No Final Draft Here

#storylab

2010-07-28T23:58:00.003-04:00

After reading about the Washington Post's Coffee House Newsroom experiment this morning, I decided to stop by and give J. Freedom duLac a visit. We chatted for a while about the university and journalism, and of course, Twitter came up.

I've had a love-hate relationship with the social media tool ever since I left last year's NewsVision conference feeling like not having a Twitter account doomed me to journalistic failure. (I caved and joined the next day.)

I agree that's Twitter's great for connecting people, finding cool links and breaking down the lines of corporate communication to, for example, unload on someone about the lack of power in your house.

I followed the #storylab tweets all day but felt like I was eavesdropping. Yes, people post this information publicly, so an expectation of privacy is absurd. But it was odd and surreal to see reporters joking back and forth and editors counting down the hours to deadline. I felt like I was in the newsroom with them, which is ironic considering none of the reporters were even in the newsroom.

Nevertheless, my inner pendulum is slowly swinging toward online re-engagement. I might give Twitter another shot. This evening I told my brother I'm thinking about getting an iPhone soon.

At least it's not an äppärät.

State Department Panel: "Human Rights Advocacy 101"

2010-04-26T22:19:00.006-04:00

Idealists, consider yourselves warned. Addressing human rights issues may be the right thing to do, but that logic alone won’t convince any government to act.

Leaders of three prominent human rights organizations and a State Department official gathered with about two dozen students at town hall meeting Monday where they emphasized the importance of framing human rights as a central component of national and economic security, rather than a stand-alone issue.

Human rights advocates keep their eyes on a clear objective but must also remain cognizant of the “political dynamic,” said Elisa Massimino, president and CEO of Human Rights First. “Don’t change the goalposts, but you may have to change the plays,” she said.

Human rights organizations bring public pressure to issues, forcing the government to address them, said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. And as newspapers and their foreign coverage continue to decline, these organizations are often the only ones monitoring conflicts where human rights are being exploited or denied, he said.

National debates over detainee abuse and civilian trials of suspected terrorists that have intensified over the past two years show the world we’re prepared to consider what our laws really mean, said Michael Posner, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor.

It matters who gives voice to such issues. For example, when Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes steps to reduce civilian casualties, and retired military leaders speak out against torture, the link between human rights and national security becomes clearer.

However, “you don’t push hard enough that you disempower those in government,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. Rather, you continue to show stakeholders, including those in the private sector, that advancing human rights does not contradict motivations.

The panel discussed the Global Network Initiative, a coalition of private information and communication technology companies (including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!), nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions dedicated to protecting the freedom of expression. Something like the GNI elucidates to for-profit organizations their role as “a linchpin to this idea of American foreign policy,” Massimino said.

The session did not focus on a specific category within human rights; it gave the students a mental framework with which to approach the issues.

Example: Bad News Report

2009-06-29T22:35:00.002-04:00

I know deadline pressure means some not-so-strong pieces have to run, but I wonder if anyone listened to this news item before airing it on the local NPR affiliate station WAMU this morning.

This follow-up to the apparent drowning of a 5-year-old child last Friday in a local pool where five lifeguards were on watch raises a legitimate question: how adept are teenage lifeguards.

The title, "Pool Safety Experts Weary of Teen Lifeguards," seems misleading considering the only people quoted are a lawyer and an anonymous pool attendee (more on that in a second).

The attorney calls pool drownings "almost an epidemic," but nowhere in the report does reporter Mana Rabiee include any numbers to back that up.

The part that really bothered me was Rabiee's awarding anonymity to her community member voice, a woman who regularly attends the pool and has expressed concern over the lifeguards' youth. First, Rabiee doesn't say why the woman, who makes a useless comment about how lifeguards appear to be high school kids, didn't want to be identified. Then, the kicker: the mystery pool-goer adds that she isn't "personally affected by it because I'm a good swimmer, but if I were a parent I might be concerned."

Is it too much to ask for the "man on the street" reaction to be a bit more applicable? It's hard to believe there wasn't one other person around who would a) speak on the record and b) say something at least mildly relevant. Had an editor shaved off that woman's 17 seconds of drivel, I would have wasted only a minute of my time listening to this report.

Fiction

2009-06-25T23:23:00.006-04:00

An e-mail I just sent the co-owner of an area bookstore that closed a few months ago:

""The Camel Bookmobile" by Masha Hamilton was I think the only novel I bought from [the store]. Everything else has been nonfiction. As a child I devoured novels, mostly series' such as Cam Jansen, the Boxcar Children and Thursday Next. College courses on international politics and journalism consumed me and I increasingly read current affairs: Friedman, Zakaria, Pollan. The only fiction I recall reading in the last year or so has been John Grisham.

Exhausted by all the informative, educational reading, I longed for lighter fare. But for some reason I just couldn't find fiction that hooked me. The first book I bought at [the store] was Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires." It was a lovely, enjoyable read and I thought, maybe I don't need fiction to fill my narrative void.

But I did. After reading the first few pages of "The Camel Bookseller" in the store, I decided to take a chance and buy it. A couple days ago, I started reading it. I tried to savor it by reading it a chapter or two at a time instead of the normal one afternoon feast that defines my reading habits. This evening I couldn't help it and finished the remaining three-fourths of the book while curled up in a blanket.

My journalism classes last year focused on feature and narrative writing, so I've had no drought of good prose. But drinking in this fiction, noticing its techniques, yet not thinking about anything but the story, was pure bliss. Better yet, the story made me think about our world in the same way the non-fiction did, only in a much more compelling and subtle manner.

So, for that, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reminding me how important it is to just bask in the pleasure of reading a book instead of always thinking that I have to learn something from reading. Obviously that inevitably happens, but sometimes all we need is an armchair adventure."

Lessons from Lou Grant

2009-06-24T21:09:00.005-04:00

Yesterday a fellow intern and I compared how we followed Monday's Metro accident. She constantly checked the Twitter feeds of four D.C. blogs on her iPhone. I, after hearing the initial details, waited until about 9 p.m. to read all the lead stories on washingtonpost.com.

She wanted up-to-the minute bursts of information as they became available. I wanted a complete summary of the facts and eyewitness accounts packaged together and organized by the newspaper after the hubbub died down.

I am methodical, meticulous person and easily susceptible to information overload. As everyone tries to predict the industry's future, I'm increasingly intrigued by its past. Yesterday AJR posted my profile of Alan Mutter aka the Newsosaur. Listening to Mutter recount the glory days of newspapers, his voice full of enthusiasm and nostalgia, made me want to know about that business. After seeing a clip from the "Lou Grant" show on his blog and hearing him mention the newsroom drama in our interview, I decided to check it out.

I just watched the first episode on Hulu. I did get some good interview tips, reminding me that even if the newsrooms I work in look different, the basics will remain the same. But, ironically, a scene in the show did make it clearer to me the benefit of tearing down the walls between the press and the public.

Grant wants to run a story on a police sex scandal on the front page, but the paper's publisher, Mrs. Pynchon, doesn't like the story. Grant says something about it being his job to decide what's important and what's not. Pynchon responds that she's the publisher and if she doesn't like it, it doesn't run.

Hearing their back and forth made me appreciate that nowadays, we increasingly decide what's important. Then again, I'm the one who keeps saying she prefers the packaged version so that I don't have to sift through everything to make that decision in the first place.

Hmm. It seems the point I was trying to make wasn't so easily answerable after all. Great. I chalk it up to another symptom of this post-graduation-realizing-there-are-no-easy-answers-in-life-phase.

Creating a Web site

2009-06-24T00:31:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to design a Web site and it is driving me crazy. I've spent the entire evening bouncing between Squarespace, Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger trying to figure out which would be the best to host a personal Web site for my resume, clips, and possibly a revival of this blog. I've got a picture in my head of what I want, but the rudimentary Web design skills I learned in an online journalism class almost two years ago are not enough to make that picture a reality.

The cliche "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing," comes to mind. OK, maybe not dangerous, but not being able to create what I want is frustrating the hell out of me.

Anyone know any good basic Web tutorial resources?

Save the Series

2009-04-22T23:43:00.009-04:00

Graduation is in exactly one month. Yikes.

But let's not dwell on that. Yesterday I had another front page story in the Diamondback, this one about how some teachers handle student laptop use in the classroom. I was far more pleased with the copy desk's chopping job on this story than Monday's. But you, dear reader, get the online link, where copy runs loose and editors aren't scrounging for space.

But on to more important things. I was incredulous about Monday's Romenesko headline "The days of the six-part series are gone, says Baltimore Sun editor." Mr. Cook, are you telling me I've spent four years and probably around $100,000 learning how to write news stories when all I have to look forward to are blogs, blogs and Twitter. Seriously?

Ironically, a little more than four hours later, a slew of Pulitzers were awarded to stories, columns, cartoons, and ahem, series.

And the next day, the following rebuttal, via Romenesko, "Why multi-part series are even more important for newspapers today." I'm really glad Temple talked about the value of series for reporters in addition to their obvious value to the community and public at large.

"They give the staff a way to grow," Temple wrote. Yes, it's nice when I can summarize my thought into a 140 character Tweet, but that's just a micropayment into the happiness bank. Writing a really good story, on the other hand, well that'll brighten a whole day or two. And though I haven't written a newspaper series yet, I can only imagine the weeks of joy and satisfaction that stem from seeing an idea blossom into a fully developed project.

Even better, series allow a newspaper to take readers to unexpected "journalistic heights," Temple said. Sure, we all know the beauty of crafting a mysterious lede or assembling an eye-catching multimedia package. But when a reader feels that same wonder -- well then we've really done our jobs.

Stories and series aren't going anywhere. I won't believe it. Sure, they might not be called newspaper series per say, and I'm willing to accept that multimedia is increasingly part of any good story. Let's go back to finding a new financial model that allows us to do those series rather than downplay their role the news business.

Same Headline, Different Story

2009-04-20T19:37:00.001-04:00

I picked up today's copy of the Diamondback feeling anxious. My story was on the front page and I was hoping the copy editors had been merciful with their digital scissors.

One look past the jump told me they hadn't. Although the lede and nut graf on page 1 were unchanged, there was no way the rest of my 600-plus word story was in those two half columns on page 2.

A quick scan of the text assured my fears. It seemed like half my story was missing. Interesting anecdotes, quirky quotes and fun facts had been deleted into oblivion. I wasn't mad; after all, space is space. But I'd spent hours on Friday crafting sentences and weaving paragraphs together.

The story was on Bob Moyer, an alumnus who now works for Pixar. (That famous alum I mentioned in Friday's post was Muppeteer Jim Henson, who, like Moyer, created his own major here). While drafting an e-mail to Moyer with the link to the story, I considered sending my original draft too.

I glanced at the online version of the story and saw the words rust and chrome. That wasn't in the newspaper, I thought.

I read closer and compared the two versions. To my surprise, the online link was my original draft.

Yes! I thought. Then I paused. The headlines were identical. But the stories technically weren't, right?

Obviously, I'm excited that the paper posted my original work. But on some level it seems a little misleading to me to have two different articles under the same headline. Has anyone seen any other papers do this?

Stay tuned; good days are coming.

2009-04-18T02:09:00.007-04:00

Any day that begins with bright sunshine, a cloudless blue sky, a new coral colored polka dot blouse and a hot cup of coffee has to be good, right?

After the gloomy rain we had earlier this week, such spring weather was sorely needed. Even more so today because it was the final prospective student open house of the year. Mom, Papa and Neeraj came to learn all about biomedical engineering. I ran around campus selling the j-school to admitted students and covering a lecture from an alum who's carrying on the legacy of one of our most famous alums. (That story will run in Monday's Diamondback, so I'll keep you in suspense until then.)

Back at work I got the interview set up for my AJR story (keeping lips sealed on that one too) and ran off to cover yet another event for yet another paper. After developing the story with my main source, my mood was almost back to the over-the-moon status I walked out feeling almost as good as I did over the winter. I shoulda known there was a bigger reason why.

It turns out Romenesko picked up my Mark Bowden post.

Ever since NewsVision, I've been incrementally repackaging myself as a journalist. I signed up for Twitter, fixed my resume, figured out how to create my own Web site, and most important, stepped up the writing.

Just as a heads up, the new Web site won't debut until after graduation. I'm going to step up activity on this blog, so stay tuned! There's lots to share.

Mark Bowden's Tips on Narrative Journalism

2009-04-15T22:28:00.007-04:00

The closer I get to graduation, the more I worry I may be an anachronism. I dream of delving into long-form narrative journalism at a time where it seems the public’s attention span is increasingly limited to blog posts and sound bites.

The Internet has forced journalists to write shorter and faster, but, as journalist and bestselling author Mark Bowden pointed out, the internet also offers something newspapers and magazines do not – infinite space.

“We swim in a sea of information that’s as wide as the globe, but about an eighth of an inch deep,” Bowden said. “If you’re human, you’re thinking about the how and why behind a headline,”

Clad in a simple navy blue turtleneck and round gold glasses, Bowden spoke to my complex story writing class yesterday. His tips quelled some of my fears about entering an industry in transition and assured me that the narrative hasn’t lost its power.

Behind every breaking news tweet and cable news ticker is someone who wants to explain themselves. “People are dying to tell their stories,” Bowden said.

The key to being a successful narrative journalist is finding a story’s dramatic center, Bowden said. Zoning board meetings are dull. But talk to the man who wants to build a three-foot high fence in his backyard and the neighbor who’d have to live with it, and suddenly you’ve got characters and drama.

Bowden recounted his experience going on a drug raid with Anne Arundel County police. A young reporter working for the Baltimore News-American, he didn’t trust himself to challenge the police’s characterization of the raid at the morning press conference. So he turned the raid into a narrative and described what he saw. And of all the pieces written about that police press conference, I’ll bet his was the most-read.

The key to drawing readers is to make the subject matter accessible. Be ignorant, Bowden said, only half-jokingly. Ask the stupid questions, because chances are, readers are no more experts at technical scientific principles or covert military operations than you are, he said.

A good reporter stays on track by constantly sketching story structure. This tells you what you need to know, but more important, what you don’t. While Somali anger at U.S. forces was important for context, at its heart, "Black Hawk Down" was a narrative describing battle.

It’s easy to lose sight of narrative in the inverted pyramid world of journalism. Newspapers tend to tell stories backward, Bowden said. A court story will lead with the verdict, describe the trial and mention the crime, sprinkling details where necessary. But sometimes, straying from this inverted pyramid offers the most compelling story.

After all, when a reader finishes a story, it’s not the beginning, but the end that’s freshest in their minds. To exercise his creative muscles, Bowden said he sometimes likes to rewrite stories with the lede at the end.

So, where can I find the story that will become the next nonfiction bestseller?

First, find something that interests you, Bowden said. Don’t worry if it’s outside your area of expertise or if it lacks timeliness. Write for story, not for setting, he said. (Though Mark Bowden’s editors probably don’t worry about nut grafs the way the editors of this budding journalist will.)

But it’s a lot easier for an editor to reject an idea than it is to kill a fully written, thoroughly reported story sitting in their hands.

Although the Internet means that stories aren’t told with words alone, Bowden’s advice reminded me why I’m excited to enter this field. Good stories will always need to be told.

After all, how many professions enable you to walk around in other people’s lives and let you understand their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, he said with a smile.

Am I reserved?

2009-04-12T18:33:00.005-04:00

In the past couple months, multiple people have used the word "reserved" to describe me. To me, "reserved" synonymous with "shy," something I most certainly am not.

In effort to reconcile this apparent disconnect, I looked up the word's definition.

Dictionary.com: "avoiding familiarity or intimacy with others: a quiet, reserved man."

Unsatisfied, I decided to go to the people who know me better than most.

"Would you say I'm a reserved person?" I went into the kitchen and asked my parents.

"No," my dad said with a smirk and no hesitation.

"I didn't think so either." I said. I told them how it's bothered me to hear people say that. But then Papa said something about how at large gatherings, he's fine just talking to one or two people.

In my case, I relish meeting new people but hate being the one to initiate contact. Once someone else comes and says "Hi" to me, I'm an open book. I'm not comfortable making the first move, though that doesn't mean I won't.

Hmm, maybe that's what people meant by reserved. Time to give the dictionary another try.

MerriamWebster.com: "restrained in words and actions."

Ah ha. So reserved can also be synonymous with "composed" or even "controlled." Now that I can deal with.

The Value of Communication

2009-04-06T21:48:00.002-04:00

I saw Tai Shan's cuddly face staring at me from this week's Washington Post Magazine feature and I expected five pages of "awww" reading.

I didn't expect another somber life lesson.

But then I read this:

"We're all losing our shirts," said the National Zoo's Berry. "People think: Oh, you're making money on these damn pandas. You're making a fortune. Every penny we make is plowed back into this species."

Then again, he added, "this is about advancing science and all biology . . . It's worth losing the money on. We lost money on Apollo, too, you know."

So, basically, capitalism rewards the worthless things in life. OK, that's a bit harsh, but echo that with what one of the other interns told me last week, while we were talking (what else) jobs.

Her recently graduated boyfriend works at an engineering firm and makes more than double what I can even dream my entry-level salary will be.

"I love him, but he's a horrible writer," she said.

"Why is something as essential as the ability to convey thoughts in a coherent manner undervalued?" I asked, not really wanting an answer.

Journalism isn't just reciting the news or telling a story. At its heart, journalism is about fostering communication. And with the increasing specialization or, as one attendee at NewsVision called it, the "niche-ification" of the internet, I fear losing the common ground of the newspaper that fosters communication between, and not just among groups.

NewsVision 2009

2009-04-01T13:05:00.003-04:00

Journalists hoping to walk away from the first annual NewsVision conference March 30 with clarity on the industry’s turmoil probably needed a stiff drink at the post-conference happy hour at the Capital Grille.

Held at Washington D.C.’s Newseum, the conference, titled Journalism Jobs in Transition, unearthed fascinating paradoxes within the changing media landscape. Organized by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in partnership with the Online News Association, sponsors included The Newspaper Guild and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.

The next few years will probably get even tougher, speakers warned, but the fundamentals of good storytelling will come out stronger.

“I’m optimistic about the future too, but I’m scared to death about how we’re going to get there,” said Lou Ferrara, a managing editor at the Associated Press. “It’s not as simple as creating a Web page anymore.”

But the media world revolves around the Web. In a survey released today, 39 percent of online journalists reported increases in their newsrooms over the past year. The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, also found an “uneasy optimism” among online journalists. While 82 percent are at least somewhat confident that the industry can find a profitable business model online, 57 percent said the Internet is changing journalism values and 54 percent think journalism is headed on the wrong track.

This may be because the media as we have known it, where editors handpick information and package it in a newspaper or broadcast, is disappearing, maybe for good.

Since the concept of packaging has changed, journalists should stop distinguishing between platforms, Ferrara said. Washingtonpost.com Managing Editor Ju-Don Marshall Roberts added that the rapid pace of technological development means that any business model must have flexibility built in.

But as journalism undergoes massive transitions and the global economy suffers through the recession, that business model will likely take a few years to emerge. We’ve raced from a world where readers explored content in a newspaper to one where users exploit search engines and social media for information, said Eduardo Hauser, CEO of DailyMe, Inc., a personalized content aggregator. We can’t handle either and are trying to reconcile the two extremes, he added.

While the Internet has dramatically reduced start-up costs for independent ventures, the PEJ study found that 71 percent of online journalists work for legacy Web sites and 63 percent say original reporting is their most important content. Least important to these journalists is user-generated content.

And yet, the Internet’s potential for interactivity is what makes it so powerful. In connecting people, the Web has given users control over what they consume. Social networking gives the media a chance to harness that energy and improve their own content. Tools like Twitter are no different than real-life networks, said Orlando Sentinel technology columnist Etan Horowitz.

Instead of posting a generic call for story ideas, “think about how you’d talk to someone at a cocktail party or a networking event,” Horowitz said. Enter with low expectations since “you don’t know what you’ll get.”

Scott Karp, CEO of Publish2, a content-sharing site, emphasized collaboration within and between newsrooms. USA TODAY’s Patrick Cooper discussed reporters as curators of a specific subject, telling stories and becoming a go-to source for readers much like Gene Sloan and his Cruise Log blog.

Journalists must also rethink the fundamentals of storytelling. For decades, media has focused on text while using video “for eye candy, not for context,” said Tom Kennedy, former multimedia managing editor at washingtonpost.com. Journalists now have a repertoire of tools – text, photos, audio, video, podcasts. The key is determining which tools go with which stories.

The industry’s flux makes it the perfect time to be creative in storytelling. “If you’re not making a certain number of mistakes, you’re not experimenting,” PBS Senior Vice President Jason Seiken half-jokingly said.

Washingtonpost.com’s Marshall Roberts said that, for the first time, her newsroom feels like a start-up. “The scary part about that is it’s like driving down the highway with the lights turned off,” she said. “We have to embrace the chance that we could fail.”

But failure is a scary prospect for those who rely on journalism to pay the bills. Yet another paradox arose as panelists discussed how journalists can remain competitive during turbulent times.

Politico co-founder and Editor in Chief John Harris likened today’s reporters to athletes, each with his or her own talent to hone. The deluge of content has reduced the importance of brand names and the wave of entrepreneurialism means reporters can use their talents and create niche content.

While Harris emphasized mastering one skill, other speakers reiterated the need to be proficient in all areas of storytelling. The conference’s keynote speaker, NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller mentioned that the organization is spending $2.5 million ($1.5 million of which came from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) to teach its entire staff digital storytelling skills.

Fundamental changes in the distribution and consumption of news have left journalists uneasy and put American democracy at risk. But we have the unique opportunity to not only witness history, but shape the future of the media industry, Schiller said. For someone eight weeks away from graduation, that was reassuring and inspiring.

Breakfast

2009-02-10T08:58:00.003-05:00

I don't usually care for toast, but a bottle of Ikea's lingonberry jam stared right at me from the top shelf in the fridge when I opened it to get the milk for my tea.

We're out of bagels, so white bread (blech) was the only other option. I toasted the bread and slathered on the jam. I usually don't turn the light on in the kitchen in the morning and since all the blinds were closed, it was darkish and gray. But out came the jam and suddenly it was like one of those photographs where everything is black and white save one bright red object, usually a rose or flower of some sort.

"That's why red is my favorite color," I thought to myself, yet again. (I've never had a favorite anything, but sometime last semester I decided on red. Since then, I've been a little more proud of myself than I should be for doing so).

I slid the knife over all corners of the bread, smearing it onto the surface the way a paint brush glides over canvas. Some spots got only one swish of color, but the middle of the bread was saturated. I sat down at my desk, and in the light from my window, the jam went from the red to a brilliant red-pink. I bit in and realized how important looks really can be. The jam isn't very sweet and has a fleeting bitter aftertaste that I'm not too fond of. The plain chewiness of white bread adds nothing. Still, I'm in awe of just how striking something as mundane as spreading jam can be early in the morning.

Published

2009-02-09T23:06:00.004-05:00

Not surprisingly, the semester has sucked me away from posting, which isn't good for an aspiring journalist.

Speaking of which, I was finally published today! No, it isn't my first time being published, but this is the first article I've written that is likely to reach more than five people.

The profile I wrote was a Web exclusive for the magazine where I'm interning this semester. I mass e-mailed my family/former teachers and colleagues with the link (friends will get the link off Facebook) and have since gotten some replies, including this message from the subject of the profile.

"Thanks. You were kind. Best of luck."

My editor was impressed with my initial draft and made only a few minor changes. I too am impressed with myself, namely the fact that I got this assignment on Thursday and turned it around by today. The best part is that I now longer fear the reporting process, in fact I relish being on the phone and having an excuse to ask people almost anything. And I don't even know where to begin explaining the joy I get out of taking what people tell me and assembling it into a coherent, creative and meaningful narrative.

I have so much more to say about this semester and my new love affair with reporting, but my eyes are heavy and I'm afraid I feel a sore throat coming on.

to be continued..

A Clockwork Immune System

2009-01-25T09:19:00.002-05:00

At some point during the third week of January, I get sick.

Two years ago, I was wrapping up a three-week long, four credit microeconomics course and starting my internship in the city when my body gave in. I had overambitiously thought that attending class from 9 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., commuting a hour and 15 minutes,then working for three hours, and then commuting back was a good idea.

I lasted three days doing that. The morning of my final exam, I awoke feeling miserable. My body ached and my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I could barely recall what an opportunity cost was; there was no way I could go to work.

Less than a week in and I'm already calling in sick, I thought. Boss is going to wonder what kind of a slacker did he intern did he just commit to. I sighed and dialed his number with trepidation. He didn't answer, so I left a message, apologizing at least five times in the process.

