Inadequate

March 28, 2007

So for a few weeks now, I have been in a rut really. It is like I am losing motivation in every possible way. To be honest it is a feeling of shear fear. I fear that I will not get to the point in life, where I am truly happy with where I am. Today, I was on the PATH train, just thinking that I actually never reach that point where I am happy with my life.

When I was in elementary school, I dreamed that I would be happy when I become a teenager, because they looked some damn cool walking home and stuff. They looked like they had so much fun and freedom. Man, once I became I teenager, life was so freaking boring. It was simply school, sports, homework, TV and that was it. That’s no life.

When I was in high school, I wanted to be in college, always used to dream of myself being in college, being all responsible and important. I must say being at the New Brunswick campus at Rutgers University was nice; 45 minutes away from mommy and poppy is good. Man any distance away from them from time to time is good.

It was at college that I realized my family was not middle-class, we were poor. Being around middle-class and well-off people pissed me off, made me feel little. It is not like they waved their riches in my face and all. I was the one dreaming of their riches and all, hoping that I could switch places with them. Gosh, I was so damn silly and naïve. My parents never gave my brother and sisters any reason for feeling poor. To tell you the truth for most of my non-adult life, I thought my family was damn near rich, well probably not rich, but well-off middle class.

Now with a Masters in International Journalism, Bachelors in Journalism Studies and Spanish and a High School Diploma under my belt, a sista still can’t get a decent journalism JOB. It’s so sad, I have such a passion for journalism, but no one will give me a chance. Lately, I have been thinking was this all a mistake, did I go left when God told me to go right. I don’t know what it is; I just have this feeling of inadequacy that I cannot shake.

I never expected to be 24-years old, living with my parents in an old folks community home, sleeping on a cot in their living room, job-hunting in Newport Mall for a sales associate position. Me, a no-driver’s licence having, no apartment, no life me. Sometimes, I think I am way too hard on myself, and there are time I think I am not hard enough.

Day after day, night after night I dream of having my own apartment and car and being responsible and having great friends that I can share all my intimate details and gossip with. There are times, I see a woman passing by and she looks so comfortable and confident that I want to make a deal with the devil or whomever, to switch lives with this person. Of course I know this is silly and that this is simply a down time in my life, we all go through it, but I always thought that being hardworking, dedicated and passionate about sometime guaranteed you success.

See with me, I have had mixed reviews when it came to my skills and abilities of my journalistic writing. There are those who say I am good and those who say I need a lot of help. Of course, being human, I do not remember or hear those who compliment my writing, I only hear those who criticize it and yes, I hate them for it and I always want to prove them wrong, and I will one day when I become that foreign correspondent.

I do not know, but lately, when people ask me what I plan to do with my journalism and I say I want to be a foreign correspondent, something way far back in my mind, says ‘yeah right’. I really do want to be a foreign correspondent in work in countries like Palestine, Jordan, places throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. I have this infatuation with Arabic culture. I know nothing about it and sure do not know how to speak a work of Arabic, but I hope that will change soon. The Arabic culture is such a damn mystery to me. I do not like when something is a mystery to me. Right now, the only thing that is a mystery to me beside the Arabic culture is my boyfriend’s moodiness.

I am one of those people that get so embarrassment to the point of running away when someone ask me, where a country is located and I don’t know. I never really did any geography; that is the Newark Public School System for you. It is weird; I do not get that feeling when I do not know where a state is located in the US, if I do not know, where Montana is located, oh well. However, I need to know exactly where Taiwan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Poland, Argentina, and every other place is located and what country borders them and their continent and the whole nine. Sometimes, I find myself testing my knowledge and if I do not know it, it will bother me, not just all day but until I find out.

Wait, how did I get to this topic, anyways as I was saying, lately I have been feeling inadequate. Well in reality, not just lately, my whole entire life. Don’t know what I am hoping for. Trust me, if I do get a great job, a spacious apartment and a car tomorrow, I will still feel inadequate. I am just never fully satisfied, don’t think will ever be. I am truly working to mend this problem of mine. Trying hard to be happy and satisfied with what I have; it will obviously take some time.

Shoot, I should be boasting of my achievement not dwelling in my mishaps. Gosh, I am something else. Well, I am tired of writing now. So I will leave. Bye.

D

The first week back

Hello lovely people,

Hope things are well with you? As for me, I am still trying to get my head around being permanently back in the states and still trying to settle in and get into my groove of things.

