Belated Obama speech notes April 24, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Education, Elections 2008, Family, Grad school, Life, New Media, Reminiscing, Superfluous musings, Writing.add a comment
Been meaning to translate the few notes I had jotted down about Obama’s speech on race in the United States into typed words… and the notepad sheets have been sitting on my desk for weeks now. First of all – note that video on the Barack Obama web site is a YouTube video of the CNN footage – just pointing that out as a new media enthusiast and Wikinomics reader. 
Now to my thoughts, randomly jotting down about the time of the speech – mid-March:
I would love to have analyzed the speech from pure rhetoric theory because his speeches are usually written as textbook examples of following basics that enhance the message and complement an otherwise inspirational delivery (starting with a hook, weaving through reoccurring themes, starting and beginning with the same topic to frame the speech in a whole and bring it to a natural conclusion - and a slew of other techniques (like anecdotes, jokes, etc.) that make the speech so much easier to follow and engaged with). But I won’t go down that path because I am rusty and to begin with I only had the 101 speech class knowledge to rely on.
The white grandmother anecdote make some cringe. They wouldn’t do that to their grandmothers – embarrass them like that in front of the whole nation, critics said. The story was genuine, it was about “covert” racism, the kind that is not on the surface or even recognized by the person wielding it. I wondered about that too. There is a person in my immediate family who I could say a lot of the same about, on a very similar, close-to-heart story. But would I? Actually, I would. I don’t see why not. I don’t see how making the anecdote public is condemning them as a bad person. Everyone has some bias or another. But all has to be put in context of each person’s unique world view. Otherwise, we would all be hypocrites.
Obama did put the story of his white grandmother in context. And I am glad he did so. It is a much more common story nowadays with so many mixed couples of so many different backgrounds, and certainly not just in the United States.
Obama put the story of his grandmother in context like he put the story of his pastor in context – he grew up in an era of suppression of black people’s potential and opportunities. There are certain attitudes in my family I dislike as well, but I am not about to disown them. I know the context in which they were raised and their world views formed (in Bulgaria), my world view is a product of theirs and my own experiences – it’s a new prism (Bulgaria, the United States and brief trips to many other countries only since 2004 – until then I only knew these aforementioned two countries… odd isn’t it?).
I took issue not with his mention of his grandmother’s bias, but with his comment about jobs abroad. The thought of a protectionist president in today’s global and vibrant economy just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Listening to his speech gave me a new wave of ideas for a book or thesis – perhaps something I can work on after grad school acceptance when I’m more relaxed about my future but still with some buffer time before I tackle it head-on.
racism/Obama’s experience & world viewe/speech/immigration/my experience & world view/global economy
I look back at my own past attitudes and the growth and learning I’ve experienced consciously and subconsciously and it scares me somewhat. I tell the anecdote of the African exchange students (college level) at the public transportation bus stop outside the English language high school and my classmates’ hurtful comments; I also frequently share the story about a journalism teacher who really pushed me to look inside myself and recognize those learning moments in my first weeks in the United States when I met people of different ethnicities and cultures for the first time. Those memories are insightful but also bitter and painful because they prove I wasn’t perfect and by extrapolation it means that I may not be at the end of that journey yet – and that’s what truly scares me.
Nostalgia for a type of writing art April 24, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Food, Grad school, Media, Reminiscing, Superfluous musings, Work, Writing.add a comment
Took my lunch at a nearby mall, as I often do, a few days ago. I like to go there because there’s a Starbucks on the top floor that I like and if I’ve brought food from home I can either get a coffee and sit there to read my book or go to the food court, not buy anything and sit, read, and eat my packed lunch. Of course, if spring would come around, I would start eating my lunch in the park outside the office. 
I digress.
