*sigh*

I'm never aware of how deeply something is bothering me until after it's over; until after I've seen the outcome, and my body takes in a deep breath just so it can let it out with a whoosh.

It's a pretty good feeling

Grade Report

Statistics: Pass

*WHOOSH*

How To: Get on the Front Page of the Globe & Mail

Answer: Steal a plan and land it on a highway.

My favourite part of the story?

"He sat in here in the store with us for like 30 minutes. He heard us talking about people looking for a man who was running from the law," said Teresa Davidson, 41, a cashier at the place. Mr. Leon tried to buy beef jerky and a lemon-lime Gatorade, but only had enough for the drink, she said.

The fact that the journalist asked what kind of Gatorade it was. And that he didn't have enough cash for the jerky. It may seem trivial, but that's good journalism. Those who don't ask. . . don't get to right sweet stories for the Globe.

Oh . . . and almost related — another story about planes! Although this one wasn't about a crash. See if you can spot the carefully placed 9/11 reference though. Yeah. They did it. I think it's time to let go.

-JENN-

Cheers yourself, bitch

The problem with taking bird courses in school (you know, the really really easy ones you take to boost your average, or because it's the only thing that fits in your timetable and doesn't have any prerequisites) is that, well, anyone can get in.

And you may think that translates into a real breeze of a time.

However, it is often forgotten that there are, in fact, people who major in this subject (I know). The only courses they EVER take are these types of courses. Lo and behold, these people, the ones who hold degrees in common knowledge and the easily memorized/hardly ever conceptualized, they become your TAs. 

Yes, they are teaching YOU, the person who doesn't bat an eyelash when faced with a math problem, whose programming mark probably raised your average. And they are teaching you about dumb shit.

And they are taking it very, very seriously.

This can pose quite a problem.

Can we please put this into perspective? I know you love your subject, and there's a degree to which it interests me too, which is why I took it. But at the end of the day, you do the bitch-marking for a first year course with zero prerequisites. Not only that, but upper year courses do not even require the completion of this course. As in, any schmo can take it. It is designed to be an elective course to lessen the workload for people in grownup programs. 

I'm not opposed to doing some work to get credit for this kind of course. I will gladly do it. Just don't throw it back in my face telling me that my grammar is poor or my sentences 'don't make sense'. I have too many English awards and upper year linguistics courses under my belt for that to be plausible. And what program are you in again? Ohhh.... riiiiiight.

Get In, Get Out

I'm fairly certain that today solidified what I've come to except this year.

I'm an intelligent person, but university is an over-institutionalized uselessness if you don't really need your degree to get yourself a job.

I'll do what I need to get out of here, but it's everything ELSE that I'm doing (volunteer work, newspaper, etc.) that actually counts.

Essentially...high school lied. So thanks for that.

-JENN-

Comfortable

I had a nice moment today when my prof put up a number of sound waves, and not only did i NOT feel terror grip my heart, i felt relieved to see them. I like when your courses start to blend and cross over.

Doomsday

What I did today (slightly less productive, but oddly gratifying):

- handed in my history essay on time
- argued with the history department lady to time stamp that essay to confirm that on time-ness
- I won
- Played hooky from class to hold a recorder to a room full of people
- Listened to a room full of people defend themselves for a few hours
- Called some sources for my feature assignment
- Openly maintained life philosophy on relationships
- Bought a loaf of bread
- Made a slightly above-average student meal
- Watched a cool indie movie
- Did some Iraq war research
- Watched a TV show
- Edited a news brief

-JENN-

You are one productive woman

Here is what i did today

Got up and went to class (even stats!)

Dishes

Worked on Semantics project

3 Loads of laundry

Worked on Psycholinguistics project

Lots of 30 Rock

Made up Anthro lecture notes from when i was sick

Bought toilet paper and milk

Wrote a cheque

Cleaned out my email junk folder

Played texttwist

Figured out how much our landlord owes us, sent email

Organized my G. Love library

Kept up to date on facebook, fmylife, and lookbook

Kept Alina entertained

Wrote a warm fuzzy for my friend

Talked to my mother and sister

Chatted with adriana

Kept myself fed

Pure Boredom

After passing level 76 on Otto's Magic Blocks, I figured it was time for a change of scenery. Pretend shopping is almost as fun as the real deal...almost.

In Case You Were Wondering

When the word 'sifting' best describes how you went looking for your pyjamas last night, you know it's time to clean your room.

What I Learned Today

Ignoring the looming statistics midterm that is sure to be my academic downfall, it was interesting to note that one of my worst pet peeves (when the bottom of your Reese Peanut Butter Cup sticks to the individual wrapping, forcing you to lick it from what is an incredibly waxy and unpleasant paper) can be easily avoided by ensuring said chocolate is just a little bit warm to begin with. 