Fast forward one year. I was adjusting to life in Spain, and while details escape me, I do remember suffering from a nasty sore throat and cough that lasted a good two weeks. The pharmacy gave me some bitter orange-flavored powder that I mixed into water and forced down once a day. When that did nothing, Señora sent me back to the pharmacy, and when all they did was give me a worse tasting powder, she damned them and gave me her homemade remedy: a glass with the juice of one lemon, a tablespoon of honey and some water. Mmmm that stuff tasted so good. I sometimes drink it even when I'm not sick.

And now, dear reader, I am suffering for the third year in a row. I sensed it coming on Friday night when I crawled into bed. There was a tickle in my throat and a tingle in my nose that warned me to watch out. And sure enough, yesterday morning I awoke feeling like crap. I spent the entire day hunched over my computer working on the thesis with Aley. We ended up being extremely productive, and for that reason I didn't have time to think about my weakened state.

But once we wrapped for the day, it went straight downhill. Luckily there's no sore throat, just sneezing, coughing, body aches and a nose I've been blowing like a foghorn.

Final semester, here I come.

An Asking of My Own

2009-01-22T19:56:00.006-05:00

Since October, I've been following The Daily Asker, a blog documenting one woman's quest to, as the name suggests, ask for something every day for a year.

Last week I made an asking of my own. I'm not meek by character, but I'm surprisingly deferential to those with authority. I use the term authority loosely, because in this case, all it took to confer "authority" was a glass ticket window.

About two weeks ago, my friend Christin and I decided to get dinner and a movie. The parking lot was half-full, but the ticket area was empty save the two bored-looking high school girls manning the booth.

Christin walked up to the blonde on the left, I took the brunette on the right.

"One for the 6:45 showing of Benjamin Button," I said, handing her my credit card. As she slid me the receipt, Christin, who was still getting out her wallet, asked if there was a student discount. There was, $2 off.

"Oh, can I get the student discount too?" I asked, pulling out my college ID.

"Sorry, the transaction's already gone through. You have to ask for a discount first," she said monotonously.

Normally, I would have believed her and simply accepted the higher price to avoid causing a scene or looking like a cheapskate. After all, what do I know about credit card machines. But this time I decided to fight for my $2.

"Well, I didn't know there was a discount. Can't you just cancel the transaction and do it again?"

No, that would take the manager's approval, she said.

"Couldn't you just give me $2 cash? I mean, I am a student,"

No, then their cash drawer would be short.

I kept pressing, firmly but politely. They mentioned the manager again.

"OK, then may I speak to the manager?"

The two girls exchanged a look.

"You really want me to call the manager over $2?" the blonde asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I'd appreciate it if you could," I said.

She sighed and got the guy, who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me.

"Oh yeah, we can do that for you," he said nonchalantly after I explained him what had happened.

I thanked him and the other two profusely and Christin and I went on to watch God's greatest creation (Brad Pitt, *sigh*) reverse age for the next two hours.

Gained: $2, the self-assurance not to believe everything I hear, and the self-confidence not to care what two bored high-schoolers who I will never see again thought of me.

Inauguration

2009-01-20T21:48:00.007-05:00

What an incredible day.

When we left campus at 5:45 a.m., a crescent moon was shining in the deep navy blue sky. By the time we made it out of Metro's L'fEnfant Plaza station almost 75 minutes later, an indigo sky and the artificial orange glow of street lights bathed the river of people on Seventh Street. One name graced many of their hats, scarves, shirts and sweatshirts. Shouts of "Good Morning," and "Welcome to the Inauguration," came from red-hat clad volunteers.

By 7:30 the six of us were rooted to a spot of the National Mall's cold packed dirt between Seventh and Fourth Streets. We stood, we (well, I,) dozed, we waited. The sky went from lavender to to cerulean and the sun's pointed rays did nothing to keep the 20-degree air from seeping through the multiple layers of socks, gloves, leggings, and sweatshirts, numbing our fingers and toes.

While we waited, we sang along to "American Pie" and "This Land is Your Land" replayed from Sunday's concert. We stamped our feet and marched in place to jumpstart blood flow. We craned our necks around the 6-foot-4 guys in front of us for fleeting glimpses at the jumbotron. We waved the American flags the Boy Scouts of America gave us. The occasional pushy spectator jostled through, but despite everything, a celebratory air permeated the jovial crowd.

Four-and-a-half hours later, our 43rd president was introduced for the last time. Many booed; we didn't. Our country's leaders deserve respect, whether or not their policies are agreeable. Then our 44th president stepped up to take his oath. The jumbotron came into view and I captured the botched swearing-in on video.

Finally the moment arrived. Ever since I missed the Obama rally on campus during the 2006 midterm elections, I'd been waiting to hear the Great One speak. Sure, the best view might come from sitting at home, but the enraptured silence of the audience, the echo of his voice off the city's marble monuments telling us how we will succeed, nothing, absolutely nothing can top that.

Officially, Obama's constituency resides in the United States. But the entire world seems to be pinning everything on this man's shoulders. I don't think anyone has ever faced such pressure. Yet in this speech, Barack Obama reminded us that and that we will rise above these rough times not because we as Americans are entitled to, but because we owe it to the rest of the world to. It's no longer us vs. them, it's us and them.

No, charisma isn't everything and talk only gets us so far. But there is something in this man, a seed of passion, an innate determination that says, trust me. Things won't change tomorrow, but they will soon enough.

So was it worth it? Braving the cold for more than four hours, weaving through intense crowds for in search of food for another hour, standing in a stuffy hallway for two more hours while waiting for the Metro back to campus- a total of 13 hours, sore legs and an aching back just to hear an 18-minute speech? Yes, it was worth every bone-chilling moment, made even the better because each was spent with friends new and old.

Incredible, indeed.

A Very Good Year

2008-12-31T11:19:00.023-05:00

"When I was 21
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for
City girls who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was 21"

2008 was a very good year. Contrary to what the morose headlines in the news suggest, this year was, in fact, the best, at least for me.

While my year contained none of the bygone romances Sinatra so wistfully recounts, yours truly finally became a city girl, exploring her way through Spain's capital city. And last March I did get the best haircut ever, an 11-euro deal whose layers and bangs curled in just the right way around my oval-shaped face. But on to the important stuff.

The first half of this year was all about travel. I logged close to 25,000 miles by air (unfortunately I only just registered for a frequent-flier program two weeks ago) and another 6,000 by bus, train and car across Western Europe and the eastern United States. That adds up to about 59 hours by air and 117 hours on the ground, for a grand total of 176 hours, or the equivalent of one entire week spent sitting in a chair waiting to be a tourist.

Exhausting? You bet. And the days sandwiched between those travels typically offered no break as I constantly searched for things to do and see in Madrid. More times than I care to remember I asked myself, why is it that I'm walking through [insert city name here] but all I really want to do is crawl into my own bed and sleep.

But outnumbering those instances were the ones where I looked around and thought simply, Wow. I thanked God every night, not just for the chance to travel, but for the loving Spanish family I joined, the engaging Spanish professors I had and the energetic Spanish language I spoke.

Come June, castellano was replaced with talk of cloture and voice votes as the Eurotripping gave way to my summer internship covering congressional hearings. Enter the second major theme of this year: my increasing love of journalism. A few weeks into the gig, once the politicians became just people and the wood-paneled hearing rooms lost their luster, I realized I really liked deciphering these complicated bill discussions and delving into the minutiae of policy.

Then my journalism-filled semester rolled around, and I was hooked. I fought it for three years, but the j-school won and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could pull off writing for a living. I, of course, realized this after throwing myself into the grad school/law school process, thinking for sure that foreign policy was my future. And so here I am, ending the year with no definite plan but a smile still plastered on my face.

Of course, 2008 wasn't perfect.

In Madrid, it took almost eight weeks for me to settle into a close group of friends. And it took the same amount of time for me to get back in the groove with school friends once this semester started. The 15-pound weight gain I deftly evaded freshman year found its way to my butt, thighs and belly via La Mallorquina (damn you chocolate napolitanos). And in more ways than one, I realized that life is a hell of a lot more complicated than I ever could have imagined.

2008 was the most exciting year I have ever had. But I suspect it was just a preview, the appetizer to the glorious main course of change that is making its way out of the kitchen.

I hope that everyone out there is as excited as I am for whatever 2009 has in store. Happy New Year!

The Absence of Magic

2008-12-26T18:30:00.010-05:00

For days I've been meaning to post about how magic-less this holiday season has felt. And then this quote from columnist Erma Bombeck popped up on my Gmail toolbar:

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."

Yup, that just about sums up Christmas 2008. On Christmas Eve night I had no problem falling asleep and yesterday morning Mom had to drag me out of bed around 10 a.m. I plopped onto the living room sofa, busying myself with the Washington Post's A section. Only after scanning the headlines did I give the wrapped boxes beneath the tree a cursory glance. Absent any real sense of expectation or excitement (I didn't ask for anything specific), I buried my head in the throw pillow and closed my eyes as we waited for Neeraj to come down.

It's not that this year's was a particularly bad holiday; my family and I just never really found the spirit of the season.

Take the tree for example. Normally the white lights of our 7.5-foot artificial Christmas tree are shining by the first or second weekend in December. But as we drove down my street last Friday, the day I came home for winter break, one dark window stuck out like a missing tooth in a gleaming row of houses.

Papa finally put our tree up last Saturday night but it sat depressingly naked for an entire day. On Sunday evening, while a tired Mom and Papa watched TV and Neeraj studied for an econ exam, I pulled out the ornaments and began the chore of decorating. It was clear my heart wasn't in it once I was through; the lopsided pearl strands and haphazardly hung glass balls made the tree look sadder than it did pre-decor.

I convinced Mom to redo it on Wednesday and by the time Santa started wrapping gifts, the pearl strands were draped symmetrically and the glass balls glistened. This year, Santa got so lazy that he (re: Papa) wrapped all the gifts in plain sight as Neeraj and I sat surfing the Web in the family room.

The holiday wasn't totally devoid of surprises - everything was already boxed up so we didn't actually know what the gifts were. But, and here's the sad part, in the moments before gift-opening, I found myself anticipating that evening's Christmas meal more than what sat in those boxes.

And as for that magnificent Christmas dinner we had planned, well, by 7 p.m. no one was hungry so we postponed it to tonight and ate soup instead.

Erma's aforementioned quote brings to mind what one of my former high school teachers, who I'm fairly close to, told me in a recent email. Her son is almost 3 and though he didn't really understand the concept of Santa last year, "This year he gets it and can hardly contain himself!" she wrote.

So it looks like the magic-less Christmas is here to stay, since seeing anything through my own kid's eyes is still a waaaays away.

Cafe con Leche Part 2

2008-12-19T22:24:00.005-05:00

My quest for the perfect cafe con leche continues.

Last time it was Starbucks, today it was the bagel and espresso place across from campus. I explained the barista exactly what I wanted and she suggested a custom-made espresso macchiato. Two minutes later, my hopes rested on a mug half-filled with one shot of espresso, four ounces of steamed skim milk and two inadequatily mixed sugar packets.

Based on color alone, it wasn't promising. My Spain coffee was a rich cross between butterscotch and caramel brown, served in a 6 oz. glass that was hot to the touch. This lukewarm concoction was a flat, murky brown-gray, devoid of shine and aroma. The taste also wasn't quite there, either because four ounces is too much milk, or more likely, because I went with skim instead of the half-skim-half-whole that Sasika got in her cappuccino.

The coffee conundrum remains unsolved.

On the upside, Sasika and I had an engrossing conversation about hitting it big at age 27 (with one particular speechwriter in mind), post-graduation possibilities and how we secretly just want to be novelists. Invigorated by the shot of caffeine, Sasika and I left with a pact to a) make this our new study spot and b) submit a piece of creative writing for publication next semester.

Finished

2008-12-17T18:48:00.004-05:00

Five minutes ago I e-mailed my last final exam, meaning, I'm done!

The finals rundown was this: One take-home final on libel, one final feature story, two extra credit book reports, one opinion piece and three opinion blog posts. Eight pieces of writing in all, the first four due on Tuesday, the latter four today.

In order to remove the temptation of snacking that overcame me whenever I sat down to work, I holed myself in the library study room for five hours on Sunday and Monday. Saturday and Sunday I went to bed at 4 a.m. and woke up five hours later. Monday I was up researching libel cases until 7 a.m., only to wake up less than two hours later and return to the case hunt.

It's strange how the less sleep I get, the more productive I seem to be. Thinking I'd fall right asleep right after getting in bed around 11 p.m. Tuesday, I instead lay awake thinking about how much I wanted to write write write for a living.

That's the best part of this finals week and this whole semester, which comprised only of journalism classes. Writing 24 double spaced pages in five days has only bolstered my desire to keep writing. Good thing I've got this blog to dump those desires onto!

Holiday Cookie Potluck

2008-12-13T13:47:00.014-05:00

In theory it's a good idea. After all, what better way to get in the Christmas spirit than turn a secret Santa gift exchange into an all out holiday bake-fest?

But as I learned last night, the only way to throw such a party is with a side order of Alka-Seltzer tablets and enough pillows for everyone to lay in their laps and double themselves over. Yes, there really is such a thing as holiday cookie overload (gasp!)

Anita and Sasika took on this year's event knowing that even their laid-back selves could outdo last year's un-festive precedent: a ten-minute swap outside a crowded Starbucks on study day.

Their Facebook event promised gifts, cookies and "hot chocolate with a twist." As if that wasn't enticing enough, a picture of the lovable Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer gazed back at guests. We busied ourselves hunting for recipes, of the cookie and cocktail variety, and wrapping gifts.

At first I wanted to make carrot cupcakes because I've been craving them for about a month. But after perusing Vicki's Christmas cookie book, I settled on the more festive hot chocolate cookie. And in a sudden bout of inspiration triggered by a Rice Krispies commercial I saw yesterday afternoon, I threw Rice Krispie treats into my contribution.

An afternoon of baking yielded this heavenly sight.

Moving left from my marshmallow-topped hot chocolate cookies we had peanut butter Hershey kiss cookies, butter cookies, sugar cookies, peppermint candy cane cookies, Vicki's Norweigan Christmas cookies whose name escapes me, Rice Krispie treats, gingerbread cookies and mini chocolate chip cookies.

Finally the moment came to dig in. A few of us, myself included, had skipped dinner to get the full cookie experience. We made the rounds, most trying at least one of each. Ten minutes and six or seven cookies later, all I (and everyone else) wanted was a glass of milk. Silence befell the food coma'd group. The T.V. went on. Forget a sugar high, this was a sugar crash.

The gift exchange brought a little levity. We had drawn names at our Thanksgiving dinner, the same night Nancy and I had to duck out early to attend the last home football game of the year. Funnily enough I drew Nancy and she drew me. But alas, even the magic of gift giving couldn't fully overcome a sugar-butter-egg overdose. Even though everyone was done, the table of goodies looked untouched.

Sumegha, already battling a cold, left early. I passed on the hot chocolate, my stomach not wanting anything but for me to curl into a ball. Fifteen minutes later I left. After the party Anita and Sasika came over and poor Sasika was suffering the same saccharine-induced malady.

Today at around noon I walked out of my room in my PJs and hoodie and collapsed head-first onto the couch.

"Cookie hangover, Priya?" Molly asked as I buried my head in a blanket.

"I'm never eating cookies again," I mumbled.

My sweet tooth might finally be taking the long-desired hiatus the scale has wished upon it since I returned from Spain.

Cafe con Leche Replacement

2008-12-10T21:52:00.006-05:00

I finally made some progress today in my quest to find the perfect stateside version of the morning cafe con leche from my Madrid university cafeteria.

I've been deconstructing Starbucks' Web site to figure out exactly what they call a shot of espresso, four ounces of hot milk and one packet of sugar. I narrowed it down to either a caffe latte, cappuccino or espresso macchiato. I'm not getting my hopes up too high, considering the Spanish don't fuss with foam in coffee and always take more than a dollop of milk, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Two hours of sleep last night made for a very long day of meetings and classes. After a short nap I had an urge to venture down to Starbucks for a caffeine jolt and a change of scenery. Sumegha accompanied me and I decided my first attempt would be the cappuccino.

Before we get into the drink, since when has Starbucks had a short (8 oz.) size? I first saw it for on the Web site and it's exactly what I've been looking for. The heaviness of a tall anything but house coffee from Starbucks is enough to replace one, potentially two meals. But with a short I might actually be able to indulge without sacrificing my appetite.

Once I got beyond the unnecessary layer of foam under the cappuccino lid, the rich flavor of milky espresso filled my mouth and I accepted that Europe has forever spoiled any chance I have of becoming an American coffee addict. I hadn't even put the sugar in and the drink still blew regular coffee out of the water. The espresso and milk didn't blend exactly the way my Spanish cup did, but I think that perfect ratio will forever elude me. I even warmed up to the foam after slurping the last dregs of it from my diminutive yet stimulating cup of cappuccino.

Verdict: Not quite there, but getting closer.

A Lazy Weekend

2008-12-07T19:24:00.004-05:00

Lethargy. Languor. Torpor. We four bonded this weekend.

The last academic thing I accomplished was a story memo submitted Wednesday. Since then the energy and desire to be productive has been on a slow, steady deceleration that has left me feeling, well, like my three aforementioned buddies.

Despite triggering a sea-change in my perspective on a lot of things, the semester looks to be making a relatively quiet departure. This last week demands only two assignment from me and then just three take-home final assignments separate me from the end.

Exhaustion isn't the cause of my slowdown. This semester doesn't touch the academic rigors last fall brought. It's me tiring of the monotonous routine of school yet wanting desperately to hold on to it forever.

It's the frustration at seeing my field of study go through such the degeneration, upheaval and change.

It's the impatience of waiting for responses to the various applications I've sent out.

It's the uncertainty that follows May 22, 2009.

It's the gluttony of a weekend spent eating snacks instead of meals.

Clad in my beige velveteen sweatpants and oversized navy blue Yale sweatshirt, I feel like a bear on the verge of hibernation. The bitter cold and blustery wind don't help either.

I found one source of frustration officially shared via this NYTimes column by Timothy Egan, which sums up the rant I dumped on poor Nancy last night about how irritating it is that everyone suddenly thinks they can be a journalist.

When Good Girls Stay Good

2008-12-03T19:20:00.006-05:00

In an age where The Real Housewives of Atlanta is considered must-see TV, it's refreshing (and reassuring) to see wit and politics catapult a woman to the dizzying heights of stardom.

Tina Fey graces the cover of this month's issue of Vanity Fair and the Maureen Dowd profile reveals a simple yet steadfast woman seeking not success but satisfaction.

Though she talks about her past weight issues and drab dating life (Hooray for not losing your virginity before you can vote), the Annie Leibovitz photos are smoking with red stilettos, some naughty nibbling of glasses (Thank you Tina for showing the world that there is something sexy about a four-eyed brunette) and what looks to me like a near-wardrobe malfunction.

In Broadsheet's view, this can either be construed as "depressing (a brilliant comic mind inevitably reduced to shaking her cleavage)" or "empowering (a brilliant comic mind finally shaking her cleavage!)" I'm leaning toward the latter. Let's face it, sex is part of society. So why not sell it tastefully, with brains and principle to back it up?

I'll admit, I didn't know a lot about Fey before reading this piece and the her 2003 New Yorker profile. I've seen an episode or two of 30 Rock, but am not an avid follower (then again my TV watching has all but died since high school). But she's now rapidly ascending the list of people I want to be.

In an age where it's so easy to be wild, she sticks to her guns. She didn't drink in college but freely writes sketches about whores and dropped the f-bomb in both articles.

Yes, I'm a good girl, but I'd be lying if I said I've never wanted to just completely let loose. Fey said it beautifully: “I only have two speeds— either matronly or a little too slutty."

But who cares what you are as long as you're happy with it? Confidence is the most attractive quality in a person. And while other people may say I'm confident, too often I agonize over what other people think of my actions more than what I think of them. Peer pressure is hard to handle, but then it's people like Fey who remind me that being who you are will all pay off some day.

Losing My Touch?

2008-12-02T15:36:00.008-05:00

For the past two weeks I've been scheduled to give a presentation on Fareed Zakaria in my commentary and editorial writing class. Today I finally did. And I was nervous.

Correction. I presented as if I was nervous.

Big deal, you say. No one likes giving presentations.

Wrong. I do. I love it. And I do not get nervous. Sure if it's a big one the flipping stomach and pounding heart make an appearance. A brief appearance. Because once the room has gone silent, the eyes are facing me, I'm right where I belong - at the center of attention.

But today I didn't take the split-second before opening my mind to mentally orient myself and consequently did just what I said I wouldn't do. I began reading from my handout.

The first few words wobbled out of my mouth and I felt like someone who was walking with the wrong shoes on each foot. I began with who Zakaria is - Newsweek editor, Post columnist, CNN host. Someone made a joke - I missed my chance to fire back, bumbling right on through where he's from, who his parents are, where he went to college etc.

It got worse. I noticed a typo in the handout. According to me, the Newsweek cover story "Why They Hate Us," which turned Zakaria into a foreign policy rock star, has 6,8000 words. They must really hate us.

Get away from the sheet that voice inside said through gritted teeth. I regained some composure when I finally tore myself away from the sheet to my notes, only to get lost again. Note to self: NEVER write your notes in cursive.

It got a little better. The class took my honesty with a laugh when I said I chose to present Zakaria because I want to be him.

Time to read an excerpt of Zakaria's writing. I chose a column from last December, "The Power of Personality," which I read on New Year's Eve while sitting in the dentist's office. This short column told me Zakaria was a man to pay attention to.

The copy in front of me not being my original, I didn't have the highlighted road signs directing me where to begin reading. I chose the fourth one, realizing halfway through I should have started at the third. Even worse, I knew I was doing exactly what I hold against almost every other student presenter I've encountered. I was reading way. too. fast.

SLOW DOWN, the mental voice screamed. I did, but stumbled over words. Sentences were repeated. Words were skipped.

Am I losing my touch?

The inner voice was not happy.

In the end, I made my point. That it's time for America to pay attention to the rest of the world and we need more people like Zakaria to be telling us that. One student remarked to me after class that she'd actually learned something from my presentation. There were smiles and "Good jobs." I knew the audience wasn't judging me nearly half as harshly as I was judging myself.

Actually, as I'm writing this, I just got a g-chat message from another classmate saying, "GREAT PRESENTATION."

So why am I still beating myself up? Honestly this presentation is probably worth like one half of a percent of my grade.

Perfectionism, don't you ever take a day off?

Senioritis?

2008-12-01T12:11:00.004-05:00

I have turned into such a slacker. Dare I say I'm becoming one of those people I used to hate, the ones who seemingly do no work and still pull off a stellar academic performance. After all, grades looking good and clear skies abound the horizon straight through finals.

It's not that assignments ceased after October. Could I actually-gasp-be enjoying my schoolwork? By senior year you theoretically should be taking the most interesting, most relevant classes and I have finally embraced my journalism love. It also can't be a coincidence that this period of calm began immediately after submitting my grad school application. Or maybe it's just my new let-it-be, wait-and-see attitude toward life.

Can it really be happening? Is this what payoff feels like? I mean, after three long years of ass-busting I'm entitled to a little bit of coasting, wouldn't you say? And to think, I was under the impression that it took retirement to reap the fruits of your labor.

I really shouldn't be so cheery after getting just one hour of sleep last night. I woke up at 8:30 a.m. in a daze that didn't disappear until I reached the gym 30 minutes later. The sky this morning was gray and dreary and that combined with my foul mood promised a very crappy day. But four hours later the sun is shining directly onto my face and I'm filled with satisfaction. I really should be reading about photo stalking and wiretapping for media law. Or maybe I'll just continue continue to listen to Coldplay and surf e-Bay. Life is glorious.

Writing

2008-12-01T04:09:00.014-05:00

I can't sleep. And that means you, lucky reader, get a second helping of moi. See, I'm already making up for the two-month hiatus.

God I love to write. Yet I feel like such a fraud saying that considering I've been MIA since September. Typically enjoying something means you actually engage in it every once in a while. Sure I write for class (especially this semester, where my entire courseload consists of journalism classes), but that's also class.

I've never been one to consistently keep a journal or diary. Documentation of my life comes in waves, most usually centered around when I take a big vacation. (Studying abroad wreaked havoc on this strategy.) I write when I'm frustrated or when my brain manages to put together an especially noteworthy sentence. My writings vary from pages of boring chronological recounts of events filling any of the half a dozen notebooks I have scattered around to a smattering of sentence fragments listing sights, smells, colors and emotions scrawled onto whatever notepad I had handy.

