10/4/11

So, what do you do? Why are you here?



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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