After going to get a coffee and hang out in Koreatown yesterday morning with my roommate (see how I’m spending the last remaining days before The Apocalypse?) I came home, checked the Internet, and saw the news. 

I’ve tried to hold some level of optimism, moving-on’ed-ness, and reason in my responses towards tragic, seemingly random outbursts of violence like this, however they’re motivated, but this photo really did make me sick to my stomach. I’m scared of two things: heights (in all capacities, and even though I’ve largely quashed the crippling effect on me, being on an airplane is the only height that really bothers me), and being shot at without seeing it coming. I don’t know why the latter is something that has, to this day, made me shiver sometimes, but it does. The former has a far more hilarious story, involving a young Eric stuck in an elevator for hours (woo!), but attribute the latter to whatever you want. 

I’m well-adjusted, I think (ha! but roll with me). I’ve seen Die Hard. I played Mortal Kombat and Halo, and stuff as a kid. Even still, getting shot has always been something I think about occasionally, without there ever being a reason to. The handgun is the first thing I see about a cop, for example. I get uneasy around real ones. 

School shootings are events that suddenly silence (inter)national dialogue, and have the capacity to flip whatever distraction is going on to page 2; it grips the soul, especially as a person who, since age 4, has been regularly attending some kind of educational institution. And thankfully never had more than the occasional fight to worry about while in them. They wring out the pus and get from what’s happening to what’s really happening out of it. They make you talk to yourself about where you think it could happen in your life, where it has happened in your life, and what to do about it. The quick conclusion is to a) stay safe, and b) blame something. It feels good to find something to point the finger to as the cause; it’s a putrid, humanly form of safety. Look how we search for meaning within our lives, cluttering up the place, as if to say “what this is represents how I am” at the things in the room. The room is a symptom itself. 

I take pain in attempting to conjure up what the parents and families of the victims might be feeling after this event. I can’t even imagine what they’re going through, and that thought makes me believe there is such a thing as hell, and it exists on Earth. It’s existed for many people in their life, and it often comes to pay a visit at least once for everybody, maybe. We don’t have much to compare to our most trying times, except the third-party account of other peoples’. But I can tell you that losing a child is, by definition, a contradiction of human progress, and what life stands for. It is often like having the meaning of one’s life wiped out, and taken. Often people will tell you their greatest accomplishment is their kids. It’s potential. It’s a shot at somebody becoming the next great somebody.

Everybody should be outraged by what has happened yesterday. There’s no real getting past that. But getting outraged at the correct thing is important to be considered. This is a health issue, first and foremost. Having a 20-year-old want to make a monstrous point out of the death of his mother and her classroom of potentially great people is indicitive of a society that would even allow a person to get to this point. That’s what needs to change. One’s mental health is just as important as their physical health, and that’s something I learned the hard way in the past, and something I think everybody struggles with at least once in their life, whether they know it or not.

I don’t really know what to say about Newtown. I suppose I have nothing to say or offer but my deepest regrets to the families and communities affected by this horrible tragedy.

I have some wonderful teachers in my life. And I’ve had some really great teachers when I was young. But the best, best writing teacher I’ve ever had came in the form of a dying family member, a school filled with four friends and two-thousand other strangers, incomprehensible parents, a silent phone with the ringer on loud, an imagination that wouldn’t stop (and in fact, ran fastest in the deadness of night), and a notebook that wouldn’t deny my head-scratchings. That notebook has turned into many others since, taken the form of beautiful projects, letters to new friends, and goodbyes to old ones, and it continues to teach me: that writing is something that just can’t be taught, rather, it’s something that you just do.

really do know a thing or two about bridging gaps, I’ve found. I’m in the business of communication (sort of) and see all the time how people who are successful, that is, those who get listened to, are good speakers. They’re good at articulating thoughts, ideas, and images their mind’s eye sees into the real world with words.

It’s an impressive skill, no doubt. I think I’m an okay speaker but I know at times I talk in a very confusing, roundabout way. I misuse words, and my dyslexic tendencies tend to get the better of me, especially when I’m excited.

Energy is a big part of communicating with people. I don’t mean bullshit thumb-language communication (though doing that several hundred times a day, as is the norm with most successful people, takes on it’s own energy requirement), but genuinely connecting with someone over a topic or an idea. Occasionally, despite all the best intentions in the world, I simply cannot bring myself to keep going through a talk, even if it’s on a subject I’m quite passionate about, or even if it’s about something that directly affects me. A theory I have about this is that I’m just a lazy simpleton. I’ve tried pursuing this hypothesis but my results have been inconclusive. So I guess that means I really am a… bah!

One thing I am trying to do more and more is simply surround myself with people who, ahem, do them. I know personally a few people who really are turning their passions and loves into tangible career (read: life) paths, and I have a huge admiration and respect for people who can man the reigns of the chaotic daily grind we are all going to, and attempt to sway the current in their direction. And yes, these people are highly-social, they wear their heart on their sleeves, and they know how to talk to people, who to talk to, and what to talk about. By contrast, I run into heroes of mine, or meet people that I’ve only read about in magazines, and just draw blanks. I tense up when opportunity comes my way, and I ignore the baby steps I actually make and blow the trips and falls way out of proportion.