I keep willing my mind to just remember, to file away all the details so that once I get the time I can do that memory justice. But the real reason I let so many of those memories just slip away without a permanent paper anchor is because my writing style overwhelms me.

Ever since I was little, I've felt the need to document my life with the precision and thoroughness of a court stenographer. And after a day of sightseeing, the last thing my tired self wanted to do was wear out my hand documenting the day's every detail, including the food we ate, the stories our tour guide told us and the wrong turns we took. The concept that some details simply aren't important escaped me until I realized how cumbersome details can be.

This eye for detail permeates my verbal storytelling as well, a style I get from Mom. Everyone groans when she has a story to tell because we know it will meander like a lazy country river until an exasperated Papa will ask her what the point it. At which point she will have either forgotten or realizes that ninety percent of the details had nothing to do with that point.

I'm really no different though. I seem to have no concept of drama or suspense in verbal communication. I'm more focused in getting the entire story out in conversation than in making that story interesting to the listener. Ask me what happened in class today and I'll begin with something the professor said two months ago and then plod along from there. Flip the situation and I'll mmhmm my way through their story, hearing each word but listening to none.

But now we've veered into another branch of communication. This post is, after all, titled "Writing." For someone who proclaims she wants to be a journalist, or at least make writing a central part of her career, it's peculiar that I haven't actively sought forums to show off my writing. Typically people launch blogs to have some kind of accountability to writing. It's a lot easier to blow off that diary entry when there's no expectant audience. So I dipped my toe into the blogosphere and started this. But with what I think to be one devoted reader, that public accountability argument withers away.

For almost two years I've said I'd apply to be a columnist at my school newspaper, a daily with a circulation of 17,000. Something has always held me back though, primarily the fear of attack. Although I crave attention in almost every other sense, the idea that my thoughts, opinions and words would be completely open to discussion, ridicule and comment was just too much. I mean, some letter-to-the-editor writers are just plain harsh.

Yes, I know, in the words of "Hillary Clinton", I, as a future part of the media, need to just "grow a pair."

I'm Back

2008-11-30T23:04:00.004-05:00

I know. I know. I'm the girl who says she wants to be a journalist but for two months shuts out the one place that welcomes her words with open arms.

Yes you heard that right. I have begrudgingly accepted what some may have known all along. I want to be a journalist. I figured the j-school would beat me down eventually and I'm finally willing to publicly acknowledge my love affair with this major. Now that's either extremely bold or extremely stupid, given that the rest of the economy has caught journalism's scent and is following its path - straight into the ground. But you must remember that I never seem to take the simple path in life.

Obviously my blogging absence hasn't been for a lack of material, that I can assure you.

In fact, as this semester winds down and 2008 enters its final month, I'm left wondering how so much could possibly happen in such a short period of time. I've already concluded that 2008 will have been my best year ever, but we'll ruminate on that when 2009 is closer.

That sweltering first day of school is yet another memory, gone like all the leaves on this tree-lined campus. October, the month of exams, papers and projects crept along while November has whizzed by like a skier headed down a slope of fresh powder. As much as my friends hate me for this, I've been taking it easy since Nov. 15, when I turned it my sole graduate school application. And it looks like the coasting will continue through the final two-week stretch. Finals are nonexistent for me, replaced with two final papers.

But the semester has comprised much more than schoolwork, and much more than I can recount right now. I've learned the value of honesty, candor and greeting the future with exhilaration instead of trepidation. I've learned that friends are best enjoyed when you don't shut them out. I've realized the person I think I am isn't always the one others see. And though I've come pretty far in the past three years, it's clear I've still got a whole lot left to learn.

My (Potentially) Last First Day

2008-09-03T00:24:00.003-04:00

That sneaking suspicion that I'm actually a senior crept up unnoticed in the form of a determined freshman girl who asked me where a building was. Two hours later, a young man wondered how to get to the diner. The location stations were scattered around campus and once-deserted streets and sidewalks were now teeming with people. The day was steamy and sweaty, as the first day always seems to be, but I thankfully am not returning to an equally steamy dorm room, for we now rule the school.

While it's obviously been a year since I've seen a first day of school, it's my first time seeing the campus in action since December. As much as I've enjoyed my eight-month vacation, as Papa puts it, it sure does feel nice to be back, really back, to my regular life. I've got a new appreciation for it, living in my own place again, friends flitting in and out, and of course, the beautiful campus that surrounds it all. Yes, classes have begun, and while my course load is lighter, there's a lot more outside work (re: figuring out what comes next), it feels so nice to just dive back into the routine. No more traveling, no more tapas all the time, but I'm pretty satisfied just the same.

On another note, I'm doing the journalism law readings I was assigned last week (yes, during summer break), and it's not going as well as I'd hoped. My professor's syllabus warns us that this may be the most difficult course we take in the journalism school since the reading and writing are so different from anything our reporter's minds have encountered. So this class is now my litmus test for finally putting that law school seed to rest. If I enjoy/don't find it too difficult, then law school may just be the thing for me. But if I struggle along with everyone else, I will once and for all settle this recurring battle my brain is waging with me. I'm secretly hoping to hate the class for the sole reason of solving this problem. But I unfortunately am finding myself fairly intrigued by the various types of law explained in chapter one. Now I may only be hitting the calm before the storm, but I've got another sneaking suspicion that this law school question won't die that easily after all.

Nani Ma

2008-08-25T15:42:00.003-04:00

Summer afternoons in the kitchen with Grandma may be a familiar memory for some, but I experienced it for the first time today. Peeling potatoes, learning new recipes and hearing about my mother's childhood antics, all while practicing my Hindi - could a granddaughter ask for anything more? Yesterday I sat at Nani Ma's feet while she retold her experience fleeing Rawalpindi after the India-Pakistan Partition; the horrors she witnessed and the uncertainty that came with ever step. I'm continually amazed at how a woman her age so emphatically tells stories, how her piecemeal English and Susan Auntie's very limited Hindi don't stand in the way of their thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Yes, Nani Ma repeats stories sometimes and she can't walk very far without tiring, but her mind is agile as ever, and I suppose that's one of the most important things one could hope for at her stage in life.

I'm so glad that she has this opportunity to stay in Luxembourg for a few months, to take a break from the behr bahr, the hustle and bustle that cloaks New Delhi. Sitting around the kitchen table our first day here, Nani Ma first noticed the silence, the shanti, that pervades this corner of the world. The air is cool and the street's only interruption seems to the be the occasional car gliding quietly out of the neighborhood - a far cry from the humid, dusty Delhi air and the puttering, honking cars that fill the gulliya. This morning Susan Auntie said after less than a week Nani Ma seems to be looking less and less like the tired, frail woman that emerged from Brussels' airport. I only wish I had more than three days to spend reminiscing and learning from her.

More than I expected, this vacation is turning out to be just the break a student about to enter her last year of college needs. The past two weeks have been enjoyable in opposite ways - hectic, bhangra-filled wedding days in London followed by long conversation and lazing in the kitchen or along Luxembourg's countryside. While I didn't always know or understand what was going on at the wedding, I was far enough removed from it that I didn't have much responsibility, but was still in the thick of it all. The best place to be if you ask me. And now, here in Luxembourg, I'm surrounded by everything I like about European life - foreign languages, quiet countryside, and people who wear skirts and heels to go grocery shopping. But most importantly, I've got political commentary with Susan auntie, griping about school with Sara, joking around with Mamu, and Nani Ma's squeak of a laugh when she tells us she mistook Sara's hot pink slippers for some special Luxembourgish rabbit.

Why We Need the Olympics

2008-08-11T20:38:00.003-04:00

Probably to the dismay of my parents and my things-to-do list, I've been doing nothing but watching the Olympics for the past weekend. And even if last night's 4-by-100 men's relay finish wasn't absolutely thrilling, I'd still be watching the Olympics tonight.

I won't gush about how stunning the Opening Ceremonies were, but I will say I'm pretty happy I stayed in Friday night to watch them. My favorite part was either the intimidatingly synchronized drumming that kicked it off - especially when the stage went dark and the percussionists were pounding with fiery glow-in-the-dark sticks - or the movable type pieces that moved in harmony to the music.

But the real point I'm getting at is that we need the Olympics to remember what makes us amazing. I'm not naive enough to ignore the performance enhancing drugs and hard-line Chinese security crackdown that lie beyond the world records and gold medals, but we need the Olympics nonetheless.

A diver twisting headfirst into a pool of water thirty feet below. A gymnast flinging his legs around and around a pommel horse. A cyclist battling the final uphill meters of a 78-mile course. A pole vaulter launching herself over a bar. It's utterly mind-boggling what the right amount of training can do to human capability.

Contrary to discouraging us from pursuing personal fitness, watching these athletes should inspire us. If they can push human performance boundaries, the least we can do is get little exercise into our own bodies.

The other thing about the Olympics is that, with the exception of superstars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Michael Phelps, most of these competitors are relative unknowns. Yes there are high-profile sports like basketball, gymnastics, track and field and swimming, but the Olympics also give us the chance to get into more obscure ones like fencing, archery, and modern pentathlon. Sure, our interest will probably wane until four years from now at the next go around, but it's still fun.

And then of course there's the pride. As much as foreclosure rates, gas prices and campaign drama have been on our minds, show us the stars, the stripes, and the teary American eyes on the medal podium and we easily remember why we love our country. I realized in Europe that some people are put off by our patriotism, but it's something I fiercely guard. We cheer, yelp, shout, high five, hug, fist bump, chest bump, whatever it takes to celebrate. Some may see this as cockiness, flamboyance or ostentation, but I say there's nothing wrong with showing a little emotion once in a while.

The significance of these games to China have been dissected ad nauseam, so I won't go into any of that. What I have noticed, and I don't know if that's because I myself am an Eastern-Western mix, are the subtle cultural difference. It seems our athletes compete more for the love of sport and individual accomplishment while they compete more out of duty and national pride. Clearly, we too take national pride in winning, but I would guess that Phelps' quest for eight golds is first to get his name in the history books, with American pride second. Conversely, I think the Chinese gymnasts and divers want these golds almost more for their country than for themselves. I only wonder what they would go through after the cameras are turned off should they not complete the victorious duties they're charged with. Theirs is the pressure of an authoritarian government with something to prove, the pressure of 1.3 billion people. Phelps' pressure comes mostly from one man - himself.

And with that hot medal pursuit in mind, let me just say that while this isn't exactly the point of the Games, I fist-clenchingly hope that we come out with the most gold medals. I know, I know, that's bordering on arrogance, but what can I say, the idealist in me wants democracy to prevail.

The Right Set of Ears

2008-08-05T22:52:00.002-04:00

Be careful what you say because you never know who's listening.

I don't say that to be menacing, in fact, something decidedly positive happened when the right person heard the right words this evening on the Metro.

Fellow intern Hannah and I were chatting on our way home from a dinner at the city's Top Chef- created burger joint when she asked me if I knew a certain professor. Turns out, the man who taught her internship program's class this summer was also the one who pushed me through the journalism class from hell I told you all about last fall.

"You're kidding me," I told Hannah. "He was one of my favorite teachers ever!" I went on to tell her how Megan (who's also interning at this office) and I were in his class together and how we absolutely loved him and he loved us, going on and on. Soon enough Hannah's stop came and after bidding her good bye, I pulled out my book to occupy the rest of the ride.

Shortly before my station, the lady sitting across from me slides over and hands me her card.

"I overheard you talking about Mr. Journalism earlier," she told me. "Well, I'm the one who hired him to teach for this internship program."

Say what?

She told me she was so happy to hear how much we liked him, and wanted to pass the praise on.

"Too often teachers only hear from the bad students and I wanted to let him know what I heard today," she said before we parted ways.

I just sent her an e-mail telling her who Hannah and I are, and how I'd be more than happy for her to let Professor know how much we appreciate his teaching us.

I'm sure Hannah will get a kick out of this coincidence when I tell her tomorrow. What a small world after all.

Oh, and remind me, I must write about the new possible career option I discovered yesterday evening :)

Long-Distance Friendships

2008-08-03T20:51:00.004-04:00

I know how the saying goes; it's better to have loved than lost than to have never loved at all. But that doesn't make dealing with the loss part any easier.

I've been home from Spain for two months now, and it hasn't really set in that that chapter of my life is over. The people from my Madrid life are now all over the world, back to their daily routines just like I am. Yes, today's technology means it's not terribly difficult to keep in touch. But that still doesn't change the fact that things will never be the same as they were just a few short months ago.

Granted, nothing is ever the same as it was just a few months ago, and the only reason why I'm making this a bigger deal is because it's a more obvious difference. But sophomore year was still different than freshman year, and people will always float in and out of our lives like dandelion seeds in the wind. On the flip side, putting an ocean between friends doesn't mean the friendship has to stop, which is another thing I'm realizing.

Sure, a long-distance friendship takes more work to maintain, but as one Facebook bumper sticker I've seen says, "True friendship isn't being inseparable; it's being separated and nothing changes." That's why my dad can go to India after twenty-something years and still joke around with his buddies as if they were still in high school. He once told me that the during one night we spent with his friends and their families last summer, he felt as if no time had passed since their bachelor days; that his years here in the U.S. were just a blink, a minor hiatus from their carefree youths.

I want that. I want to be able to get together, ten years down the road, with the friends I have now and be able to chat, laugh and reminisce over our times together, without feeling guilty for not keeping in touch after graduation. Sure, ideally I'd love to stay in touch with everyone. But no one has the time and energy for that, and everyone knows it. That's why I'm able to bump into a high school friend on the Metro to work and chat for the entire 40-minute commute, without the question of "why haven't you called me," coming up. That guilt is the one thing I have to get over. I'm not miffed that people haven't kept in touch with me, consequently I shouldn't feel guilty for not necessarily keeping in touch with them.

I'm going to see Jenna tomorrow for the last time before she goes back to school. After that, I don't know when I'll see her next. But right now, I don't want to think about that. I'm just taking comfort in the fact that I have many fond memories of our times in Madrid to look back upon, and that if I ever venture out to Memphis or Indianapolis, I'll have a friend to pass some time with.

Rain, Rain, [Don't?] Go Away

2008-07-31T14:58:00.004-04:00

Rain. It's what every bride fears but resolutely accepts it's the one thing she can't control. And while a wedding may not warrant intervening in what may be the last undomesticated act of nature remaining, apparently hosting the Olympics does. As Beijing prepares for next week's Opening Ceremonies, it needs the rain to clear the pollution but also doesn't need it to mess up the fireworks. So, here's what they've done about it, according to a Washington Post article:

"The [New China News A]gency reported that since 2001, when Beijing was awarded the Games, meteorologists have been experimenting with "cloud seeding" -- shooting dry ice into clouds to make the water droplets heavier. That allows meteorologists to squeeze rain out of the clouds early, before they drift over the Bird's Nest [the National Stadium], although the technology is said to work only with light cloud cover."

China really is willing to do just about anything to impress the world.

"Verbose"

2008-07-31T00:55:00.003-04:00

I have the feeling only Karen, Nancy or Supraja will appreciate this.

As I was sitting on the metro going through the GRE vocab flashcards on my way home, I came across the word "verbose." Finally, I thought, one that I know. The definition that immediately ran through my head was, "Using too many words."

I turn it over and see one word on the definition line: "wordy."

The irony left me smiling until we pulled up to the next station.

The Taste of Success

2008-07-23T20:56:00.001-04:00

I just had one of the best dinners ever.

Since the fam is out to a baseball game, I had the evening to myself. I had planned on taking a practice GRE (I know, how boring) since having this place silent is quite a rarity. But by the time I reached home it was a little past seven, and I figured I should think about dinner.

This Monday I read the book "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan (a book I'd recommend to everyone; it's got diet advice and government gone wrong.) I won't go into the book now, but I will say in a nutshell it confirms that eating healthy (and no, things labeled "low-fat" do not constitute healthy,) is the only way to actually be healthy.

Anyways, I opened the fridge to take stock of what's available. I though of making burji, or spicy scrambled eggs with veggies. But all we had were tomatoes, scallions, garlic and basil. Not enough for burji, but those seem to be the key ingredients for pasta sauce, I thought. I pulled out some pasta and decided I was going to experiment today. Fast forward about twenty minutes and you've got a budding chef with pasta boiling on one side of the stove and the beginnings of some homemade pasta sauce simmering on the other. The thought of looking up a a recipe online crossed my mind, until I realized that would take the fun out of things.

So, I used my common sense and despite some initial reservations, ended up with a frying pan full of a bubbling red liquid. I wasn't expecting my concoction to taste like its thick, bottled, commercialized equivalent, but it was actually pretty good, with a pronounced sweetness I've never tasted in bottled sauces.

I figured, I was so far along, I might as well go all out on this dinner. I set myself a place in the formal dining room with the Thanksgiving plateware and put on the Godfather soundtrack, fitting in with my pseudo-Italian theme. I poured myself a glass of Merlot (which, let's be honest, is part of the reason why I'm so exceptionally happy with this meal right now), and began my meal with a toast to myself. I haven't exactly been feeling well the past two days,
so this self-satisfying evening was just what I needed.

Now for the most important part - the eating. A few bites in and I was pretty satisfied with myself. I think I finally understand the allure of cooking. Not only is the whole process of thinking, washing, chopping, sauteeing and ultimately setting out on the table, entertaining, but a taste of success doesn't get more delicious than this.

Punjabi Pride

2008-07-07T23:53:00.011-04:00

I am so happy to be Pubjabi. I only wish I was more in touch with it.

Yesterday I watched the Hindi movie "Jab We Met" with Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor (who is cuuuute), and my new it song of the moment is the movie's "Nagada Nagada," not just for its crazy upbeat-ness, but because the swirling colors, thumping dohl and energetic bhangra encompass just what I love about my culture.

Every time I see a Punjabi song or Punjabi wedding scene, my face lights up with excitement that my wedding (hopefully) will get to be just like that. Granted a lot has to happen before that day will ever come, but that's a very different topic for a whole 'nother post.

While Kanika didi's wedding had its own hiccups, I still remember when the barat came, banging dohls, dancing family and all. Look at the wedding video and you'll see the smile never left my face. I know I might not be the most in-touch with my culture; the one time I attempted to perform an Indian dance I ended up in the hospital. But that doesn't stop me from having some fierce pride in being part of the loudest, brashest, most fun-loving Indian cultural sub-group there is. Yes I may speak more Hindi than Pubjabi (which doesn't actually mean much, given how broken my Hindi actually is, especially after five months of straight Spanish), but there isn't any other culture I'd want to be a part of. Which is why I'm over-the-moon excited for Rishi bhaiya's wedding in August. (Well, that and the prospect of meeting all his British-accented Punjabi friends :-P).

मेरा दील है पउका पंजाबी

Now that's what I call customer service

2008-07-07T19:57:00.000-04:00

Dell may not make the best computers (or so says my brother), but what they possibly lack in construction, they more than make up for in customer service. And for that reason I'll probably always remain a Dell girl. Now, I've encountered more than my fair share of problems in the three years I've owned this laptop, but each time a Dell customer service rep has patiently walked me through how to fix it, whether it took thirty minutes or two hours.

A Dell contractor just left my house after replacing my monitor, whose left speaker hasn't been working for the past few months. While those five minutes were nothing but routine for him, my eyes were wide with trepidation at the way he was ripping out parts and yanking out wires. It was kind of like watching your child undergo surgery. I mean, both are treasured, indispensable and store a lot of memories, right? Anyways, for someone as computer hardware illiterate as I am, the speed and precision at which he was moving left me pretty amazed. Of course, the only thought going through my head while he actually was at work was "Please God please let that not have been the wrong...ooh I didn't know my keyboard was that floppy."

But, I'll assure you the ending was indeed a happy one, and now my volume meter can sit comfortably lower on the scale, instead of permanently at the top as it used to. Plus I now have a brand new, fingerprint-free monitor. Let's see how long it actually stays that way though. Too bad Dell doesn't also have a special home cleaning service.

Holiday Weekend

2008-07-06T01:21:00.004-04:00

For someone who claims to enjoy writing so much, I sure as heck don't do enough of it, as evidenced by my failure in updating this blog. I promise you, it's not because of a lack of topics; I've got a list about two miles long of cosas...er, things, to write about (one of which is how it feels to leave Spain behind.) But, I figure, enough with coming up with excuses, because my thoughts aren't going to write themselves, and just about every vacation's memories have been lost due to my laziness.

For the first time in two weeks, I am faced with a day sans obligations. Last weekend we were on vacation on Chicago, and this week has been full of work and socializing in the city. Not that I'm complaining, of course. It's just that I've learned to appreciate much more the prospect of sleeping past 10 a.m. that is greeting me once I finish this entry.

My birthday was just amazing. Our office treated me to lunch, and as I bit into my half-pound sirloin burger, I realized I hadn't done that in quite some time. The interns got off around 2:15, so Megan and I were touristy and just walked around snapping photos of the Capitol and the Supreme Court before meeting up with the office for happy hour, where I underwent the rite of passage of being carded (and passing, obviously.)

That evening brought us to a tapas restaurant where me and 12 friends snacked and sangria'd the night away. Not only was I so happy to see and celebrate with the friends I hadn't seen in half a year, but two of my newer friends, one from Spain and the other intern in my office got along swimmingly with everyone else.

The next day brought us to America's birthday, and this year some friends and I finally decided to ring it in in the heart of it all - the nation's capital. So we wandered the city until we finally made our way down and secured a spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, three hours before the show was to begin. And although I knew the whole time that I was doing this mostly just to say I had, there were moments when I was seriously questioning my sanity (right around when my butt went numb from sitting on a ten-inch wide marble step with my back and legs getting soaked from the water droplets dripping off our umbrellas.) And after some near flare-ups with angry people around us yelling at the crowds to move out of the way, the fireworks began and any resentment was pushed aside.

Despite the fact that a huge cloud or smoke plume was blocking half the fireworks, they were still pretty impressive. I never knew fireworks could be that humongous or that loud. I do think the entire thing would be more worth it if the weather weren't so wet and you came with a picnic meal, and gave yourself more than three square feet of space in which to spread four people, but hey, I did come out with a story to tell.

Today Jenna and I met up with our friend Mary from Spain. After lunch it was back to the Mall, where we saw the Vietnam, WWII, Jefferson, FDR and Lincoln Memorials. (Just a friendly reminder: When walking around D.C. in the humid summer months, no matter what, keep a water bottle handy.) After Mary left, Jenna and I watched the pilot episode of West Wing, a show I can't believe I didn't watch before and am excited to dive into.

That's enough of the "Dear Diary" business for now. Tomorrow I promise I'll have something more substantive to write about, but for now, all I can think about is finally closing my half-drooping eyes and not opening them for another twelve hours.

Birthday Wishes

2008-07-03T11:47:00.002-04:00

Getting a phone call from family on your birthday isn't out of the ordinary. But when it's your younger cousins calling from a phone booth 7,300 miles away and 10 hours ahead, you realize how nice it is to have people who care.

Exactly one year ago, I was celebrating my 20th birthday with my relatives in India, who I hadn't seen in four years. My cousin Sumegha, whose birthday is two days after mine, and I had a joint celebration, and low-key as it was, I couldn't have wished for anything more. And even today is shaping up to be another pretty good birthday, that phone call has just made the birthday smile etched onto my face a little wider.

Tim Russert

2008-06-13T19:42:00.002-04:00

The news of this legendary journalist shocked me to to the core today. Here is the succinct reflection I submitted to the Post Web site and the local news station.

As a D.C. area journalism and politics student, the news of Tim Russert's passing has shocked and saddened me deeply. Tim Russert represents the gold standard in the field, and his passion and thoroughness are what my classmates and I aspire to embody. My dad always says that Russert and his little white board are what demystified the American electoral system for him. What a shame to have lost him so young. I know he must be chewing God out right now for taking him before November 2008. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Russert defined the field I want to go into, but it isn't just students and professionals that can learn from him. He made politics engaging and interesting to everyone in America. He will be missed sorely, especially in the wake of the most important presidential election cycle in recent American history.

Online Free-for-all

2008-01-10T08:51:00.000-05:00

Didn´t I tell you I was skeptical of this whole blogging thing.

This is why I haven´t put up pictures on the blog so far, and now I probably won´t.

I heart Internet access

2008-01-09T08:54:00.001-05:00

FINALLY! I have proper internet access again!!!!!!!!

In the past few days, I've realized that it´s not so much that we take the internet and cellphones for granted (although we do), but that we take having immediate access to them for granted. If nothing else, this is what I've learned in the past four days. How am I supposed to keep up with my life without immediate internet access?!?! I guess we'll find out, though now that I've started classes and the university´s library is open all day, I guess it'll be easier. And, luckily, there's an internet cafe right across the street from my apartment.

