Well, I made it to Florida, and now I have a phobia of long car trips alone. The combination of a very long, flat I-95 and a passenger seat occupied by a pillow meant I spent far too much time thinking and listened to one too many overplayed radio singles. But I'm here, and sweating slightly less than I was two weeks ago! (The air conditioner in the car has started clicking at me, though...hopefully that doesn't mean it's about to give up on its endless chore...)
1. I apologize for the lack of photos. I will try to remedy that soon.
2. One highlight so far was seeing a high school friend. He's finishing up his internship in Miami, so I got to go see him before he takes off. He took me to South Beach (which I had only heard of in reference to the diet) and later we went to a restaurant to watch the Heat-Celtics Game 7. We could possibly have gotten tickets, but it is probably for the best that we didn't because he's a Boston guy. Sad ending.
3. Another highlight was finding a church right away and eventually meeting some fellow twenty-somethings. The second week I was there was "Change Sunday," so instead of a sermon there were two testimonies. The first guy is a street-turned-Christian rapper, and the second is married to a girl with a voice to rival Martina McBride's. Possibly the most musically diverse and entertaining church service I've ever been to.
4. This is a paltry list compared to what I've actually heard in the newsroom, but it gives a small flavor to the atmosphere:
"Yes! Celtics are already winning!" (Boston up 2-0)
"I have young Rebecca working on that..." (see Harriet Flynn, I'm not as old as you think)
5. Since getting an iPhone (thanks Mom and Dad! I knew there was a reason I
stuck it out to graduate), I've become addicted to social media. I
press snooze and then scroll through Instagram and Twitter before I roll
over in the morning. I may need intervention.
6. The internship is fine. I have more downtime than I prefer, but I also have much to learn so it makes sense that I need to earn trust. I'm getting good at trimming stories down to the essential information (I read Hemingway when I got here for inspiration). The worst part, though, is working nights (as most copy editors do), and therefore having the opposite social schedule of the rest of the world.
7. However, all this downtime at work and home (plus the iPhone) means I'm actually reading. Here are a few tidbits that I could either relate to or that made me think:
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of
it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and
women and machines gives to the restless eye.
It says
that human beings are, in fact, capable of stepping back from their
position to gain an enlarged understanding, which includes the more
limited view they had before the step back. Think of the cinema: when
the camera pulls back to reveal where a character had been standing and
shows us a fuller tableau. To Nagel, objectivity is that kind of motion.
We try to “transcend our particular viewpoint and develop an expanded
consciousness that takes in the world more fully.”
But there are limits to this motion. We can’t transcend all
our starting points. No matter how far it pulls back the camera is still
occupying a position. We can’t actually take the “view from nowhere,”
but this doesn’t mean that objectivity is a lie or an illusion. Our
ability to step back and the fact that there are limits to it– both are real. And realism demands that we acknowledge both.
8. In addition to my media obsession, I'm also obsessed with writing things down. Hence this blog post (I'm wearing out my journal). Is this healthy? I may need a hobby. Beach basket weaving, here I come.
