Friday, December 01, 2006

Its been hard weeks long.

A journalist struggles often. Over this semester we have all had our hardships trying to get interviews and trying to make sense of the profiles we want to write. This past week I might have had my hardest "journalist week" yet. I have had an onslaught of problems reminiscent of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, complete with raining fire and brimstone. It started off with a cancellation of an interview I had with my Cuban.
Next was the run-around I received from the SF Fire Department. I received permission from the Division Chief after I was told I needed his "ok," only to be told on my return that I now needed the City Chief's permission. I called the main office to find that I actually needed permission from the Public Information Officer, who took the week off.
Beyond that I have writer's block. I don't know where that came from... Maybe from the 15 papers required for my "film" class or the nine papers required for my "acting" class. Again, that is 24 papers... Not pages. No joke, I have produced more pages in my movie and acting classes than two semesters of Written Communication. Don't get me wrong, I love to write, but there is only so much one can take. I seriously feel hung over from the kind of binge writing I have had to do.
The writing I enjoy is when it is purposeful. More like a glass of a nice cabernet with a steak than a keg of cheap beer streaming down the throat of an upside-down college student being held up by his peers in a dirty garage. I enjoy writing when it is either letting the world know what is going on with the world or when it is improving my actual writing. I consider these three things-- the cancellation, the run-around, and the writer's block-- the fire of my week, as they have burned away my patience. Now comes the brimstone-- just out right destruction.
Computers and liquids don't mix. Specifically, Dell computers and water don't mix. Simply put, it doesn't turn on and it smells like burning plastic. A stone might as well have burst through the ceiling and crushed the damn thing. Why a week before finals? I don't know, but I now have a part time residency in the UC computer lab. The chairs are a little stiff and the keyboards probably house a million kinds of germs, but other than that its cozy.
Everything in my flat is broken. This isn't directly related to journalism, but I feel it has a pretty negative effect on my life and that in turn inhibits my writing. The flat has two toilets, both broken. One shoots water out the side when it flushes and the other doesn't flush. The dishwasher is MIA. Well, not actually missing, just broke. But its washing capabilities are missing. The bathroom sink it clogged with my roommates afro-hair. Up until two days ago we, no joke, had no lock and no knob on our front door. Those had been MIA for, ohh, a week. The list goes on and on: from stained carpets, to a struggling oven, to the internet we pay for but have yet to receive. Oh, and the cable went out two days ago--sweet. My cell phone was in the same puddle of water my dell was. Its not dead, but we'll call it "limited." My room's light shorted out. Darkness past 5pm. I lost my running shoes. My roommate had an "experience" at Albertson's that for some reason got me banned for life from there. Trader Joe's is a much further walk.
Well, that was nice. At least I feel a little better now. Not sure what to do, but I'll tell you what im not going to do-- re-read this. I think I'll save myself the added depression.

1 comment:

....J.Michael Robertson said...

Reading that really cheered me up! Isn't it nice to be able to take the bad times and turn them into amusing prose? And the net effect is to make me say: Okay. More time for death story.