I’ve been on this planet damn near 22 years, and only now am I learning how to truly open up and express myself fully. It’s resulted in a near abandonment of old hobbies I used to have, but it’s opened the doors of opportunities that really can land me into the shoes of the person I see when my eyes are closed. Or when I’m asleep.

It doesn’t help that it’s bloody terrifying, either. The old me would have squirmed at the thought of going to concerts or shows by myself, but I’ve done that several times this summer, with no other reason than not being able to find a friend to accompany me.

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When I see people who are “there,” that is, people who I look up to in some capacity, I can tell there’s something within them that I don’t see within myself. I’m trying as hard as I can to rule out that I’m just plain not meant to be the person I see in my dreams, but sometimes I catch myself believing that nightmare. It’s an unfortunate bad habit of mine, being my own toughest critic. Everybody says they are themselves, and while I don’t think they’re lying, I just don’t know if they’re as harsh as I am. How else can these people, time and time again, show up to class, come in to work, and look great doing it, get met with hard-won success, and pull off movements that are just huge? I want to believe I’m getting there, hell, I have to believe it. But sometimes, I feel, that I’m not quite ready. Why?

Rye journalism students regularly get sent these “Job postings/announcements” emails from the School of Journalism. Open to submission, they allow for students to catch wind of any potential work that may pique our interest. What caught my eye in the one sent this afternoon was this little blurb:

In the past, I’ve found several unpaid internships/work opportunities from these emails, and unless you count a few free concert tickets, I didn’t get paid a cent. In fact, looking through old emails, the majority of positions pay either less than minimum wage, or not at all.

How can a Journalism school neither recommend nor endorse unpaid internships, yet in the same string of emails, post volunteer opportunities? What’s the bloody difference? Most startup media outlets are “not for profit” as it is.

A few Toronto-area journalists already have weighed in on this subject, and, I think every professor I’ve had at Ryerson has said that they’re a necessary evil in getting work exposure. The truth is that while working for less than minimum wage is illegal in Canada, brandishing one’s work under the guise of the magic word “internship” gives employers credence to receive quality work from young people who are simply getting taken advantage of, by way of the promise of experience. I’m not naive in where the media industry is in Canada, by the by. I’m well aware of its future implications (650 jobs, also, could cover four years of J-school alumni), and understand the increasingly fierce competition I will be facing when I graduate. Seriously, some of my classmates are incredibly talented people, even intimidatingly so.

Where I take issue with all this is my school’s obvious reluctance to explore the idea that journalism is becoming a increasingly unviable career path, and the ol’ faithful sources of jobs are taking flight. How can I be receiving one piece of advice from faculty in the classroom, then get a complete opposite statement via email? 

I don’t discount work experience from internships. I would, without question, accept an unpaid internship at any major newspaper for the summer; the work experience is invaluable. But when my school delivers a mockingly brash statement of duality like this, well, it kind of makes me want to punch a wall.

Ever feel alone, but not in a social way? Of course there are always those certain calls from family members, texts from friends, and junk mail from window cleaning companies that bombard us with messages of different importance like clockwork, but I’m speaking of a different kind of loneliness. A disconnect.

Raised a nerd, I remember logging on for the first time around age 9 at school. Mostly it was to use important educational tools like Ask Jeeves and simple online versions of encyclopedias, but us kids quickly discovered this little gem. The internet was exciting. MSN Messenger and chat rooms soon followed, and I got my own computer, a hand-me-down from my aunt at age 11. Soon I discovered message boards, IRC communities, and how to make my first blog. My love for the internet was full steam.

I think it sort of directed me towards my love of communication, and soon, journalism. The only other example I can think of is the music, skateboarding, and videogame magazines I subscribed to at early ages, but even then the idea of writing for a living never clicked to me. It only was until I forced friends to read hilariously personal narrative entries in Livejournal and blogs that I really, truly enjoyed to have something that represented a voice beyond speaking to just one person at a time.

So you can expect my frustration when it’s nearly one full month into a new home, but same city when we still don’t have internet yet still (Still!).

It’s a simple matter of getting a Trained Expert of Wiring over here to flip the switch. We could easily hail a Rogers van, waving a six-pack and yelling “come fix our internet, guy!” But no, we must faithfully wait for the Rogers van to, at the instruction of our latest ISP choice, Distributel. Hopefully they are less of a nightmare than Teksavvy was, but that’s all beside the point.

I get Twitter through my cell phone, and check it regularly. I feel like it’s my lifeline to my once flourishing online world. I update this blog at school and cafes mostly these days, and I scrape what little information I can out of the internet before I have to head to class, or an assignment.

It all happened so quickly, too. We are so connected at all times these days, that you really don’t notice the grip it has until it suddenly vanishes. No more new music (a big one), new blog posts, or the constantly morphing and changing framework of my world, as dictated by my bookmarked blogs, news sites, web 2.0 fun ventures, and of course, Facebook.

A lesson in patience and self-reliance, true, and it has developed into the pursuit of a few more hobbies and interests, some of which you’ll no doubt be seeing in the future, but still, I can’t help but wonder just how I’m going to distract myself tonight. Maybe I’ll read a book. Remember books?