Climate Change and other topics

Hey Everyone!

So my International Reporting class is connected to a website where our weekly assignments are going to be available to the public. My report on Climate Change is the feature report this week so please take a look if you're interested and continue checking it in the future for great work by my classmates and others.

http://www.bard.edu/bgia/bardpolitik/

Topsy Turvy Tuesday

I saw Lewis Black at the Y tonight. He was very funny and entertaining but of course.
It snowed today and as I walked to the subway from work, trying to avoid the fat flakes coming down, a taxi drove by, hit a puddle, and splashed the entire front of me. My mentor also informed me that she is leaving at the end of the month so I shall be following the orders of someone new shortly. Maisha is coming to visit this weekend and I'm totally stoked about it. I haven't seen her since May! Then next weekend Yuting is coming and we are going up to bard together! It's going to be so great. The city is growing on me.

Bard Politik Blog

So my International Affairs reporting class has a blog online and we all post entries as part of our weekly assignments. Here's the link http://bardpolitikdaily.blogspot.com/

KARTOGRAPHY-kamila shamsie

"Shoulder blade curving back to meet another shoulder blade which curves forward to meet yours in a reminder that, if you had wings, this, right here, is where they would sprout... can angels lie spine to spine? If not, how they must envy us humans."

BGIA begins

Today was the first full day of real orientation. We heard the professors discuss their classes and I will be taking:

Core Seminar on International Affairs
The Architecture of International Affairs
Reporting on International Affairs
And of course my internship at NEF, which by the way I went there yesterday and the office is really nice and the people seem friendly. I think it's going to be a good semester :)

Also, I saw The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway tonight which was amazing. I really love that song...takes me back to Junior year and Prom haha. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes really is the best cover band ever.

Something New

It's funny how much things can change, even in just one day. I feel as though I have been looking at my life in a detached way and I was recently brought face to face with it, with no option of just looking away. I was overwhelmed. Even though I may not have gotten the feeling of closure I desired, I think it's ok. I was frustrated and I thought I was fine but I wasn't so I was taken by surprise. But now, I think all of that emotion was sort of cleansing. Things are clearer now. And as I keep hearing, it's good to have a new start.

I still haven't read the "Satanic Verses"

The Moral Courage Conversations: Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji.

I went to this lecture tonight and heard a few things that really moved me. Rushdie is extremely intelligent, he is witty and amuses his audience with jokes that are there to prove a point. He is articulate and combined with Irshad Manji's clever questions the night was overall very entertaining and interesting.

At one point Rushdie said that 'we are the story telling animal and there is something very important in telling ourselves the story of ourselves.' I like this idea because it's true, we examine ourselves and improve upon our society and our world. There is something immensely pleasurable about the gift of a story. I envy those who have the right words to reach into their reader and get the exact emotion they desired.

At the end of the lecture Manji said that before her book came out she asked Rushdie if she was crazy. And he told her that a book is more important than her life. He wasn't joking. His explanation was that when a writer puts down a thought, he can get intense, vehement and even violent disagreement but that thought can not be unthought. It has been put out there and can't be taken away. That is the gift of the writer. I think that's pretty amazing.