout the process.

Of course, every intern feverishly wants to be writing at least for the magazine's web site, if not for the print version, and I am no different. So, when I received an invite to an event that seemed like it might be of interest to the magazine, I suggested to my editor that I might write it up. He kindly declined, informing me that it was too small to cover, even on the web site, but encouraged me to pitch my own story ideas. So now, I'm going to be racking my brains, and engaging in fits of panic as I try to come up with suitable ideas that will earn me more than an incredulous laugh when I pitch them. Any ideas are most welcome!

But in the meantime, I'll keep going to more meetings and doing more editing and immersing myself in the mag -- and sucking up to the boss man!

Ho hum. . .

Ini hath not blogged in a long time, and Ini needeth to blog. . . but Ini's brain functioneth not -- after lugging way too much stuff from one apartment to another, Ini's brain and body are tres fatigue. So forgive me, dear reader. . .