This article actually makes me want to read it.

So cool. This is wicked journalism. The completely random, but it works.

Peering down the tunnel beyond death:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090313.wdeath14/BNStory/Science/home


-JENN-

Evaluating "newsworthiness"

My reporting professor hammered into our young and naïve journalist heads that there are several themes that consistently make good news stories. They're what we call "newsworthy."

Some of the stuff seems pretty basic. Stories that touch on French/English relations in Canada, anything patriotically Canadian — beer, hockey, beavers . . .

Wait, beavers?

But this fits with what my prof said is the #1 theme that everyone reads without fail: Animals.

In a world of wars and famine and personal economic strife, people care to read about our furry friends? While it seems slightly ridiculous, a quick look at any major news organization will show you that my professor isn't the only genius in the business. If you can't find one story or picture about animals per day, that outlet's doing it wrong.

BBC for one is particularly good at fulfilling our animal-in-the-news quota:



Courtesy of AP photo we have three Siberian tiger cubs from a zoo in Germany. They aren't saving the world . . . they aren't going to solve the global economic crisis . . . they're just really, really cute.

I myself wrote two articles on ladybugs and songbirds. And you know what? I got As.

Quality journalism ftw.

-JENN-

What I'm Lusting After...

style.com

Nina Ricci's a/w 09 collection is definitely my favourite one thus far. Can we just oggle at the shoes for a minute? I'd probably plummet to my death in those but, a girl can dream about highly impractical shoes if she wants to. And I will.

I'm no journalist, I just work here

Perhaps the most shocking transition from home to university life has not been the food, the close quarters, or even the workload. No, what has been the most notable change has been the fact that I never know what’s going on. I don’t get a newspaper every day, and wouldn’t’ have the time to read it if I did. I’m pretty sure my roommates and I only invested in the TV so we could watch Lost every week, and my browser bookmarks are reserved for things like Facebook and Fmylife.com, not the Globe and Mail or CBC.

I’m a fan of monotony. I like getting up and going to class every day, completing assignments, writing tests, and going to bed just to do it all over again. It’s so much easier to put the blinders on and focus on what is relevant to me here and now.

And in a way, that makes sense.

I’m not going to change the world. My knowledge of world politics wont get me much past the next cocktail party (which I don’t even get invited to). When it comes right down to it, the news that is really going to affect me is the news that is directly related to what I study, who I study it from, and who I’m going to be using that knowledge to help later on. The news that really should matter to me is the news about new learning systems, cognitive studies, and language trends, because that is the news that I am going to use to change other people’s lives. By turning a critical eye on the subjects that I know best, and can use my expert knowledge to question and review, I can make a definite difference. It may not bring about widespread change, but it will hopefully bring about change for someone.

What I want to say is that news and information has the power to drastically change an individual’s life. And although that may not be the change everyone is talking about these days, nor the change people will come to remember, it’s the change that we will see every day, and the change that everyone has the opportunity to make.

Frightening trends and the media that cover them

This one started with the now infamous Hudson River crash landing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7832191.stm

I've been known to latch on to conspiracies. It's not intentional. You can't really call me paranoid. The only thing that actually frightens me is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but that story's for another time.

There was the one time I found exactly three stories about suicide bombings every day for three weeks, but this whole plane crash coverage is getting ridiculous.

After January's 'Hudson River miracle' — where luckily no one was killed — there have been a startlingly large number of crashes in the news.

The volume speaks for itself:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/7840472.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7883338.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887555.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887555.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7891120.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/7903339.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7909683.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7927520.stm

Now, I must commend my future colleagues on their tremendously quick reporting. I was also impressed with their innovative tactics, like using Twitter to get comments from people standing on the wing of the NY plane about how frustrated they were to be standing on a wing of a plane in a river (Who wouldn't?).

However, the types of stories that journalists and news services are dragging out of this particular conspiracy are getting tiring.

I'll keep the examples to a minimum here for sanity's sake...

Newspapers reporting about other newspapers:
'Papers impressed by plane escape'

The role of birds in airplane crashes:
'How birds can bring down a plane'

Excellent question...:
'How do you land a plane on water?'

They found a feather on a wing...it was a bird...we get it:
'Feather found on Hudson crash jet'

This one is really digging for a good angle. I'd say a little tactless:
'9/11 widow dies in NY plane crash'

And the list goes on.

While I do understand what it is to have to fill space and follow-up stories, I feel like the plane stuff is getting inflated. When one major accident occurs, all of a sudden all the smaller, more insignificant accidents of the same nature become instantly magnified, until it reaches what I have coined:

The conspiracy.

-JENN-