Anyway, I was supposed to be graduating, and I sort of freaked about the fact that I didn’t have a job lined up, didn’t have any money, felt like I had no prospects, etc. Now that I feel like I have a little more time, I don’t feel the pressure quite as strong as I did before, but it’s still there and I can’t help but be stressed out about it, even if it’s a sort of subconscious, subtle stress. I don’t sit here freaking about it, but it’s always lingering in the back of my mind.

Currently, Ivona and I are searching for not one, but two apartments; one on the Vineyard for the summer so we can work down there, and one in Amherst for the fall; and we’re potentially buying a used car that we found a pretty good deal for. I’m looking forward to that change, of getting out of Amherst, of having some money again, and I feel like I’m sort of sitting here waiting for that to happen. I’m almost looking forward to the insane work schedule (probably going to average 14 hours a day, seven days a week), because I know I do best when I’m constantly moving and doing things. Part of what got me into this rut is sitting around so much and not doing anything. Vicious cycle. I’m in a rut because I’m not doing anything, and I’m not doing anything because I’m in a rut.

Alex and I had a brainstorming session a couple weeks ago to work on a screenplay. We’re developing a story I had very roughly sketched out, coupled with a general theme that has been bothering both of us lately and that Alex pretty neatly summed up with the term “quarter-life crisis.” We’ll see how it goes, if it does, but lately I’ve been more and more thinking that I want to write a version of the story on my own, maybe in book form. It has less to do with my feelings about how a screenplay written with my brother would turn out, because I think we could do some great work together, and more to do with the feeling that I really want to accomplish something on my own. I feel like not many things are turning out the way I want them to, and if I really want to be a writer, I need to take it seriously and do it.

I guess that’s the state of affairs right now in my world. If any of you have some great tip or secret to getting your life back on track, please share.

The theme of this semester seems to be centered on objectivity and subjectivity. These are ideas I’ve dealt with a lot as a journalist, but lately I’ve really been thinking about it a lot. As I wrote in one of my papers for Covering Race lately, as a journalism student I’ve been told that objectivity is the highest ideal. I’ve pursued it, trying to keep my personal beliefs and opinions out of the discussion. I always had the feeling that perfect objectivity was unnattainable, but lately I’m feeling like even imperfect objectivity doesn’t even exist.

It’s hard to deny that all actions and all speech and writing are political. For some of you Americans, you may need to broaden your perspective on what the word “political” means. What I mean is that just about everything anyone does has an agenda. I know this isn’t some crazy new idea, but my point is that as a journalist and writer, it’s something I need to reconcile on a philosophical level. If nothing else, I want to maintain my integrity and feel like what I do in the world has a purpose and goal. If I’m told throughout all these years that writing objectivity is how I do that most effectively, what does it say about my world view if I’ve suddenly decided it’s impossible to do so?

This is a much abbreviated version of the post I want to make about this, and I’ll expand on it more and more as I figure it out in my own head. But for now the conclusion I’ve come to, as to how I can rationalize calling myself a journalist while knowing that objectivity is impossible, is that I need to change my definition of goals. Instead of trying to be objective, honesty and integrity need to be the mainstays of my profession.

These days, mainstream media is a joke, and I don’t fancy the idea of being a cog in that machine. That’s part of why I wanted to start my own blog: freedom of choice and speech. Here I can really be honest and maintain my integrity to myself. True, I’m not going to make a living at it, and I haven’t really started writing journalistically here. But at least here I can say “this is what I stand for and believe in, and here’s how I see the world.”

I think subconsciously, when I realized objectivity was an illusion, which is a conclusion I came upon a few years ago, I was disillusioned by the profession in its entirety. My faith in it is coming back; driving a garbage truck all last winter and listening to NPR for several hours a day helped that. More than anything, though, I’m coming to terms with how to cope in a subjective world. If nothing else, I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not to sell my stories. Hell, I could give up my morals for plenty of other jobs and make better money if I wanted to.

Anyway, this is sort of a rough sketch of my ideas on objectivity and subjectivity. I may come back and edit this, or post a more polished version later on, or some of the papers I’m working on that expand on it. In the meantime, if you have thoughts about what objectivity and subjectivity mean to you, I’d be happy to hear them and maybe gain some insight.

I’d put this together a little more, but that mouth problem I mentioned earlier has gotten considerably worse. It’s infected now and the infection is spreading to the ear, and it’s pretty damn painful and getting worse. Oddly enough, it even hurts on the right side of my scalp, and I get shooting pains through my ear and up to the top of my head. Ugh. Depending on my state of affairs in the morning I’ll be going to the doctor to get some antibiotics and, hopefully, some painkillers that’ll knock me out for a couple of days. It couldn’t be shittier timing; I have two presentations and a paper due tomorrow, all of which I worked my ass off today to do a good job on, and oddly enough I was actually looking forward to giving them. Shocker, I know. When the hell did I become a good student again?

That’s about it, I guess. Nothing earth-shatteringly amazing, but an all-around good day. But let’s be honest, I just posted so none of you vultures will ask for money.

Ivona said tonight that she likes when I write blog entries because it’s like a window to my inner thoughts that I don’t normally vocalize or go out of my way to share. I realized that’s largely true, and not necessarily because I don’t want to share things with her, but when I don’t write it’s almost like I don’t even think about things too deeply, or analyze my own feelings. Writing is the only way I know how to figure things out, of being truly introspective. The only time I really felt like that without having to write to get at it was when I was living in France; being in a place where you don’t really speak the language at first forces you to be pretty introspective. Oddly enough, I did some of my best writing (the non-introspective kind) when I was there. It’s part of the reason I want to go back so badly.

This lack of passion and feeling of being unfulfilled and unsure of goals and direction impacts my writing pretty heavily. Instead of writing fun, interesting, humorous (I hope) things, it’s all introspective, personal junk. It’s great for me, because I feel like I’m getting at the things that are eating up my subconscious, but at the same time I still feel stagnated and like there’s a shroud over me, preventing me from thinking up any good material.

Who knows, maybe I’m just bored and I need more going on in my life to inspire me. I was looking forward to, and am enjoying aspects of, this break between semesters, but I’m realizing I need that stimulation every day to get the creative juices flowing (sorry if I get any on you, I’m pretty awful at controlling my juices). I can’t wait to have a busy schedule and challenging classes again, because now I’m just imagining all the things I want to do with my life instead of actually doing them. I want to finish this last semester and just leave. I’m not sure where yet. I want an adventure. Or a job. That’d be ok, too.