(no subject)
Thursday at 3:15 I walked out of my last class and realized I was hungry. Then I remembered something about a Media, War & Conflict conference that was free for students and included dinner. Found that sign-up table and got my nametag, werd.
In between brutally long stretches at the library, I checked it out. Actually, I took one look around the business casual room and nearly ducked out. But a woman came up to me and said, “You look about as lost as I feel,” and picked out a table for us to sit at.
The keynote speaker was David Zurawik, a television critic for the Balitmore Sun. He talked about the way media got swept away after 9/11 and was not critical enough of the entry into Iraq.
I never made the connection between the “Countdown to the War in Iraq” ticker (during Saddam's two-day ultimatum) and the Countdown to the Oscars, or the Super Bowl. I mean, I knew TV news was a joke, but...
While I had fun hobnobbing with media analysts and experts, professors at other universities and various intellectuals, I don't think I want to be one. If I say in Communication, I'll be a reporter, maybe an editor, for a hard news print medium. If I go grad school, it'll be for African history.
And that free dinner was delicious, yo.
I have another Western Civ project due next week, which is rather lame. But, I found this really gorgeous copy of Dante's Inferno, translated and illustrated by Tom Phillips. Every right-hand page is a full illustration, and they are fabulous. It reminds me of Italian visual poetry, and makes the whole thing less painful.
Much as I love you, LiveJournal, I've been finding out a lot about myself just by talking over Skype. Thank you, PJ.
Last week's revelation was: I think my site in Cape Town gave me Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because all I really care about right now is NGO work. I'm not interested in any of my classes, even though I'm sure I would have been before, because they don't deal with grassroots leadership or community development.
This week I realized how important it is to me to have strong women around, as professors or bosses or coworkers or house mates. Last semester was freaking Strong Women Fest, and every semester at MU I've had at least one brilliant woman to look up to. This semester, not so much.
Yesterday was International Day! Had a Nutella crepe at the France table, Lechee juice at the Malaysia table, got into Chinese and Japanese calligraphy... and haunted the Pakistan, India, ASA and Saudi tables. Saba and I closed the day at the “Sweden is not Switzerland” table with Swiss chocolate, holler.
MORE library time yesterday. I'm still trying to watch the PBS FRONTLINE documentary on torture; I've put in on four times in the last week. Almost done... and it's due back at the MPL today. Jeez.
For fun I'm reading Rumours of Rain by Andre Brink. It's a bit unsettling because (as it says on the back of the book) it tries to really explain the Afrikaner psyche in the late 70s. It's the first time I've ever read a narrator-Brink use the word “kaffir.”
But one thing that does stand out to me was the way this narrator understood police brutality toward innocents, or inhumane treatment of political prisoners. He admitted it happens, but only rarely, and says apartheid as "a functional economic system" cannot be judged by the actions of a few individuals. (Other characters suggest that the whole system is rotten...)
It's the same the the present-day White House and the Pentagon explained Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay-it's just a few bad apples. On August 24, 2004 James Shleisinger, a former Secretary of Defense, said in a press conference, “unauthorized sadism occurred during the night shift at Abu Ghraib,” implying that it was only one set of naughty interrogators in an isolated incident taking a shit on human rights. Hrm.
Onto a more savory topic: my dinner date with Katie. She broke out the cookbook from Africa Cafe and made peanut soup, and a salad dressing... in a water bottle. Perf.
Then we met up with Han and went to Water/Broadway streets for Spring Gallery Night. Lots of Team Cake kids were about, along with other Rando's. Free wine and beer.
The video galleries at MIAD were pretty sweet. And we were all obsessed with the store Juju.
The Public Market was open late, so I got Garlic Cheddar and Black Olive Muenster to compliment my Market Day basket... So if all the homework/projects keep me in my apartment this weekend, I won't starve.
In between brutally long stretches at the library, I checked it out. Actually, I took one look around the business casual room and nearly ducked out. But a woman came up to me and said, “You look about as lost as I feel,” and picked out a table for us to sit at.
The keynote speaker was David Zurawik, a television critic for the Balitmore Sun. He talked about the way media got swept away after 9/11 and was not critical enough of the entry into Iraq.
I never made the connection between the “Countdown to the War in Iraq” ticker (during Saddam's two-day ultimatum) and the Countdown to the Oscars, or the Super Bowl. I mean, I knew TV news was a joke, but...
While I had fun hobnobbing with media analysts and experts, professors at other universities and various intellectuals, I don't think I want to be one. If I say in Communication, I'll be a reporter, maybe an editor, for a hard news print medium. If I go grad school, it'll be for African history.
And that free dinner was delicious, yo.
I have another Western Civ project due next week, which is rather lame. But, I found this really gorgeous copy of Dante's Inferno, translated and illustrated by Tom Phillips. Every right-hand page is a full illustration, and they are fabulous. It reminds me of Italian visual poetry, and makes the whole thing less painful.
Much as I love you, LiveJournal, I've been finding out a lot about myself just by talking over Skype. Thank you, PJ.
Last week's revelation was: I think my site in Cape Town gave me Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because all I really care about right now is NGO work. I'm not interested in any of my classes, even though I'm sure I would have been before, because they don't deal with grassroots leadership or community development.
This week I realized how important it is to me to have strong women around, as professors or bosses or coworkers or house mates. Last semester was freaking Strong Women Fest, and every semester at MU I've had at least one brilliant woman to look up to. This semester, not so much.
Yesterday was International Day! Had a Nutella crepe at the France table, Lechee juice at the Malaysia table, got into Chinese and Japanese calligraphy... and haunted the Pakistan, India, ASA and Saudi tables. Saba and I closed the day at the “Sweden is not Switzerland” table with Swiss chocolate, holler.
MORE library time yesterday. I'm still trying to watch the PBS FRONTLINE documentary on torture; I've put in on four times in the last week. Almost done... and it's due back at the MPL today. Jeez.
For fun I'm reading Rumours of Rain by Andre Brink. It's a bit unsettling because (as it says on the back of the book) it tries to really explain the Afrikaner psyche in the late 70s. It's the first time I've ever read a narrator-Brink use the word “kaffir.”
But one thing that does stand out to me was the way this narrator understood police brutality toward innocents, or inhumane treatment of political prisoners. He admitted it happens, but only rarely, and says apartheid as "a functional economic system" cannot be judged by the actions of a few individuals. (Other characters suggest that the whole system is rotten...)
It's the same the the present-day White House and the Pentagon explained Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay-it's just a few bad apples. On August 24, 2004 James Shleisinger, a former Secretary of Defense, said in a press conference, “unauthorized sadism occurred during the night shift at Abu Ghraib,” implying that it was only one set of naughty interrogators in an isolated incident taking a shit on human rights. Hrm.
Onto a more savory topic: my dinner date with Katie. She broke out the cookbook from Africa Cafe and made peanut soup, and a salad dressing... in a water bottle. Perf.
Then we met up with Han and went to Water/Broadway streets for Spring Gallery Night. Lots of Team Cake kids were about, along with other Rando's. Free wine and beer.
The video galleries at MIAD were pretty sweet. And we were all obsessed with the store Juju.
The Public Market was open late, so I got Garlic Cheddar and Black Olive Muenster to compliment my Market Day basket... So if all the homework/projects keep me in my apartment this weekend, I won't starve.