I'm in Spain now, (if you hadn't already guessed) and despite all my last minute jitters, the trip over was fine. I exchanged money before leaving the US, found my connecting gate without any problems, and the taxi ride went smoothly, and as was even cheaper than I thought. Strangely, the trip went by extremely quickly, which doesn't usually happen with me and plane rides. I don´t really know what I was feeling on my way over; "me da igual" is the only way I can think to put it, which basically translates to "I don't care."

I'm in the library of my university and I can't even begin to explain how good it feels to just be on a computer where I don´t have a time limit and I don't have to pay for access.

I've begun chronicling my actual time abroad on another blog - La Vida Madrileña, so I won't repeat everything here. Obviously, I'll be updating that as regularly as I can, and I´m not sure what I'm going to be putting here, but I don't plan on abandoning this one.

Bueno, vamos a ver...

Election Results and Last-Minute Jitters

2008-01-03T23:32:00.000-05:00

Well, there you have it. More than a year of campaigning and the real thing has begun. Obama and Huckabee are rejoicing at passing their first tests, while Romney, Clinton and the others will have to figure out what they did wrong and how to fix it.

And just when things start to get interesting, just when I finally start getting really into the whole thing, I have to leave the country. Yup, the day has finally (almost) arrived. Twenty-four hours from now I will in the air headed for my Spanish adventure.

While I was glued to the T.V. watching CNN's coverage of the caucuses this evening, I realized that for all the other primaries, I'd have to resort to checking the Washington Post's home page when I wake up the next morning six time zones away. I'm going to be sleeping through our electoral process!

While I should be excited about this trip abroad finally beginning, I can't help but, well, not be. I was relieved to find that Supraja went through the exact same thing before she went to Paris last year. Every time I see a commercial about the People's Choice Awards airing later this month, or the movie 27 Dresses coming out in theaters, or even how the New Hampshire primaries are coming up on Tuesday, my first thought is Oh, I'm not going to be here for that. Not that I'd even watch the People's Choice Awards or go see 27 Dresses, but the idea that things are still going to be happening here while I'm gone is strange to me. I know that sounds like an arrogant thing to say, but it's true.

And I'm reverting back to my old habit (which I get completely from Mom) of worrying about things. Like, freak out type of worrying. Am I taking too many pairs of jeans? Will I have enough space to bring things back? Will I be able to find the gate for my connecting flight? Will I find some place to exchange my money? How will the cab ride to my host mother's house go?

I keep telling myself that things are always so much easier than you think they will be and I need to calm down and chill out. After all, didn't Supraja and Karen and Nancy survive abroad? Hell, didn't I myself survive going to Luxembourg alone last year?

But then it's also the same uncertainty of not knowing anyone and having to make friends all over again. Not that I even have a problem making friends or getting used to new things. It's strange, sometimes I think I operate in two very distinct mentalities. My mind constantly worries and analyzes and overanalyzes and tries to formulate a game plan for every situation, while my body just goes and does things. For example, when trying to talk to someone new, my mind will go over what to say initially to them, what their response might be, what I'll do if they say this and what I won't do if they say that, while my feet just walk over there, my mouth opens, and I introduce myself. As simple as that, I tell myself afterwards.

Finding my connecting flight in Paris last spring - I worried and worried about navigating an airport on my own, but once I got there, it was just as Papa said. You follow the signs and it's as easy as that. Seriously, no need to worry at all. Despite that, I still can't help but worry about everything. I know I shouldn't just wish time away and want it all to be over and for me to be settled in there, but I just can't help it.

Oh well, at least packing was a whole lot easier than I thought. I'd like to know how many points my blood pressure increased as I spent last semester worrying and worrying about how I'd pack for this adventure.

Globalization: Pre 9/11

2007-12-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

Last week, I finally finished reading The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Tom Friedman's globalization manual that preceded The World Is Flat. I initially started reading it during freshman year, but, having no tolerance for economics, the introduction's lengthy explanation of the 1997 Asian financial crisis turned me off the book very quickly. I rediscovered it while perusing my bookshelf at the start of winter break and decided to give Friedman another try. After begrudgingly accepting that economics is a significantly important part of international relations, and I should probably stop ignoring it and instead try to understand it, I was determined to decode the eco-speak. After a two-hour conversation with Papa about how exactly the global financial system worked, I was ready to read the book.

After reading The World is Flat and thoroughly enjoying it, certain parts of this book seemed repetitive. Friedman's corny habit of naming every concept he explains, calling people left in the technological dust "turtles," instructing states to put on the "Golden Straitjacket" of capitalism, and watch out for the "Electronic Herd' of global investors, which comprises "short-horn and long- horn cattle," elicited more than one eye-roll from me, but it was entertaining and hey, it kept me reading. At times, Friedman's conversational tone and use of exclamation points irked me and I got the impression that some things were oversimplified, but for its purpose as an introductory crash course in globalization, the book worked.

The thing that struck me most while reading, though, was what a difference seven years makes. Although 2000 doesn't seem that long ago, reading the book made it obvious that a lot can change in that span of time. Friedman often quoted Larry Summers, who I only knew as the guy who made the sexist comments at Harvard, and mentioned Enron and Kenneth Lay multiple times. In the wake of the scandals that embroiled these two, I wonder if, as he looks back at this book, Friedman regrets referencing them so much.

But most of all, reading this book made it very clear how much of an impact Sept. 11 really had on the state of the world. While before everything revolved around technological advancement and economic development, now, virtually no decision is made without the lens of terrorism in front of it. It was weird, but reading the chapters on globalization's impact on other parts of the world, and the resulting backlash, made it easier to see how much 9/11 changed the way we view the world. He warns us about Super-Empowered Angry Men who could potentially use globalization to their advantage and lash out like never before. The passage on the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was just downright eerie to read:

"Ramzi Yousef is really the quintessential Super-Empowered Angry Man. Think about him for a minute. What was his program? What was his ideology? After all, he tried to blow up two of the tallest buildings in America. Did he want a Palestinian state in Brooklyn? Did he want an Islamic Republic in New Jersey? No. He just wanted to blow up two of the tallest buildings in America. He told the Federal District Court in Manhattan that his goal was to set off an explosion that would cause one World Trade Center tower to fall on the other and kill 250,000 civilians. (402)."

And sentences like, "America's Golden Straitjacket is producing enough gold - with a substantial budget surplus projected into the new millennium - to afford both social safety nets and trampolines [benefits to those burned by the globalization's search for the bottom line.] (450)" and just made me shake my head and think, "Not anymore Mr. Friedman, not anymore." And while it may be true that our military superiority means we can "project more power farther than any country in the world. And deeper too," that really hasn't done us much good since 2003, now has it.

I'm not saying Friedman shouldn't have written things like this; after all, hindsight is 20/20. It's just interesting to see how something that seems to be relevant and applicable just isn't sometimes. By the end of the book though, I still felt like I'd gleaned some valuable insight into the new world structure and power order, and even an understanding into what drove the world to the way it is now, post-9/11 and all.

Food in NYC Part 2

2007-12-31T01:16:00.000-05:00

For lunch on our last day, Neeraj really wanted to go to Lombardi's - the country's first pizzeria. So, after walking several blocks to find a taxi (come on New York - what's up with that?) to Little Italy we headed. Though we'd been warned that long lines weren't uncommon at the city's famous eats, Lombardi's was the first place where we encountered a wait. And boy was it a wait - we literally spent about an hour just standing on the corner of Spring and Mott. After last night's Carnegie Deli experience, we were all saying this pizza better be pretty damn good. When we were in Chicago last summer, we waited about 45 minutes at this famous restaurant whose name fails me at the moment to get real deep dish Chicago pizza, and what we got left us underwhelmed.

But, I'm happy to say that this time, the food lived up to its reputation. We shared a house salad (Boy did it feel good to be eating real vegetables after yesterday's fat-fest) and a large original pizza topped with sweet Italian sausage and sauteed garlic spinach. Unlike the sausage crumbles that come on fast-food pizzas, this pizza had actual slices of sweet meaty goodness. The pizza was hot, the outer crust was salty and crispy and the inner crust melted with the cheese and sauce in my mouth. I quickly devoured my two slices too quickly, only to find myself saddened that the pizza pan on our table was already gleaming silver, empty of its famous pie. There's an hour wait (in 45 degree weather mind you) that was worth every minute.

For dessert we headed across the street to Rice to Riches. Normally, rice pudding isn't the first thing that comes to mind when craving dessert, but these guys have found a way to make it work, and work well. This isn't your mom's rice pudding, that's for sure. With flavors like Forbidden Apple, Hazelnut Chocolate Bear Hug and Sex Drugs and Rocky Road, it's got a signature New York edge. Unfortunately, their Spring Street location is the only one so far, though for 55 bucks, they'll ship you a 40 oz. tub (Imagine receiving a tub each of the latter two flavors - I think it'd be better than going to heaven itself).

Since we'd just gorged on pizza, Papa and I took the tiny 4 oz. to-go pack which only came in four flavors. We had chocolate chip flirt while Mom and Neeraj shared a bowl of eggnog rice pudding. In a city full of sights, it's nice to discover one on your own. Too bad the company isn't franchising yet. I'd highly recommend anyone traveling to the city to stop by both Lombardi's and Rice to Riches, and though they're across from the street from each other, both should be experienced on an empty stomach.

Our to-do list also included Serendipity 3 and the Magnolia Bakery (I promise Nancy, one day I will try their red velvet cupcake!), but you've got to leave something for next time, right? Plus, I think we already grossly overstepped our caloric boundaries for this visit.

Sneaking back home?

2007-12-30T19:14:00.000-05:00

Papa just called me to ask if I was on my way home yet from a movie with friends.

Nothing weird about that right?

As I was talking to him, I walked out of my room, poked my head down the hall where he was sitting at the old computer and let him know I'd been home for the past hour, and had, in fact, walked past him on my way up to my room after returning.

Oh, dear.

Food in NYC

2007-12-30T18:29:00.001-05:00

I now understand how people can go on vacation just for food. Besides seeing the Rockettes show, eating was basically the central focus of our trip to New York City. But after three straight days of eating out, I think I'm done with restaurants for a while.

Our first night we went to Tamarind, an Indian restaurant featured on an episode of the Food Network's $40 a Day with Rachael Ray. We weren't starving when we got there, since we'd eaten a very late lunch, but that didn't stop me from indulging as much as my stomach could handle, and then some. Seriously, over the past few weeks, I think my stomach capacity has doubled or something. I'm able to eat a lot more food at one sitting than I used to, but the scale doesn't register any changes (at least not yet). Very weird. But back to Tamarind.

I particularly enjoyed the Tamarind shiitake with its bitingly sour but tangy and aromatic sauce. The tandoori salmon was good and you can't ever go wrong with dal makhani, or lentils in a creamy tomato-based sauce, but the real show-stopper were the breads. The rosemary naan took an already fluffy piece of bread and injected it with flavor and olive oil. And since when has a dose of olive oil ever made anything worse? The pudina paratha, a layered bread with mint, was soft, buttery and delicious. Overall, a place I'd definitely recommend.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for next evening's restaurant: none other than the famed Carnegie Deli. As we were making our way through dinner, we realized a very important lesson. It seems that after a certain level of fame, some places seem to ride more on their reputation and less on the actual product or service. They know customers will come, so why bother, it seems.

The deli wasn't too far from the hotel, so we decided to walk, hoping that the calories we burned would soften the blow of the many we were about to consume. In multiple guide books I'd read that there's hardly any elbow room between tables, sandwiches are impossible to polish off unless they're shared, and the wait staff likes to take pangas (Hindi for make mischief) with new customers, so I prepared myself. What the guide books don't tell you is that the restaurant does not accept credit cards, so you'd better have some cash on hand, and that there's a $3.00 charge for sharing a sandwich (which is totally lame. Just increase to price of the already $25 sandwich why don't you). And no guide book in the world will take away your shock at the absolute excess of food that shows up on the table. (Though you can't complain they don't give you your money's worth).

Mom and Papa shared an open-faced pastrami reuben (which was basically a pound of meat slathered with melted cheese and slapped onto a plate). "Where's the bread?" Mom inquired after it landed in front of us. After poking around with her fork for a couple moments, she finally unveiled the poor sliver of processed flour that had the unfortunate destiny of holding up the meat mountain.

Neeraj and I shared the Club Dear, a triple-decker bacon monster. My strategy involved splitting half of the sandwich into two mini ones and double fisting them, alternating between bites of turkey and what essentially became a BLT. Neeraj took a different approach, removing some of the bacon and trying to shove some of the turkey in its place. Needless to say, I somehow managed to polish off my entire half while Neeraj ended up doggy-bagging the remainder of his. I didn't even realize how much I'd eaten until Neeraj made a comment about how he couldn't possibly eat all that bacon, and when I looked down at my plate, everything was gone. The guy sitting at our neighboring table looked at me in amazement. "I really don't know how I did that," I remarked somewhat sheepishly (I wasn't even stuffed yet. See I told you - more stomach capacity). "Oh I know how - I watched you do it," he replied. He and his wife were sharing the reuben too and we all joked about the ridiculousness of this food.

In all seriousness though, I don't know how I haven't yet died of heart failure after eating all that bacon. And though it seems I've fulfilled my life's quota of bacon, according to Karen, all Spaniards eat is pork and ham, so it looks like I won't be able to avoid it for long.

Despite all this, we still managed to make room for dessert, and I have to say, the deli's truffle torte cheesecake is quite the satisfying combination of cheesecake, chocolate mousse and chocolate sprinkles.

The whole deli experience reminded us of the time we ate at Boston's Cheers restaurant, the one of sitcom fame. That time too, we were swept up in its pop culture significance and ended up with food that was less than spectacular. So, some lessons: Just because a ton of famous people say something is good, it does not, I repeat, does not, mean it really is. Oh, and according to Papa, the Woodside Deli's reuben still reigns supreme.

Tomorrow: The NYC culinary experience continues - Famed pizzeria Lombardi's and the dessert gem that sits across from it.

A new view of NYC

2007-12-29T21:47:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is about city life that appeals to so many people, myself included. I'm a complete product of my suburban upbringing, but for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to live in the city, specifically New York City. On my previous three trips to the Big Apple, I was enthralled with the glitz and glamor of it all. The neon billboards, the honking cabs, the bustling people; it was the only place I could see myself living.

But this time, things were different. I still enjoyed being in the city, but I wasn't jealous of everyone already living there as I had been before. What struck me most this time were the crowds. People are everywhere! I tried to tell myself it was just holiday tourists, but I remember there were just as many people when I went up for the Yankees game this summer. And it wasn't just in the streets. We wandered inside St. Patrick's Cathedral and Saks Fifth Avenue and both were teeming with crowds. (Though traveling has taught me that crowds are an inescapable part of seeing anything notable, from the beaches of Waikiki to the palace of Versailles. You'll never be alone). I felt like I couldn't even look at anything because I spent all my time dodging people in front of me and trying to stay out of the way of those behind me. We tried to see the lavish window displays up close but contented ourselves with glancing from further back on the sidewalk after noticing the lines that wrapped around the storefronts.

Now I understand why New Yorkers have an attitude all their own; they've got to spend half their time battling the tourist hordes lining every major street. That no-nonsense sarcasm was the other thing that I observed more this time. Like the crowds, I've always known it was there, but this was the first time it actually sort of bothered me. I get that you crossing guards are fed up with directing us stupid tourists, but you don't have to be so rude about it. In fact, you don't even need to open your mouth at all. Just blow your whistle, wave your hand and be done with it.

Finally, three other observations. The streets of New York all seem to have this unidentifiable smell, a mix of smoke from the food stalls, and I'm guessing the exhaust fumes from all the vehicles whizzing by. Whatever it is, it isn't really terrible (though I think Neeraj would probably disagree), so much as it is noticeable. The second: It seems a lot more people in New York smoke. Every other block I walked past, there was a person or two standing outside the building smoking. Then again, it may just have been all the European tourists outside the hotels that I was noticing. The third: I don't remember ever hearing so many foreign languages on the streets of New York. Once again, I know that the city is an extraordinarily diverse place that attracts tourists from around the world, and I found it refreshing that so many different people were here (not to mention the fact that they're injecting some money into our economy). A significant portion of those tourists spoke Spanish, which I only point out because it was quite the confidence booster being able to understand what they were saying (not to mention good mental preparation for what I'm about to do in less than a week).

Despite these observations, the whole reason why we went up in the first place, to see the Rockettes in their Christmas Spectacular, did not disappoint. The Rockettes did numbers as reindeer and clowns, but my favorite was their toy soldier act, which they ended with their famous falling down like dominoes line. This being the show's 75th anniversary, it ended with the Rockettes performing their kick line in sparkling crystal-covered costumes celebrating the diamond anniversary. Quite a nice way to round out the holiday season, if you ask me.

Coming up tomorrow: NYC - The culinary experience.

Merry Christmas 2007

2007-12-25T16:54:00.000-05:00

You know you've outgrown Christmas when "Santa" has to drag you out of bed to open presents.

Every year my brother and I get our sleeping bags and camp out in our parents room for the night. This year Neeraj wanted to watch a movie, so we camped out downstairs instead. Early this morning I hear some rustling and then there's Mom telling us to get up. Both Neeraj and I turn around and say we'll get up later.

"But Santa spent so much time at the mall and wrapping all the gifts," said Mom. Guilt-inducing as her voice was, Mom's tone brought to mind the image of an innocent child, head cocked sideways and eyes full of Christmas cheer. Oh how manipulative you mothers are. So droopy-eyed and drowsy (it was, after all, only 8:30 in the morning), Neeraj and I stumbled out of bed. By 9 a.m. (After I'd finally coaxed Neeraj out of my bed, which he dove into after heading upstairs to brush his teeth) we gathered around the tree and proceeded with the festivities.

It was a pretty good year, gift-wise. Three sweaters, a shirt, two pairs of earrings and a much-needed traveling cosmetic kit. And the best part - the day itself has gone well. Everyone has gotten along and we chatted with Nani Ma in India and Mamu's family in Luxembourg. Overall, it's been a good day and hopefully this good cheer will continue on into our New York trip. Speaking of which, Papa announced we're not taking a computer (!!) with us, so Overachiever will probably be silent for the next few days.

On that note, I bid you Merry Christmas and leave you with this letter to the editor appearing in today's Post:

I've had it with the fuss over whether to say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas." For 30 years, my mother phoned me every Dec. 25 at 7 a.m. to say "Merry Christmas!" I'd reply, "Mom, we're Jewish," to which she would say, "I know, but I love the holidays. And what's wrong with peace on Earth and goodwill toward men?" Mom is gone, but her words seem more meaningful than ever.

TRACY LEVERTON

Vienna

HTML > Me

2007-12-23T02:40:00.001-05:00

ARGH. Why does html coding have to be so frustrating!?!?

I've just spent almost two hours trying to revamp the layout of this blog, and have accomplished nothing besides developing a strong urge to defenestrate this computer (hey, that's the first time I've managed to use that word in a real sentence). I really want to do something like this blog, with the light colored table layered on the dark background, but the blogger coding has all the metatags and whatnot built in and I can't figure out how to do it. Every time I try to insert a table or play around with the coding, Blogger's red warning text rejects my work. All I've managed to do is create the header I have right now, which is some basic thing I made in Paint since I'm just about the only soul in the world who doesn't have Photoshop.

Ironically, I found out earlier today that I pulled off an A in online journalism, despite my disastrous midterm where I forgot half the coding. Once again, I'm great at concepts, not so much at execution.

*sigh* Time for bed.

The worst part is, I know I'm not going to be able to let this go. As frustrating as it is, in a day or two I'll be back at the coding again, trapped in this vicious cycle of trial-and-error.

Okay seriously. Bed. Now.

Good night.

Christmas Cheer: Better late than never

2007-12-22T13:42:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week Mom and I were talking about how it doesn't feel like Christmas is right around the corner. Ever since I started college, it seems like the holidays just zoom right by. Before, I'd constantly drive by the decorated houses, walk by the Christmas displays at the grocery store and pass the frantic holiday shoppers at the mall. And since the television is always on at home and the radio in the car, the holiday specials, music and commercials were impossible to miss.

But in college, many a-day can go by without me ever setting foot off campus, meaning I miss all the signs that say it's Christmastime. True, some apartments put lights in the windows, but for the most part, everything looks the same. There's no time to go shopping or even venture beyond the campus bubble, since come December everyone has final projects, papers and exams to prepare for.

Also, it's just not that cold outside. It's hard to get into the holiday spirit without first wrapping myself in a scarf and gloves and clutching a hot cocoa in one hand and a shopping bag in the other :)

But yesterday, I think the Christmas bug finally bit me. I stopped by my old internship office to drop off my Christmas card and say bye to everyone before I head to Spain. I didn't realize that yesterday was the last work day before Christmas, hence only two of the five people were there when I showed up. Despite that, I still spent a nice hour or so chatting with them about school and next year. Their office was so festive, with Christmas cards taped to all the doors and mini Christmas trees adorning the desks.

Then I went out to lunch with some of the guys from school. There wasn't necessarily anything Christmas-y about it, but it was nice to see them one last time before I leave. After lunch I headed to the mall to start my Christmas shopping (Hey, I'm a college student; procrastination is in my blood). Despite the longish lines and the fact that every store I went to ran out of gift boxes, I still found myself humming happily along to the Christmas music playing on their stereos. (Though that was also probably because I actually found what I was looking for relatively quickly).

Later that evening, I was flipping channels only to find my favorite of all the Christmas specials, "A Year Without A Santa Claus" was on. You know, the one with the heat miser and the snow miser - oh how I love those rascals. It was great; I even got to sing along to all the songs since no one was home.

And I have a feeling the Christmas cheer isn't going to stop there. For years now, Mom and I have wanted to see New York City during the holidays, and this year it's actually happening. Right after Christmas we're heading up to see the Rockettes in their Christmas Spectacular, admire the gigantic tree and ice rink in Rockefeller Center and stroll past the elaborate window displays. And for me, it doesn't even end there, because I'll be in Spain for the Epiphany, which I learned yesterday is an even bigger deal than Christmas. So even if it got a little lost along the way, looks like the spirit of the season has finally made it to my doorstep.

Happy Holidays everyone!

More WaPo Love

2007-12-20T13:31:00.000-05:00

Continuing from yesterday; all the stuff I wanted to share before going off on the Front Runners tangent:

Post retail reporter Ylan Q. Mui became a holiday temp at Sam's Club for a day, and here's her evaluation (it ran yesterday). I can't explain why, but I really liked this piece. I've read a lot of her articles, and it's nice getting a glimpse at the person behind the byline.

Today's Business front has some tips (seven to be exact) to get your new computer running right, and then five things that should be on everyone's computer. All this computer talk, coupled with the fact that my mom found a trojan on my dad's computer, made me rush to mine and back everything up. As quickly as I can, I'll explain my beef with computers: You see, I'm a pack rat in real life, meaning I throw absolutely nothing away (though I've gotten a lot better over the past few years. This summer I actually brought myself to recycle all my old algebra II notes and chemistry lab write-ups, though it was quite the tearful good bye). So, when it comes to saving things on the computer, I feel the need to back up and save every single thing I type, even though we all know I'm never going to look at it again. The other thing that drives me crazy is that even though I'm not a terribly organized person in real life, on the computer, I want everything to be hyper-categorized in folders arranged by date and everything. You don't know how many hours I've wasted organizing it all, only to find out I messed it up somehow, and have to do it over again. (Man my eyes are going to haaate me for making them stare at this screen for so long). Okay, phew, enough with the rant; now back to interesting articles.

Quarter collectors rejoice! DC will be getting its very own quarter (as will Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.)

And on a side note - the English dork in me had to point out the beauty of this sentence:

"We get snubbed, disrespected, belittled, forgotten, overshadowed and minimized in every way," said WTOP radio political commentator Mark Plotkin, a virtual thesaurus of how the city is disparaged, denigrated, underrated and calumniated.

I love it, just love it.

Complaining about the commercialization of Christmas? Then you may not like this Post piece on the cost of Twelve Days of Christmas. That's right, they found out how much each of the items from the famous carol cost, and it looks like the traditional turtledoves and leaping lords will set you back a little more than $36,000 (Though you may have to bend the rules a bit when it comes to the French hens and the maids-a-milking. Just read the article, you'll see.)

In other, more serious news, Fareed Zakaria's column, The Power of Personality, in this week's Newsweek, which I read at the dentist's office, made an interesting point that I wish other people would understand. America may be the dominant power in today's world, but it certainly isn't the center of the universe. Not everyone thinks like we do, and that is so important for us to understand.

And, on that slightly philosophical note, I'm off. Happy reading!

