Dying To Tell the Story

Watching this movie, Dying To Tell the Story, was truly moving. It's the kind of movie that makes me angry at myself, and the people around me. Myself, because I am so insignificant in this world, I make no difference, and I know no evil. I am completely shielded from all of the terrible things that go on in the world. And then the people around me that are too absorbed in their own lives, to even acknowledge that there is something bigger going on. They are presented with it, but choose to ignore it instead.
To me, pictures speak so much louder than words. I know that I am a creative writing major, and that words should be the most effective and natural way of expressing what is going on around me, and sometimes they are. But more often than not, I don't, can't, understand something that is going on in the world, that has gone on in the world, without seeing a picture. There are certain things in the world that words alone cannot describe, whether it is that they are not strong enough, or that a person can't put strong enough words together in a way that gives the image justice. Words can only go so far, for they are left to be interpreted by the readers. Everyone has a different definition for each word, or at least I do. A certain word means something different to me than it does to someone else. But some things are the way they are. So awful that there is no room for interpretation. It is at this point that it is up to the photo journalists to capture and encompass what those words cannot describe.
I look at what these men and woman have done, and seen and realized, and I can't even understand. It can hit me and hit me and hit me again, and I won't even begin to understand how it has changed them. I know that I could never be as strong as those people are. No matter how much I want to, I would never be able to be behind a camera, and see everything up close and personal, and be able to handle myself. I could never observe and observe and report and observe and capture, and never intervene, and still live with myself. But it doesn't stop me from desperately wanting to. I want to be able to see these things, and live these things. No one would believe me if I said it, knowing me. Cowardly, naive, stupid, selfish me. They just wouldn't believe it. And, they have no reason to. What have I ever done to make a difference, or try to? I haven't. But I want to.
It upsets me that we, as a world, can record and document all of these happenings and watch them on television, read about them in the newspaper and hear about them on the radio, and spread the news out to every corner of the earth, but we can't come together and fix it.

I'm not good with deep stuff publicly, so please forgive my questions.

I'm not good with deep stuff publicly, so please forgive my questions.

Ten Questions That I Have Always Wanted To Ask My Fellow Peers.

1. Do you believe in the Big Bang Theory?

2. Do you believe in paranormal activity?

3. Have you ever raised a garden? Because I really enjoy it.

4. How would you describe a perfect date? I mean, it sounds like a stupid question, but it can tell a ton about a person.

5. Do you believe in a higher power?

6. Is Gus a meanie to you too?

7. What is your favorite subject?

8. Ideal pet?

9. Do you have a best friend? What makes a best friend a best friend.

10. IS THIS ALL A DREAM?





....yes.

It's a Big Deal

I was driving to school this morning, well I wasn't driving. I was being driven, but that's beside the point. I was in the car on the way to school this morning, and my dad was listening to his normal morning talk show, The Wheeze show on 95.1 the Fox was talking about the headline story in the Democrat and Chronicle. "Five Percent of City Students Graduate Ready for College." It described how a large percentage of the the small percentage of students graduating students are not prepared to move on to college. 46.6 percents of students in our district graduate, but according to studies only five percent are ready to move onto college. That statistic produces and immediate, knee jerk reaction, of fear and desperation. It's scary when you think how small of a percentage five percent is. And listening to that on the radio this morning, I got that immediate punch to the gut feeling. It's a tiny percentage. Where do I fall? Where do my friends fall? I thought about it more, and I realized that I am lucky. I am at the top graduating school in the district, and I am in the top graduating academic levels. I have a better chance of graduating and being ready for college than most.

I don't think that, currently, I am anywhere near prepared for college. Anywhere near. I can't focus, I can't keep up with the workload, and I can't apply myself. These are all things that I am pretty sure you need to be able to do to be prepared for college. But I have time. I can learn.

I don't think that a lot of people are ever ready for college, but once they get there they either adapt or fail. It's survival of the fittest.

Face to face contact shouldn't be that scary.

There are tons of reasons that technology helps our societies to advance, and us, as a public, remain informed. It helps us make new discoveries, and pass information along in a quick and efficient manner.

While all of this is true, at the same time  technology has become a huge part of society, so huge, it is beginning to prevent people from having the ability to connect with someone face to face. So many people, specifically the young generation, relies so much on texting, facebook and email for communication that they are rapidly losing the ability to converse with each other, in a way that isn't through some small transmitting dev ice. Now, instead of picking up a phone and calling a person, humans have the ability to write out a message and send it to them, without ever coming into contact with them at all. Because of this people are loosing a sense of social grace, and becoming more and more introverted.

It angers me. I don't have a phone, so I have not entered the texting phenomona that is sweeping the nation, but I am around it all the time. It makes me a little sick. To know that people are forging friendships with others, through a series of short, impersonal messages. How is anyone supposed to really know anyone else?

They can't. But more than frighten me, it scares me. Knowing that at the rate that our society is going, soon there will be less and less face to face contact, and more people won't even feel the need to leave their houses. I don't want that to be what the world turns into.

People can't really live that way. It's all virtual, one demensional and shallow. The depth of human frienship and companionship is lost, and it's a problem that we can only fix about society together, as a whole.

What kind of world are the children of future generations going to grow up in? A world where no one can talk to anyone else, and the only way to connect is through impersonal messages?

That's not what I want for me, that's not what I want for my future children and that's not what I want for the world I live in.

I think I did this right?

I am just testing to see if I did this right. I don't really know. I am technologically challenged.