My first week back was not as bad as I thought, although I would love to go back to Cardiff, I am thinking it probably was not a bad idea after all to come back here. So far my parents have not started asking me 101 questions about my future plan, probably if they did I would act as though I am deaf and dodge them.

There is absolutely no privacy at my parents flat. After I left for Cardiff in Sept 05, two month later they moved into a one-bedroom flat in an old folk complex. I have my very uncomfortable little cot in the living room. The people there are pretty nice. I only get to see youth when I leave to go for my daily walks to the library. Gosh, I so need to get a JOB and move out. But at the moment, things are not too bad.

My days are very boring and uneventful since I waste away at the day at the library applying for jobs, checking e-mail, and trying to figure out why my wireless just does not work on my laptop. My laptop has been very temperamental since the day I brought it. Six different people already attempted to help me with my wireless. So I spent over 10 bloody hours fiddling around with this thing.

I am starting to make friends with the homeless people at the public library since I am here as much as they are.

Well, let see what next week brings.

Thinking of coming to visit Cardiff in May, most likely from the 7^th to 21^st. Hopefully, we can meet up for drinks. Actually probably stay until the 24^th, and party hardy for Kevin’s b-day.

Damaqu

Blackout

Well I haven't been keeping up for a minute now, but everything is good. Last week was a very tiring week first of all my best friend came a knocking and I worked four days out of the week at Holland House. I don't think I told you, I work at McDonald Hotel here is Cardiff, everyone who works there call it the Holland House Hotel. I'm guessing they call it HHH because MacDonald sound too similar to McDonald, well I know it sound similar to me. Anyways, yeah, I worked four days out of the week, which is the most I ever worked there in a week since I started last October.

I did not mind it though, because the people I work with are cool. Being around good, fun and down-to-earth people can make you look on the up-side of any crappy situation.

So far this week is ok, maybe because the weekend was great. However, it is only Tuesday, God knows what will happen throughout the rest of the weekend. But OK, back to my great weekend. It was great because it was plain ole relaxing. So Friday, I hung out with my course mates and had a drink at Pen and Wig, which is a cute little local pub in Cardiff, I like the atmosphere there and there is this really cute barman there. However, he was not so cute when he cheated my out my vodka for my vodka cranberry drink. It's not vodka cranberry if there is no vodka in it, Duh. That dude left me with cranberry juice on a night I wanted to get cruked up. So you know I had to let his cute self know.

But OK, that is besides the point, so where was I, alright, I was out with some course mate in the mist of the same ole conversations of dissertation and a few silliness stuff. Honestly, I felt like I was suffocating a bit, which was weird, because the feeling came out of nowhere literally.

So after like two and a half hours chilling with the guys, I had to get out of there. I’m not one to be rude and just bounce on company no matter who they are; even if I like them or not. But I finally found an open door when the fireworks of a fun fair that was happening near my department went off. I actually wanted to go to the fun fare but no one wanted to go and it would have sucked if I’d gone by myself.

Alright, I got all my goodbyes in and headed to meet my flatmates literally across town. I could have easily gone home, but I desperately wanted to shake the suffocating feeling out my system-send that sensation back where it came from.

I finally reached my flatmates and friends and enjoyed a nice Baccardi at another local pub, Cliftons, which honestly was a bit too local for me because the clientele was oh so shaddy for this sista. But as usual, I was amongst great company and the suffocating feeling was long gone before I even reached Cliftons. It was the walk to Cliftons, even though it was dark out, it felt good because I was alone and that happened to be what I needed at the time, weird, I know.

Well, the oddest thing happened while I was in Cliftons, my phone ranged. My phone rarely rings- only a few people have my number. I don't like the idea of being reached by everyone and anyone. I always give out my e-mail address, because then I could decide if I want to reply or send it straight to spam.

So yeah the phone rings, and it is Dee. OK Dee is the guy I rebounded with after my breakup with Steff (yes, this is a guy-Welsh; short for Stefano, I think). Well I am not going to go into the details of the breakup. I will leave that for another occasion. Now Dee is really calling me out of the blue because I thought I did a heck of a job fizzing the relationship out. Guess not cause the he is still calling. It was the regular ole conversation you have with someone you really don't want to talk to but don't want to be rude. So five minutes of the "how are you, how's life and stuff" conversation. So he wants to hang with me and I decline letting him know I am with friends. He then tell me he is going to Creation, which is this horrible club for screaming teenagers I would never dare go back in. I end the conversation with the "have fun, see you later" bit.

