Sometimes simple questions can be the most confusing. When Livia asked me So what do you do? Why are you here? this morning I had a million answers.
Well, I am a student at Saint Joseph's University. My major is English and I minor in International Relations and Communications. I was a news writer for an Online Newspaper (loved it.), I interned in an advertising agency (not for me.), and now I want to see if instead of writing about problems I would like to solve them. The internship seemed like a good opportunity and I really wanted to study abroad.
Those may not have been the exact words, but these are my thoughts when I think of what I do and why I was there.
What I do? What a strange question... I'm doing something all the time. I guess. Why am I here? Why wouldn't I be here.
Livia was also an English major in undergraduate. She started to ask me about my experiences and I was surprised when she addressed me as a journalist. You're a journalist, you might be interested to write about the Roma in Brussels. I never think of myself as a journalist. Yet, I have been writing about social issues after I worked in the Newspaper. Livia made me realize that a journalist, is always a journalist. Wherever and whenever there is something to show the world, he or she can report it. Notice that I use show because it is not only writing about it, but showing what happens with pictures or video.
She also made me feel like I can be more than a journalist. This is what I do now: I see, I research, I write, I study... but I'm just starting to do something, and there are things I can do besides journalism. Can I write about education in Puerto Rico and try to make it better at the same time? It might be hard, but I'll never know if I don't try.
It's almost a month since I've been abroad and I'm surprised of how my perspective has changed. I see myself as a very lucky person. A minimum amount of people go to college, and less get to go abroad. So when I sit in my Comparative Politics class, I wonder how I can make it better back home. I don't really know if I wanna go as much as getting into politics. The liberal in me says maybe some intergovernmental institution can work. Then the realist in me thinks that intergovernmentalism doesn't work and I get confused. There needs to be an answer out there, if not I'll make one.
I don't know what I want to do. I'll probably have a completely new answer tomorrow.
But I know what I do and why I am here Livia.
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