take to the sky

This is an experiment. I've been reading journals here for quite awhile, and I have a computer, so I think, hey I can do this, and its seems easier than messing with my webpage. So. Here I am now. Fun fun fun.

out the window

I am reading all those books I had to put off during the semester. My Dostoevsky class required a fair amount of reading, since we covered most of his major works. (Though I think it wold have been nicer to say have a class on just one or two of his novels.) But Professor L. is a little crazy, I don't know who or what made him teach this class. He usually does 20th century Russian Literature.

But now I can read St Petersburg and everything else.. I have a stack of books I've been putting off til I was in the mood to read all that stuff. If I was thinking ahead, I might see what textbooks I will need for next semester and start looking at some of that stuff. I imagine my government class will have something interesting since it is all on foreign policy.

I mailed a Christmas card, a letter and a present today. Mail is good. I'm expecting an interesting zine soon in my mail box.

One day, when I rule the world... I've been saying that a lot lately. Mostly cause I scan the news too much. Current events junkie, oh yes.
Everything I see just makes me wonder how we survive this world. There are so few bright spots in it all. I remember why I wanted to become a journalist. I wanted to write words so powerful that people could not look away, that they would be forced to confront the things happening around them. Like the photographers who take the pictures that win Pulitzers, the images that made me double over in tears when I went to the exhibit at the Newseum in Washington DC.

Everyone remembers the photograph of the child in the dirt, watched over by a vulture in Sudan. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for Feature Photography. It was the horror of the African famine in one small body and one black bird. What you don't see is how much it cost Kevin Carter to take that photo. He killed himself not very long afterwards.

I wanted to be a journalist because I thought that I could fight the bad things in this life. I believe in the power of the word. Even now, while my professors share their cynicism and my friends their apathy, I believe.

P. once said "The point of life is to struggle always, knowing that you will not succeed." Sometimes that sounds so harsh to me, but I remember it when I read the news at night.

I am thunderstruck that Bush is going to be President. For God's sake, the man is a dolt. Maybe people who live outside Texas don't realize this.