I don't have much to say lately. I feel like I'm just keeping life as complacent as possible because if allow myself to think about everything that's really going on in my life I will go crazy. I feel like if I really let myself think about what I'm feeling about what's going on in my mind I would realize that I'm really one of the most irrevocably screwed up people.
The problem, I have realized, with making friends who are older than you is that they all graduate and go away before you do, and then you have to re-imagine your life without them in it and you cannot even begin the process. And it's funny, because you have a life, obviously, before you are friends with these people. But then you meet and talk and suddenly these people become the most important ones you have in your life and then they graduate and prepare to move on with their lives before you are able to do so with yours.
I love St. Paul. I love it SO MUCH. But there's so much more out there. So many places I want to see, people I want to meet, things I want to do, and I am stuck here in limbo waiting to see if I can make any of that happen. I want to go to grad school but I don't know why, and I want to live in New York for awhile, or maybe Boston, and eventually London because I feel so of myself there. And there are people I am so afraid of losing that I don't even let myself consider the possibility of what I would do without them in my life in some form or another because I don't know how to function without them. I don't know who to tell my secrets to anymore.
Spring always makes me a little crazy I think and this year more than ever except for last spring, which was just screwed up to the utmost. It becomes this time where everything seems possible because things are starting new and the world is fresh and beautiful and lovely and aching but nothing seems possible because I'm stuck here going to classes and the loveliness is somehow beyond me.
Sigh. It's going to be a long week.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
dear hamline
Okay. I don't know if it's because I was abroad for a semester or what, but so many things frustrate me on a much deeper level than ever before, or maybe I've just learned to see them more clearly.
At risk of echoing Mel, people around here need to learn to not always blame other people for what they perceive as problems or issues on campus or in their lives or how they perceive certain statements made by others. If you have a problem with something someone says in class, SAY SO at the time!! Don't just complain about it later or talk to someone else about how it makes you feel bad or makes you uncomfortable, RAISE A CONSTRUCTIVE ARGUMENT against such statements/attitudes/whatever the hell is bothering you.
Working for the Oracle also frustrates me beyond all belief right now. Whatever coverage I give to "sensitive issues" on campus, someone is mad at me or thinks I have done a crappy job or feels I'm misrepresenting something. Well, that's because they are SENSITIVE ISSUES, and no matter WHAT I say or how objective I attempt to be about something or how much I try to listen to both sides of a story or argument and then do my best to represent that, I get lambasted. Which is why I do not want to be a journalist professionally. There is no way to discuss these issues in a manner by which SOMEONE isn't going to tell me that I've got it all wrong. No one, at the end of the day, is going to be happy, least of all me.
You see, the thing is, I do have very, very strong opinions regarding what's going on around campus. But I can't just write and publish whatever the hell I think and feel like writing about. That's called irresponsible, unobjective journalism. Yes, go ahead and scoff and smirk and make snide comments about an Oracle staffer referring to what she does as journalism. I am doing the best I can. By some people's standards, that is clearly not good enough, but when I hear two totally opposite accounts of an event and there is NO WAY to prove or disprove one of them, what good can possibly be achieved by writing anything about either account, when I (and no one else on campus except the people involved) cannot POSSIBLY judge what the truth is. He said/she said arguments do not work in newspapers. At least, they aren't supposed to.
As regards the recent City Pages article (in case you couldn't tell this is what I'm largely referring to), do I think that admin. at Hamline handled the situation perfectly? NO! Do I think the "compromise/resolution" that was reached is ideal, or even good? NO!!! But I can't just say, "Well, I think this sucks," and publish it. As far as I can tell, the administration followed the general guidelines for what went on. Should these vague guidelines be more specific and have more stipulations attached? Yeah, I think they should. I think students being able to go around and accuse professors of being racist or intolerant or whatever they choose to term it is disturbing and caustic and damaging to all involved parties. Can I research what exactly these rules are and interview people regarding how they might be improved to protect the interests of faculty and students and to keep even incidences in which students feel genuinely and maybe even occasionally rightfully upset ones that can be handled in a reasonable way that actually helps provide some good background and learning and construction toward deeper understanding of one another? Yes, I can. And that's what I'm trying to do. But although we are a professional staff, doing our best to put out a professional product, this office that we half-live in is still not our life.