What’s also nice about going to that mall is that frequently there is something going on outside in the town square (a festival or protest with a whole bunch of horse-mounted policemen patrolling) or in the mall itself. So this particular afternoon there were several perishable food sculptures in the small fountain and plant area in the mall. I saw them from the second floor and was on my way out by then, but I wanted to take a picture of them and talk to the slew of junior-high-aged students standing around them… and I wanted to write a blog about it and partner it with some photos. The next day I went back, this time with a camera, and while I didn’t take pictures (I had lunch and then went shopping with a coupon that was expiring, leaving me next to no time to get back to the office after my long break), I did look at one of signs and it turns out they are world hunger awareness projects, like a competition for sculptors who arranged canned food, spaghetti and boxes of Crisco into: two giant robots boxing inside a rink, an oversized monopoly board with dice, etc., a humongous red apple with a curled worm coming out of it, and a crusie ship.
I guess my pangs of nostalgia for journalism surface when I see something cool like that, especially given the world food crisis that’s all over the news lately. This would be a story of how some local companies (well “local” being relative) like Whole Foods partnered to do this competition and raise awareness.
It’s strange because I don’t have a strong desire to go back to journalism. It is a dying art and the pay is pretty deadly too. But at the same time I am worried I don’t have a niche yet. The comfortable feeling of writing features is starting to stir up again and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
At least there are steps being taken toward the grad school path, which is helping me breathe easier – GRE class starts this weekend! Yay!
President or CNN producer? Hmm… April 21, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Uncategorized.add a comment
My mom mentioned today she spoke with a friend of hers in Buglaria who is a nurse and who has a daughter who became a doctor. Well, this woman apparently has always thought tons of me because she asks my mom about me every time they talk and apparently thinks I’m so smart, I’ll be president one day.
A former undergraduate professor of mine wrote me back an e-mail today saying his wife, who ran a CNN bureau in Seattle when interned with her a couple of years ago, still wants to make me a CNN producer.
It’s nice to hear things like that. They help lift me up, just like the Wikinomics co-author speech I heard last week at InnoTech and the successful visit I had at my alma matter the week before that – participating in an alumni panel and speaking at a PR session.
The trick is – how do I use these things as fuel to propel me to the next level – graduate school – and avoid being burned or getting pushed up too high on the ego-trampoline just to crash and find myself at a dead end? Very thin balance line.
Simple things in life April 21, 2008
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It’s been so cold and stubbornly gray lately that it makes you wonder if spring as we used to know it will ever grace the northwest with its presence this year. Last year there was a bitter, crazy winter. Seattle is known for rainfall, but that’s only the reputation it gets, in reality it’s sort of sprinkling all the time. I don’t know anyone who lives in the Puget Sound area who owns an umbrella – it’s just not necessary… you can’t really quite get wet enough to justify such a purchase. But last winter there were snow storms that left the city hills littered with four-wheel drive trucks and SUVs whose drivers thought they knew how to muscle their way through sleet and slipper thin layers of white powder. Then there was the rain – flooding the streets, cars floating at intersections. The electricity was out for days in some places during one of these storms, though I’m not sure which – I think the snow. Neither was anything tremendous, but it definitely reminded of some of the reports you see on TV of those places that are know for flooding or heavy winters. There were people who harmed themselves during the power outage by bringing generators or coal-fired barbecues indoors to try to heat their homes – a warning was printed on the front page of The Seattle Times in several languages to ward immigrants, who might not know how generators work, from inhaling poisonous amounts of CO2.
I know, it’s silly to think that these are the tell-tale signs of global warming, but it’s definitely tempting to think so and I’ve voiced that often… only half-joking.
This year we’ve had unusually persistent rain and snow mixes, sleet and something less definable, throughout March – snow, then sunshine, then rain, then sunshine, then sleet, etc. The weekend before last the weather went so far in the other extreme that it was practically summer on Saturday – 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I wore a summer dress and sandals and was still too warm walking around some of the shadier Portland neighborhoods where the beer gardens and restaurants had spilled onto the sidewalks, with dogs and their humans breathing heavily and dousing themselves in cold beverages – the dogs lapping at water from portable, foldable bowls, their bipedal companions imbibing on cold beer, because it was too hot for wine.
And it is perhaps the thirst for the belated spring that has made me hypersensitive lately to these simple pleasures in life – a dog panting under the table a quaint street, under the shade of a tree, while the people read or converse leisurely, taking in the afternoon and relaxation.