The Washington Post's "Front Runners"

2007-12-19T17:50:00.001-05:00

I love the Washington Post. Granted, it's the paper I've grown up reading it, but I love it nonetheless.

Since the media frenzy over the presidential election began what seems like eons ago, I told myself I wouldn't get caught up in it until 2008 (you know, the actual year in which the election will be taking place). And since the new year is now barreling down on us, I guess it's time for me to strap on my political thinking cap and dive into this mess. Enough with all the speculation, bring on the caucus results and lets get some answers.

But what does that have to do with my love for the Post, you ask? Well, luckily for me, just when I decide to start paying attention, guess what appears in the paper. Last week the Post ran a series called "The Front Runners," profiling the eight leading presidential candidates - three Democrats and five Republicans. Each day for a week, the paper ran a double truck biographical piece ("How (S)He Got Here") and three shorter pieces: "How (S)He Runs," "How (S)He Talks" and "How (S)He Looks" on the candidate of the day. On the last day, the paper also ran shorter pieces on Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Kucinich, Paul and Tancredo. Though I still can't tell you what each individual's plans are for immigration, social security or the war (though there is this extensive quiz on the Post's site that will tell you just that), I enjoyed reading about the people, not the candidates, who want to run my country.

The series wasn't a recap of each campaign's progress, it was a look at the individuals at the center of the campaign. I can look anywhere to find out where Clinton, Obama or Huckabee stand on a specific issue, but this series told me about Hillary and Barack and Mike, where they've come from and how they've gotten here. Sometimes we get so caught up in the debates, the stump speeches, the photo ops that we forget that at one point, these candidates were regular people. They were kids who goofed off in class, they were teenagers who argued with their parents and as much as all this media coverage bothers us regular people, the whole campaign process takes quite a toll on them.

But back to the series. I especially loved the tag clouds. (Here's Romney's, which I found interesting because "woman" wasn't the largest word for Clinton and "black" wasn't the largest word for Obama, but people still seem to characterize Romney by his religion). The Post created these graphics based on survey results where people defined the candidate in a word. This seems like just the type of thing our journalism professors keep telling us we need think about if we want to be successful in this field.

This whole series embodies what how we should be thinking. Yes, there was a paper component, but online, the series used flash graphics, videos, audio and regular slide shows, discussions, and comment boards - all the weapons in the online journalism arsenal. And while I haven't really looked at many of these online-only components, they are at least making use of the medium. So, from a student whose professors keep telling her the internet is the way to go, thanks WaPo for providing me with such a good example.

And on a completely unrelated note - I think I finally understand the meaning of that phrase, oh how does it go, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? After learning some basic coding in my online class, I keep wanting to overhaul the layout of this blog, but every time I play around with the coding, Blogger's mean red text pops up and I'm left with the regular old layout I started with. *sigh*

Message from the diversity office...

2007-12-18T01:41:00.000-05:00

Starting my sophomore year of high school, I got letter after letter from x college and y university each telling me that they had the prettiest campus or the smallest class sizes. I never paid them any mind since they all embodied exactly what I didn't want in a university.

But now the selfless marketing has begun again, only this time it's from schools I've actually heard of pushing their "world class" graduate programs on me via e-mail. And while the messages are irritating, there's one thing about them that has really struck a nerve. Now I'm not one to delude myself into thinking they're sending me messages because they actually think I would be a good student at their school. No, my address was just one of the couple thousand that was randomly selected from their list, right?

Well, not exactly. Apparently, the only reason these schools are showing any interest in me whatsoever is because of something I can't even control. Most of these e-mails, they've been coming from the "Office of Minority Programs," or some other diversity initiative. Say what you want about affirmative action and diversity and whatever, but not only do I find this irritating, it's patronizing.

Why is it that we still need to be doing things like this? Why do universities have to set up special visitation events and campus tours and information sessions for minority students or "students of color," a description I personally detest. What, is white not a color too? Don't tell me you're willing to give me special attention just because my skin is a little darker than yours. You might think you're giving me an "opportunity," but all it tells me is that you think my intelligence and my accomplishments aren't enough. Thanks, but I'd much rather be thrown into the pool with everyone else and be judged solely on my merits. Don't give me something unless I've completely and truly earned it. And being born an Indian doesn't count as earning anything.

I know I may be overreacting slightly, but it bothers me how we sometimes focus so much on things we can't even control. If we have to focus on something, it should be the socioeconomic gap. If you want to give someone a free trip to visit your school, give it to the person who may not otherwise be able to afford it. If you want to talk to someone about grad school, talk to the person who had to work their way through undergrad. Then again, who knows, maybe someone in that situation would find even that patronizing, just as I find this.

As much as I hate to admit it, I know it's there. It almost seems like it sucks to be a white male nowadays because everyone is so hell-bent on being diverse. I know, people say that white males have had their fair share of the spotlight and now its everyone else's turn. But now that we've established that everyone deserves an equal and fair chance, shouldn't we focus on hiring the best person for the job, or admitting the best students to the university, regardless of demographics?

It's a dental conspiracy

2007-12-17T12:51:00.000-05:00

Since when has "selling things" been in the job definition of a dentist?

Last Thursday I had my regular cleaning and check-up, and everything was going along just fine until the actual dentist came to do his two second evaluation of my oral status. I've only been going to this particular office for about two or three years now, and of the three dentists at this practice, this guy had never seen me before.

After going through each and every tooth and pointing out to the hygienist, in incomprehensible dental speak, what was wrong with it (way to make my oral self-esteem tank there doc), he asked if I'd ever had braces, which I haven't. He asked if I'd be interested in them, since my front teeth are slightly out of alignment. I gave him my best look of incredulity, as if to say, I'm not an awkward middle schooler; why the heck would I voluntarily become a metal mouth? He went on to explain how nowadays they have invialign, and I could have the braces and nobody would know. Well, doc, that certainly changes my perspective.

Thanks, but no dentist raised this back when I actually was in that formative teeth period, and I'm actually quite pleased with my mouth right now, no matter how out of alignment you say it is.

But that wasn't all. He then said something about seeing an ENT because some canal pops when I open and close my mouth. Well doc, I said with a slight smirk on my face, I actually did see and ENT several months ago because of an ear issue, and he didn't find anything. Dentist responded by saying he could have them do some complicated sounding procedureish test thing, and I just didn't reply. He also talked at some length about teeth grinding, which I know I don't do. By this point I was just thinking, unless there's something of actual dental peril going on in my mouth, please stop asking me questions.

And then he told me some useful, albeit crappy news. I have two tiny cavities that need to be filled. Boo. I don't get it. I didn't get my first cavity until I was about 13, but now it seems like every time I go to the dentist, I have to get something filled. I brush, I even floss every night - how does that stupid sugar still remain? Maybe it's a conspiracy at the office and if you reject their braces ploy, they threaten you with a drill and some sealent. Well, buddy, it won't work on me. I may not enjoy being drilled into, but I'm not one of those who cowers in fear at the mention of a dentist. So there, drill all you want doc, but you can't convince me to get unnecessary things done in my mouth.

Why can't all doctor's visits go as smoothly as the one with my eye doctor last Friday, where I went in, read some letters, got my eyes dilated, read some more letters, and then Doc was like, hey everything looks great, see you next year. Quite uneventful and it makes for a very boring story, yes, but it was straightforward and simple, which, when it comes to doctors, is what you always hope for, right?

Journalism Success

2007-12-16T19:17:00.000-05:00

This post-graduate dilemma now has an added twist. A twist that kind of has to do with the VERY BIG NEWS I'm about to reveal. Okay-are you sitting down? Here it (drumroll please) is:

I GOT AN A IN JOURNALISM CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not an A minus, mind you, but a solid, I actually-earned-this A.

Okay fine, so Prof may have been right when he told me last Monday after class that I'm really good at this whole reporting thing. And yes, I may now be able to pick up the phone and call complete strangers and ask them a bunch of annoying questions without panicking. But this totally does not help me figure out what the heck to do with myself after graduation. I told prof that, despite my journalistic success, I was thinking about going to grad/law school after graduation. Prof, who got a master's in history just so he could have it, said he could see me doing the law school thing, and suggested I try the whole jour thing for a year, and if I like it, go ahead and get the master's to have it, and if not, then go to law school.

Great - so the option of going straight to work is back on the table again. Even though I still don't think that journalism is necessarily my life's calling (at this point I have absolutely no idea what is). Then again, I shouldn't totally write off journalism until after I've truly worked in it (i.e. until after I've done my journalism internship). Who knows; I might actually enjoy it (and boy would my mind's life planning mechanism be overjoyed to hear that?)

3 papers in 4 days

2007-12-13T00:44:00.000-05:00

That, my friends, is why I have been relatively silent for the past few weeks. The semester has ended and while the rest of this university prepares to start exams in about, oh seven hours, I am done. And by done I mean every assignment turned in, stuff moved out of the apartment, me sitting at my real home in my real bed done.

Yes, I've been writing papers since Saturday. And yes, there is so much stuff I meant to blog about but found myself too caught up in the end of the semester crunch to do so. And yes, I will write about all that stuff shortly.

But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to sleep so that I can wake up one more early morning and go pick up my visa. Only then, then can I finally let out that sigh of relief and try to enjoy the next three weeks as much as humanly possible before I board a plane to a foreign country an ocean away and get set for the craziest eight months of my life.

Silence

2007-12-04T12:13:00.000-05:00

Silence has a way of sneaking up on you, and when you finally realize it's there, it stops you cold.

Ever since I woke up about 45 minutes ago (I don't have class on Tuesdays), I've been researching the history of the online magazine Salon for a paper I have to write. About a minute ago, I looked up from the computer screen and realized there was absolutely nothing going on around me.

No one is here in the apartment, the fan is off, there's no construction outside, no chatter of students milling about campus. The old light fixtures in the hallway are off, so they aren't buzzing annoyingly. For a second the wind picked up and was making noise outside, but it's gone now.

It's nice to have this brief break, nice to be reminded that no matter how crazy the world gets, it can all actually stop for a few glorious minutes.

Change of post-graduation plans

2007-11-29T21:08:00.000-05:00

I read about this Web site, http://www.freerice.com/ in the Washington Post recently but I never really paid it any attention until Vicki said she was using it to build vocab for the GRE. Well, I thought, as of six hours ago, I'm taking the GRE next year, so I might as well check it out (More on the latest life plan alteration in a minute).

The concept is simple. You've got a word with four choices and you pick which one best defines that word. If you get the answer right, you "donate" 20 grains of rice to the UN's World Food Program. The money for the rice comes from the banner ads that run at the bottom of the screen. There's no limit to how much you can play or donate, so I played until I donated 1000 grains of rice, then stopped.

I was pleasantly surprised by all the words I knew or could strategically figure out (It seems I got something out of that expensive SAT class after all). Given my government professor's heavily skeptical attitude toward the UN, I'm not sure if the rice is actually getting to those who need it most, but I'd like to think it is, and if nothing else, it's free practice for me.

So now, more on the life plan alteration: In place of class today, this professor held student conferences. Since I'm not having any grade issues, I figured he could give me some career advice, seeing as I've already established that I'm putting off grad school (hah, you'll see how well that holds up). Needless to say, after our conversation I walked out of his office debating whether I should apply to grad school (two more years of school), law school (three more years), or both (a whopping four more years of school). So much for standing by my decision.

I recounted the conversation to my roommates and told them how thoroughly confused I was. Everyone keeps telling me how great law school is and how it opens all sorts of doors. But I don't, nor have I ever really want to be a lawyer. Granted, and I know this sounds stupid, I don't really know what a lawyer actually does. I know I don't want to be a hard-core-always-in-the-courtroom-lawyer like the ones on T.V., but I also know that what's shown on T.V. is like 0.056 percent of what real lawyers do. But if everyone says I'd be good at law, well then shouldn't I just go for it? Who cares whether I actually want to do it. Thinking for yourself is so overrated anyways.

After expressing this frustration to the roomies, Vicki said from the way I was talking, it seems like I'd be happier pursuing the master's instead of the law degree, and that I shouldn't let what other people tell me get in the way of or completely change my decision.

Later on the phone with my parents, I told them I'd decided on grad school over law school. The reason? Because Vicki said that's what would make me happiest.

Oh dear - when am I going to make my own decisions?

Please, no Paris Jr.

2007-11-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

I originally meant to post about today's field trip to USAToday (If my future place of employment is in a building that nice, I think my life would be utterly complete). But then I saw this, and I had to post it.

On our way back Sarabeth said she’s heard rumors that Britney is pregnant….again. And everyone in the car was like omg wtf why? So in an effort to procrastinate just a minute longer, I went on People’s web site to see if they had anything on it. Instead, I find this quote from Paris Hilton: “I was just telling her [Nicole Richie], ‘I want a baby so that our babies can play together.”

Yes Paris. That, that right there, is why we have offspring.

Further down, this: “I don’t have a boyfriend right now…but I would love to start a family," sometime within the next two years, she mentioned in the video.

Frankly, the only thing Paris Hilton should be starting right now is a space-walking program that would take her off this planet and out of our minds forever.

It's quite sad when Hollywood's latest accessory isn't a couture bag or even a ridiculously small pet, but a living breathing child.

Two reporting realizations

2007-11-27T15:49:00.001-05:00

I don't think I've worked as hard on any other story for this journalism class as much as I am on this, my final story. Which makes sense, seeing as this story is 10 percent of my grade. The story is our last hurrah, a 20-paragraph, in-depth look at an issue on our beat. I'm back to the taxes again, and as much as I hate to admit it, it is kind of rewarding when I look at the other articles I've done on this issue how much I really have learned. The sad thing is that while understanding this issue makes me so proud, in real life, most people who see articles like these skip right over them, unless they're the ones directly affected, in which case more than half of what I include in the story they already know. But there are two other specific realizations I had while working on this story today that I'd like to share:

1) This whole semester, I've been approaching the whole calling sources thing with the "I need good quotes from you" mindset, when in actuality, I should not be so focused on transcribing the conversation, but rather, "you have valuable information to teach me." Maybe that's why I started out as a broadcast major - it seems that all I'm after is a sound bite. This realization follows with the whole, I need to ask better, more focused questions, rather than the softball "So what's your reaction to the council's resolution?"

2) It's very difficult, especially with an issue as controversial and convoluted as this tax issue, to separate fact from interpretation. This whole day, I've been researching what the lawyers told me yesterday about what's right and wrong, and when I called the councilmember's office to check something, his chief of staff told me, "Well, that is that attorney's assertion of the Master Plan. Another attorney will have a different opinion." And since no court has ruled on which interpretation is the "correct" on in terms of the law, I'll just have to settle with dealing with an issue to which there is "no absolute truth" as she put it.

*deep breath* Alright, time to dive back in so I can have a somewhat decent product to show Professor tomorrow and ask him whether I've gotten lost in the bureaucratic muck yet again.

La confianza

2007-11-26T21:09:00.000-05:00

Cuando visitó, mi tío me dio un CD que se llama “Bella España,” y estoy escuchando a la música. Hay partes del Suite de Carmen de Bizet, que son algunos de las melodías más famosas de la música clásica, y otro obras músicas que no todavía escucho. He oído parte del “Carmen” tocando por violín, pero en este CD, es grabado con guitarra y los sonidos son tan magníficos con este instrumento. Como cada día pasa, el viaje a España viene más y mas cerca. Cuando escucho este música, puedo imaginar que estoy en un teatro en Madrid, mirar a un orquesta tocando o un baile flamenco.

Estaba pensando sobre el aprendizaje, y que tipos que tópicos escribiré sobre. Si es verdad, este tipo de escribir, sobre arte y entrenamiento me intimida un poco, y el concepto de entrevistar la gente en español me causa espanta. Ahora mismo aprendo como entrevistar bien en ingles, entonces, ¿como va a hacer esto en un idioma completamente extranjero? Si, la revista es en ingles, pero estaré en España, pues necesitaré usar el idioma.

Yo siempre reacciono como esto – hay mucho en el mundo que me intimida. No es que soy una persona tímida, completamente no. Es raro, es como mi mente no sabe como voy a hacer algo, pero mi cuerpo lo hace. Mis piernas camina a cualquier lugar, mis dedos marcan los números en el teléfono, y mi boca habla las preguntas que necesito preguntar. Y en fin, yo hizo todo casi perfectamente. Pienso que la gente, como mis profesores, no puede creer si digo a ellos que tengo miedo. Todos tienen confianza en mi, pero muchas veces, no me da cuenta que yo tengo habilidades superbuenos ¿Los editores me ofrecen este aprendizaje, no? Ellos miraron a mis artículos y tienen confianza que puedo sobrevivir hablar español y escribir sobre estos temas. Yo solamente necesito darme cuenta que he estudiado este idioma por ocho años, he sobrevivo la clase superdifícil del periodismo. Puedo hablar español y puedo escribir cualquier artículo si necesito y si quiero.

¿Porque no puedo apagar mi mente y simplemente hacer?

Crunch time?

2007-11-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving break has come and gone, and now it's crunch time at school. Luckily, I've only got 14 days - a full week less than everyone else on account of my no final exams status. Actually, that itself is kind of misleading; due to my wacked-out schedule, it's really only seven days of classes. And out of those seven days, only 18 hours and 45 minutes is actually class. And of that 19 or so hours, 3 hours are taken up by a field trip.

And yes, while it's true that I've got four final papers/articles due in these next two weeks, it's really not that bad. I'm working on my very last journalism article this week (!!), and so far so good. I spent this afternoon talking to people and I've gotten some good information. I'm meeting with my government professor on Thursday, so at least some of that paper will be done by then. A large part of the English paper is material from the first three group papers, and that leaves just the online journalism paper, my final Spanish interview, and one more round of production for the newspaper, and then I'm done for the semester. Three weeks later I roll out of the U.S. and embark on my Spanish adventure.

Damn, the life of this college student is pretty good right about now. Feel free to hate me...

(Hey I've been on the phone all day with lawyers and politicians - I'm allowed a minute or two to rest on my laurels).

Thanks Google Calendar, but no thanks

2007-11-24T22:08:00.000-05:00

It's so frustrating wanting to do something but not knowing how. I really want to change this blog's layout and add more visual interest, like a photo graphic thingy. But, I have no idea how. My aunt has a blog on typepad, and she's got this really cool photo montage banner at the top. The Caffeinated Librarian has a graphic banner on her blog. And then there's mine, dark and dull and about as text-heavy as you can get.

The blogger layouts are all kind of boring - Karen used to make new layouts for her xanga every few weeks or so; when she gets back, I'd like to ask her how she does it, though I think it involves photoshop, which I don't have on my computer. I thought that after taking this online journalism course at school, I'd be able to play around with the coding and create something new, but alas, looking at the coding for these blogger layouts immediately makes me want to pop two aspirin and lie down.

It's funny, everyone thinks that being under the age of 25 means you automatically know everything about computers and online technology. But, like all stereotypes, this just isn't true (recall my utter fascination with Google's satellite map, which has been around forever, and my lack of photoshop usage). Only two months ago did I learn what an RSS feed is, and the only mainstream blog I regularly check is Salon's Broadsheet. I've heard of all those others, Wonkette, the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, but have never checked them out. I still don't know exactly what Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Twitter are, and despite the fact that all our journalism professors keep saying that the only way we'll get a job is if we keep up with all these internet advancements, I've got no real desire to do so. I figure, I already spend enough time staring at the computer screen that my eyesight will probably be all but gone by the age of 50, so I'd rather not spend any more time than I already do perusing this vortex we call the internet.

And even though Google is taking over the world, I'm still wary of jumping in wholeheartedly. While almost everyone I know lauds the benefits of Google Calendar, I must be the only one who finds it slightly disconcerting that every date I enter will probably be stored somewhere out there in the nebulous realm we call cyberspace. In this day and age where a paper trail can be the kiss of death for anyone climbing the career ladder, I'm not eager to volunteer any more information than I have to, even if it's as mundane as the due date for my paper on the role of NGOs (and yes, I realize that by keeping a blog, I'm doing just that, but I made it clear from the very beginning I find this whole blogging this suspicious in its own right). Call me old-fashioned (or paranoid after reading that previous sentence), but I still enjoy keeping a little day planner and hand-writing all my dates in. Think of it this way - if someone finds that planner 150 years from now, (assuming they still know what paper at that point), that sloppy color coded script will remind them that behind all these documents are real people with real personalities and emotions and desires, not drones who lived a life scripted in the same sterile size 12 Arial font.

Black Friday PSA

2007-11-23T02:21:00.000-05:00

As Black Friday dawns, I want to remind all the frantic shoppers out there of one important thing. As you scour the stores for the best deal of the season and fight it out with the woman next to you for the last lead-free toy left on shelves, don't forget to keep a watch on your belongings.

On Tuesday I was shoe shopping, and as I tried on a pair of shoes, I naturally rested my purse on the floor for a moment. I turned around to retrieve it and it wasn't there. The store wasn't even that crowded, yet someone had still made off with it. We searched the store for about an hour, aisle after aisle, until I realized there was really nothing more I could do than just leave my phone number with the manager and hope for the best.

As I walked around peering under racks, I was proud of myself for not panicking. I've gotten a lot better at that whole not panicking thing over the past few months, finally internalizing the fact that freaking out does absolutely nothing to change the situation. (The closest I've come to that heart-pounding panic lately is the one time I called the guy I like, but that's panic of a slightly different sort). I remembered that sometime last summer I spent about two painstaking hours copying all the numbers from my cell phone, by hand, into a notebook. Plus, there wasn't more than $30 in the wallet and the credit card could be canceled. The things I actually missed most was actually the business card from the Indian restaurant Supraja and I ate dinner at in Paris and this list I made in 8th or 9th grade of the 100 things I wanted to do before I die (which I later realized wasn't even in the wallet). And there could be a bright side to this - after all, hadn't I been saying I needed to get a new purse.

Luckily, perhaps very luckily, I got a phone call from Papa early Wednesday morning saying that the store called and that they'd found the purse wedged under the clearance rack. Everything but the cash was still there, including the red wallet that I lamented losing (I think I may have been more sad at losing the wallet itself than the actual purse).

So, moral of this story is, no matter how unlikely you think it is, please please keep vigilant watch over your purse, shopping bags, and most importantly young kids, because as cliche as it is, it really only takes an instant for them to disappear, and no matter how much you think otherwise, yes, it can happen to you. So take inventory of everything in your wallet, write all your cell phone numbers somewhere, and while we're at it, don't forget to back up your computers' hard drives, save all your digital photographs to CDs and change your smoke detector batteries, because we all know that the last thing anyone needs during this time of year is more stress.

Real Thanksgiving (well, sort of)

2007-11-22T17:17:00.000-05:00

While many of you are probably settling in around the dinner table, about to dig into that freshly roasted turkey, my table is clear and the leftovers are already packed and sitting in the fridge.

My uncle from Luxembourg was in the U.S. for a week on business and he swung by and spent yesterday here. Since his flight home is today, we had our Thanksgiving dinner last night. It's kind of nice actually, having the feast early, because it gives the illusion of having more time off. Instead of this whole day being eaten up with Thanksgiving prep, I've got the four full days to chill out.

It's always nice seeing Mamu - this time we talked about my upcoming semester abroad and traveling around Europe. He, Susan Auntie and Sara visited Madrid last month, and while he couldn't say much about the food (he's not the first) he said the city is great and that I'm going to enjoy it a lot. Yesterday evening we took a walk around the neighborhood and as we marveled at all the fall leaves, we talked about vacations and traveling. Since he's already seen so much of Europe, a lot of what he sees now just looks the same, he said. The best thing to do, he said, is to not over-plan and sometimes the best thing to do is just sit at a cafe, sipping your beer and taking in the city. Often times, it's those little experiences that you remember most about a trip, he said. And I totally believe that; after all, the first thing that comes to mind from my trip to Paris last spring was when Supraja and I wandered through the Jewish quarter eating delicious falafel.

It's sometimes funny to think that Mamu and Mom are siblings; he's so laid-back and carefree and Mom is such a worrier. Then again I'm a heck of a lot crazier than Neeraj. Oh well, there's family for you.

Anyways, after we got back from our walk, Mamu and I scoured the website of Europe's discount airline Ryan Air and found where all I could go from Madrid. The more and more I talk about next semester, the more exciting it gets. As we headed to the airport to drop Mamu off, Mom was talking about how January has got to be the most depressing month, since all the fun of the holidays is gone. I realized that my January will be a bit more exciting than most. It's kind of intimidating but still oh-so-exciting, especially because I know that if anything happens, well, Luxembourg is only a four hour flight away.

But I must not get ahead of myself. While Thanksgiving may be over, there's still the holiday season to enjoy (not to mention all those leftovers :) So even though the only chicken (turkeys are too big to cook), cranberry sauce and stuffing I'm getting tonight is the reheated version, I hope you all are enjoying yours! Happy Thanksgiving!

