Journalism Week one –

Learned a lot about good reporting, effective listening, and objective detachment. A teacher signed me up for a CBC youth political panel and I am shitting my pants. There is a Canadian election, Puffins pooping and Palin is vying for the women’s vote. Pakistan is being blown to smithereens; Bush wants Bin Laden before his term is up. Gangs rule Toronto and Elizabeth May has been blackballed. My conclusion, in this monstrosity of lightening speed information, is that the world is fucked. Absolutely. This assertion, admittedly, is not an optimistic one. Unfortunately, we all have to wait and see who are the next figures to guide our politics and national practices. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please vote, everyone. Please.

I have been experiencing issues about disengagement lately and I worry that it is going to be a challenge in the coming weeks, months, years, as I continue to inform myself. It is difficult (impossible?) to separate personal values from the subject matter at hand. Personally, I’d like very much to care about what I write, not detach myself from it. I suspect my leftist biases will reveal themselves with time in what I write – and as they should, no?! People are ignorant and apathetic to counter-hegemony. Especially where youth are concerned. I need to cool myself, it is far too confident to want to change the world at this point in the game. Regardless, I am having a difficult time removing myself from what I want to write about. It is a compromise.

The light at the end of my tunnel is that Paul McLaughlin has said the art of an interview is a discipline like theatre that allows for spontaneity and creativity. This gives me great hope. I am off to join CJLO.

But I need to return to the west island now and thus will conclude this scholastic, heavy-hearted discourse. A million ideas are running around my tete at the moment and the numbers continue to climb...