I’m antsy for the weather to get nice enough for me to start eating my lunch in the park outside our office again. I miss that, the liveliness. There was a day, some weeks ago, almost warm enough for a sandwich on a bench. I tried it but my fingers froze by the time I was finished with my meal. Not yet.
Another day there was a mom with her two kids, walking away from the kindergarten that’s across the street from the kids’ playground in the park. A little girl and her younger brother made a toy out of a street sign pole instead – they spun around it, leaning away from it, their small hands gripping the dirty stem, both yelling “Merry-Go-Round! Merry-Go-Round!” Their mom smiled apologetically as I squeezed by the spinners to cross the street. Then she asked them “Want to go to OMSI?” By the time they broke their play to answer her, I was out of earshot.
On a different, but also promisingly sunny and disappointingly cold, morning I saw a serviced dog, a young black lab, and its trainer by a flower stand, crossing the street in front of the MAX back and forth with rewards every time the dog stopped its person at the curb when the pedestrian signal was red.
Success before work April 21, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Superfluous musings.add a comment
I heard a saying today I hadn’t run into before – it was second-hand, but it was a really good one: Success comes before work in one place only – the dictionary.
I like the feeling of accomplishment and it has, of late, been elusive to me. It’s as though I’m stressed out and worried at work, but not challenged in a way that I am likely to drive myself to achievement. I guess it was nice to hear something for the first time, to learn something new, even if it was just a morsel of folklore.
Wikinomics inspiration April 17, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Education, New Media.add a comment
When I grow up, I want to be like Don Tapscott (or Thomas Friedman). I’m fascinated by new media, new technologies and how they are changing the world – how we communicate with each other, how we collaborate, etc. I want to look at the anecdotes and zoom out to the true bird’s eye view and paint theories and make futuristic predictions. I want to write in an accessible way (like Friedman) with a depth-academic and analytical approach (like Tapscott). Wikinomics is much for an academic text (an organized so, definitely reads as if written by a think-tank CEO). But Tapscott himself is a dyanamic, funny, and engaging speaker. He got back to his perceived absent-minded, distant writer-self that I imagined while he was going the booksigning after his talk.
All in all, a very inspirational experience. A lady I talked to afterwards also agreed – she started reading his book, first chapter only so far, as part of a grad school class and thought he was a much better speaker than his book was written in (as far as voice/tone of the book and dynamic nature of the presentation).
It’s been a great two weeks of inspiration, attending events, networking, connecting and reconnecting with people, trends, academia and I am drinking it all up! Hope the momentum keeps up as I go forward with a GRE class later this month.
Of books and authors April 13, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Reading, Superfluous musings.add a comment
Just finished “Their eyes were watching God.” A moving, deep novel. Wonderful writer. There was an afterword in academic-speak and an author’s chronological bio and several more essays on the novel itself, etc. I love it. It has been a long time since I have a read a short-to-mid-length novel that grabbed me and sucked me in for a quick read. It has been even longer since I’ve read a literature analysis or academic text based on a fiction piece. There were times when I would get hooked on a novelist and read everything he or she had written (or at least the books and short stories, not too much into the non-fiction they may have authored or any poems, though there are some wonderful poems for reading – poetry’s just not my top literary flavor of choice). I miss reading like that and I somehow doubt I’ll read any more of Zora’s books – at least not right away, not with the insatiable thirst I would read all of Hemingway or Charlotte Brontë or Alexandre Dumas. In a way this is a good change of pace, though, because it means I have a slew of interests in books (reading a non-fiction contemporary book right now and meeting one of the co-authors of it this week at a tech conference; have my eye on a few biographies and more fiction from all over the world and time). Someone was astounded last weekend/early last week that my vocabulary is in poor shape (fearing it in GRE context) when I “read so much” – yeah, well, I haven’t really been a consistent reader in my life. Reading in spurts, often in the summers. Definitely reading more when I was younger. Writing a lot more back then as well – short stories, an attempt at a novel (the sequel to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of all things), and even lots of poems. But it feels good to be picking up some speed again. Definitely.