Fake Thanksgiving

2007-11-19T18:47:00.000-05:00

How many strikes does a person get before he's out? Well, in baseball, the answer is a simple three. But in real life, it's not so cut and dry.

You may have noticed that it's been a while since I mentioned the Yankees. Yes October maybe over with, but my silence here doesn't mean I haven't been following what's going on. The manager deal, the trade talks, A-Rod; I know it's all happening, but it's the news of Jeter's "tarnished image" that is compelling me to write today. After I read the I read Friday's New York Times story on how Jeter may have lied about his residency status to avoid paying city and states taxes, the cynic in me immediately came out. Ah ha, it cried, I told you, nobody is perfect.

I thought back to this book I read when I was younger, Sean Covey's "7 Rules of Highly Effective Teens." One of the early chapters explained how you should base your life around principles instead of things like material possessions or famous people. What happens when the famous people screw up, Covey asked? Where does that leave you? Even a seemingly flawless star is bound to have some skeletons that emerge from their closet. And while I've never thought of myself as wrapped up with the star shortstop, it did strike me a little odd that I didn't feel anything really, when I read the article. I didn't feel sad or angry or betrayed, and we're talking about the guy who got me into college here, remember.

I don't feel bad for him, that's for sure. I mean, the guy makes $14 million a year; he isn't exactly struggling to pay the rent. And the impression that I got was that he is a pretty frugal guy, not too much of a big spender. Then why in the world would he fudge around with taxes. I guess more than anything, the news left me curious. Mom said that at least it wasn't like he'd done anything bad on the field. But to me, cheating is cheating, and while I'll be looking out for more information on all this, I'm not exactly shedding any tears. That said, is he still my favorite player? Well yes, though I may not admire him as much as I used to if the allegations are true. But once again, none of us is perfect, and while I blame him for getting into the whole situation, I do give him (and most other famous people) credit for having to deal with every bad thing that happens to them in a very public way (though you'd think the millions of dollars they make is at least somewhat of a consolation to life in the public eye).

We had a similar discussion in journalism class today. Recently, the Post's classical music critic Tim Page sent a vicious e-mail to Marion Barry's office that was meant to request that Page's e-mail address be removed from a listserv, but ended up calling the councilman a "useless...crack-addict," We discussed to what level should journalists restrict themselves and debated what action should be taken against Page. All of us agreed that it was a stupid move on Page's part to send such a message over the internet and through his Post account, but almost all of us also agreed that Pulitzer Prize-winning Page doesn't deserve to be fired over such a thing. Obviously, some action should be taken, but seeing as the guy writes about classical music and not D.C. politics, perhaps firing him would be taking it too far. Prof said that increasingly nowadays, people's mistakes create a storm of controversy and you get hell for it for about a week, and then the brouhaha disappears and things go back to normal.

I don't think that's necessarily reserved for nowadays. Hasn't it always been like that, at least in terms of personal relationships. Sure, the technology makes it worse to make a mistake nowadays because the whole world can hear about it before you have a chance to wipe your hands off, but we've always had to deal with the shortcomings of friends and family and accept them for the flawed people they are.

This Saturday my friends planned a "Fake Thanksgiving" potluck, and I had intended on partaking in the festivities. But as the day went on, my mood soured until I got to the point where I had no desire to leave my room or speak to anyone for fear that I'd snap back. I couldn't even tell where the anger and frustration were coming from; true, earlier my roommates had tried to force me to see a movie I didn't want to, but I knew that wasn't the only thing that was bothering me. Needless to say I spend the evening in my room drifting in and out of sleep while they enjoyed the feast outside.

By Sunday I'd recovered and was back to my regular self. Around dinner time I opened the fridge, where, to my surprise, I found an aluminum-foil covered plate of food with my name and last night's menu printed on it. I smiled and popped into the microwave. Three minutes later I enjoyed the absolutely delicious (and I genuinely mean that - one day these girls are going to make some husbands very happy at dinnertime) meal they'd kindly set aside for me. It wasn't until later, when I told Mom about it, and she pointed out that they'd done that for me despite the fact that I hadn't asked them to and even though I'd maintained quite the frosty attitude throughout the day.

And then I realized, no matter what stupid things you do, whether you cheat on taxes, blow a fuse at someone, or just plain ignore the people around you, most of the time, they aren't just going to write you off. Boy it's nice to know that people will stick around even when you're not at your best. So thanks girls for making my evening last night!

My new Spanish mother

2007-11-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

I just called my host mother in Spain to figure out when I should arrive, and, well let's just say the next couple months are going to be interesting, to say the least. You see, in the midst of our nine-minute conversation, she mentioned to me that she doesn't speak any English.

This wasn't my first time speaking in Spanish on the phone; I did it when I called the university over the summer. That time I had spent all my effort memorizing my introduction that I forgot to prepare my questions in Spanish. I mean, I had a gist of what I wanted to ask, but when I was actually on the phone speaking to an actual Spanish speaker in Spain, I completely blanked and ended up stringing a bunch of random words together until she realized how much I was struggling and transferred me to someone who knew some English.

It's not that I don't know Spanish, I've emailed back and forth in Spanish and don't really find it difficult. But speaking is always the hardest part of learning a language, and while everyone says that people appreciate it when you attempt to talk in their native language, it really takes a lot of guts to suck it up and sputter out what you're trying to say to someone whose fluency level you will probably never reach.

Needless to say, I was pretty nervous about calling my host mother, since this is the person I will be living with for about five months, and unlike the people at the university's international programs department, I couldn't exactly assume she knew any English. At Sash's suggestion, I prepared a script of sorts and finally dialed the number. It was about 8:15 or so her time and no one answered, so I left a message with my e-mail address. I called again an hour later and this time she picked up.

Immediately it was difficult because there was an echo on the phone, so not only did I have to think of vocabulary and conjugate verbs, but I had to hear it all played back to me. I think it was only a problem on my end, because she didn't seem to be having any issues hearing me. The script was pretty handy until I actually started having a conversation with her, at which point I had to think of replies. I also, of course, had to try and understand what she was saying, though I'm pretty sure I got most of it. She did mention something about me being student number nine, and I have no clue what she meant. Maybe I'm the ninth student she's hosted (I really hope she didn't say that she is hosting nine of us at the same time, because that could get quite interesting). She asked where I was from and if I had any dietary restrictions, and I tried to ask her about the weather, but I'm pretty sure what came out was "Is it cold in the winter? "She seemed pretty flexible about the dates and I told her I'd give her another call once the flight is finalized, and that was pretty much that.

So there it is - I'm embarking on a real life adventure in about six weeks. I'm spending five, probably eight months, in a foreign country where they speak a language I've never truly been exposed to outside of nine years in a classroom. And best of all, my entire life has to be packed into two suitcases, and that's supposed to last me those eight months. Oh, 2008 is going to be one interesting year. Stay tuned!

Dead trees, fall leaves and one very cool map

2007-11-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

Okay so I totally did not know about the satellite feature on Google maps and it is SO COOL!! (I haven't really stopped to think about how creepy it actually is, but hey, let me enjoy this). I just looked up my house (which by the way is wrong - Google maps labeled the house next to mine as mine) and my apartment and the place where I'm going to be living in Spain and my cousin's house in New Delhi and my other cousin in Luxembourg and ohmigod this thing is just about the coolest thing I've seen in a very long time!!

Alright - momentary lapse of sanity right there. Anyways, today I got the info for my host mother in Spain, and according to Google maps, she lives only 10 minutes away from the university. (I'm pretty sure it's 10 minutes by car though, so not sure how relevant that fact actually is). As I was looking around the map it really hit me that I'm going to be in Europe next semester, away from everyone and everything I know. And, not to knock everyone and everything here, but that prospect is refreshing and invigorating and oh so exciting. I'm almost done with this hellish semester (26 days!!!!), and while next semester is slightly daunting and intimidating, it will be like nothing I've ever done before.

Anyways, things have been slightly weird around here. Weird in the sense that I don't remember the last time I saw a blue sky - it's just been days and days of gray. One day it sort of rained, another it was kind of misty, and then another you could feel the rain lurking in the air around you, but it wasn't actually there. Last night I was walking around the mall on the center of campus and it was the eeriest thing I've ever seen - the entire expanse of grass was covered in this mist, just like the fake mist created by dry ice at low-budget magic shows. I thought to myself, if it was Halloween right now, I would kind of be scared out of my mind. It really looked like something out of a Hitchcock movie or something. But it wasn't cold and it was fairly early in the night (8 p.m.) so it wasn't totally sketchy. You would think that with a misty field would come the howling wind and people bundled up in coats and scarves, but it's been pretty warm for this time of year. Today it was supposed to touch 69 - walking around you saw people in shorts and people in coats.

And it's not just the weather that's strange. Yesterday I was walking to the journalism building to work on a project, and the moment I turned the corner, I knew something was missing. As I walked down the steps, I saw a gigantic tree stump and realized that just the day before, when I had gone to my journalism class, there used to be a big old friendly tree there. And now it was gone, just like that. It was so sad to think that something as large and and stable and seemingly immovable as a tree was subject to the same rude awakening as the leaves that fell off it. I guess it just reminded me that nothing is ever really safe. In just the past two days I've walked by the stump about six times and each time a tiny part of me dies along with it.

But while some trees are being cut down, others are just coming to life. Well, not really, but all the twiggy trees in the courtyard outside my apartment have suddenly decided to debut their fall colors. I thought that the autumn colors peaked weeks ago, but apparently I was wrong. One of them has leaves that are this intense orangey-red color that has to be one of the most beautiful colors I've ever seen. And another one is a paler yellow-orange that is also stunning. Further away from the building is another gigantic multi-tonal tree, and while its colors aren't as pretty, there's just something about it that is striking. Hopefully it's one of the big trees on campus that isn't on the chopping block.

The other weird thing that I've noticed is that my hair has been really curly lately and I realized today that it is probably because of the pseudo-humidity nestled into all this gray. My hair isn't the spiral, mop-top kind of curly, but rather looser ringlets. Usually it's wavy, but lately it's been making the move over to curly. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, I think it looks great, but I look at myself in the mirror and I can see the difference. Ever since I got to college, I think my hair has just been making a gradual transition to curly-ness, since I don't remember it agreeing with me in high school. It wasn't ever straight or curly back then, just straight up frizzy and poofy and disagreeable. So I guess the current curls are drastic improvement, especially because it literally styles itself. I know, I know, every girl is going to hate me when I say this, but I actually don't have to style it at all for it to look this way. I just walk out of the shower, slap on some mousse and I'm ready to go.

Alright, well that's the random amalgamation of thoughts that have occupied my mind this week. Now I think it is advisable that I put my mind to more productive means, like writing my English paper or studying for my government test. Yeah, I should really get on that...

Accepting What I Don't Want

2007-11-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

You know what's really frustrating? When people keep trying to push the benefits of something you aren't interested in. The university keeps sending me information on scholarships for graduate school and they won't stop. I know what you're thinking - what kind of problem is that? Let me explain:

First of all, I'm not going to graduate school immediately after undergraduate. Originally, my life plan had me going straight into grad school, just to get it over with. But then real life intervened and the plan kind of fell apart. So, I decided, for a couple of reasons, that I would go out and work for a year or two before going to grad school. Right now, I'm planning on getting my master's degree in international affairs, but I'm not sure what concentration I want to do. There's also still a tiny crevice in the back of my mind that is considering law school, but that's a whole other story. And practically speaking, I have no time during my undergraduate career to study for and take the GRE/LSAT. But I think the real reason I want to put off grad school is that I don't think I could handle another two to three years of school.

Upon graduation, I will have packed so much into these four years that I honestly do not think I could deal with two more years of exams and papers and grades. I know, everyone keeps telling me to appreciate college because life certainly doesn't get easier in the real world, but I think I just need some time out of academia to figure out what I really want to do with my life. You know, I really hate doing that, admitting that I don't know what I want to do. When I do, it makes me feel weak or unprepared. I really don't know why I only feel comfortable when I've got a plan. It's not that I'm against spontaneity, I'd just rather know what's going on/be in control of what's going on. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that it's okay to not know everything.

Anyways, back to the scholarship thing. I've been to a couple of grad school scholarship sessions, one before I finalized my grad school decision, and one after. However, the latter event appeared to be a leadership and scholarship event, though it basically gave me the same exact scholarship information as the first one. There were a bunch of scholarship reps there and every time they talked to me, I had to tell them I wasn't going straight to grad school, and as you saw above, that's not the easiest thing for me to say, especially when almost every one of my friends is going straight to grad school. I guess it almost makes me feel dumb, in a way, to say that I'm not going directly to grad school. I almost want to blurt out my GPA along with that statement, just to show people that I am actually smart. Call it insecurity or whatever, but I like I said earlier, admitting that I don't know what I want to do anymore makes me feel like I'm not as good as everyone around me.

But, back to the point of this post. I got the impression that the scholarships were for people going directly to grad school, so even if I were to get a scholarship, I wouldn't be able to use it. People kept telling me some scholarships can be deferred, but that still doesn't address the main concern I have with all this pesky scholarship business, which is the research aspect that comes along with many of them.

I've found that I don't really like doing research. I have a legitimate basis for that feeling, because one of the many things I'm doing as an undergraduate is research, albeit team research, but we're still investigating something and writing a 150 page thesis. The whole thing is just very frustrating for me. And seeing as doing research involves dealing with unexpected changes, which as we all know I don't handle quite well, I walk out of many of our team meetings frustrated on a good day and angry on a bad day.

It seems to me that you pour years of your time and effort into a research project, and for what? The thesis is shelved into the annals of the university library or a journal database, where some slacker college student researching a paper for a class he has no interest in stumbles upon your findings the night before the paper is due, turns to a random page, pulls the most intellectual sounding quote he finds, inserts into his paper (properly attributed of course) and moves on, not pausing for a minute to even learn the title of your research.

Call me cynical, but I just don't like to spend my time doing something unless I know what it's purpose is. I also know I'm grossly underestimating the value of academic research here, and that without academic research, there would be no progress or innovation, but it's just that I want to do something with my time and with my life that will make an immediate, observable difference.

This leads me to something else I've been dying to write about, which is how I seriously don't know what want to do anymore. But seeing as this post has already become waaaay to long and rambly, I'll save that for another post.

Just a Message, Short and Sweet

2007-11-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's funny how the littlest things sometimes make the biggest difference in your day. It was just a quick message from a friend, but it had me walking to class with a smile. It's not that I was even having a bad day, (the day ended up getting worse later on,) but it was definitely a welcome surprise when opening my inbox.

On Sunday, I saw a car with South Carolina tags and I thought of a friend of mine who lives there. She went to my university freshman year, but this school wasn't really a good fit for her, so she transferred to a school closer to home. We became pretty close that year, and I hadn't talked to her in a while, so I left her a message asking how everything was going and to tell her I missed her.

Around noon today, I read her reply, in which she told me how well everything was going. She ended the message with, "I miss you and I love ya always. You were one of the only things that got me through freshman year - and I will always be grateful for you."

Now I know it's a tad sappy, but she's one of those people who you know genuinely cares about you and means things when she says them. Imagine what a better place the world would be if we spent more time telling people how much they mean to us instead of constantly criticizing and accusing them.

This girl is one of the sweetest girls I've ever met and I'm genuinely happy that things are going so well for her. She's found a major and a career path that she's really passionate about, she's planning on graduating early and things are going really well with her boyfriend. It's funny, while I'm always happy for friends when good things happen, I'm usually also a teeny bit jealous at their success. (Oh come on, you know you do it too). But with her, I'm just genuinely happy. It's not that she doesn't have things to be envious of - I'm not having the success she is in the boy department, that's for sure. But there's something about her that makes you think, gosh she just deserves it all.

It's really nice to know that even if you live far away or don't talk to each other too often, there's someone out there who cares for you, and they aren't afraid to show it. We need more people like that in the world.

Wrong Answers and Everlasting Newspapers

2007-11-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

If you don't know the right answer, feeding someone wrong information is about the last thing you should do, right? Funny how so many people seemingly missed that lesson in Common Sense 101.

Yesterday I called the health center to see if I could come in for a flu shot.

"We're all out," was the reply I got.

"Well, are you ordering any more?" I asked.

"Nope,"

Already out of flu shots? On November 5? This week we're doing a health/science story for my journalism class, and Prof said we could move out of our beats on this one and just find something on campus to write about. Bingo, I thought, this apparent flu vaccine will be my story for the week.

So I called the nurse in charge of immunizations today, and when I asked her about the shortage:

"What shortage?" she replied. "We've still got vaccines. You just have to make an appointment for the shot."

Huh? Really? I don't know who I talked to yesterday or why she told me they were all out, but there has to be a chink in the bureaucratic chain if you get two polar opposite answers to the same exact questions.

And though this may be slightly unrelated, it's the same with all the advisors too.

"So, I've met with you and fulfilled my advising requirement, right?" I ask them every semester before registration.

"Of course you have, your registration block will be lifted," they say every time.

But, lo and behold, every day before I register for classes, the block is still there and it takes a slightly frustrated email to have them lift it. Every single time. Really - I've got enough on my plate without having to do someone else's job thank you very much.

Anyways, this post isn't all ranting, I promise. I was walking out of the journalism building today and found a couple copies of the Washington Post. I picked one up and remembered why newspapers could never die. Because, call me old-fashioned, but I just can't read a newspaper on the computer. I'm sorry, I grew up reading the words on a real piece of paper and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon. There's something about opening up the fold, pulling out the neatly tucked-in sections and scanning the page, seeing what piques your interest. It's not even necessarily what piques your interest - I check the Post's website fairly regularly, but hardly read the front page stories because either they don't really interest me or I know I won't be able to stand reading a 35-inch story on my computer screen. But then I pick up the actual paper and usually skim each story (unless the headline says something like "The Fed...interest rates...mortgages....economy," then the story's got no chance whatsoever in my book.

See - there's more to me than just one big complaint after another.

I am 'Scrubs'

2007-11-05T16:29:00.000-05:00

This weekend I finally had some free time, so I decided to live up to the lazy college student stereotype watched about 25 episodes (not including the six I just watched this afternoon) of "Scrubs" aka the best television show since "Friends."

I saw a couple of episodes last year and liked what I saw, but since I really don't like watching TV shows unless I've seen them from the beginning, I didn't really get beyond those few. But, since I for once had some time on my hands, I decided, hey what the hell.

It was funny because I saw a some of the first season with Supraja a couple weeks ago and I made a comment about how I couldn't stand Elliot. She was the show-off who would never shut up and who you just want to grab by the shoulders and shake. But this weekend when I made it haflway into the first season, I realized why exactly Elliot stuck a nerve.

She's exactly like me.

No, seriously. Total goody two shoes whose biggest fear is having to make a decision in a situation where the right answer can't just be looked up in a book; overzealous, ambitious control freak who is desperately seeking the approval of her superiors and colleagues; young neurotic woman who is (sort of almost) about to jump into the real world without having any clue as to how it works since her parents have always provided for her every need; and finally, the over-analyzer who has to have and thought she had her entire life planned out, right down to her career and the age-window she has to get married in, but is now realizing that a little thing called life kind of gets in the way of all that planning.

Me, me, me, and oh God yes, me.

Seriously, this semester I've been convinced my English teacher doesn't like me, so I met with him to go over the guidelines for one of our papers so that he would realize how much getting an A in class means to me, just like how Elliot was willing to do everything for Dr. Cox in that one episode, including delivering every patient the bad news they had no desire to hear. She may get all the answers right, but she slaves away over those textbook so much that when people like JD are just good at everything, she can't handle it. She is unable to stand up to anyone, like those gyno gals from that one episode in Season 2. She's secretly happy when every doctor is finally paying some attention to her, even if the attention is due to her hookup with a doctor she rarely knew. (Okay, we may differ slightly there, but the whole needing to be the center of attention no matter what, that's shared). Throw in Turk's relentless ambition, subtract the blonde hair and desire to become a doctor and bam, you've got me in a nutshell. (Hell watching all this Scrubs such little time has made a teensy part of me actually want to become a doctor. Scary, I know).

So beyond my little personal revelation, this massive Scrubs marathon has wreaked havoc in one other way - I'm kind of unable to do anything else but watch it. Seriously, I don't know how I'm actually going to get any work done this week, or for the rest of the semester for that matter. I just don't seem to grasp the concept of moderation (remember the 4,000 pages of books I read in three days this summer?)

Oh dear :)

Bonding with the Bro

2007-11-02T13:15:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Neeraj called and asked if I could edit his English narrative for him. I agreed and what was supposed to be me just going over his essay turned into a two-hour long bonding session. Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but it's the first time in a long time we've had a really nice conversation.

Neeraj is not as talkative as I am, and we don't really talk much over the phone, though I attribute that more to his just being a guy than being shy. I mean, Papa and I always have really great conversations in person, but it's just not the same over the phone. And lately Neeraj has been so swamped with work that we never really have time to chill because he's always got some kind of project or essay or test to prepare for.

So we were going over his narrative and he told me how bad it was because he'd written the rough draft late at night, but as I read it, I thought it was actually quite good. I remember when we were younger, I used to make up stories and type them up on the computer (The typing part was more exciting to me than the actual story creation). After seeing me do it, he used to do the same thing, and would come up with stories and poems and type them up in funky fonts. Ah the childhood memories. And even though he eventually lost interest in creative writing, I've read some of his essays for school and he still does have writing talent.

But anyways, as we were going over his draft, he was telling me about school and how crazy it all is, what with the 5 AP classes he's taking this year. It was nice because generally when I ask him about school he doesn't want to talk about it because he's like - that's all I do all week, I need a break from school.

I really don't know how he does it all. I told him that there's no way I could have handled all the work he has when I was his age. Hell, I can hardly handle all the work I have right now. I don't know if it's just me being old, but I really don't think I got as much work in high school as he's getting right now. I admire him for taking it all on though - 5 APs is something I never attempted in my four years. And while sometimes it bother me that he's that classic guy who keeps most of his emotions hidden, I guess that could come in handy sometimes, especially when dealing with this much work. I mean, yes he complains, but he complains in a different way than I do. His style is more quiet, more subdued. He'll complain about school, but it's more of a wistful, shrug of the shoulders complaining. Me, I'll get really heated and angry and frustrated and panicky about all the work I have to do. Sometimes my complaining will end up in a rant about how getting a B on a paper will somehow result in me being a complete and total failure at life. (I promise, it only gets that far some of the time). Neeraj, he doesn't get that worked up, not at all. We both get our work done, but it seems like he accepts it and does it, while there are times that I simply fume my way through it.

New Career for Me

2007-10-27T20:18:00.000-04:00

I have found a new calling in life, and boy is this one a perfect blend of my skills. Ready....drum roll please...I've decided I'm going to be a telenovela writer. That's right, you know those enormously overdramatic soap operas full of jealousy, passion, and intrigue all in rapid-fire Spanish. Turns out I'm not half bad at writing them. I mean what other job lets you use call someone a love-thief and warn them of being pushed off a building by a deranged and supposed best friend.

In my Spanish class we have to work in groups to write and perform a mini telenovela. When we started working on this on Monday, my group and I just sat there blankly, unsure how to begin. Nickie suggested we have someone in a coma, and it just took off from there. It's ridiculous, we've now got a three women chasing after the same man, someone falling off a roof, an attempted poisoning and of course, the token revelation of pregnancy (which gets to be my little surprise).

As you can see, I'm having an enjoyable Saturday. Once I finish the script, I'll translate the whole story for you to read in all its glory.

Trans-Atlantic Talks

2007-10-24T17:44:00.001-04:00

I had a couple of loose ends to tie up with my whole studying abroad thing, so I decided to call up Spain this morning. Easier said than done. First step: waking up at 5:15 a.m. a full hour and a half earlier than I have to on Wednesdays.

I'm trying to get a summer internship at an arts and entertainment magazine in Spain. I mailed my application package to their office last week, and I wanted to make sure it got there okay. I gave them a call and talked to one of the editors there. First, of all, he had a British accent, meaning I had to concentrate more to understand him, given that my brain felt about as dark as the sky outside. We were talking about the internship and he asked if I knew Spanish. I replied that I'd been studying it for eight years and would be spending the semester before the internship living in Spain, so yes, my skills are pretty decent. Then, out of nowhere, he rattles off a question in Spanish. My brain momentarily stopped functioning. First, the realization that hey, this man is now speaking in a foreign language, had to set in. By the time that clicked, I only heard the last two words of his sentence.

"Uhhh, I'm really sorry, but what?" was my reply.

"Oh, I was just testing you," he answered. I got the impression that he was smiling when he said that. Oh great - just what everyone wants at the crack of dawn - a language test to fail.