Then my phone ring again, it is Alakie, my good friend and coursemate from Kenya, she's with the coursemates I just left, she arrived right after I bounced out of there. She wants to do the same and go dancing. Now see, that is exactly what…

Ohh crap, OK, it is March 28, 2007, and I realize I never finished this piece and I have no idea what happened after Alakie called me. I believe we did go out but I must have gotten really pissed because I can’t remember a damn thing. Sorry…

Ouch!

Hey, I am not sure if I told you but while I was home for 5 weeks in during June and July, I was working on my first draft for my dissertation which is due September 15th. I e-mailed the draft to my dissertation supervisor Gary on the 14th of July.

This past Friday I meet with him to discuss it and his critiques were very disappointing and extremely harsh but in all very good and helpful.To tell you the truth, the hardest part was not the fact that he thought the draft was poorly written but the fact that I dedicated night and day to that 56 page draft for two and a half weeks straight.

Now when I say dedicated, I am talking no sleep, shutting my family out, stressed out. It was a not so pretty two weeks (and then some) of my life. During the five weeks, I spent a full week with my niece that I have not seen in months and I did not make any time to hangout with her. She asked me to play with her and I didn't because I was writing the draft. I made this draft more important than her.

I was overly stressed and I put my all into that draft but now it felt like it was all for nothing. I am sorry, but I am never doing that again, I know it is my dissertation and it is important but it is surely not important than my niece. I wish I had that time back and I would have put this silly draft on the back burner instead of my niece. Wow, I am literally in tears right now thinking about it. I so regret my actions. Starting now, I will not put my family on the backburner for sheets of paper, it seems so silly to me. Gosh, what in the world was I thinking.

What's silly is that Gary is extremely picky at my writing. When I reviewed his comments, I realized they are very personal. It is like he did not like a word or phrase I used because he personally would not have used it himself. Then he goes and writes in his suggestions. However, I would never write like him because obviously I am not Gary, plain and simple. For instance, I initially wrote:

The New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and in a few reports they were even described as “insurgents”. Although their actions said otherwise, the Moujahedeen were not referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators.

Gary suggested:

Twenty years ago, the New York Times and the Washington Post characterized them as the “rebels” or “guerrillas” and “insurgents”. The Moujahedeen were rarely referred to as terrorists, dictators and human rights violators. The contrast with today's portrayal of the same groups could not be more profound.

Now this is a great suggestion and only an idiot would refuse to use it, but that last sentence is so not me. Do you know what I am saying? It is like having a conversation with someone and you think to yourself, "I would have never thought of that" or "I would have never said that". This is how I feel with 85 percent of Gary's suggestions.

It is hurtful because in some places he is telling me to edit my work and I’m thinking, "I did". I seriously pushed myself to finish the draft on the 12th of July so I could have two days of editing. I had my friend Alakie, my sister Romise and my bro-in-law Mark all take a look at it, including myself and I was very critical. I can't edit my writing so that it doesn't become my writing anymore.

There were also plenty of areas in my draft where he is saying information was not relevant and some of them I agree with and other I didn’t. I feel as though I need to include this information to explain the point I am making. It is like someone telling you a joke about a priest, a baker, and a carpenter that lived on a hill but they don't mention that part, instead they start at the middle of the joke and you're left asking "what?". You have to give some background to the point you are making.

The sad part is Gary is marking my dissertation, so I have to follow his suggestions or I fail. The thing is he is a good supervisor but he just doesn't get me at all. The one thing I hate is teaming up with someone who does not know and understand me.

However, a sister has to do what a sister has to do. We’ll see what happens. Adios now.

D

Productive

Today was a very productive day, so productive that I am still doing work. I am just taking a break to keep in touch with you all. I woke up a bit late in the morning did a few errands enjoyed brunch and went straight to the journalism department at Cardiff University to get some print out done from the New York Times and the Washington Post, which are the two newspapers I am doing my discourse analysis for my dissertation. I had to print out articles from LexisNexis because it is not free directly form the newspapers’ websites. I also e-mailed a few people I would like to interview for my dissertation.

