I AM the Journalist! - Lecture 1

So here’s the thing: I’m an old-school girl who dreams in technological-colour. I have no idea how to run programs on my computer, how to stream something, or about podcasts. But I love all the possibilities that have arisen as a result of such things being developed.

Deciding to go to university was easy; I figured that out by the time I was eight years old. But what I wanted to do and why was something I never gave considerable thought to until grade 10 where it became a subject at my high school. Indeed, I only decided during the course of last year what I was interested in; journalism (and I realise this is a great feat considering most people I know now don’t have any idea what they want still).

Mostly this occurred to me out of several jokingly shared comments. “You should get into journalism, the pay is really good!” “You should own a radio station dedicated to anime music!” etc, etc. The last one in particular struck me. I’m an openly obsessed anime fan. This, if nothing else, has shaped my decisions into where I am right now: a first year student studying a dual degree in Journalism and Arts majoring in Japanese and Writing. Japanese because I love the country and its culture (stemmed from watching so many Japanese shows), writing because I am fairly decent at it and would love to spend my life writing about anime and other related subjects, and Journalism because I would love to share this passion with others.

Going to JOUR1111’s (and my very own) first lecture, rather than feeling frightened and intimidated, instead gave me this strange sense of understanding and a strengthening of my (admittedly weak) confidence in myself and my decisions. I AM the journalist. The world is at my fingertips and I have the chance to help share it with others.  All I could feel through that lecture was just how right everything felt.  That feeling hasn’t left me once during my uni experience, either.

As far as journalism goes, the biggest concept I received from our first lecture was that of the many perceptions there are to journalism itself. Everyone has a personal view – it affects everyone. Even the choice to ignore the tabloids or the evening news on television is made in mind of the influence of journalism, the media, and its enormous accessibility.

The lecture was titled about philosophy and how we are to find one of our own throughout this course. But I already have one, one that has guided me through my choices for the past year or, maybe even subconsciously, longer.

My personal philosophy in regards to journalism and the media is that they are both tools and that it is the user’s manipulation of them that depends on whether they are “good” or “bad”.  The type of journalist I aspire to be is one who can get to the heart of a matter and lay it bare for the rest to be witness to. I want to be the type of person who motivates others to think for themselves, to care about a topic and then wonder why they do. I want people to gain a greater understanding of themselves first, reflect that onto society and then act. I think if more of us were able to do that (and it’s much easier nowadays with the internet) then perhaps a lot of the tension and hatred and out-casting of others would be minimalized and that, in effect, would alter the management of the big world issues, too.  All in all, I want to be a positive influence, to make a difference, and journalism is the perfect tool to do so.  

I’m a dreamer, but with this course, I think I will finally be able to do something about those dreams and turn them into a reality.

Here are some of my favourite quotes I've collected over time, and a couple of motivational pictures I found on the internet that sum what I feel up fairly well:

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. – Margot Fonteyn

The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. – John Berger

What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?

What matters to you defines your mattering.

There is no Them. There are only facets of Us.

We are engaged here in the most important pursuit in history. The search for meaning. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules this game, and how might we best play it?

I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up.

It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.

Isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.

Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else...But imagining being someone else, or the world being something else, is the only way in. It is the machine that kills fascists.

As much as life can suck, it always beats the alternative.

When things happen to people, they radiate a light. Because they have a picture caught inside them. Because they were there and you weren't. And because you only got a piece. And because all you can do is shrink and blow up that one tiny piece.