It’s comparable to falling in love: you try so hard not to let go, and when you do, it’s a fall that would make a grown man sick. You finally hit the ground, and feel the earth beneath your feet. Here you feel comfortable. Here I feel comfortable. Here I am:

As the breeze floats my hair into my face, and my cheeks begin to rouge, I find myself staring in awe at the brusque leaves that litter the ground.

The mix of colours, yellows, reds, and browns. A cruel corner lengthens up my lips.

The feeling of the heat still being radiated by the sun, and its mixture with the cool breeze; the kind of day that you have second thoughts about bringing your jacket.

“This is it,” I think to myself, eyes closed. “This is the magnificence of a fall morning.”

As I make my way to my destination: a small bench in the centre of the park, I can’t help myself but to think of what would make this an even more perfect moment. You.

Stepping carefully through the leaves, as to not disturb the squirrels, who are scavenging for their last few meals before the brutal cold strikes. I can imagine my hand in yours.

Picturing the majesty of weightlessness as you swirl me around in your arms, smiling down at me. I can feel the softness of your face under my fingertips, when your lips graze so lightly over my forehead.

Rising and falling in the grass, our jackets get damp from the dew on the blades, and you stop and stare into my eyes. Perfection is in this deep blue.

You bow your head, no doubt pretending to be shy or coy. Looking back at me, you smile: God I love your smile.

You lean in for a kiss. Playing games again, you slowly move your lips over mine. I feel strain, hunger pangs. All I can think of is your kiss.

That electric feeling buzzes through me when your lips finally touch mine, for the first time in what feels like an eternity. The butterflies in my stomach threaten to lift me straight off of the ground.

You pull back. Eyes still partially closed. I can feel your arms around me loosening. The only thing I can think of doing is holding on. I don’t want to let go just yet.

“Wake up bunnie,” you whisper.

Snap back to reality.

The cold wind rushes through my jacket, bringing me harshly back to where I sit. The bench, in the middle of the park, sitting with the squirrels.

The daydream was gone. The cold creeps into my bones, and I sit, remaining, hoping for one last glimpse of you in my head before the wind takes the breath from my lungs, but it’s too late to salvage it.

You’re not here. I can feel a single tear well up in my eye. Knowing that it’ll be the beginning of something more treacherous: make-up running down my cheeks, fingers clenched, fighting to keep the pain away.

The tear falls. Thank god for the cold, the wind blows, freezing the droplet to my cheek.

I sat there, staring at these massive stacks of tomes, at a loss. I was undeniable baffled.

So, why the hell are there so many books exclaiming that we need to save our forests, when the publishers don’t think about putting them on recycled paper. (Even a portion of recycled paper, for that matter.) It makes me sad to think how there’s the equivalent of a Redwood tree sitting right in front of me, trying to convey a message of conservation, nonetheless.

http://www2.gol.com/users/chapa/cphomepage/deforestationincanada%27s.html
The freaking logging industry continues to cut down over 290,000 hectares of forest in Quebec, 185,000 hectares in Ontario and 67,000 hectares of forest in Alberta annually. And paper consumption in Canada has doubled over the last 20 years, to about 20, 000 pages per person a year.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/11/10/tech-paperless.html

OK, so here’s where I stand on this.

I’m kind of girl that loves camping, bonfires, hiking, and all that outdoors jazz. In fact, my most memorable camping trip was to Algonquin National Park in Northern Ontario. I saw two black bears, moose, deer, and lovely little chipmunks that liked to steal my cookies. But I’m losing myself. I love the outdoors, the smell of the trees, feeling the dew on your face when you wake up to a crisp morning in the middle of the forest. I’m in my element when I’m hundreds of kilometers away from civilization. So you can imagine the disdain I may have for these publishers who continue to print on non-recycled paper.

Turns out, they weren’t real. What’s even worse, it wasn’t the U.S Military that questioned the authenticity of the infamous Killian Documents, it was a group of bloggers. (Odd, I know.) But these guys pretty much laid it out there and said, “Listen, it’s not that hard to forge documents from the ’70s.”

Immediately after wards, CBS aired a retraction. And Dan Rather retired. Rather also decided he was going to sue the company. Way to be a winner, Dan!

Subsequently, Mark Kilmer started a blog called Rathergate.com, blogging sometimes many times daily, about the Liberal Media Bias.

It’s baffling how people who are writing to such a huge unseen audience can make such an impact, especially on a media-mogul like CBS.

It kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Knowing that regular people are making a difference. I mean, hell, that’s why I’m in a Journalism course.