"I'm really sorry, but it's 5:30 in the morning here," I told him, hoping that my lame excuse would suffice.

"Oh wow, I didn't realize it was that early over there. You got up that early especially to call us?"

"Yup,"

"Well, that was very contentious of you."

Ha, I had redeemed myself. We went on to talk some more about the internship and he told me he'd get back to me soon.

Next step: Call the university. I had a couple of housing questions and was transferred to someone who sounded quite American. I told him where I was from and what university I attend, and he said he had recently been to my university. That in and of itself isn't necessarily surprising since my school is a large state school, but it's still nice to have a connection like that with a stranger. He didn't mention in what capacity he'd visited here, but we were talking about the Spanish department and then studying abroad, and he was telling me about how much my Spanish was going to improve.

"You'd have to be a total moron loser to not improve your speaking skills here," he said. No joke, that's what he said. It was great. He talked about how I'll meet so many students from all over the place, which is precisely the reason why I chose to direct enroll in the university rather than go through an American university or a program provider. I told him about how I really wanted to push myself to become a part of the culture and not just be like - hey you're American, let's be friends. We had a really nice conversation and he now I'm super excited to go. Since direct enrolling has left me pretty much responsible for everything, it's nice to know I've got a friendly face on the other side who I can ask questions.

Perfect Paneer

2007-10-24T12:27:00.001-04:00

After being up since 5:20 this morning, an hour and a half earlier than usual, the only thing that was getting me through 11:00 Spanish was the prospect of digging into Mom's paneer.

I got back to the apartment, warmed everything up and dug into what was quite possibly the best meal I have ever had.

It was just shahi paneer that Mom literally whipped up in 10 minutes while I was eating breakfast yesterday, but that first bite was almost heavenly. The tangy tomato puree combined with the thick cream was almost more than I could handle. As I devoured the cushy pillows of paneer with the flaky roti, I thought to myself, screw all my lofty life goals. If I can make a dish that makes someone as happy as this paneer has made me, my life would be complete.

Especially after talking to Mom last night, the prospect of staying home isn't as inconceivable to me. I remember this one conversation I had with Mom freshman year where she told me how she was once offered this position at Marriott and that if she had taken it, today she would probably be something like executive V.P of housekeeping or something really high up and awesome. But, she turned down the position - and you know the reason why? Because I was born.

When she told me that I was like...what!!! You turned down this amazing job just because of me? Why the heck did you do that! I'm not worth that! And she just replied, when you have kids, everything changes. And of course I couldn't understand that then, but now I'm starting to get what she means. I've noticed that a lot of times, powerful and influential women (Condoleezza Rice and Oprah Winfrey come to mind) also aren't married and don't have kids. And that's one thing I know I can't give up. Yes, I'm about as driven and as competitive as it gets, but when it comes down to making that choice, I know I'm going with the family.

Then again, I'm also the one that when people tell me that eventually I'll actually have to make that choice, I pretend I can't hear what they're saying because I've already made everything else in life work, so why should this one be any different? The saying 'you can't have your cake and eat it too' means nothing to me because I've been eating the cake all my life, and don't plan on stopping any time soon.

Except now because I've got to go to class. Adios!

P.S. I'll have to tell you about this morning's conversation with Spain when I get back.

Taking My Own Advice

2007-10-23T22:42:00.000-04:00

It's funny how yesterday I wrote that worrying is a waste of time because freaking out is all I've done today. And of course everything ended up working out perfectly fine and I was left wondering how much more I could accomplish if I put all my effort that goes into worrying into something productive.

Last night, while writing up my business story, I realized I left my passport at school, and would have to go back in the morning to get it before going to the embassy to get my visa. Of course, because I love to complicate my life, I had also been debating between getting the regular student visa or the extended one, since I might be staying abroad to intern, but I'm haven't heard from the place I applied, so I'm not really sure at all. So I proceeded to wake Papa up not once, but twice at about 1 a.m. kind of freaking out about whether I had all the correct documents or not. He told me to go to bed and that we would just go to the embassy and get the facts from them.

I went to bed feeling only a little better, but exhaustion eventually got the better of me and I fell asleep fairly quickly given how much was on my mind.

In the morning, Mom frantically cooked some more food for me to take back, since plans had changed and I wouldn't be stopping at home before heading back to school after the visa stuff. We went to school, I grabbed my passport and we headed into the city. Once there, we found the Spanish embassy, I took a deep breath, and we walked in. The friendly guard pointed me toward the visa desk, which was completely empty, and the woman asked what she could do. I told her I wanted a student visa, she took my papers, looked through them briefly and told me to come back in seven weeks.

I was a little confused. The last time I went to get a visa, which was this summer for our India trip, it was a day-long ordeal. After I got over my initial shock at this efficiency, I asked her about the extended visa. She said that would involve a letter from school saying I was taking classes. Well then, I thought, that settles it. I don't have a letter nor do I plan on taking more classes, so I'm just going to apply for the regular student visa and that's that.

Papa and I thanked her and headed out the embassy, thanking the guard on the way out. I looked at my watch. Three minutes. That's how long we spent inside the embassy. And that was counting the time it took for me to ask and her to answer my question. Really? I'd spent last night and this morning freaking out about everything and this was all it took? I mean, I'm definitely not complaining, but still. That was it?

Anyways, Papa and I had time to kill, so we wandered around the city, conversing amiably. The weather was perfect, a little cloudy so the sun wasn't in our eyes, and not-too-warm temperatures with the perfect slow cool breeze. It was too early for lunch, so we strolled for about an hour or so before heading to this Vietnamese cafe for lunch.

For lunch I had a shrimp and lemongrass soup and a little lunch box with rice, salad, a spring roll and grilled chicken with peanut sauce. The soup was so good, sweet and light with a tangy kick. The box was really cute and everything tasted amazing. Papa had shrimp in garlic sauce which was also really good.

After lunch we decided to head back, since I (unfortunately) had work waiting for me. We had a nice ride back, chatting about politics and careers and life in general. I really like when we have those conversations. Sometimes it's just so easy to talk to Papa about all that stuff, and every once in a while he says something that just completely makes sense. He'll bring up a point that I never thought about, and suddenly things just click.

Fast forward a couple of hours, when I was on the phone with Mom, who talked to Nani Ma recently. Mom started telling me how much she misses Nani Ma and how she feels so bad sometimes because Nani Ma is all the way in India and we're all the way over here. Nani Ma waits for years and years for us to come, and then when we finally do visit it's only for a couple of weeks and we never really get to spend quality time with her. Mom went on about how much she looks forward to me visiting from college, and then when I do come, the time passes by so quickly and it's time for me to go right back, and how I'm going to be abroad next semester and pretty soon Neeraj is going to be going to college and how it must be exponentially difficult for Nani Ma because the distance is so much greater. Needless to say, I think at that moment it hit Mom that her children are growing up, and let's just say the phone call ended with a lot of Kleenex.

Even though it's not like growing up is my fault, I still felt guilty. I felt the exact same way when I left for college and Neeraj was at home all alone. I mean, for a brother and sister I think we were pretty close, and for us suddenly not to be seeing each other 24/7 was kind of weird. But like Mom said, at least I'm just a 45 minute drive away. I honestly can't imagine what it would be like being 10,000 miles away from Mom and the rest of my family, not being able to call any time I wanted or just hop on the Metro and be home in an hour.

Anyways, I don't really know what point I was trying to get at, just that there's enough meaningful change to worry about in life that you'd better not sweat the small stuff too.

Business Story Breakthrough

2007-10-22T21:47:00.000-04:00

This morning when my journalism professor told us about this week's story, I kind of freaked out. For the past month, I've been following the same issue, basically rewriting the same story three times. Just when I got into a fairly comfortable routine of calling up the same four sources for information, Prof threw us a curveball and instead of continuing with our issue stories, we now have to do a business story.

We have to profile a local business, talk to owners, customers, ask people what's good, what's bad, walk around the strip mall and ask people if they would go to that store or not. Even worse, this week in class we have to write a story on the unemployment rate. Upon hearing this, apparently my internal dread leaked through onto my face, because the girl behind me just started laughing and said I didn't look particularly excited for this assignment.

Fast forward a couple hours: I was telling Sumegha about how much I didn't want to write this story when she suggested I just profile our local Indian grocery store. I thought about it for a minute and realized what a genius idea that was. We already go there a lot and I know the owners pretty well. I had to come home tonight anyways, because tomorrow I'm going to get my visa to study abroad.

Fast forward some more: Papa and I were running some errands and I was completely dreading going to the grocery store. You know me - I hate interviewing people, especially when I know that all they want to do is buy their dal and go home. But I sucked it up, walked into the store and explained my assignment to the Uncle who owns the store. And just like every other experience this class has forced me to endure, once it began, it wasn't really that bad at all. Uncle was more than happy to talk to me, and he said some really great quotes.

But now came the worst part. I had to walk up to customers and ask them what they thought about the store. I took a deep breath and walked up to one woman who was standing in the checkout line. I told her what I was doing, and she just started chatting away, telling me how great the store was. Alright, I thought, this isn't so bad after all. I talked to a couple more customers, and one even said something about how the store could be improved. I was so relieved when he said that, because Prof emphasized that this article was not to be an advertisement for the store. I wandered around the store writing down random details that might come in handy, and even talked to one of the employees. Thirty minutes later I walked out of there totally set. All I've got to do now is write this bad boy up, and the journalism assignment I was dreading only twelve hours earlier will be finished and ready to go.

See, I shoulda known. Things always work out. Freaking out is just wasted effort.

Hazelnut Heaven

2007-10-18T00:02:00.000-04:00

Just an FYI, waffles with Nutella are the best thing ever. Ever.

Basically, anything with Nutella = my tastebuds temporarily in heaven.

:)

Roller Coaster Week

2007-10-17T22:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a good day (well, minus all the work I had to do). Today, not so much.

I interviewed with that publication, and it went really, really well. She was impressed with the internship I did last semester, which was with the government, and basically I've secured an internship for next fall before I've tied down the one for this summer. I also ran around campus getting all the paperwork signed to get my study abroad stuff approved, and very very surprisingly, I got it all done in one day. Seriously, given all the bureaucracy I've had to go through to get stuff signed in the past, I was shocked that everything happened so smoothly. I also mailed off my package to the publication abroad I'm trying to intern at, so hopefully I'll hear back from them soon.

Now for today's much crappier turn of events. First of all, I was fasting for a religious holiday today. Secondly, I only got three hours of sleep last night because I was working on my English paper. While both my in-class journalism assignment and my Spanish presentation went well, what most certainly did not go well was my web design exam. Half of the exam involved designing a really basic web page, and it turns out I memorized the wrong coding tags and basically got a ton of points off. And if you know me, you know I generally tend to freak out about all assignments/exams and say I did badly. But really, this time I'm not kidding. It's like with math, if you don't know how to do the problem, you simply don't know. You write in a random number for the answer and then hope for partial credit, which is what my hopes are hinging on.

Of course when I got back to my apartment, I looked up the coding that I messed up, but strangely, I didn't feel too bad. I guess I've finally begun to internalize the whole "hindsight is 20/20. During the exam, I sat there for about an hour just playing with the coding trying to get it to work. I finally decided to turn it in because this wasn't really an essay question that I could b.s. my way through. The thing that bothered me was the split-second look of surprise that passed across my teacher's face when she opened the web page I designed and saw a couple of the components missing. I knew she was disappointed in me, but there was nothing I could do just sitting there staring at the screen.

I guess that shows I've progressed a bit - I was angry of course, but I didn't really know what at. I guess I was angry at myself, but I kept thinking to myself, if I don't know this, I simply don't know it, so sitting there any longer wouldn't have done anything. While I could have studied more, for the last two weeks it's just been so hard to get motivated to do work. It's like I've passed over that mid-semester hump and I've got a pretty good handle on all my classes, it's just a matter of continuing the routine.

Anyways, once I finished looking up the answers I missed, I literally had absolutely no desire to do anything. I thought about doing government reading, but I simply could not get motivated and knew I'd just be staring blankly at the page. I laid down and tried to go to sleep, but that didn't work, despite last night's lack of sleep. I thought about how screwing up this exam might jeopardize my A in this class, but to my surprise, I wasn't as angry as I thought I would be. I mean, yes, I would be really angry at myself if I end up with a B, but I do still have time and there are other assignments worth more, and I don't know how much partial credit I'll be getting for the things I missed on this exam. I realized that grades are really arbitrary when it comes to the real world. This coding that I was tested on, it's all automatic nowadays, so it's not like me not knowing how to change the background color of a web page is going to shut me out of the job market. After all hasn't almost every one of my journalism professors told me that they aren't where they are because of their GPA? Seriously, 20 years from now no one is going to give a crap what arbitrary number supposedly quantified their intelligence. And besides, there is a reason why human beings are not perfect. And am I not a human being?

Okay I so did not mean for this to get that philosophical. What I mean to say is that I think I'm finally realizing that in the grand scheme of things, grades really don't matter as much as I'm telling myself they do.

Anyways, I couldn't sleep, and my stomach was howling at me. I called Mom to ask her when I could eat, and this is what sent me over the edge. She said the fasting is tomorrow, and that I didn't need to even keep it. I couldn't handle it. Not only had I had a terrible afternoon, but I had suffered for nothing! It wasn't for nothing, Mom said. God knew I fasted today and would reward me for it. But still, I couldn't help it and out came the tears. I didn't even know why; it wasn't because of the exam. I think I was just overwhelmed. I think Mom got kind of freaked out because I've never really reacted like that, although I know it wasn't the exhaustion but the food deprivation that triggered the waterworks. Needless to say I got off the phone and made myself a meal, and finally found myself in a normal enough state of mind to talk to my roomies again. (I had shut myself in my bedroom since returning from the exam earlier this afternoon). And then Sumegha gave me a big hug and I felt a lot better (I'm sure the teriyaki noodles I made helped too).

And now I just spent the past half hour catching the second-half of that awful chick lit series Gossip Girl. Oh God the wonders that terrible television does to your mood. So now I'm feeling better and figure my life is not over because I basically bombed an exam.

Role Reversal

2007-10-13T18:09:00.001-04:00

I love how I overcomplicate my life.

On Thursday, I came back to my apartment with a pounding headache, intending on doing nothing but eating and lying down. Out of habit, I checked my email immediately when I got back, and what I saw left me stunned.

Let me backtrack for a second.

On Wednesday our school held its annual career fair, and I went. Even though I have an internship lined up for the summer, it hasn't been set in stone, so I essentially went to secure plan B (but shh, don't tell them that). I interviewed at one political publication, and I don't think I did a very good job, because this publication covers Congress and domestic issues and all I talked about was how interested I am in international relations. But I dropped off my resume, said thank you and moved on to the other political publication that was there. I think I did a much better job talking to them, and evidently my thinking is correct because it was an email from this publication that I found in my inbox.

Usually it's us students who are writing the polite emails to prospective employers thanking them and asking for an interview. But, this situation was quite the opposite:

"I remember you mentioning that you were studying abroad next semester and wanted to secure a summer internship before you left. Please let me know if you are available for a phone interview sometime next week."

Whaaaa? Did they just ask ME for an interview?! I honestly didn't think I was good enough to get something like this, especially because I've never technically done a journalism internship (shhh don't tell anyone) and the only pure journalistic experience I have is writing for on-campus publications (although I do now have all that beat reporting from this semester's journalism class).

Anyways, I freaked out because this would be an amazing opportunity, but I really want to keep the other internship, which is abroad. But, that internship isn't set in stone yet and in case that doesn't work, I would want to do this one. Anyways, to make a long story short, I called Papa and then I wrote this four paragraph email to my internship coordinator asking what should I do. The email response was 3 lines. Don't worry, she told me, just mention that you might be staying abroad but you're interested in the fall. Which is exactly what Papa told me too.

So, I now have an interview for an internship I wasn't planning on getting in the field I wasn't planning on going into. The best part - my overactive imagination has now started thinking about this internship turning into a job after I graduate - which isn't for a couple of years.

I know. I'm crazy :) But apparently that craziness pays off every once in a while.

Nothing Wrong With Aiming High

2007-10-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

During a break in one of my classes I was catching up on the Post's coverage of the Yankees loss Monday and came across Thomas Boswell's column. It was depressing, yes, to read that the Yankees"are the aging patient" and this last game " felt like a night-long vigil around a sick bed." But there was one thing Boswell wrote that really bothered me. While discussing how even the Yankees inflated payroll couldn't translate into a World Series win, Boswell wrote, "Luckily, in baseball, money apparently can't beat the best. Not anymore. Not, at least, under the Boss's ludicrous edict that anything less than a World Series win is a failure"

Now wait just one minute here.

Okay, maybe calling this season a "failure" is a bit extreme, but don't tell me there's anything wrong with expecting the best and only being satisfied with the best. Tell me, does it make any sense to tell your team, hey guys, why don't you just go out there and try to do well. It doesn't matter that we're investing all this time and money into your performance, just go out there and play. And then if you lose, we'll just pat you on the back and go grab a couple of beers and everything will be fine.

No. That's not how the world works. Nobody says, Hey team, let's aim for third place this year!
The whole 'winning doesn't matter' deal only works when you're teaching Little Leaguers how to play baseball. Not in the majors. In the real world, results matter.

Don't get me wrong. Losing is valuable too. There are certain things you can only learn from losing. And sometimes, yes, even when you put forth your best efforts, you fall short. And no, you should never resort to cheating to win. And yes I've heard enough about the big, bad Yankees who just buy all their talent and don't let anyone else share the glory of winning the World Series. To all that I say, first of all, a lot of their money comes from a fan base still willing to pay hundreds of dollars to see their games and buy their merchandise, despite the World Series drought. It's basic capitalism guys. Do I think any player is truly worth $250 million? Probably not. But hey, if that's how people want to spend their money, good for them. And secondly, yes, the Yankee are the winningest team in sports. But what's wrong with rewarding the best. What would you rather see, a cap on the number of titles someone can win? It takes work to win. With determination, hard work and a bit of luck, any of the other 29 teams can win it too.

In short, there isn't anything wrong with expecting nothing but the best from your team.

People sometimes accuse me of bandwagoning when they learn I like the Yankees though I lack a direct New York connection. Now I know exactly why I was drawn to them. They're a team that refuses to settle and will do whatever it takes to succeed. They expect nothing but the best from themselves, and neither do their fans. If only other people could think the same way. If only other people would stop settling for mediocrity when they're capable of so much more.

Yanks Rally Falls Short, Season Ends With Questions Looming

2007-10-09T00:19:00.000-04:00

Well, it's over. They tried, but the Indians just outpitched them. Their offense hit a spark, but it was too little too late. The two game deficit proved too much for the Yankees to overcome, and it isn't just the end of their season, but it could be the end of an era.

Steinbrenner said Torre's job was on the line, and no one kids around with Steinbrenner. I'd be surprised if he didn't stand by his word, and while Torre led the Yanks to the postseason every year he has managed them, that seven-year drought is more than unacceptable to the most demanding owner in sports. A-Rod could opt out of his contract, Pettitte, Posada, Rivera, Abreu could choose not to return and Clemens is probably out for good.

It's disappointing, a complete downer to see the Yanks go out in the first round of the postseason for the third time in a row, and especially after the way they came back from the 14.5 game deficit earlier this season and the hope that yesterday's game brought. I absolutely have to hand it to the Indians though. They came into this series and they did what they had to do. Instead of letting the Yankees bats scare them, the Indians pitchers silenced them. We came alive at home in the Bronx, but it just wasn't enough.

But that's what comes with the territory of October baseball. Legends are made and expectations are beaten down. And besides, this ALCS between Cleveland and Boston should be an amazing one, because honestly, (and yes it pains me to say it) both teams played really well in their respective division series'.

And that's life - you win some, you lose some. But beyond the baseball blues, now I need to find a way to get my mind back into finishing this take-home exam, when all I want to do is sleep.

Writing Overload

2007-10-08T14:57:00.001-04:00

I feel like I don't know how to write anymore. That's what I get for taking classes where my only assignments are writing ones. I write articles in journalism, write papers in English and the only exams in my government class come in the form of take-home essays. It's not the writing itself that is bothering me (Trust me, I'd much rather be typing away at a five page paper than sweating it out in a lecture hall answering multiple choice questions.) The thing that is driving me crazy is that I'm using totally different styles of writing. And the journalistic style that has almost become my default it completely not what I need to use when writing in-depth essay responses. I've started cringing when my paragraphs run longer than two sentences and I am unable to use passive voice anymore (Jour Prof would be so proud to hear that.) My sentences have all become short, declarative and to the point. Not a bad place to be except now my papers are dryer than a desert lake. Karen wrote the same thing on her xanga a few months ago, that she felt like journalism was sucking all the style out of her. It's not that I can't write creatively anymore (obviously, or this blog would be dead,) it's that when I go to write things for class, I get all confused.

And to make things worse, I'm getting a double dose of writing concisely. As expected, I get it in journalism every day, but my English professor is also trying to get us to stop using 10 words when we can use two. All of this is a good thing, but now it means I can't bring myself to b.s. my way through papers like we college students are famous for doing. I remember writing what I thought were long-winded, convoluted 40-word sentences that when I really read them, said absolutely nothing. But somehow, my professors didn't see it that way and I'd end up getting an A. But now, more for personal benefit instead of teacher requirements, I find myself deleting word after word in my papers. Even worse, I feel like I'm losing my vocabulary. I'm working on this take-home essay for my government class, and I feel like I'm using the same three words to describe my topic. I keep thinking of definitions of the words I need, but not the actual words themselves.

I guess this means that thing called learning has finally taken hold in my brain, for better or worse.

On a totally unrelated note - last night, while I was watching the Yankees game, I was also ironing clothes, and this is a reminder to all - beware of multitasking, especially when it involves hot appliances. I had just finished ironing a shirt and was reaching my arm across the ironing board to fold it while my eyes were glued to the screen, and OUCH. My arm grazed the rim of the hot iron and I now have an ugly two inch brown burn across my right arm. I'm not really sure if it's ever going to go away. But hey, I'll always remember this baseball game now. (See, I always look on the bright side of things.)

Yanks Are Back and Torre Stays

2007-10-07T22:15:00.000-04:00

Nothing like the threat of losing your job to whip the best baseball team back into shape. It took them a little while but the real Yankees are back. I won't pretend like the last two games didn't worry me, but New York didn't fight back this season for no reason. Yes the Indians' pitching put a stronghold on the Yankees bats and those damn bugs screwed them up, but the Bronx Bombers are back and ready to fight. There's a reason why this was the only division series that wasn't swept, and there's a reason why this is the postseason. The offense is back, the pitching is on point and this right here is what I've been looking forward to all season.

So take that Mamu - you may love the Indians and hate the Yankees, but your team's not gonna get off that easily. This is the Yankees they're dealing with and we want this World Series bad.

(If only I wasn't a complete retard and left both my jersey AND cap at home last weekend....meaning I can't broadcast my Yankee pride to the entire campus tomorrow :(

Great Expectations

2007-10-06T21:35:00.001-04:00

I've never been one to handle criticism well. I know that in many instances criticism is what helps us grow and improve and in the long run, it's a pretty good thing. But for me, the tiniest mistake, the smallest misstep used to completely negate any of the positives. It didn't matter that I got six As on my report card; the only thing I would think about was that one B. It never mattered that I got a 94 percent on an exam; those three questions I got wrong would haunt me for days.

Last summer Karen told me about how at her internship, every time she handed her editor an article, he would tell her it was great and that’s it. She said she would much rather have him scribble all over it and tell her what she did wrong so she could learn. I remember thinking to myself, how if I had a choice, I would much rather take the empty praise over the mauled article, no matter how much the mauling would help. Whether that means I’m insecure or whatever, I don’t know, nor do I very much care.

But it’s not just taking criticism, but also being responsible for your actions that kind of scares me. In this country we're all about transparency. Government documents are available for all to see, public hearings allow people share their view, officials' salaries and even tax returns are disclosed. Any whiff of scandal or corruption has the potential to explode into front-page news. A few weeks ago in my government class, my professor was touching on how opaque the UN is, how you really don't know how much money the Secretary-General makes or where exactly does UNICEF's budget go to. And that's when I realized how important transparency and ultimately accountability really is.

It's very easy for us to take all the credit when something good happens, when our team wins the game or our group is the most successful at raising money. But, we all know that when things turn rough, everyone's favorite hobby becomes finger pointing and blaming the guy next to them. It takes a really strong person to stand up and accept the blame. Accept that they lost the box with all the supplies or they gave out wrong directions.