I have other things happening. I have people dying in my family, I have friends with problems, I have classes and exams and independent studies and research projects and all kinds of shit to do besides this. People seem to have a hard time remembering that this paper, which we work on until 4 a.m. on Thursdays and skip class to interviewpeople for and get out of bed two hours early to work on that story we didn't have time to do earlier because we were studying for that midterm and working a double shift, is what we do ON TOP OF the five hundred million things we are all ALSO involved in. Does that sound like an excuse? probably, yeah. And to some extent it is.
We aren't perfect. We know we aren't perfect. But we also know we're trying our damndest and we are just as frustrated as everyone else when an issue or story doesn't come out the way we'd like it to. I would love to be able to sit down for hours to write a news piece, I would LOVE for that to be the only thing I have to do in my day. But it can't be, it just can't. Almost nothing I write comes out the way I want it to. I always want it to be better, stronger, more direct, more informative, sharper, etc. I feel that way about everything I write.
I seem to have lost track of where I was going with all of this. I seem to feel a little better having gotten this out of my system, however.
At risk of echoing Mel, people around here need to learn to not always blame other people for what they perceive as problems or issues on campus or in their lives or how they perceive certain statements made by others. If you have a problem with something someone says in class, SAY SO at the time!! Don't just complain about it later or talk to someone else about how it makes you feel bad or makes you uncomfortable, RAISE A CONSTRUCTIVE ARGUMENT against such statements/attitudes/whatever the hell is bothering you.
Working for the Oracle also frustrates me beyond all belief right now. Whatever coverage I give to "sensitive issues" on campus, someone is mad at me or thinks I have done a crappy job or feels I'm misrepresenting something. Well, that's because they are SENSITIVE ISSUES, and no matter WHAT I say or how objective I attempt to be about something or how much I try to listen to both sides of a story or argument and then do my best to represent that, I get lambasted. Which is why I do not want to be a journalist professionally. There is no way to discuss these issues in a manner by which SOMEONE isn't going to tell me that I've got it all wrong. No one, at the end of the day, is going to be happy, least of all me.
You see, the thing is, I do have very, very strong opinions regarding what's going on around campus. But I can't just write and publish whatever the hell I think and feel like writing about. That's called irresponsible, unobjective journalism. Yes, go ahead and scoff and smirk and make snide comments about an Oracle staffer referring to what she does as journalism. I am doing the best I can. By some people's standards, that is clearly not good enough, but when I hear two totally opposite accounts of an event and there is NO WAY to prove or disprove one of them, what good can possibly be achieved by writing anything about either account, when I (and no one else on campus except the people involved) cannot POSSIBLY judge what the truth is. He said/she said arguments do not work in newspapers. At least, they aren't supposed to.
As regards the recent City Pages article (in case you couldn't tell this is what I'm largely referring to), do I think that admin. at Hamline handled the situation perfectly? NO! Do I think the "compromise/resolution" that was reached is ideal, or even good? NO!!! But I can't just say, "Well, I think this sucks," and publish it. As far as I can tell, the administration followed the general guidelines for what went on. Should these vague guidelines be more specific and have more stipulations attached? Yeah, I think they should. I think students being able to go around and accuse professors of being racist or intolerant or whatever they choose to term it is disturbing and caustic and damaging to all involved parties. Can I research what exactly these rules are and interview people regarding how they might be improved to protect the interests of faculty and students and to keep even incidences in which students feel genuinely and maybe even occasionally rightfully upset ones that can be handled in a reasonable way that actually helps provide some good background and learning and construction toward deeper understanding of one another? Yes, I can. And that's what I'm trying to do. But although we are a professional staff, doing our best to put out a professional product, this office that we half-live in is still not our life.
I have other things happening. I have people dying in my family, I have friends with problems, I have classes and exams and independent studies and research projects and all kinds of shit to do besides this. People seem to have a hard time remembering that this paper, which we work on until 4 a.m. on Thursdays and skip class to interviewpeople for and get out of bed two hours early to work on that story we didn't have time to do earlier because we were studying for that midterm and working a double shift, is what we do ON TOP OF the five hundred million things we are all ALSO involved in. Does that sound like an excuse? probably, yeah. And to some extent it is.
We aren't perfect. We know we aren't perfect. But we also know we're trying our damndest and we are just as frustrated as everyone else when an issue or story doesn't come out the way we'd like it to. I would love to be able to sit down for hours to write a news piece, I would LOVE for that to be the only thing I have to do in my day. But it can't be, it just can't. Almost nothing I write comes out the way I want it to. I always want it to be better, stronger, more direct, more informative, sharper, etc. I feel that way about everything I write.