]]> http://deathbyspelling.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/how-the-blogs-totally-screwed-dan-rather/feed/ 0 deathbyspelling http://deathbyspelling.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/the-future-is-a-scary-place/ http://deathbyspelling.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/the-future-is-a-scary-place/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:59:38 +0000 deathbyspelling http://deathbyspelling.wordpress.com/?p=22 ]]>

It is becoming more and more apparent that the Dot-Com generation has taken hold of the reigns when it comes to Journalism.

Everything seems to be revolving around the Internet and the computer: so why not the news?

It’s faster, more convenient and virtually free (pardon the pun,) and takes a lot less effort on our part.

But what about those people who love their newspapers? People like me?

Call me nostalgic, call me old fashioned, but nothing can replace the feeling of a newspaper in your hands… getting the ink all-over your fingers and smelling the pages as you turn them.

There’s no substitute for tangible news.

However, I stray from my point. The future is no longer in the hands of Baby-Boomers. It’s our time to shine.

And now, entering stage left, is the online revolution…

It’s time to plug yourself in, (if you haven’t already done so,) and drink up.

We have access to more information than at any one given time in history. Technology has enabled infinite amounts of information to spill from computer screens and hand-held devices.

People can grab bite-sized tidbits of “info” at a whim.

However, the question remains: How much information are humans able to process?  Is this massive amount of information, (that constantly remains open to us,) in a way, superfluous?

Maybe all of these facts and particulars make no difference at all, for the simple fact that there is so much of it.

What’s the use of having thousands of encyclopedias, when all of that information may very well be, in fact, useless?

Everyone knows that humans only use something like ten per cent of their brains; so why is everyone so hell bent on knowing the most, or making others feel inferior for not knowing enough?

The simple fact-of-the-matter is, we may not have the capacity to understand and/or process this information.

What is it that sets Journalists apart from storytellers? How do we manage to rise above the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and give people the facts, “straight-up”?

The news is like drinking straight whiskey, in a rocks glass, no ice: it may be hard to swallow at first, but after taking drink after drink, it seems easier.

Watching people dying in foreign countries, seeing the malice and strife that is caused by war, updates on the next deadly disease, the news is our portal into the things we don’t want to see, but want to know about.

Reality is a harsh thing. It’s one of those things that makes you realize just how vicarious human beings are. For example: we watch and adore celebrities because we adore seeing them fall. We watch people writhing in pain on the television, and we laugh about how funny their faces are.

How is it that Journalists haven’t been completely eaten alive by the general populous of this earth? We show people these horrendous things, and yet they want to see more Britney, more Paris. 

Sometimes I think it may be easier to work for the National Enquirer – telling tall tales about how the Loch Ness Monster was found drinking in a bar, or how Santa laid-off 100 elves.

Then reality comes and gives me a swift kick in the ass: where would we be if we didn’t know what was going on in the world around us? Living vicarious or not, there is that percentage of people that really want to know the “hard” news.

That percentage is salvation for Journalists who feel the same way I do: people should know about everything that’s going on…. Good or bad.

So take a sip from that rocks glass once in a while. It may taste terrible at first, but I guarantee you, the outcome will be well worth it. 

Cheers. 

For example, the majority of the class would have never known or even thought about looking for online books as sources for background information.

Plus, Peggy recognized Netlibrary.com is a powerful tool. Set-up identically to work like an actual library; you can “check-out” a book for two hours, and while you have said book, no one can access  that book until your time is up.

She also spoke of some nifty ways to make your on-line search a little broader She showed examples of using asterisks and dollar signs to expand your more “basic” keywords, and encompass all words related to that initial word. For example: “politic$” would search for anything beginning with “politic”, such as political, politician, etc…

Peggy ran-over how to specify your Google searches as well. You can use “allintitle:politics and ethics” to come up with as many articles as possible that relate only to “politics and ethics”. In turn, everything entered after the colon, (with now space between the colon and the text,) will be the only topics searched for.

And my dog is staring at me like she wants to eat my laptop, so I’m going to draw this little tid-bit to a close. Ta-ta. 

I’ve always been the artsy type, and people are constantly nagging me… “Why did you go into graphic desgn?!” – “You should do this for a living!” Well, while art is a fantastic pasttime, my passion is in the hands of writing. Always has been, and always will be. I chose this “theme”, (which I edited to make it more to my liking,) because it’s simple, with a dash of complexity (in the header). I imagine I’m going to be changing it (the theme,) quite a bit, as part of my restless nature. (Once I get too familiar, set up a routine, memorize my surroundings, etc… I like to switch it up and find something new.)