I e-mailed Alexander Cockburn he is the co-editor of Counterpunch, the online newsletter described as "America's Best Political Newsletter". Mr Cockburn e-mailed me back within the hour and told me to call him anytime to discuss the issue of U.S. media reporting on U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan. Since I am taking a break tomorrow to enjoy the beautiful weather at the beach, I will give him a call on Thursday.

I e-mailed this organisation called Afghanistan Peace Organization, which is located in California, hopefully someone e-mails me back. It would be great to speak to people from Afghanistan to get their opinions about how the U.S. media reports on Afghan issues from the past 30 years.

This is what I enjoy most about my dissertation, the people I speak to and the varied opinions they have. What I love most is to pick someone's brain and discuss an issue, especially political issues.

I will focus on asking Mr Cockburn questions regarding the topics: Journalists involvement in the balancing act of being critical or patriotic of American foreign policy; Media blurring of U.S. foreign policy in Afghan history; Have Americans received the whole story about Afghanistan over the past 30 years?; and plenty more issues.

One of the articles for my dissertations will be titled, From heroes to terrorists: why were the villains of the War on Terror, the heroes in the 80s? All three article titles for my dissertation are in the form of questions, so I can stay focus and answer the question. According to my supervisor Gary Merrill, that is my problem, my focus is everywhere-I am trying to dip my finger in everything, which is true. However, I can't help it; this dissertation is fascinating to me.

So back to my productive day, which I should remind you is not over yet. After printing out and e-mailing, I went to dinner at my friend’s house; they are Polish, Kasia, Justyna and Diana. They have such a beautiful house and the rooms are small and comfortable. I brought Spanish Rosé, which I disliked and triple chocolate ice cream. I also brought goodies form Victoria Secret for Kasia and Diana. I recently came back from the states and they asked me to get them a few things at Victoria Secret, but by the time I got to Victoria Secret the semi-annual sale was over and the things they wanted were too expensive so I brought them Victoria Secret's Secret Crush Body Lotion. It has such a beautiful scent. They liked it, which was good.

Justyna made a delicious dish of spinach, chicken and mozzarella cheese. I really enjoyed it. I had polish soup and cheese on toast (that was oddly good). Diana, her sister and her sister's friend are going to the beach tomorrow, so I will tag along with them. According to BBC, the weather will be 30C, which is 83F and sunny- so that is beautiful beach weather.

So now I am going to read the printout from the newspapers and also from Counterpunch, since tomorrow will be a very unproductive day because I will be baking in the sun evening out my tan. Tomorrow morning I am thinking of going from I nice run around Bute Park before going to the beach that would be good, that will tire me out for the rest of the day and I can have a nice nap on the beach and also enjoy reading my novel from Eric Jerome Dickey Liar’s Game. I pick up two of his books from the airport coming back to Cardiff for the plane and bus ride.

Well, back to work for me, talk to you all later.

DaMak

Early Bird

Just to let you know, I wrote this entry on June 24th, but again never publish. Well, continue on.

I decided it would be a good idea to keep up with this bogging thing. So here I am again. Well right now I am listening to my favourite mixed album on Real Player. I titled it Hotness because it has Yolanda Adams, Somkie Norful (that is by far the funniest name ever), it has Mary Mary, Kirk Franklin, Beyoncé’s song from Fighting Temptations. It is a great album, I play it all the time non-stop.

Well it is Saturday morning, 9:30. I am up this early because I am staying with my parents and they are old, so they sleep early and wake up extremely early. I think my mom was up since 6 this morning. I woke up at 7:30 on my little pull out cot in the living room because of the ruckus from the kitchen. So I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t really. Oh well, I’m up now, which is a good thing because I feel like I get so much done when I am up in the morning rather than in the afternoon.

Today, I should be heading to New Brunswick to hangout with my good friends Deji. Matter of fact he is my best friend. I am going to try to get Melissa out to have lunch with us too. I know she is studying for her mid-terms but everyone has to eat sometimes. We’ll see, I will give her a call in a few hours when it is normal to call a 22-year-old on a Saturday.

Deji is a awesome person to be around, but he could be a bit of a guy too much, yapping about cars 24/7 like I give a hoot. Once he starts yapping about cars during lunch I am going to start talking with a British accent, he absolutely hates that. Oh it will be great hanging with him again.