I seem to have lost track of where I was going with all of this. I seem to feel a little better having gotten this out of my system, however.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
headaches and bad luck
another funeral. i don't know if i am going yet, as it's in florida. this routine is getting to be too much. too many tears, too much black clothing, too much feeling wrenched from the inside out from the emotional exhaustion of death and it's permanence and the searing finality of realizing i'm never going to see people again.
i didn't know my uncle all that well. haven't seen him in a couple of years now.
they got married when i was five. it was the only time i ever got to be a flower girl in a wedding. even though i was little, i think that's the day i remember him best from. they were so happy. the memories are incomplete, vague, without definition.
i had a bouquet of daisies. they were married on a ship, out on the ocean, and the weather was perfect. it was a day when the sky and the ocean were so blue and the sun so warm and bright that everything seems perfect. the dress i wore was white, with lace, and what i remember most is their smiling faces and how they fed each other cake and looked so happy. it is the first wedding i really remember, i think.
i find it strange to think that their entire marriage and its duration and now its end has all come within my lifespan. things happen so fast.
and this didn't, really. we have known that it would be coming. but it is still so hard to think of him being gone because they always seemed so happy. i don't know why those two things seem like they are connected but they do.
and i know these feelings i have are all related to the general frustration with life i've been experiencing lately, to that feeling of being just a short step away from the fall off the cliff to some kind of minor mental breakdown, to emotional overload, to the constant change and the upheaval and the chaos of things being the same.
i am overwhelmed by my inertia, my inability to bring change, my utter failure to make enough of a difference to those around me. like maybe i don't love enough, or tell people enough how much i appreciate what they do. instead i spend time being upset with people, getting irritated and impatient, when i should generally be thanking them for being in my life. so for those of you reading this, thank you for taking the time to see what's up with my life. thank you for putting up with me, my foul moods, my sarcasm, my frequent closed-off-ness. i am lucky to have the people i have in my life. i am so lucky to have you for friends and i promise to work to be a better friend to you. i love you all more than you can know.
i am planning right now to probably go to this funeral but if i do i feel it will be for selfish reasons. it won't help my aunt to feel better, it won't make a difference to al's daughters, at best it will bring me some feeling of false closure or the pretense of making things easier on my dad or somehow being able to help my aunt.
and no matter how i'm feeling at times, i know it can't be anything compared to how my aunt is feeling right now. in the span of five months she has lost both her parents and her husband.
i didn't know my uncle all that well. haven't seen him in a couple of years now.
they got married when i was five. it was the only time i ever got to be a flower girl in a wedding. even though i was little, i think that's the day i remember him best from. they were so happy. the memories are incomplete, vague, without definition.
i had a bouquet of daisies. they were married on a ship, out on the ocean, and the weather was perfect. it was a day when the sky and the ocean were so blue and the sun so warm and bright that everything seems perfect. the dress i wore was white, with lace, and what i remember most is their smiling faces and how they fed each other cake and looked so happy. it is the first wedding i really remember, i think.
i find it strange to think that their entire marriage and its duration and now its end has all come within my lifespan. things happen so fast.
and this didn't, really. we have known that it would be coming. but it is still so hard to think of him being gone because they always seemed so happy. i don't know why those two things seem like they are connected but they do.
and i know these feelings i have are all related to the general frustration with life i've been experiencing lately, to that feeling of being just a short step away from the fall off the cliff to some kind of minor mental breakdown, to emotional overload, to the constant change and the upheaval and the chaos of things being the same.
i am overwhelmed by my inertia, my inability to bring change, my utter failure to make enough of a difference to those around me. like maybe i don't love enough, or tell people enough how much i appreciate what they do. instead i spend time being upset with people, getting irritated and impatient, when i should generally be thanking them for being in my life. so for those of you reading this, thank you for taking the time to see what's up with my life. thank you for putting up with me, my foul moods, my sarcasm, my frequent closed-off-ness. i am lucky to have the people i have in my life. i am so lucky to have you for friends and i promise to work to be a better friend to you. i love you all more than you can know.
i am planning right now to probably go to this funeral but if i do i feel it will be for selfish reasons. it won't help my aunt to feel better, it won't make a difference to al's daughters, at best it will bring me some feeling of false closure or the pretense of making things easier on my dad or somehow being able to help my aunt.
and no matter how i'm feeling at times, i know it can't be anything compared to how my aunt is feeling right now. in the span of five months she has lost both her parents and her husband.
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