I always thought I was a strong person, but I've learned lately that being that person isn't as easy as it looks. It's hard, especially when you're a perfectionist / overachiever like me, to accept that failure was your fault. It's almost easier to accept in a personal situation, when you're the only one involved. Yes, I know, I can't blame anyone else because I didn't study hard enough and subsequently bombed an exam. But when you have to acknowledge to a group that you're the reason why things didn't work, that you're the reason why they failed and that you let them down, that's rough.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, in my journalism class, we've moved beyond the typical institution stories, covering the cops and the courts, to more issue-based stories. I've kind of latched onto this one huge issue in my beat, an issue involving imposing more taxes on a community to pay off the infrastructure that the developer built in their community. It's a very confusing issue involving legal jargon, zoning and bond-issuance, something most people in my shoes would probably shy away from covering. Each side, the residents and the county government, has a valid point, in my opinion, and I'm glad I'm witnessing this whole mess instead of actually being involved in it. As I've been researching this issue, I've been talking to a lot of people on both sides, and after hearing that I'm only writing this up for a class, many of them have asked to see my articles.

I told them yes, but I was a little nervous at the thought. Putting it on paper and letting the people who I interview see it makes the whole thing very real. What if I misinterpreted them or what if I include something they said that they didn't want me to. Well, says the pig-headed side of my brain, you told them you were a journalism student so they knew very well that their words could be used. And this is where it goes back to not only taking criticism, but also sticking up for yourself. If someone is unhappy at the way I portrayed them, sure, to some degree I can learn from the experience, but ultimately, my job as a journalist isn't to make everyone look good.

Sometimes you do have to make people mad. Sometimes you do have to cut them off when they go off on tangents. Sometimes you do have to ask them the difficult questions, present them with the other side's case. And these are all things that I'm not really that good at. I don't like making people mad, and I especially don't like it when they get mad at me. So I listen, I listen to them explain me why their side is the only side and why the government has everything all wrong. But I can't bring myself to ask them if they read the fine print of their mortgage and found out that yes, they might have to pay extra taxes. I can't bring myself to ask them if they would rather wait 20 years and have the county spend double the money to build their roads. I just can't do it because I can't make people mad.

And then there's that whole fear of failure thing, and not being able to handle when things are your fault. Today my research team was supposed to hand our surveys at this event we went to today. But after our mentor rushed to get them approved for us, there was a mix-up this morning and we couldn't actually locate the finalized survey. But beyond just that, a lot of things with our research project have not gone as planned, and it's because none of us (myself included) have really put forth 110 percent of our effort. Therein lies the flaw with group work, and regardless of all that more people means more creativity b.s., I will always hate group work because I think it's easier just to get things done on my own. I feel bad because I know if I were doing this project on my own, there are certain things I would have done differently, and there are certain things I would have taken more seriously. But I will also admit that I have at times, let this research project sink a couple of notches on my priority list. And even though I know our mentor is not going to chew us out, but she will gently encourage us in the right direction, I'm still going to be mad at myself. Despite the fact that our whole team consists of overachievers and our research goals were probably too optimistic anyways, I'm still not going to handle accepting the reality of where we are too well.

It is so hard being a perfectionist. Really, I'm not even being sarcastic. It sucks.

All the wrong questions

2007-09-30T03:08:00.000-04:00

I have never been more inundated in journalism as I was yesterday. My entire Saturday disappeared as I sat in front of this computer finalizing the layout of the monthly newspaper I am co-editor in chief of. I picked up layout where my co left off around 12 p.m. By the time I emailed the pages out to the publisher, it was almost 11 p.m. Half the weekend gone and I hadn't even begun the four stories I have to write for class/other publications.

Now I've finished one article and am halfway through the second one. In the course of all this reporting, I've realized something. I don't know how to ask the proper questions. You know, the interesting ones, the probing ones that get really colorful quotes. Take this one article I'm writing for example. It's about film classes on campus. In the middle of writing the article, I go to insert a quote from a student I interviewed, and here's what I have to choose from. "Film is something I'm interested in," "This class fills up quickly" and "It's exactly what I expected." Nothing earth-shattering, nothing mind-blowing, nothing even halfway decent. These statements can apply to 97.5 percent of the film classes offered at any university.

Most people, no, make that pretty much every person, would usually not choose to put themselves through such a rigorous pre-professional program unless they actually wanted to go into that field. Of course, we've all learned by now that I'm not like most people. Freshman and sophomore year I was constantly thinking, I don't know what to do, should I drop this major. Now, all that anxiety is gone. It's like I've finally made peace with myself. I may complain every day about it, but the thought of dropping the major has left my mind the way the autumn leaves fall off the trees. You don't actually notice when they drop, but one day you look up, and they're gone. One day I just accepted that I was graduating with both degrees no matter what.

But the entire thing has taught me one thing. I finally understand the meaning behind a love-hate relationship. I keep saying I hate it, but I keep getting more and more involved in it. This week was my first time doing layout, and I devoted about 20 hours to it this week. I'm writing more articles at one time than I ever have. And while I dread calling and interviewing people, when the time comes for me to actually write up the story, I find myself kind of enjoying it. To be able to take a jumble of fact, quotes and data and synthesize into something readable, now that's something. But I know that no matter how good it feels to see that finished product, there is absolutely no way I could build a career just on that article-writing.

Quiero

2007-09-27T22:47:00.001-04:00

Quiero hablar un otra lengua. Quiero vivir en una otra cultura. Quiero escapar de mi vida loca. Todo que hago, escribir ensayos, articulos, leer los libros, todo es aburrido.Esto es todo lo que sé. Quiero una otra vida, una vida europeana. No sé porque la vida europeana me parece más romantica, más cosmopolitana, mas sofisticada. Hay un mundo enorme y estoy pasando todo mis días en este pueblo. Yo hago las mismas cosas, llevo la misma ropa, habla con las mismas personas. No es que no lo me gusta, pero quiero algo diferente. Quiero andar por las calles por horas, sin dirección, sin un plan. Quiero tomar café en una café y mirar a la gente que me pasa. Queiro tener una conversación con un desconocido. Quiero enamorarme con un hombre que veo en un parque. Quiero tener una vida lenta, quiero ver a la vida. Quiero apreciar la vida, quiero tener un día en que no necesitas más de veinteuatro horas para hacer todo. Quiero algo diferente.

Best News All Week

2007-09-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Yes, the Yankees have done it yet again - we're headed to October :)

75 Days To Go

2007-09-25T23:40:00.000-04:00

I should be finishing my English paper right now, but it's almost half done, so I thought I'd take some me-time, just for a minute.

Man, what a depressing day. Yesterday I was utterly overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I have to get done this week. You think the other weeks have been bad; wait til you see this one. Council meeting story for journalism, three articles due by Sunday/Monday, English paper due Friday, government reading due Thursday, AND to top it all of, an entire newspaper to get through production. Yeah, I know, it's a ridiculous week.

So I went to the council meeting this morning, hoping to get another slam dunk akin to last week's court story. No such luck. I will say it was absolutely great seeing everyone in Councilman's office again (I interned there in high school.) But, I wasn't there to chit-chat, I was there for a story. Turns out, the topic they were discussing, development stuff in C-burg, is one completely over my head. Joyce, the resident expert on C-burg, was out this morning, so I was sitting in this meeting trying to decipher planning language into English. Yeah, didn't happen. But, I saw Joyce on my way out and she said she'd be happy to talk to me and explain me everything, which means I still have a chance at knocking this story out of the park. Random thought - I emailed my jour prof to ask him what I should do at 9:31 tonight, check my inbox 6 minutes later and bam, I've got a response. I love efficient professors. I mean, isn't everyone addicted to their email nowadays? His response - this is a tough one, let's talk about it in class tomorrow.

Anyways, so I had to get back to school earlier than expected because Sam and I have to start production on the newspaper. She had to show me and our production editor how to actually use the software. So we practiced a bit until it was time for me to go to my research meeting.

Now, I haven't really explained my undergraduate research project, so here it is in a nutshell. There's a relatively low-income community nearby that comprises mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants. My team and I are going to conduct a needs assessment to determine what community services they want. But, no one on the team speaks Spanish, and while I've got some proficiency, it's not nearly enough to get us accurate data. I found a possible translator for our team, a grad assistant with experience working in our target community. She spoke to us today and basically pointed out just how difficult it will be for us to collect data for this project. I've been having doubts about the feasibility of this project for almost a year now, and this did nothing to ease those doubts. I know, usually I'm not the pessimistic one, but really, there's only so much an undergraduate team can accomplish. Anyways, I'm really glad she came because she gave us valuable (honest) insight and seemed genuinely interested in our project.

After the meeting Sam and I met for two more hours to work on stuff for the paper, which we didn't even begin laying out because the software we need is only on the computers in the lab. Which only means this paper business is going to get even more stressful as the week goes on. The good news is I was back in my room by 9, meaning I actually had a chance to get work done tonight, namely the English paper. The bad news, I'm only halfway through the English paper and my eyes are getting pretty heavy...

P.S. The day wasn't totally bad - I scheduled three interviews for the stories I have write this week.

My Day in Court

2007-09-23T11:43:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog, I thought my days of procrastination would be over. I've lost so many vacation memories that way, by just putting off writing them down until they were all fuzzy and the emotion was gone. And now, I 'm afraid, the same thing is about to happen to the story of my court adventure. The second half of last week was so crazy that I thought if I took out some "me-time" to update the blog, none of my work would ever get done and then I'd just fail. Yes, I know, I'm a little extreme sometimes. But now it's the weekend and since I never really did justice to this court adventure, here goes.

Despite my fairly chipper mood when describing the impending court adventure, I was feeling slightly apprehensive about how the whole thing would go. True, I did have a court case to see and a police officer who would help me, but I'd never done anything like this before. I kept pushing those thoughts out of my head and replacing them with reminders about how I was already ahead of the ball.

Tuesday morning: The alarm went off at around 6:30 or so and I was entirely confused as to why I was waking up at the crack of dawn on a weekday in my bedroom at home. Then it all came back and I remembered today was THE day. Fast forward to 8:45 when I reach the courthouse and find my courtroom. I walked in and found a semi-large wood paneled room with about, 10 or so rows of pew-like seats. The room was fairly full and the docket was long. I double checked that my case was going to be argued there, and sure enough, my defendant's name was right there. Step one, finding the room, check. Time to work on step two, finding the right people.

I asked one of the cops in the room if he knew my Cop buddy, and was politely told that there were about 1300 police officers in that building, so no, he didn't. I took a seat in the very back corner, closest to the door and wondered what I should do. I thought my mind was going to start freaking out any moment now; I expected my anxiety level to skyrocket. Surprisingly, though, I remained quite calm. I think, somewhere deep down inside, I knew everything was going to work out fine. I stole a look at everyone entering the doors behind me, and if that person was in uniform, I focused in on their name tags, hoping to get a glimpse of my buddy.

Since I didn't really know what else to do, I simply absorbed the entire scene. The lawyers were going back and forth, in and out of the courtroom, sometimes pulling clients out to talk. There was one lawyer who, in fluent Spanish, was basically yelling at this poor man, who I'm pretty sure had no idea what was going on. I felt bad for him, forgetting we were in a court house and the only reason he was even there in the first place was because he (probably) broke the law. But the way she was yelling at him, as if he were a child who knocked over a glass bottle or something, it seemed so very condescending. Yes she's a lawyer, and I'm sure she's an intelligent one, but still, no matter who they are, doesn't everyone deserve to be treated with a little dignity?

Around 9:15 or so, the bailiff made an announcement, the judge entered the courtroom and court went into session. The attorneys began calling cases, and the defendants would walk up with their lawyers, and I can't really tell you what happened next because I could not hear a thing. The bailiff had told us we were not allowed to talk while court was in session, but, rules are meant to be broken right? I realized sitting at the very back may not have been the wisest idea. What if my case went up there and I missed the whole thing because I couldn't hear it? I glanced over to where all the cops were sitting and tried to figure out if any of them was my buddy. I thought about walking up there and asking some of them if they knew him, but decided against it. So I sat there and listened intently, trying to figure out how the hell this all worked.

Case after case went up there, and just as Professor had told us, decisions were made fast, and most of it was in legalese. Then, the door opened and in walked a guy in his prison jumpsuit and handcuffs. I think my eyes widened a bit. As the cases went by, it dawned on me that I was sitting in a room full of, well, criminals. I mean, technically, they had broken the law. The people in this room had stolen things, broken into cars, homes. It's not that I was scared. It just hit me that this was a situation I'd never been in before. I mean, these people didn't look like criminals. They just looked like people who'd messed up and done something stupid. That's also when I realized I couldn't be a lawyer. Not that I had ever, ever even considered being a trial lawyer or a criminal prosecutor or anything. I don't have that ability to twist facts, nor am I thick-skinned enough to do things like the lawyers on TV do (and yes, I know, it's television, but someone has to argue all those murder trials in real life, right?) But at least those high profile cases are interesting. These cases, the ones I was witnessing, they're all boring. It seems like such a mundane way to make a living.

Anyways, back to my adventure. About an hour after the session started, the judge decided to take a break and left. For a second I thought, that better not be the end of it, my case wasn't even argued. Then I figured I should go and try to find cop buddy, otherwise I'd have no story. As I walked over toward them, I was trying to figure out how I was going to find my buddy without being really awkward and staring at everyone's name tags. Luckily, I didn't have to worry much, because the first cop I saw was my buddy!

After all the introductions, he sat down and explained me the case. I absorbed all the information and like a good journalist thought of some additional questions to ask him. I was waiting for him to come back over to me, when I realized I was the journalist, this was my story, so I should just go up and ask him for more information. We stepped outside, since court had now gone back into session, and he answered all my questions. It was a bit confusing, since there were three people involved in this particular crime, and everyone's case was handled separately. It was complicated, but interesting at the same time. We went back inside and Cop buddy pointed out both the defendant and the plaintiff.

Knowing Professor had told us we had to try and talk to everyone involved, I asked Cop buddy if it was okay if I tried to talk to them. He replied that was fine, if they were willing to. I realized later that I had sought approval from Cop buddy for a number of things that day. I think I had kind of latched on to him as my connection into this whole different world and as the wise adult in the room. It's weird, I still feel like a kid sometimes. It was almost like I was asking Cop buddy's permission to do all these things, when in reality, I didn't need it.

Anyways, after sitting down and mentally readying myself, I walked over to the plaintiff, introduced myself and asked if I could talk to him after the case. He agreed. One more thing checked off. Now, now came the hard part. I had to talk to the defendant. I knew he wasn't going to comment, and the thought did cross my mind about just writing that he refused to talk to me. But I knew that was absolutely unethical and totally wrong, so I quickly trashed that thought and went back to figuring out just how I was going to build up the courage to talk to this guy. I guess it did help that he was exactly my age, so it wasn't like I was walking up to some burly old criminal man.

And then, for the first time that day, I was nervous. Really nervous. You know what I mean, when you can feel every thump of your heart, when your stomach starts doing backflips in your abdomen. This is the reaction I was expecting this morning, when I couldn't find Cop buddy. Anyways, I knew I had to do it, so I took a deep breath, got up and walked up a couple of rows to where he was sitting. I knelt down beside him, introduced myself, and asked if he had any comment. I could tell by the look on his face that he knew I had to do this, and that I wasn't expecting him to actually say something. He gave me a half little sympathetic smile and replied, "I don't think so." I smiled a sigh of relief in understanding, thanked him and walked back to my seat.

I had done it! I had walked up to him, talked to him, and he was polite! Dealing with police officers is one thing, but dealing with someone who has made probably the biggest mistake of his life and wants to do whatever he can to make it go away is another. He didn't yell at me, he didn't curse, he didn't even give me a dirty look! The world doesn't hate reporters (or maybe the world just doesn't hate me :)

With my newfound confidence, I ask Cop buddy if it would be possible for me to obtain a some of the paperwork so I can check the facts. Another cop took me downstairs, gave me all the information I need and more. I returned to the courtroom in time for my case to be heard, and thankfully by now, the courtroom was pretty empty, given that it was almost two and a half hours since court started. The case went by quickly, but I was able to hear everything and Cop buddy explained me what I didn't get. I stepped outside, spoke to the plaintiff for about 10 minutes, and when I went back in, I saw that the lawyer was still there. This was my chance, the last person on my list I needed to talk to. I ask her for comment, and she sat down with me and explained how she can't really comment at all, you know, case is still open, all that stuff.

I think I said this last week, but I'm really surprised at how helpful people have been. I was expecting people like cops and lawyers to completely blow me off, a) because I'm a journalist and b) I'm not even a real journalist, but a student. Why would they, who have full schedules and important things to do, take out time to talk to me, some kid who's doing her homework assignment. But that's not what I've gotten at all. People are not only willing to answer my questions, but they're willing to explain me how things work, how the media relationship functions. They're actually teaching me, taking time out to explain things to me! If I've learned one thing in the past month, it's that the world really isn't as bad as I thought it was. Or, I'm just the luckiest girl alive.

Needless to say, I walked out of that courtroom absolutely on top of the world. It was noon on Tuesday and the hardest part of my assignment was done. All I had to do was write the article, which was the easy part. I wouldn't have to spend the week glued to my cellphone calling everyone and their mother in pursuit of a story. And not only that, but man was Prof impressed on Wednesday morning when I whipped out all the prized information I'd collected on Tuesday.

Man, there's nothing like writing about a great adventure to lift your mood!

Thought of the Day

2007-09-23T02:15:00.000-04:00

You know you're crazy when you refuse to read "The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids" by Alexandra Robbins because you know reading about those high-schoolers will make you resentful and jealous, even though you're in college.

See I told you....crazy

Good night :)

Never Good Enough

2007-09-19T19:01:00.000-04:00

I really don't know why I hold myself to such high expectations. I thought this semester, what with 320 and the newspaper and all this responsibility would humble me, would make me appreciate things. I thought finally, I'll be able to appreciate an A instead of writing it off as just what I was supposed to get.

And I did learn to appreciate them. The first two at least. But now, now I'm back to expecting no less than an A. For the past week or so, I've been nothing but elated at my ability to succeed at 320. Now I've fallen right back into that same old rut of just expecting to be good. And it sucks. For the last 30 hours or so, I've returned to my frustrated, nothing is ever good enough status. Before, I would finish an article and it would be like, oh my god, I did this! Yesterday afternoon, I was over the moon in joy at getting my court story. This morning even my professor was impressed at my success. Now, I'm critiquing every little thing I do, back to freaking out about how I'm going to get everything done, how I'm going to write the five articles I have due in the next week (not including class assignments) and help put an entire newspaper through production, something I've never done before.

Amazing how quickly your mood changes from day to day.

The Old Me is Back

2007-09-17T16:08:00.000-04:00

We got our first journalism assignment back in class, a beat memo including contact info, census data and a paragraph on a key issue in our beat. My grade: A MINUS!!!!!! Yeahhh, that's right, on the very first assignment of the hardest course known to man I got a near perfect score.

Okay, I realize that sounds a bit conceited, but if you've been following this whole journalism class saga you'll understand just how excited this makes me. On the paper, my professor wrote, "Terrific - thorough, easy to read, smart." I only made one mistake, got one census number slightly off, and normally that tiny "glitch" as my prof called it would drive me insane. But not today!!!!!!!

As we were having class discussion, Prof brought up the whole O.J. Simpson thing and asked us if we'd want to cover it. I was hoping and praying he wouldn't call on me, since my answer would be a definite no. I don't care if it's O.J. Simpson or Homer Simpson, I don't really want to be covering anything. But I couldn't very well say that, seeing as, well, this is a journalism class and everyone else was gushing over how they'd love to cover such a career-making story. Prof warned us that while it's all high-profile and would put our names on the map, a story like this would consume the next six to nine months of your professional career. "Your life wouldn't be your own," he said. But that's what he loves about journalism, the non-routineness of it. And that's what I hate. I'm the kind of person who needs a schedule, a time to work and a time to go home.

But I finally came up with an answer if he did call on me (which he didn't), and it's that I would rather be a magazine journalist going more in-depth into things and not racing the guy to put something out on the front page. Which is a cop-out answer, but it is kind of true. I mean, I've always said that if I do end up going into journalism, it would most likely be magazine journalism.

But today's happiness comes from more than just grades. We've now got the ever-dreadful court story this week, and Prof has said it's the hardest one of the year. We've got two options. Stake out a court and find a case to do, or wait until Wednesday when Prof will give us a list of cases that have already been ruled on. But we all know I'm not one to wait. I want to get my story done asap, boom boom boom so that I can get my week back.

Enter last week's cop buddy. Turns out, his court case is tomorrow, the day I have absolutely no class. Not only do I have an entire day to dedicate to this story, but I no longer have to walk into that intimidating hall of justice blind and confused. So, I'm now chilling at home, drinking some homemade chai, listening to the pop and crackle of some delicious saag paneer and aloo subzi simmer on the stove. School success, a game plan for the week and a hearty meal. Life is good.

The Sun Rise

2007-09-17T07:41:00.000-04:00

Finally, I can truly say that I've seen the sun rise. Not the sunrise. The sun rise.

This morning, I decided to do things a little differently. Usually the only time I can tolerate silence is while I'm studying. The radio is always (and only ever) on while I'm getting dressed, and I'll usually take my breakfast in my room with the TV on, so as to avoid waking the roomies with the living room TV.

But this morning I took my sweet maple-syrup-drenched whole wheat waffle and my steaming cup of tea and sat down at the table. And that's when I realized that silence isn't so bad after all. Here I was, munching my waffle, sipping my tea and looking out the window in front of me at my beautiful campus. When was the last time anyone in our culture actually took a second to appreciate the meaning of silence. No jarring music, no annoying commercials. Just me, my food and my thoughts.

And then it happened. It started as a spot of light popping up over the building in front of me. Before I realized what was happening I found myself transfixed at the sight of it. Disregarding the classic childhood rule, I stared directly at the gleaming spot. I felt as if I was the only thing, the only being the sun was shining upon. And then I saw it. Right before my eyes, the sun began to rise. The spot began to creep above the building, getting bigger and brighter. Only until the intensity became too much and everything around me turned to spots did I peel my eyes away from it. Once I did, I realized something momentous. I had just seen the passage of time.

We all know that the progression of day to night, of summer to winter, is indicative of the Earth's passage through space. But the connection between the two is very difficult to grasp. Yesterday the fire alarms went off around dusk and we had to evacuate the building. (Everything ended up being okay). As we filed back into the building the sky was that peachy-blue evening color. By the time I got back to my room and sat down at my computer, I glanced outside and noticed, with a start, that it was completely dark outside. Just like that. Not more than five minutes ago was I standing out there in the light, and now it was nothing but night.

But now I snap out of my philosophical meditations and return to the mundane monotony of daily life and dash off to journalism class.

Cops Are Friends

2007-09-14T15:33:00.001-04:00

Alright, I know you've listened to me go back and forth on my fear of this journalism class for the past two weeks, but I can wholeheartedly assure you that I have once and for all put that issue to rest. I now have absolutely no doubt that not only will I survive this class, but I will not fear it and I will get an A in it and my professor will like me by the end of this semester.

Seriously, my mood today is a 180 degree change from earlier this week. I remember the dread that washed over me when professor assigned the police story, and now I can truthfully say I love the cops! As I wrote earlier, all the police officers I've talked to, while they didn't really give me much information were polite and willing to put up with my random requests, especially given that I'm not even a real journalist requesting info, merely a student doing a class assignment (even if it the assignment is still an article).

But I finally got my crime trend story and the spokesperson I've been dealing with this whole week was more than happy to talk to me about it. It was so funny, I called him yesterday to see if he had any information for me, and he said no but that he might tomorrow. I asked him if it was okay if I called him back, and he was like, "Of course it is! If you want to be successful in this field you've got to be a pest. We don't ever discourage callers, it's our job to talk to you." It was absolutely great. And then today I thanked him for being so helpful and he said I'd make a great journalist and to call back anytime if I ever needed anything.

Then, moving on the the local cop I called to get a comment. He too was happy to talk to me and it turns out he graduated from my university. We started talking about football and were reminiscing about how my high school football team pretty much owned back when I was there. He asked about this journalism class and told me to call him if I ever needed anything and he'd "take care of me" I told him next week I had to do a court story and he was like, well I'm going to court for a vandalism case, you should come. And I was like SCORE! Not only have I finally completed this week's assignment but I've got a major head start on next week's too. And these two are supposed to be the hardest stories of the year.

Yeah, after I hung up with him I was pretty much on cloud nine. Earlier today I interviewed a professor for a story I'm writing and she and I bonded over our shared Indian heritage. It was great. So what have I learned this week? Well, a) Cops are nice. b) Calling people on the phone isn't scary and c) I can do real interviews. And, the best part of all - it's almost the weekend!