I am thinking of going to Stuff Yur Face, to me that is the best hangout spot in New Brunswick because it is the best joint to pig out in. I will so indulge myself in something extremely fattening and delicious. After lunch, there is really nothing else to do that I could think of. That is why I love Cardiff, well the UK because it is so social there is always something to do. Right now I am so into the pub scene, which is non-existence here in the states. I like hanging but with a nice group of people from time to time and just go to a pub and have a drink or two. There is not much of that here. In the states, pub or as we Americans call them ‘bars’ are not open 24/7 and if they are those are not the ones you want to go into because it full of violent drunks. Food is usually not served in bars here in the states. You want food you have three options: make it yourself, go to a restaurant or go to a fast food joint.

Ok enough from me. I am going to watch the World Cup football match with my dad. Bye

Take Two

Yes, it has been a while since I wrote. I would apologize but I know I will do it again, so there is no need for apologises. Actually, I wrote this entry June 22nd but I never published it. Don't ask me why becase I honestly don't know.

I wish I could start from the very beginning or at a “juicy” part of my life but to tell you the truth I don’t feel like it. So instead I will start from now. Let’s get the basics out of the way first; my name is Damaqu Meronvil, I am a 23-years-old Masters student at Cardiff University…silence… it is in Wales…which is in the United Kingdom…bingo. Seriously, everyone I tell out Cardiff University here in the state looks at me with such a blank face and so I attempt to clarify by telling them it is in Wales, and again the blank face. I could never win. But when I finally say it is in the United Kingdom they understand as though that is the country. Actually, people around here may think that the United Kingdom is a country. Well as for me I always thought Ireland was part of the United Kingdom until I was set straight by my Irish flatmate here in Cardiff.

Alright, back to the basic, so yeah I am a Masters student studying International Journalism. There are days I enjoy it and there are days I want to crawl under my bed and hide from the world because it seems like it will crash on top of me. Cardiff is a great place to be, but honestly I don’t think I was emotionally ready for the independence I got myself into. However, because of Cardiff I learned a lot about myself and lfe, I think, well hopefully I did.

You know it is the oddest feeling living away- far, far away from home with no family or familiar face in sight. There are the days that are exciting and the days you think to yourself, “what in the world am I doing here”. I experience the latter about a few times a week. But through all this blah blah blah complaining I always find myself doing, I really enjoy Cardiff mostly because of the people I met, relationships (romantic ones), friendships, and just the vibe in general.

Something else I always find myself doing is starting something like this, exactly this, a journal, a diary, a blog whatever you want to call it but never go pass the second entry. Wait, I’m lying I did do something similar while I was in living in Valencia, Spain. I started typing into my Yahoo Notebook like a diary. I was there for six months and I wrote about five entries, very angry and very happy entries. Trust me that is impressive for a person like me. I usually stop at the first entry and then get bored after that and forget about it; almost like what happened with this blog. I just recently remembered it. Hopefully, this time I go beyond the first entry and continue on, which is what I am doing now. I am not trying to make this like a daily habit or anything but I hope I can remember from time to time to come back to this and build up something.

Well like I said we’ll see.

Cardiff Dissertation Idea

My experience as a naïve Haitian-American born and raised in the United States and not understanding why most people I come in contact with from Europe, Latin America, United Kingdom and Africa release my handshake the second I tell them: “My name is Damaqu Meronvil and I am from the States.” This repeated attitude towards who I am has offered me insights into the need to delve into the United States’ government foreign relations.

It is impossible to research all foreign relations between the United States and the world so I found it best to look into what was the most interesting topic of foreign relations; terrorism.

After 9/11 occurred in the United States, I slowly realised how my own country had relations with the mastermind behind the attacks that killed more than 3,000 innocent people. Osama bin-Laden was once funded by America during the Afghanistan War against Russia and then the Afghanistan War against Iran.

In addition, with the lack of media coverage in the genocide in Darfur, Sudan I only learned about the problems in Sudan about a year ago. I later discovered that the militia group spreading the genocide was being funded by the government. Once again, just like 9/11 the militia group turned on the Sudanese government and are now spreading the massacre throughout Sudan without help from the government.

I want to investigate the purpose for the American and Sudanese government having relations with terrorist and dictators like bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein, African rebels and dictators in Latin America. Why do powerful government feel the need to befriend, support and harbour terrorist and militia leader and their organisations? I want to know how each party benefits from each other. Which party have the most power and why do they break their relationships from each other? I will investigate why the media allow history to repeat itself by not investigating these relations until after the damage is done, for example 9/11 and the genocide in Sudan.